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      Who Are the Top Hamas Leaders in Gaza?

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      Marwan Issa, who was the target of an Israeli strike in central Gaza over the weekend, is one of three leaders of Hamas in Gaza who Israel says were the main planners of the Oct. 7 attack, which killed over 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of about 240 others, according to Israeli officials. It remained unclear on Tuesday whether the strike had hit him.Here is what to know about the most senior Hamas leaders in Gaza:Marwan IssaMr. Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, would be the highest ranking Hamas military official to be killed by Israel in recent years. Like many other senior Hamas military leaders in Gaza, Mr. Issa has kept a low profile, rarely appearing in public, in part to avoid targeted strikes like the one over the weekend that Israel’s military said hit an underground space he had used.An Israeli army spokesman described Mr. Issa as having helped plan the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. In addition to his military role, Mr. Issa served as a negotiator in talks that led to a cease-fire following a nearly two-week flare-up with Israel in 2021, as well as a deal in 2011, when one captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.Yahya SinwarYahya Sinwar at a rally in Gaza City last year.Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, which was set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and has since become a permanent community, part of the wider city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. He founded a precursor to Hamas’s military wing, called Al Majd, and helped establish Hamas in 1987. At the time, he was responsible for identifying and punishing Palestinians suspected of infringing “morality” codes or collaborating with Israel.In 1988, Mr. Sinwar was arrested by Israeli forces and sentenced to four life sentences for his role in killing four Palestinians suspected of working with Israel, according to Israeli court records.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Faces Losses Without More U.S. Aid, Officials Say

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      William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, described an increasingly dire situation.Senior intelligence officials warned on Monday that without additional American aid, Ukraine faced the prospect of continued battlefield losses as Russia relies on a network of critical arms suppliers and drastically increases its supply of technology from China.In public testimony during the annual survey of worldwide threats facing the United States, the officials predicted that any continued delay of U.S. aid to Ukraine would lead to additional territorial gains by Russia over the next year, the consequences of which would be felt not only in Europe but also in the Pacific.“If we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea,” William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, told Congress.The assessment marked a sharp turn from just a year ago, when Ukraine’s military appeared on the march and the Russians seemed to be in retreat.Over the course of just over two hours of testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Burns and the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, described an increasingly dire situation for Ukraine, one in which Russia is producing far more artillery shells and has worked out a steady supply of drones, shells and other military goods from two key suppliers.“It is hard to imagine how Ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard-fought advances it has made against the Russians, especially given the sustained surge in Russian ammunition production and purchases from North Korea and Iran,” Ms. Haines said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s Armageddon Moment: When Nuclear Detonation Seemed Possible in Ukraine

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      For a few weeks in October 2022, the White House was consumed in a crisis whose depths were not publicly acknowledged at the time. It was a glimpse of what seemed like a terrifying new era.President Biden was standing in an Upper East Side townhouse owned by the businessman James Murdoch, the rebellious scion of the media empire, surrounded by liberal New York Democrats who had paid handsomely to come hear optimistic talk about the Biden agenda for the next few years.It was Oct. 6, 2022, but what they heard instead that evening was a disturbing message that — though Mr. Biden didn’t say so — came straight from highly classified intercepted communications he had recently been briefed about, suggesting that President Vladimir V. Putin’s threats to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine might be turning into an operational plan.For the “first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he told the group, as they gathered amid Mr. Murdoch’s art collection, “we have a direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they’ve been going.” The gravity of his tone began to sink in: The president was talking about the prospect of the first wartime use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.And not at some vague moment in the future. He meant in the next few weeks.The commander of a Ukrainian assault unit, standing by an abandoned Russian tank in October 2022. That period appears to have been the high-water mark of Ukraine’s military performance over the past two years.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesThe intercepts revealed that for the first time since the war in Ukraine had broken out, there were frequent conversations within the Russian military about reaching into the nuclear arsenal. Some were just “various forms of chatter,” one official said. But others involved the units that would be responsible for moving or deploying the weapons. The most alarming of the intercepts revealed that one of the most senior Russian military commanders was explicitly discussing the logistics of detonating a weapon on the battlefield.Fortunately, Mr. Biden was told in his briefings, there was no evidence of weapons being moved. But soon the C.I.A. was warning that, under a singular scenario in which Ukrainian forces decimated Russian defensive lines and looked as if they might try to retake Crimea — a possibility that seemed imaginable that fall — the likelihood of nuclear use might rise to 50 percent or even higher. That “got everyone’s attention fast,” said an official involved in the discussions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia’s Advance Around Avdiivka Loses Momentum After Quick Gains

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      Ukraine has committed significant forces to defending the area, and Russian troops are now attacking across open fields with little cover.When the eastern city of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold, fell to Russian forces three weeks ago, Kyiv and its allies feared that Moscow’s troops could build on their momentum and quickly press ahead toward strategic military hubs and population centers.But after making rapid gains in the subsequent days, Russian assaults have stalled around three contested nearby villages. Military experts cite several factors, including terrain that does not favor offensive operations, Russian troops exhausted by months of fighting and a Ukrainian army that has committed significant forces to defending the area.Russia seems to be maintaining its initiative on the battlefield, and military analysts say its forces could still break through Ukrainian lines in the near future, especially since Kyiv’s defensive efforts are increasingly curtailed by the absence of further American military aid.Yet for now, they say the fighting appears to have reverted to the kind of inconclusive back-and-forth battles that have characterized much of the war’s front line combat this past year.“The capture of Avdiivka has not led to the collapse of Ukrainian lines, the possibility for the Russians to move onto open ground or even to make major gains,” said Thibault Fouillet, the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, a French research center. “There’s no decisive action or breakthrough.”It’s a contrast to the situation that emerged from the fall of Avdiivka in mid-February. At that time, as Ukraine’s forces retreated, Russia advanced rapidly, aided in part by the absence of strong Ukrainian defensive positions. Russian troops captured three settlements and took control of nine square miles of land, according to open-source maps of the battlefield.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for 2 Russian Officers in Ukraine

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      Arrest warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court for two military officials, a general and an admiral, both accused of targeting civilians and destroying crucial energy infrastructure.The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two top Russian military officers, accusing them of war crimes in Ukraine for targeting civilians and destroying crucial energy infrastructure.The two officers — Lt. Gen. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Adm. Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov — are accused in a court statement of being personally responsible for numerous missile strikes by their forces on electrical power plants and substations in multiple locations between October 2022 and March 2023.The wintertime strikes were defined as war crimes because they were largely directed against civilian targets, causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” the court said.General Kobylash is a senior Russian Air Force officer who commanded the country’s long-range aviation forces during that time period, while Admiral Sokolov was then commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.Lt. Gen. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylas commanded Russia’s long-range aviation forces.Sergei Chirikov/EPA, via ShutterstockAdm. Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov as commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in 2022.Alexey Pavlishak/ReutersThe two are also accused of crimes against humanity because of “intentionally causing great suffering” and serious physical or mental injuries in the general population.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russian Strike’s Toll Rises to 10 as Zelensky Blames Air Defense Delay

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky did not refer to the United States but his words appeared to reflect frustration at a stalled American aid package.Rescue workers in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa pulled the bodies of a mother and baby from the rubble of an apartment building on Sunday, bringing the death toll in a Russian attack two days ago to 10. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said delays by the country’s allies in supplying air defenses had contributed to the deaths.The denunciation by Mr. Zelensky appeared to reflect frustration that Ukraine’s capacity to resist Moscow’s military campaign and protect its own citizens has been undermined by the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a multibillion-dollar military aid package.The drone hit the building overnight on Friday and since then emergency workers have been picking through rubble. Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea, was a key initial target of Moscow’s full-scale invasion two years ago and in recent months Russian forces have frequently targeted the city with drone strikes, often launched from Crimea. This weekend’s attack, however, has caused particular outrage among Ukrainians.Rescue workers said that the mother and baby were found together. “The mother tried to cover her 8-month-old child,” said a statement by the State Emergency Service posted on the Telegram social messaging service. “They were found in a tight embrace.”A 3-year-old girl was among eight people who had been injured, Mr. Zelensky said in an overnight speech, in which he said that Ukrainian civilians were more vulnerable because the country’s armed forces lacked air defenses that could shoot down the Shahed drones that Iran has supplied to Moscow.“The world has enough missile defense systems, systems to protect against Shahed drones and missiles. And delaying the supply of weapons to Ukraine, missile defense systems to protect our people, leads, unfortunately, to such losses,” he said. He did not refer specifically to U.S. aid, but the country is by far Ukraine’s biggest overall military donor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pakistan’s New Leader, Shehbaz Sharif, Installed

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      Parliament’s election of Shehbaz Sharif for a second term follows a month of political turmoil. The new government faces economic troubles and questions of legitimacy.Pakistan’s newly elected Parliament approved Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister on Sunday, ushering in his second term in that role and capping weeks of upheaval — as well as setting into motion a government facing economic and political challenges that are likely to leave the country in turmoil for years to come.His selection also brings to a crossroads the role of Pakistan’s powerful military, which has long been seen as an invisible hand guiding the country’s politics and has previously engineered its election results. Analysts say that public confidence in Mr. Sharif’s government is low.“The government is being seen as foredoomed,” said Talat Hussain, a political analyst based in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.Mr. Sharif secured 201 votes in the national assembly, while his closest rival, Omar Ayub, a supporter of the imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, got 92.Before the voting began, Mr. Sharif arrived in the main hall accompanied by his older brother, Nawaz, who was also elected as a member of the national assembly. The two brothers sat together in the front row, a reminder that the elder Sharif, himself a three-time prime minister, remains influential and is likely to wield power behind the scenes.The proceedings started with a loud protest in support of Mr. Khan. Several Khan supporters sat in front of the speaker’s dais to chant slogans; many others waved pictures of Mr. Khan, as they, too, shouted slogans in support of the cricket star turned politician.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gaza Aid Convoy Deaths: What We Know From Israeli Military Footage

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      Gazan authorities said that more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a chaotic scene early Thursday morning in Gaza City, where a crowd gathered around a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid and the Israeli military opened fire. Drone footage released by the Israeli military shows hundreds of people circling […] More