International
The United States maintains that Israel’s operation in Rafah is of a “limited” scope
The Pentagon held on Tuesday its analysis that the operation of the Israel Defense Forces in Rafah has a limited scope and although he described the attack on a camp of displaced people as “horrible”, he asked to wait for the results of the Israeli investigation.
“We still think it’s a limited operation,” Pentagon’s deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said at a press conference.
In that intervention he stressed that “of course” they have seen the images of the attack on a camp of displaced people from Tal al Sultan, where the impact of a missile and the subsequent fire killed 45 people on Sunday night.
“It’s horrible. It’s heartbreaking and it must stop. We must also remember that we support Israel in its fight against Hamas. It is a terrorist organization that is embedded in tunnels, that uses innocent civilians as hostages and that uses people as human shields. That’s why we are going to support Israel in its efforts to defeat Hamas,” he said.
Singh reiterated that they continue to urge the Israeli Executive to take all precautions to protect the population and stressed that they are waiting for the conclusions of the investigation opened by Israel, whose Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has described what happened as a “tragic mishap.”
The vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, said on Tuesday that “the tragic word does not even begin to describe” the Israeli attack on a camp for displaced people in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, in which 45 people died last Sunday night.
Harris made those statements to questions about the bombing, during a ceremony in Washington for the inauguration of Courtney O’Donnell as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The vice president did not respond to a second interrogant, about whether that attack crossed a “red line” in the United States’ policy towards Israel.
In an interview with CNN on May 8, US President Joe Biden warned for the first time that he would stop supplying Israel with certain offensive weapons, which he acknowledged has been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Rafah to invade.
The United States warned Israel that it is opposing a large-scale operation in Rafah, but so far the Biden government has maintained that the current military operations are of limited scope.
The Israeli airstrike, in which about 45 Palestinians were killed, many of them children, affected a camp of tents for displaced people in Rafah, in southern Gaza, where the war has caused about 36,000 deaths.
After the incident was known, Netanyahu claimed that the death of civilians in Rafah was a “tragic mishap.”
The deceased were in an alleged “safe zone” in the Tal al Sultan neighborhood, in the northwest of Rafah, where there were hundreds of displaced people in an improvised camp that Israel had not yet ordered to evacuate.
The Israeli Army reported that it was a “precise intelligence-based operation” aimed at eliminating two high commanders of Hamas who were in a building in the area, although it admitted that a fire later generated that caused a high number of fatalities.
International
Winter Storm Fern Leaves 30 Dead and Over One Million Without Power Across the U.S.
The massive winter storm Fern, bringing polar temperatures, battered large portions of the United States for a third consecutive day on Monday, leaving at least 30 people dead, more than one million households without electricity, and thousands of flights grounded.
In the Great Lakes region, residents awoke to extreme cold, with temperatures dropping below -20°C. Forecasts indicate that conditions are expected to worsen in the coming days as an Arctic air mass moves south, particularly across the northern Great Plains and other central regions, where wind chills could plunge to -45°C, temperatures capable of causing frostbite within minutes.
Across the country, heavy snowfall exceeding 30 centimeters in roughly 20 states triggered widespread power outages. According to PowerOutage.com, nearly 800,000 customers remained without electricity on Monday morning, most of them in the southern United States.
In Tennessee, where ice brought down power lines, approximately 250,000 customers were still without power. Outages also affected more than 150,000 customers in Mississippi and over 100,000 in Louisiana, as utility crews struggled to restore service amid dangerous conditions.
International
Spain approves plan to regularize up to 500,000 migrants in Historic Shift
In November 2024, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a reform of the country’s immigration regulations aimed at regularizing 300,000 migrants per year over a three-year period, in an effort to counter population aging in a country where births have fallen by 25.6% since 2014, according to official data.
Going against the trend in much of Europe, Spain’s left-wing government has now approved an exceptional migrant regularization plan that could benefit up to 500,000 people, most of them from Latin America.
The measure will allow the regularization of around “half a million people” who have been living in Spain for at least five months, arrived before December 31, 2025, and have no criminal record, Migration Minister Elma Saiz explained on public television.
The plan, approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, establishes that applications will be processed between April and June 30, enabling beneficiaries to work in any sector and anywhere in the country, Saiz said.
“Today is a historic day for our country. We are strengthening a migration model based on human rights, integration, and one that is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion,” the minister later stated at a press conference.
The socialist government of Pedro Sánchez stands out within the European Union for its migration policy, contrasting with the tightening of immigration measures across much of the bloc amid pressure from far-right movements.
Central America
Honduras swears in conservative president Asfura after disputed election
Conservative politician Nasry Asfura assumed the presidency of Honduras on Tuesday with an agenda closely aligned with the United States, a shift that could strain the country’s relationship with China as he seeks to confront the economic and security challenges facing the poorest and most violent nation in Central America.
Asfura’s rise to power, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, marks the end of four years of left-wing rule and secures Trump another regional ally amid the advance of conservative governments in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina.
The 67-year-old former mayor and construction businessman was sworn in during an austere ceremony at the National Congress, following a tightly contested election marred by opposition allegations of fraud and Trump’s threat to cut U.S. aid if his preferred candidate did not prevail.
Grateful for Washington’s support, Asfura—who is of Palestinian descent—traveled to the United States to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, before visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We need to strengthen relations with our most important trading partner,” Asfura said after being declared the winner of the November 30 election by a narrow margin, following a tense vote count that lasted just over three weeks.
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