Tanks Move Into Southern Gaza, Split Dutch Election, Olympic Eiffel

👋 Gude!*

Welcome to Friday, where at least 13 Palestinians are killed as Israeli tanks move into southern Gaza, both GreenLeft and far-right parties celebrate Dutch election results, and the Eiffel Tower gets dressed for the upcoming Paris Olympics. Meanwhile, independent media Vazhnyye Istorii unpacks what’s behind Vladimir Putin’s repeated declarations that Russia was ready for peace talks.

[*Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea]

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🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant dedicates its front page to celebrations in Amsterdam after left-wing parties were projected to have narrowly won the most votes in the election for European Parliament. And although “The middle holds,” as the daily writes, nationalist Geert Wilders' party, known for its outspoken views on immigration and Islam, made the largest gains — adding to the possibility of nationalist parties across Europe uniting in their bid to change EU regulations.

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Israeli tanks move into southern parts of Gaza overnight, killing at least 23 Palestinians. Qatari and Egyptian mediators, backed by the United States, have tried to halt hostilities, but sources close to the talks said there were no signs of a breakthrough. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will “present the truth” about the war against Hamas in Gaza when he addresses the U.S. Congress on July 24 during a visit to Washington.

• The U.S. will send about $225 million in military aid to Ukraine. This is part of a new package that includes ammunition Kyiv’s forces could use to strike threats inside Russia to defend the city of Kharkiv from a heavy Russian assault. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden is due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on Friday as Kyiv’s army endures its hardest days of fighting since the early weeks of the war with Russia and prepares for what officials say could be a tough summer ahead. Read more about the complexities surrounding Western aid to Ukraine in this article, translated from French to English.

• Armed Chinese coast guard vessels anger Japan. The Japanese government said it was the first time that four Chinese vessels carrying what appeared to be cannons had entered its territorial waters in the East China Sea surrounding highly disputed islands. Tokyo said it had lodged a protest against Beijing on Friday.

• Rishi Sunak apologizes for leaving D-Day commemorations early. The British prime minister did so to attend a television interview as part of his campaign for the United Kingdom’s election next month. The leader of the ruling Conservative Party posted an apology on X, formerly known as Twitter, after intense criticism from across the political spectrum for ducking out from the ceremony on Thursday.

• Left-leaning parties narrowly lead in the Netherlands’ EU elections. This comes even as the anti-immigration party of populist far-right nationalist Geert Wilders made huge gains. The Labour/Green Left combination was projected to have won eight seats, slightly ahead of the seven seats projected for Wilders’s Party for Freedom. Read more about Geert Wilders here.

• Samsung workers are striking for the first time on Friday. A labor union at the South Korean smartphone and chip making giant said last week that its 28,000 members would stage a one-day strike on June 7, following failed negotiations over pay and bonus arrangements — a first in the company’s 55-year history.

• SpaceX’s Starship rocket has completed its first-ever full flight. It survived re-entry in a breakthrough for the prototype system that may one day send people to Mars. Three previous missions have ended with the rocket, which stands nearly 400 feet tall, blowing up or disintegrating. But this time Starship survived re-entry and made a controlled fall into the Indian Ocean just 65 minutes after launching from the U.S. state of Texas. Read more on SpaceX’s previous failures in this piece by French daily Les Echos.

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

13.4 million

A record 13.4 million Chinese high-school students are taking the highly competitive gaokao, the world's largest and toughest college entrance exam, as they face mounting pressure due to a slowing economy and high youth unemployment. The exhausting two-day exam is crucial for entry into top universities, with students pouring years of study into subject tests. Authorities and communities, including celebrities such as David Beckham, have shown support with measures to maintain order and encouragement through social media.

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📰 STORY OF THE DAY

What if Putin really was ready to negotiate with Ukraine?

Over the past two weeks, Vladimir Putin has stated four times that Russia is ready for peace talks with Ukraine, but that those negotiations would be based on “current realities at the front,” by which he means maintaining occupied territories under his control, reports Russian independent media Vazhnyye Istorii.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 A ceasefire and freezing the war would be a partial victory for Putin, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps Reserves colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In this case, he would keep about 20% of Ukraine under his control, avoid paying reparations and international prosecution for war crimes. Even talk of a ceasefire could cause divisions among Ukraine's allies, between those who insist on restoring the country's borders before the annexation of Crimea and those who want an early ceasefire.

⏱️ “It is important to realize that Russia does not need peace. It is not abandoning the original goals of the war. Russia needs a break,” said Russian military expert Pavel Luzin, noting that Russia tried to achieve a pause in the war in both 2022 and 2023. “The only thing is that time is running out now, and the Russian authorities have to hurry,” Luzin said.

🎖️ The duration of Russia's offensive depends not only on its own resources, but also on how quickly Ukraine will solve its problems with ammunition and with the recruitment and training of new recruits. The Russian army now has two main ways of recruiting: attracting contract soldiers “from the street” with large payments and forcing conscripts to sign a contract. At the end of March, British intelligence estimated the monthly influx of recruits at 30,000 people. But the situation may have worsened since then.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

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📣 VERBATIM

“It’s been 17 years that I have been unjustly accused.”

— Amanda Knox, who gained international attention after being wrongfully convicted and then acquitted of murder in Italy in 2007, commented on Wednesday’s verdict by Florence appeals court that found her guilty of slander for accusing Patrick Lumumba under intense police pressure. That decision came in light of a European court ruling that police who took her confession, back in 2007, had violated her human rights. Knox, an American, was accused of murdering Meredith Kercher, her British housemate in Perugia when they were both exchange students in Italy, but as she told Italian TV on Thursday “it’s been 17 years that I have been unjustly accused,” as she claims that police pressured her during questioning.

👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH

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• Modi Must Now Face The Most Imposing Nemesis Of All: His Own Ego — THE WIRE

✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Agnese Tonghini