Less than 24 hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio stood next to Benjamin Netanyahu and pledged “unwavering” support to Israel, its army began a long-threatened ground offensive in Gaza City; on the same day, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Palestinians speaking to reporter Malak A Tantesh in Gaza described an impossible choice, whether to stay in the city or flee with no guarantees of safety to the south. Thaslima Begum’s piece on stranded children from Gaza being stuck in Egypt was very affecting, with a photograph by Hamada Elrasam it’s impossible to get out of your mind. A wide-ranging analysis from Julian Borger looked at Israel’s increasing isolation, while Matthew Cassel and Kyri Evangelou spoke to Tel Aviv residents about what it was like to live so close to Gaza, in their latest video.
Our Russian affairs reporter Pjotr Sauer reported from the Russian-led Zapad military exercises in Belarus, gaining rare access for a western reporter. The drills stirred more unease in European capitals.
The Guardian’s China correspondent Amy Hawkins reported on China’s crackdown on its once-untouchable Buddhist monks, who have become the latest targets of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive. Amy reported from Dengfeng, a city that saw the rise and fall of Shi Yongxin, the so-called “CEO monk” who turned a 1,500-year-old monastery into a commercial empire worth millions.
In a Guardian exclusive last weekend, Nick Hopkins joined Prince Harry on a surprise visit to Kyiv, where he was promoting the work of his Invictus Games Foundation, which has been devising programmes to help veterans all over the country to get access to sports facilities. Harry spoke candidly in the interview about his life, the media, and his father, King Charles. The piece also featured stunning portraits by David Levene.
Matthew Taylor and Sandra Laville revealed how the UK public has paid almost £200bn to the shareholders who own key British industries, including water, rail, bus, energy and mail services, since they were privatised. As a result, citizens have been paying a “privatisation premium” of £250 per household per year since 2010 alone, the analysis found. They explored how people in the Shropshire town of Ludlow have been left cut off and frustrated by the collapse of public transport.
In UK politics, Michael Goodier undertook a detailed analysis of UK immigration figures and what they actually show, bringing clarity to a politically febrile topic. Kirsty Major wrote about her home town of Knowsley, in Merseyside, a Labour stronghold, where Reform is fast gaining ground.
Guardian Australia is running its popular bird of the year reader competition. Now in its fifth year, the poll celebrates the diversity of birdlife in Australia, and highlights the conservation efforts needed to protect it. The launch included two lovely opinion pieces by Joseph Earp on the endangered glossy black cockatoo, and Mark Saunokonoko on the blackbird that lingered with his family days after the death of his mother. Nominations for the shortlist opened this week, with 6,000 entries from readers lodged already.
I love watching athletics, and Sean Ingle’s writing is a great companion to the World Athletics Championships currently under way in Tokyo, from another world pole vault record from Mondo Duplantis to the news that Usain Bolt gets out of breath walking up the stairs these days.
The long read published a profile of one of the world’s leading AI researchers, Zhu Songchun, who left China as a young man and moved to the US, where he spent 26 years at America’s top universities. Then, in 2020, he returned to China, where he is now leading their AI development. The piece was a gripping insight into the global AI race, and a rare chance to hear a top scientist working in China speak candidly about the intellectual and geopolitical questions shaping their work.
Rory Carroll’s interview with Brenda Fricker (from her bed), the only Irishwoman ever to win an Oscar, was full of shocking revelations of violence, grooming and abuse, as well as great warmth and humanity.
I also enjoyed Boris Fishman on how having couples therapy on the hit TV show made him public enemy number one; Simon Hattenstone’s interview with Björn Borg, uncovering the 42-year mystery of why he stepped away from tennis at the top of his game; and Lucy Knight’s piece about her week spent trying out the latest craze: shoulder pals. Would those who noticed the small cartoon rat on her shoulder give her a wide berth? You can probably guess the answer …
One more thing … Red Water by Jurica Pavičić, translated by Matt Robinson, is a fascinating novel by one of Europe’s top crime novelists. Through the story of a teenager’s mysterious disappearance on the Dalmatian coast in 1989, Pavičić explores Croatia’s history after the fall of communism and the break-up of Yugoslavia.
