Israel’s plan to expand in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said yesterday the military would move further into Gaza. Netanyahu said Israel is “dividing up” the strip in order to pressure Hamas to release the remaining fifty-nine hostages, and Katz said a “large-scale” evacuation of the enclave’s population was planned amid renewed fighting. The top UN aid official for Gaza said yesterday that 64 percent of the territory “is under active forced displacement orders or falling within the so-called ‘buffer zone.’”
Myanmar cease-fire. The country’s military government announced yesterday it would temporarily halt hostilities to facilitate the delivery of earthquake aid, one day after a rebel alliance announced the same. The junta’s pause on operations will last until April 22, state media said. More than three thousand people have been reported dead after the disaster.
Turkish consumption boycott. After authorities jailed allies of detained opposition figure and Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and briefly detained his lawyer, opposition activists called for a one-day shopping boycott yesterday. The Istanbul state prosecutor’s office launched a criminal probe into the activists who called for the boycott, while Turkey’s media authority said it was considering investigating news organizations that covered it.
Hungary to exit ICC. The country plans to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today during Netanyahu’s state visit to Budapest. Hungary is the first country to host Netanyahu since the court issued a warrant for his arrest citing alleged crimes against humanity, which Netanyahu denies, and would be the first European country to pull out of the ICC. Orbán said it had “become a political court.”
U.S. indicts Ecuador gang boss. U.S. authorities indicted fugitive Ecuadorian José Adolfo Macías Villamar on seven counts including gun trafficking and smuggling drugs into the United States. Macías Villamar leads the gang Los Choneros and escaped from an Ecuadorian prison in 2024. Ecuador’s government classifies Los Choneros as a terrorist group and had recently increased its reward for information leading to Macías Villamar.
South Africa’s coalition troubles. Center-right party Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday withheld its support from a high-stakes vote to pass the ruling African National Congress (ANC) proposed budget. The two parties have been governing in coalition after the ANC failed to secure a majority in an election last year, but the DA filed a legal challenge against the budget’s approval and made plans for emergency talks on whether it should leave the coalition.
Chinese leadership shake-up. Two members of China’s twenty-four-person Politburo governing committee swapped jobs, state media said. It did not issue an explanation for the unusual move, which comes after a string of changes in China’s senior leadership ranks in recent years. One official will now be responsible for internal personnel decisions, the other responsible for religious and ethnic minorities as well as China’s policies on Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Rubio’s NATO reassurances. The United States “is as active in NATO as it has ever been,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the alliance’s foreign ministers meeting today. Trump has repeatedly said that European countries should take more responsibility for their security, but Rubio today said that Trump is “not against NATO.”. He added that all countries should be on a “realistic pathway” to reach up to 5 percent of GDP on defense. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, meanwhile, said that there were no plans for a “sudden” U.S. withdrawal from the region’s defense.
