Raid in Gaza: This morning the news arrived that the Israeli army is starting the raid on the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip. The BBC reported that a trauma surgeon said, from inside the building, that “tanks and snipers” currently surround the hospital from “all directions”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told all people inside the hospital to evacuate immediately so the raid can begin.
The Israeli military reports that it has intelligence information – including testimonies from now-released hostages – indicating that Hamas is using the Nasser hospital as an important location for its military operations, which would be in line with the well-established pattern of Hamas using civilians, including the sick and wounded, as human shields. There is some belief among the Israeli military that living prisoners or hostage bodies could be found at the Nasser hospital.
Meanwhile, officials at Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health say the IDF operation destroyed critical areas of the hospital, paralyzing its operations and harming displaced people who had taken refuge there.
Both may be true, and Israel must continue to evaluate whether raids like these are worth the cost, a situation it has been forced into in part because of Hamas’s callous disregard for human life.
Meanwhile, on the border between Israel and Lebanon, the situation is heating up. Israel reportedly killed 10 Lebanese civilians in overnight attacks, while Iran-backed Hezbollah fired more and more rockets (including one that killed an Israeli soldier on Tuesday).
Climate activists are wreaking havoc in Washington this week: In case you missed it, and I sincerely hope you did, climate activists red powder discharged on the case containing the Constitution of the United States, yesterday in the rotunda of the National Archives. “We are determined to foment a rebellion. We will not be held accountable to laws in which we have no voice or representation,” one of the activists said. “This country is founded on the condition that all men are created … and endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the other said. “We demand that all people have all these rights, not just rich white men. We all deserve clean air, water, food and a livable climate.”
They were promptly arrested, but they weren’t the only vandals at large.
Group of climate activists Declare emergency has activated several groups this week (the desecrators of the Constitution are said to be affiliated), with a group of protesters blocking traffic on Washington’s George Washington Parkway. Some drivers collided with them, including one woman who said her son was in hospital. “I don’t have time for this bullshit,” she added.
In recent years, climate activists have seemingly emboldened themselves, throwing soup cans at the planet Mona Lisa at the Louvre; gluing itself to that of Johannes Vermeer Girl with a pearl earring at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague; and sticking to those of Vincent van Gogh Peach trees in bloom at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Just yesterday, climate protesters targeted Sandro Botticelli’s house Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence:
#DeclareEmergency allies @UltimaGenerazi1 they were active this Valentine’s Day too!
Climate activists target Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery @a22rete #NoArtOnADeadPlanethttps://t.co/jYkEfSC7rh
— Declare Emergency (@DecEmergency) February 14, 2024
It’s not clear who is being helped by all this – keeping cars stopped in traffic due to human roadblocks doesn’t really seem to help stop climate change – but accidents seem to be becoming more and more frequent.
Scenes from New York: “A Stuffed Dog, a Samurai Sword, and 42,439 Guns: Inside an NYPD Basement,” from The New York Timesit’s worth your time.
QUICK SHOTS
- Tucker Carlson now releases the strangest short videos, set to classical music, praising the Moscow Metro, built by Joseph Stalin to… impress foreigners. But even granting that the Moscow Metro is beautiful, Carlson seems to take it as irrefutable proof that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows how to govern. I don’t take the same lesson from it. It is possible that Putin, following in Stalin’s footsteps, will simply prioritize the allocation of state resources (and harsh enforcement) to the maintenance of the opulent stations at the expense of many other priorities.
- “Zoning shifted the focus of urban planning from managing the public realm to managing private development,” wrote M. Nolan Gray in The Atlantic. “The ancestors of professional planners did not concern themselves with land uses and densities, allowing mixed-use neighborhoods to emerge. But zoning has transformed cities into a fragmented landscape of shopping centers, office complexes and residential subdivisions.”
- This is not the right conclusion to the Fani Willis scandal, however The New York Times:
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— Kmele???? (@kmele) February 14, 2024
- Rachel Dolezal, who made headlines years ago for identifying as black despite being born to white parents, recently lost her teaching job because of her OnlyFans account.
- Does flipping Tom Suozzi’s congressional seat on Long Island tell Democrats how they should message on immigration?
- The Japanese economy is in trouble.