Hamas has been severely weakened but it is still standing after Israel warned its latest onslaught on Gaza is only the beginning. Meanwhile, over in the US, President Donald Trump is preparing to dismantle the Department of Education.
At least 85 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday, 20 March, after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and ground operations in the enclave, Gaza’s health ministry said.
A day after launching a new ground campaign in central Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had started conducting ground operations in the north of the enclave, along the coastal route in the area of Beit Lahia.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which had not yet retaliated during the first 48 hours of the renewed Israeli assault, said its fighters fired rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said sirens sounded in the centre of the country after projectiles were launched from Gaza.
Palestinian medics said Israeli strikes targeted several houses in northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip. Asked for comment, the Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
The military resumed its air assaults on Gaza on Tuesday and launched ground operations on Wednesday, effectively abandoning a ceasefire with Hamas that had held since January.
It said on Thursday that its forces had been engaged for the past 24 hours in what it described as a targeted ground operation to expand a buffer zone separating the northern and southern halves of Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor.
Israel ordered residents to stay away from the Salahuddin road, the main north-south route, and said they should travel along the coast instead.
Tuesday’s first day of resumed airstrikes killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the deadliest days of the war.
In a blow to Hamas as it sought to rebuild its administration in Gaza, this week’s strikes have killed some of its top figures, including the de facto Hamas-appointed head of the Gaza government, the chief of security services, his aide and the deputy head of the Hamas-run justice ministry.
Hamas has been severely weakened but it is still standing after Israel warned the latest onslaught was only the beginning.
The militant group said the Israeli ground operation and the incursion into the Netzarim Corridor were a “new and dangerous violation” of the two-month-old ceasefire agreement. In a statement, it reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire deal and called on mediators to “assume their responsibilities”.
A temporary first phase of the ceasefire ended at the start of this month. Hamas wants to move to an agreed second phase, under which Israel would be required to negotiate an end to the war and withdrawal of its troops, and Israeli hostages held in Gaza would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has offered only a temporary extension of the truce, cut off all supplies to Gaza and says it is restarting its military campaign to force Hamas to free remaining hostages.
The resumption of air strikes has sent Palestinian residents again fleeing for their lives from homes they had begun to reinhabit among the ruins of the devastated enclave.
Some Palestinians who tried to use the Salahuddin road said they saw cars come under fire from Israeli troops advancing towards Netzarim. The fate of the passengers in the vehicles was unknown.
“Bulldozers protected by some tanks were heading to the west coming from the areas where they are stationed near the fence east of the Salahuddin road,” one taxi driver told Reuters, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
He said it had become clear the Israelis were advancing on Netzarim when Egyptian and foreign inspectors stationed there under the ceasefire abruptly withdrew.
Some residents turned to social media to report the disappearance of some relatives, while others reported cases to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Speaking to Reuters on Thursday, a Hamas official said mediators had stepped up their efforts with the two warring sides but added that “no breakthrough has yet been made”.
Some residents said there were no signs yet of preparations by Hamas on the ground to resume fighting.
But an official from one militant group allied to Hamas told Reuters on Thursday that fighters, including from Hamas, had been put on high alert awaiting further instructions.
“Fighters and leaders of the resistance were also advised to avoid the use of cellular phones as a means of precaution,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.
The war started after Hamas militants attacked Israeli communities in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing conflict, according to Gaza's health authorities, with the enclave reduced to rubble.
Trump to sign order to shut down Department of Education – White House
US President Donald Trump will sign a long-anticipated executive order on Thursday that aims to shut down the Department of Education, acting on a key campaign pledge, according to a White House summary seen by Reuters.
Even before it was signed, the order was being challenged by a group of Democratic state attorneys-general, who filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from dismantling the department and halt the layoffs of nearly half of its staff announced last week.
The NAACP, a leading civil rights group, also blasted the expected order as unconstitutional.
“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” said NAACP president Derrick Johnson.
Trump and tech billionaire adviser Elon Musk, have attempted to shut down government programmes and institutions such as the US Agency for International Development without congressional approval, but abolishing the Department of Education would be Trump’s first bid to shut down a cabinet-level agency.
Trump cannot shutter the agency without congressional legislation, which could prove difficult. Trump’s Republicans hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate, but major legislation, such as a bill eliminating a cabinet-level agency, would need 60 votes and thus the support of seven Democrats to pass.
Senate Democrats have given no sign they would support abolishing the department.
“Trump and Musk are taking a wrecking ball to the Department of Education and firing half its staff,” Democratic senator Patty Murray said, vowing to fight what she called “Trump and Musk’s slash and burn campaign”.
The order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure [of] the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programmes and benefits on which Americans rely.”
It mandates that any programmes or activities receiving remaining Department of Education funds should not “advance DEI or gender ideology”, according to the White House summary.
Trump has repeatedly called for eliminating the department, calling it “a big con job”. He proposed shuttering it in his first term as president, but Congress did not act.
Last month Trump said he wanted the department to be closed immediately, but acknowledged he would need buy-ins from Congress and teachers’ unions.
“Federal government control of education has failed students, parents and teachers,” the White House said in its summary. It said that the department had spent more than $3-trillion since its creation in 1979 without improving student achievement as measured by standardised test scores.
Prior to the department’s creation, education was part of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which operated from 1953 to 1979.
McMahon told SiriusXM’s David Webb Show on Tuesday that the administration’s goal was to foster innovation and encourage best practices in education at the state level.
“The Department of Education doesn’t educate anyone. It doesn’t hire teachers. It doesn’t establish curriculum. It doesn’t hire school boards or superintendents,” she said.
The department’s defenders say it is crucial to keeping public education standards high and accuse Republicans of trying to push for-profit education. An immediate closure could disrupt tens of billions of dollars in aid to K–12 schools and tuition assistance for college students.
McMahon, co-founder and former CEO of the WWE professional wrestling franchise, who was confirmed by the Senate on Monday, had defended Trump’s plans to abolish the agency, but promised that federal school funding appropriated by Congress to assist low-income school districts and students would continue.
A source familiar with the order said student loans and services for children with disabilities were codified in law and would continue.
The department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the US, although more than 85% of public school funding comes from state and local governments. It provides federal grants for needy schools and programmes, including money to pay teachers of children with special needs, fund arts programnes and replace outdated infrastructure.
It also oversees the $1.6-trillion in student loans held by tens of millions of Americans who cannot afford to pay for university outright.
Attorneys-general from 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston last week after the department announced plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its employees as part of the agency’s “final mission”.
The job cuts would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January, and come on top of staff cuts through buyout offers and the firing of probationary employees carried out as part of Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the federal government.
The lawsuit argues that the massive job cuts will render the agency unable to perform core functions authorised by statute, including in the civil rights arena, effectively usurping Congress’s authority in violation of the US constitution.
It said McMahon “is not permitted to eliminate or disrupt functions required by statute, nor can she transfer the department’s responsibilities to another agency outside of its statutory authorization”.
Intelligence shared with White House shows Ukrainians not ‘encircled’ in Kursk
Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk have lost ground in recent days but are not encircled by Russian forces, contrary to recent comments by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to three US and European officials familiar with their governments’ intelligence assessments.
US intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have shared that assessment with the White House over the past week, a US official and another person familiar with the matter said. However, Trump has continued to claim that Ukrainian troops are surrounded in western Russia’s Kursk region.
The US and European intelligence assessments show that Ukrainian troops have faced intense pressure from Russian forces but they are not completely surrounded, the officials said.
Trump has said he hopes to bring a quick end to Russia's war in Ukraine. Experts described a claim by Putin on 13 March that Ukrainian forces in Kursk were cut off and would ultimately need to “surrender or die” as misinformation intended to show that Russia is offering concessions by saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, giving Putin leverage in ceasefire negotiations.
In a social media post on 14 March, Trump said he had asked the Russian president to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainians whom he said were “completely surrounded” and vulnerable. Putin said he would do so if they surrendered.
Trump repeated the claim about “encircled” Ukrainian forces during a speech at Washington’s Kennedy Centre on Monday and in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
The US National Security Council did not respond directly to questions about the intelligence assessments but referred Reuters to a joint statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz that mentioned Trump’s call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday and how the two leaders agreed to continue to share intelligence on Kursk.
The White House, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment.
Zelensky has denied that Ukrainian forces are surrounded and said Putin was lying about the reality on the ground.
The Ukrainian leader acknowledged his military is in a difficult position in Kursk and that he expects continued attacks from Russia as it attempts to push Ukrainian forces out of the region.
Zelensky’s office and the Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Since August, when Ukrainian soldiers smashed their way across Russia’s western border in Kursk, Kyiv has lost almost all of the territory it gained. It once held close to 1,300 square kilometres of land but now only holds between 50 and 80 square kilometres, according to open source reports.
During a call betweenTrump and Putn on Tuesday, the Russian leader said he would halt attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for 30 days, a promise that fell short of the full 30-day ceasefire Trump has called for and that Zelensky has said Ukraine would be prepared to accept.
“This is likely part of Putin's effort to make the point that they are winning the war and that resistance is useless and that it is inevitable that Russia’s greater strength will bring victory. That resonates with Trump,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“Both sides are manoeuvring to get into a better position for the negotiations.”
Although Russian forces appear to be making incremental advances in Kursk, the officials who spoke to Reuters and experts who study the battlefield said Putin’s 13 March statement was not accurate.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, said on 14 March that it had “observed no geolocated evidence to indicate that Russian forces have encircled a significant number of Ukrainian forces in Kursk Oblast or elsewhere along the frontline in Ukraine”.
India detains hundreds of farmers as police bulldoze protest sites
Police in India’s northern state of Punjab detained hundreds of farmers and used bulldozers to tear down their temporary camps in a border area where they had protested for more than a year to demand better crop prices.
The farmers had camped on the border with adjoining Haryana since last February, when security forces halted their march towards the capital, New Delhi, to press for legally backed guarantees of more state support for crops.
“We did not need to use any force because there was no resistance,” Nanak Singh, a senior police officer, told the ANI news agency about Wednesday night’s clearance action. “The farmers cooperated well and they sat in buses themselves.”
The farmers had been given prior notice, he added.
Television images showed police using bulldozers to demolish tents and stages, while escorting farmers carrying personal items to vehicles.
Media said among the hundreds detained were farmers’ leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, the latter carried away in an ambulance as he had been on an indefinite protest fast for months.
“On one hand the government is negotiating with the farmer organisations and on the other hand it is arresting them,” Rakesh Tikait, a spokesperson for farmer group Bhartiya Kisan Union, said on X.
Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party, which authorised the eviction, said it stood by the farmers in their demands, but asked them to take up their grievances with the federal government.
“Let’s work together to safeguard Punjab’s interests,” said the party’s vice-president in the state, Tarunpreet Singh Sond, adding that the blockage of key roads had hurt the state’s economy. “Closing highways is not the solution.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to repeal some farm laws in 2021 after a year-long protest by farmers when they camped outside Delhi for months.
Federal government officials met the farmers’ leaders on Wednesday, said Fatehjung Singh Bajwa, the vice-president of Modi'’ Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Punjab.
“It is clear that this arrest is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the ongoing dialogue between farmers and BJP leadership,” he added in a post on X.
(Reuters has a minority stake in ANI.)
Thousands attend funerals for victims of North Macedonia nightclub fire
Thousands of mourners gathered at cemeteries across North Macedonia on Thursday for the funerals of dozens of people killed in a nightclub fire, the Balkan country's worst disaster in decades.
Fifty-nine people were killed and more than 170 were injured when a blaze broke out during a concert on Sunday in the small, unlicensed Pulse club in the town of Kocani.
Crowds of people dressed in black and holding candles and flowers streamed towards the cemetery in Kocani, where at least 30 new graves were dug this week.
At the head of each grave, the name of the victim was displayed on a piece of white paper stuck to a thin wooden stick. Priests prayed over the coffins as they were laid at the grave sides.
“The city is in shock, all these children lost, such a big tragedy that we will never be able to get over,” Luka Anastasov (60) said, as he returned from the funerals in Kocani.
Ceremonies took place in towns across the country.
In the capital Skopje, 80km west of Kocani, some 1,000 people, including prominent musicians, attended the funeral of Andrej Gorgieski (43), a singer in the DNK band that was performing when the fire broke out.
The disaster has devastated Kocani, which has a population of around 25,000 people.
Most stores and cafes have been closed during a week of nationwide mourning. Reminders of the fire are everywhere: especially in the photos of the young people who were killed, which are taped to street lamps, trees and doors all over town.
Under the grief lies much anger.
Authorities have said the nightclub’s licence was illegally obtained and that the venue lacked fire extinguishers and emergency exits and was made of flammable materials.
More than 20 people have been detained in connection with the fire, including government officials and the manager of the nightclub.
Protests calling for an end to corruption took place in Kocani and Skopje this week. Sporadic violence broke out in Kocani on Monday when a group of people vandalised a pub that protesters said was run by the same person who owned Pulse. Later, hundreds of people descended on the mayor's home, throwing rocks and smashing windows.
Authorities began inspecting nightclubs and cafes around the country this week for potential safety violations.
Indonesia parliament passes contentious amendments to military law
Indonesia’s parliament passed revisions to the country’s military law on Thursday, allocating more civilian posts for military officers as hundreds of students and activists protested against the legislation.
The revisions have been criticised by civil society groups, who say it could take the world’s third-biggest democracy back to the draconian New Order era of former strongman president Suharto, when military officers dominated civilian affairs.
Speaker Puan Maharani led the unanimous vote in a plenary council and officially passed the law, saying that it was in accordance with the principles of democracy, human rights and civil supremacy.
President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last October and was a special forces commander under Suharto, has been expanding the armed forces’ role into what were considered civilian areas, including his flagship programme of free meals for children.
Rights groups have criticised the increased military involvement because they fear it may lead to abuses of power, human rights violations and impunity from consequences for actions.
The government has said the bill requires officers to resign from the military before assuming civilian posts at departments such as the Attorney General’s Office.
There were concerns that officers could be allowed to join state-owned businesses, but that aspect of the law was not revised, lawmaker Nico Siahaan, who was involved in talks on the legislation, told Reuters.
Evan Laksmana, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the law does not address problems faced by the Indonesian military, such as adding resources for training and standardisation of military hardware.
The revisions also extend the retirement age of officers, which Evan said could reduce professionalism among soldiers as prospects for promotion would be squeezed.
Hundreds of students rallied outside the parliamentary building in Jakarta following the passage of the revisions. Dozens of them burned tires and some jostled their way through the gates, television footage showed.
Activists carried signs that read “New Order Strikes Back” and “Take the military back to the barracks”.
Usman Hamid, the head of Amnesty International in Indonesia and who protested against Suharto during the New Order era, warned of the past returning.
“Activists were kidnapped and some have not returned home. And today it feels like we're going backwards,” he said.
Some students had camped at the back gate of the parliamentary building since Wednesday evening, demanding the government pull out all military personnel from civilian jobs.
Police officers forced them to leave the building but they refused, one protester who declined to be named told Reuters.
Military personnel were called in for security in the parliamentary building to assist police.
“The geopolitical changes and global military technology require the military to transform … to face conventional and non conventional conflicts,” Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told parliament, while defending the revised law although he did not give any specifics.
Britain beefs up travel warnings over US border enforcement
Britain has in recent weeks revised its advice for citizens travelling to the US to include a warning that anyone found breaking its entry rules could face arrest or detention.
Since taking office on January 20, US President Donald Trump has announced a number of immigration-related executive orders that focus on stricter border policy, tighter visa-vetting procedures and a crackdown on undocumented migrants in the United States.
On Wednesday, Germany updated its US travel advisory to emphasise that a visa or entry waiver does not guarantee entry after several Germans were detained at the border recently.
Current British travel advice for the United States published online by Britain’s foreign office stated: “You should comply with all entry, visa and other conditions of entry. The authorities in the US set and enforce entry rules strictly. You may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules.”
Archived versions of the same website showed that at the beginning of February, the guidance had only stated: “The authorities in the US set and enforce entry rules.”
The foreign office declined to comment on the reason for the revision or confirm when exactly it took place. It said its travel advice was designed to help people make decisions and the advice was constantly kept under review.
Earlier this month, in response to media reports that a woman had been detained for more than 10 days at the border over a possible breach of her visa conditions, the Foreign Office confirmed it was providing support to a British national detained in the US.
The woman has since returned to Britain, local media reported.
US issues fresh Iran-related sanctions — Treasury
The US on Thursday issued new Iran-related sanctions, targeting one individual and several entities including a Chinese “teapot” oil refinery for purchasing and processing Iranian crude oil, the Treasury Department website showed.
It was Washington’s fourth round of sanctions on Iran’s oil sales since President Donald Trump said in February he was re-imposing a “maximum pressure” campaign including efforts to drive down the exports to zero.
Trump aims to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and funding militant groups.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil.
The refinery the Treasury targeted for sanctions is China-based Shandong Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical Co, Ltd.
Tehran says its nuclear energy programme is for peaceful purposes, while Western powers say its enrichment of uranium to levels approaching weapons-grade has no logical civilian applications.
Anti-Netanyahu protesters clash with Israeli police
Israeli police deployed a water cannon and made several arrests on Thursday as protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to oust the head of the domestic intelligence service flared for a third consecutive day.
Thousands of Israelis have joined anti-Netanyahu demonstrations with opponents of the move to sack Shin Bet head Ronen Bar joining forces with protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire, while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave.
“We’re very, very worried that our country is becoming a dictatorship,” Rinat Hadashi (59) said in Jerusalem. “They’re abandoning our hostages, they’re neglecting all the important things for this country.”
On Thursday, police and demonstrators clashed as hundreds marched along the road leading to the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem, where police said dozens of protesters tried to break through security cordons.
Protests were planned later outside the Kirya military headquarters complex in Tel Aviv.
A day earlier there were angry confrontations between protesters and counter-demonstrators, highlighting divisions that have deepened since Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a right-wing coalition at the end of 2022.
Even before the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis were joining regular demonstrations protesting at a government drive to curb the power of the judiciary that critics saw as an assault on Israeli democracy but which the government said was needed to limit judicial overreach.
Since the start of the war, there have also been regular protests by families and supporters of hostages seized by Hamas during its assault on Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023 that have sometimes echoed the criticisms of the government.
Israel’s cabinet is expected to meet on Friday to formally approve the dismissal of Bar, who has clashed with Netanyahu over a corruption investigation against aides in his office that the prime minister has called a politically motivated attack. DM