World
Tuvalu citizens apply to Australia. Thailand’s prime minister suspended. Dalai Lama succession plans. By Jonathan Pearlman.
Israel escalates Gaza strikes as Trump touts ‘a deal next week’
Great power rivalry
Gaza: United States President Donald Trump launched a push for a ceasefire in Gaza this week that he said could lead to an end to the war, as Israel conducted a series of deadly air strikes in the enclave and signalled it might expand its military campaign.
Ahead of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas and the truce would enable talks to end the war. He said Qatar and Egypt will deliver the proposal to Hamas.
“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this deal because it will not get better – it will only get worse,” he said on social media.
Trump, who is due to meet with Netanyahu on Monday, told reporters “we’ll have a deal next week”.
The negotiations came as Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza, including air strikes on Monday that killed 60 people, according to local officials. Israel also issued fresh evacuation orders in northern Gaza ahead of an expanded ground campaign.
Salah, 60, a father of five from Gaza City, told Reuters: “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.”
Israel’s military said it had been targeting Hamas command centres.
Trump’s push for a Gaza deal follows his move to intervene in the Israel–Iran war by bombing Iranian nuclear sites before swiftly announcing a ceasefire. Doubts remain, however, about Trump’s claim the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s facilities, including a bunker at Fordo.
Satellite photos this week appeared to show that Iran had moved heavy equipment such as excavators to its enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordo to assist with repairs and assessments.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, told CBS News on Tuesday that the facilities were “seriously and heavily damaged”, but officials were still assessing the impact. “No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordo,” he said.
The neighbourhood
Tuvalu: About a third of Tuvalu’s citizens have applied to move to Australia as part of a new pact between the two countries, raising concerns that the scheme could endanger Tuvalu’s future.
Australia is offering visas to 280 Tuvalu citizens each year as part of the Falepili Union, a deal reached in 2023 that includes support for the Pacific nation to cope with the threat of climate change, including funding to expand the country’s landmass. In return, Australia gained the right to effectively veto any security deals between Tuvalu and China.
Since a ballot for the visas opened on June 16, more than 4052 of Tuvalu’s 11,000 citizens have submitted applications. The ballot is open until July 18.
A Tuvalu MP, Simon Kofe, told ABC News that some of the applicants for the visas may be citizens who have already left the country.
Tuvalu, a collection of nine low-lying atolls, is at risk of becoming uninhabitable within the next 80 years due to rising sea levels. Two of its atolls have already largely disappeared.
Experts say an exodus of Tuvalu’s citizens could affect its economic viability.
“Small states do not have many jobs and some activities don’t need that many people,” John Connell, of the University of Sydney, told AFP.
“Atolls don’t offer much of a future: agriculture is hard, fisheries offer wonderful potential, but it doesn’t generate employment.”
Democracy in retreat
Thailand: Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thailand’s prime minister, was suspended by the Constitutional Court as it considers a case seeking her dismissal over a controversial leaked phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
The court on Tuesday agreed to hear a petition from 36 senators that accuses Paetongtarn of dishonesty and breaching ethical standards. She was given 15 days to respond.
Paetongtarn, the daughter of populist former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, faces intense pressure over her call with Hun Sen to discuss tensions between Thailand and Cambodia sparked by a series of border clashes between their two militaries. During the call, Paetongtarn criticised a Thai military commander and addressed Hun Sen, who is a friend of the family, as “uncle”.
Responding to the court decision, she insisted her deference to Hun Sen was a negotiating tactic, telling reporters: “I want to apologise to people who are upset by all of this.”
But the call has left Paetongtarn’s government on the brink of collapse. She faces a no-confidence vote next week and has lost the backing of the second-largest party in her 10-party coalition. The national corruption commission is investigating the call, and a conservative nationalist group has organised public protests.
The fall of Paetongtarn’s government after less than a year could mark an end to the powerful hold the Shinawatra family has had on Thai politics for more than two decades. Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, returned from exile in 2023 but faces charges of insulting the monarchy. Paetongtarn’s aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in 2014.
Spotlight: Dalai Lama succession plans
The Dalai Lama said this week he will not appoint a successor, but the search for his replacement will be conducted after he dies and will not involve China, which is expected to announce its own successor.
In a book released earlier this year, the Dalai Lama said his successor would be born outside China and signalled that he may make an announcement around the time of his 90th birthday, which is on Sunday. The comments fuelled speculation he would appoint a successor.
But he said in a video broadcast on Tuesday that his successor should be appointed in “accordance with past tradition” and the search should be conducted by a trust he founded to maintain the tradition of the Dalai Lama.
“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.
The Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Beijing must approve the successor.
Traditionally, the search for the Dalai Lama, who is viewed as a reincarnation of the previous one, begins after the Dalai Lama’s death.
The current Dalai Lama, Lhamo Dhondup, was two years old when he was identified as a reincarnation by a search party sent by the Tibetan government. He was installed in 1940 but fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.
China, which views the Dalai Lama as a separatist and does not recognise his authority, says it has the right to approve his successor, a legacy from the Qing empire, which decreed that successors were to be drawn from a golden urn. Beijing is expected to choose a successor who would help it to cement control of Tibet, which it annexed in the 1950s.
The Dalai Lama, who supports autonomy for Tibet, has dismissed the golden urn process, saying it was used to “humour” the emperor and that reincarnations had been selected before names were drawn.
In 1995, the Dalai Lama announced a six-year-old Tibetan, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, had been appointed as the new Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Three days later, the boy was taken into custody by Chinese authorities and disappeared. Beijing then installed its own choice.
In 2021, the Chinese foreign ministry said Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was an employed university graduate and that he did not want his privacy disturbed.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 5, 2025 as "Israel escalates Gaza strikes as Trump touts ‘a deal next week’".
For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.
All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.
There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.
Subscriber exclusive
Send this article to a friend for free.
Share this subscriber exclusive article with a friend or family member using share credits.
