பாலஸ்தீனம் படிப்பதற்கு பத்து ஆங்கில நூல்கள்

Palestine: 

Ten essential reads 

The massive upsurge in protests and activity against Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza has widened the audience interested in understanding the oppression of the Palestinians. Alex Snowdon recommends a selection of books for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding

1. Ten Myths About Israel, Ilan Pappe (Verso, 2017) is one of the best general introductions to the history and politics of Palestine and Israel. It is eloquent, concise, factually rigorous and infused with deep empathy for the Palestinians.

Each chapter takes a myth promoted by apologists for Israeli apartheid – and completely dismantles it. Left-wing Israeli historian Pappe does this by drawing on his vast historical knowledge to concisely explain the truth on each topic, from the pre-history of Israel – such as the Zionist movement and the role of British colonialism – to the present day. It concludes with a succinct case for a one-state solution rooted in justice, freedom and equality for all. 

2. Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine, Ghada Karmi (Pluto, 2007) takes its title from an old story. After the first Zionist Congress in 1897, two rabbis visited Palestine to consider its suitability for a future Jewish national home. They reported back: ‘The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man’. This is the core paradox in the origins of Israel as a settler-colonial state. Zionism proposed a ‘land without people for a people without land’ but the land was in fact already inhabited by a substantial Palestinian population.

The book returns to the pre-history and origins of Israel to make sense of the terrible history of dispossession, violence and exile endured by the Palestinians. But she also has chapters covering the major developments since 1948, including the relationship between Israel and imperialism (one excellent chapter is called ‘Why does the West support Israel?’)

3. The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine, Bernard Regan(Verso, 2018) is an unmatched history of the Balfour Declaration and its aftermath. The UK government’s declaration was a pledge to the Zionist movement to support its aspirations to a ‘Jewish national home’ in historic Palestine – a shameless and cynical act that suited British colonial interests, while ignoring the needs of the Palestinians.

Regan doesn’t merely provide an account of the declaration’s history but documents the events that took Palestine from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the Nakba of 1948 that established Israel through massive ethnic cleansing. Crucially, this includes paying a lot of attention to the Palestinian resistance to growing settler-colonialism, especially the strikes and other revolts of 1936-39. 

4. Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel, David Cronin (Pluto, 2017) is also very strong on the context and ramifications of the Balfour Declaration. David Cronin demonstrates the close links between British colonial interests and developments in Palestine up to 1948.

The book has a much longer historical reach than this though. Cronin subsequently documents the ongoing complicity of the UK in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, with 5 out of 9 chapters covering events since 1948. These chapters focus on political, military and business relations, exposing how consistently supportive UK governments have been towards Israel. It is particularly damning about the history of Labour governments.

5. The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation: Repression Beyond Exploitation, Shir Hever(Pluto, 2010) tackles the complex topic of the economics of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Hever, a left-wing Israeli economist, takes a long view, going back to 1967 when Israel occupied new territory including Gaza and the West Bank.

It is the kind of scholarly research that supports the efforts of activists by providing a wealth of facts and insights. Hever shows how Israel has strangled efforts at Palestinian economic development, as well as examining the relationships between Israel and the wider world, especially the US.

6. War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification,Jeff Halper (Pluto, 2015) is also concerned with economic and business relationships between Israel and the rest of the world. The focus is on revealing how Israel exports its hi-tech weapons, drone technology and security and surveillance systems to other countries, using its status as a market leader in violent repression to make profits and boost its international standing.

Halper analyses these technologies of control both in relation to the oppression of Palestinians and in terms of their wider use elsewhere in the world, showing how Israel plays a central role in the worldwide suppression of human rights. It is a chilling and disturbing book, via its focus on the cold, hard facts of how Israel both controls the lives of Palestinians and profits from its leading role in the global arms trade.

7. Bad News from Israel, Greg Philo and Mike Berry (Pluto, 2004) is a classic study of how the media mis-represents Israel’s ongoing war on the Palestinians in terms of a two-sided, eternal conflict between more or less equal sides. The authors, from the Glasgow University Media Group ,oversaw a large-scale, rigorous research project that examined how the news media represented Palestine and Israel. It goes beyond the headlines and examines the processes that shape these news representations: media ownership, dominant ideologies, and so on.

The book also benefits from a very extensive account of the history – stretching back to the birth of the Zionist movement – that is invariably omitted from media accounts. Current media bias on Gaza indicates why this book, which contains invaluable models and frameworks for examining news media output, retains its relevance. 

8. Cracks in the Wall: Beyond Apartheid in Palestine/Israel, Ben White (Pluto, 2018) is both sober and hopeful. White documents how Israel is ‘already a single (apartheid) state’ and is ruthlessly realistic about how grim the situation on the ground in Palestine is and how dreadfully right-wing and racist Israeli politics has become (in both these respects, things have only got worse since 2018).

But it also offers tentative hope by examining the cracks in the wall of support for Israeli apartheid, including the growing divides in American Jewish communities (with more mainly young Jews turning against Israel) and the impact of the global BDS movement and the pressures it has generated. It ends with a strong and cogent case for a one-state alternative based on radically different principles – including respect for the rights of all ethnic and social groups – to the current apartheid regime that stretches from the river to the sea.

9.   Working Palestine: Covid-19, Labour, and Trade Unions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Riya Al-Sanah, Adam Hanieh and Rafeef Ziadah (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2021) is a remarkably thorough report. It is unusual and refreshing in focusing on Palestinian workers, their experiences at work, and their efforts to organise as workers.

The researchers provide a superb overview of the historical and political background before examining the conditions and struggles in a number of sectors: health, education, construction and agriculture. They also outline some ideas about the way ahead for Palestinian workers across historic Palestine. 

10. Poetic Injustice: writings on resistance and Palestine, Remi Kanazi (RoR Publishing, 2011) is rather different to everything else in this list. It is a collection of poems by Kanazi, a Palestinian writer based in New York, and it conveys the suffering, steadfastness and resistance of Palestinians on every page.

It may be a book of poems, but it actually has a great deal in common with the other titles here. Though expressed differently, it covers the same ground – as you can see from titles like ‘A Poem for Gaza’, ‘Palestinian Identity’, ‘Coexistence’ and ‘The Dos and Don’ts of Palestine’. At times lyrical, at times satirical, at times uplifting, it really packs a punch. 

⍐ Alex Snowdon     24 December 2023    Book review    Counterfire

Earth is finishing up its warmest year in the past 174 years, and very likely the past 125,000.

Earth Was Due for Another Year of Record Warmth. But This Warm?

Scientists are already busy trying to understand whether 2023’s off-the-charts heat is a sign that global warming is accelerating.

Earth is finishing up its warmest year in the past 174 years, and very likely the past 125,000.

Unyielding heat waves broiled Phoenix and Argentina. Wildfires raged across Canada. Flooding in Libya killed thousands. Wintertime ice cover in the dark seas around Antarctica was at unprecedented lows.

This year’s global temperatures did not just beat prior records. They left them in the dust. From June through November, the mercury spent month after month soaring off the charts. December’s temperatures have largely remained above normal: Much of the Northeastern United States is expecting springlike conditions this week.

That is why scientists are already sifting through evidence — from oceans, volcanic eruptions, even pollution from cargo ships — to see whether this year might reveal something new about the climate and what we are doing to it.

One hypothesis, perhaps the most troubling, is that the planet’s warming is accelerating, that the effects of climate change are barreling our way more quickly than before. “What we’re looking for, really, is a bunch of corroborating evidence that all points in the same direction,” said Chris Smith, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds. “Then we’re looking for causality. And that will be really interesting.”

As extreme as this year’s temperatures were, they did not catch researchers off guard. Scientists’ computational models offer a range of projected temperatures, and 2023’s heat is still broadly within this range, albeit on the high end.

On its own, one exceptional year would not be enough to suggest something was faulty with the computer models, said Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University. Global temperatures have long bobbed up and down around a steady warming trend because of cyclical factors like El Niño, the climate pattern that appeared in spring and has intensified since, possibly signaling more record heat to come in 2024.

“Your default position has to be, ‘The models are right,’” Dr. Dessler said. “I’m not willing to say that we’ve ‘broken the climate’ or there’s anything weird going on until more evidence comes in.”

One thing researchers will be watching is whether something unexpected might be happening in the interplay of two major climate influences: the warming effect of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and the cooling effect of other types of industrial pollution.

For much of the past 174 years, humans have been filling the skies with both greenhouse gases and aerosols, or tiny particles from smokestacks, tailpipes and other sources. These particles are harmful to the lungs when inhaled. But in the atmosphere, they reflect solar radiation, partly offsetting the heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide.

In recent decades, however, governments have begun reducing aerosol pollution for public-health reasons. This has already caused temperature increases to speed up since 2000, scientists estimate.

And in a much-discussed report last month, the climate researcher James E. Hansen argued that scientists had vastly underestimated how much more the planet would warm in the coming decades if nations cleaned up aerosols without cutting carbon emissions.

Not all scientists are persuaded.

Arguments like Dr. Hansen’s have been hard to square with patterns in recent decades, said Reto Knutti, a climate physicist at the Swiss university ETH Zurich. In recent years, scientists have also discovered that global warming is shaped not just by how much heat is trapped near Earth’s surface but also by how and where this heat is distributed across the planet.

This makes it even harder to conclude with confidence that warming is poised to accelerate, Dr. Knutti said. Until the current El Niño is over, “it’s unlikely we’ll be able to make definitive claims,” he said.

Pinning down the precise scale of aerosols’ effect has been difficult, too.

Part of how aerosols cool the planet is by making clouds brighter and deflecting more solar radiation. But clouds are devilishly complex, coming and going and leaving few traces for scientists to examine, said Tianle Yuan, a geophysicist with NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “That’s fundamentally why it’s a hard problem,” he said.

This year, aerosols have been of particular interest because of a 2020 international regulation that restricted pollution from ships. Dr. Yuan and others are trying to identify how much the regulation might have increased global temperatures in recent years by limiting sunlight-reflecting aerosols.

Dr. Hansen’s argument for faster warming leans in part on reconstructions of climatic shifts between ice ages over the past 160,000 years.

Using Earth’s distant past to make inferences about climate in the coming years and decades can be tricky. Still, the planet’s deep history highlights how extraordinary the present era is, said Bärbel Hönisch, a scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Fifty-six million years ago, for instance, geologic turmoil added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in quantities comparable to what humans are adding today. Temperatures jumped. The oceans grew acidic. Species died en masse.

“The difference is that it took about 3,000 to 5,000 years to get there” back then, Dr. Hönisch said, compared with a few centuries today.

It then took Earth even longer to neutralize that excess carbon dioxide: about 150,000 years.

Nadja Popovich contributed reporting.

Raymond Zhong reports on climate and environmental issues for The Times

⍐ 

People gather at the Mao Zedong Square in Shaoshan

 Pushing forward the cause pioneered by Mao best way to pay tribute: Xi

By Cui Fandi in Shaoshan and 

Yang Sheng

 in BeijingPublished: Dec 26, 2023 11:56 PM

People gather at the Mao Zedong Square in Shaoshan, the late leader's hometown in Central China's Hunan Province, laying flowers in front of a giant Mao statue and singing the revolutionary song "The East Is Red" on December 26, 2023 to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Mao's birth. Similar events are also held in other places across China. Photo: Cui Fandi/GT

"The East Is Red"

Commemorations to mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of People's Republic of China's founding leader Chairman Mao Zedong were held by the Communist Party of China, the Chinese local governments and Chinese people across the country on Tuesday. 
From major cities like Beijing and Shanghai to Mao's hometown of Shaoshan in Central China's Hunan Province, as well as sacred revolutionary sites like Jingganshan in East China's Jiangxi Province and Yan'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, high-profile official and voluntary commemorations nationwide highlight the significance of Mao's thoughts, spirit and legacies on all fronts to not only China, but also to a world in turbulence, as experts remarked.
High-profile commemoration
The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Tuesday morning held a symposium to commemorate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Mao Zedong, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivered an important speech at the symposium held in the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing.
Xi stressed the importance of pushing forward the cause pioneered by Comrade Mao Zedong and called for efforts to build China into a stronger country and rejuvenate the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization.
Mao Zedong Thought is an invaluable spiritual wealth for our Party and will guide our action in the long term, Xi said, underscoring that the best way to commemorate Comrade Mao Zedong is to continue to advance the cause pioneered by him.
Before the symposium, Xi and other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi and Vice President Han Zheng, as well as other senior leaders of the Party and the state gathered at the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. 
Xi and the leaders bowed three times to the seated statue of Comrade Mao and then went to pay homage to Comrade Mao's body in the hall where his remains lie.
Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "when it comes to round numbers like the 110th, 120th and 130th anniversaries, China will surely organize a high-profile commemoration to pay tribute to Mao, and Chinese people will voluntarily pay tribute to him because Mao had made tremendous contributions to the happiness that we have today and to the rejuvenation process of the Chinese nation." 
From 6 am on Monday to 5 pm on Tuesday, Mao's birthplace of Shaoshan welcomed 111,570 tourists, the Global Times learned from local tourism authorities, an increase of 712.93 percent from 2022 and 13.92 percent from 2019.
The city's tourism income on Monday and Tuesday reached 94.39 million yuan ($13.2 million), a 708.15 percent increase from 2022 and a 12.72 percent increase from 2019, as people from all over China flocked to Mao's birthplace to commemorate the 130th anniversary of his birth on Tuesday.
The Global Times learned from authorities in Shaoshan that people from all over the country spontaneously flocked to Shaoshan to commemorate the birthday of the late Chinese leader. "It is out of pure affection and respect that the people hold for the chairman, and it just cannot be stopped," said a local official who didn't give his name.  
In former revolutionary strongholds like Jinggangshan and Yan'an, commemorative events were held by local governments and ordinary people. And on social media networks, a huge number of netizens made comments to commemorate Mao in their own words. On Sina Weibo, China's X-like social media platform, the hashtags about the 130th anniversary of Mao's birth reached more than 300 million views and millions of comments as of press time.
A key reason why Mao is cherished greatly at present is that, at a time when China is shouldering rising pressures and hostility from the US and some of its allies, the people admire his courage, wisdom and determination to withstand and fight hegemony and imperialism, Xin noted. The outside world needs to correctly understand the strength and emotion behind the Chinese people's commemoration of Chairman Mao. 
When answering why Mao and his works are popular among the youth in China today, Kang Tian, a student from Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Global Times that "we young people find that Chairman Mao is not far from us, as we can talk to him by reading his works, and find solutions and energy when we encounter difficulties and challenges. In the Chairman's mind, we, the youth, are warriors, creators and masters of the future."
Priceless legacies
In his speech on Tuesday, Xi said that the life of Comrade Mao Zedong was one devoted to national prosperity, rejuvenation and people's happiness. Mao led the people in blazing a trail for adapting Marxism to the Chinese context, forging the great, glorious and correct CPC and founding the New China with the people being masters of the country, Xi said.
Xi said Mao is "a great man of the generation who led the Chinese people to completely change their own destiny and the appearance of the country," and "is a great internationalist who made significant contributions to the liberation of the oppressed nations of the world and the cause of human progress." 
"Xi's remarks have comprehensively and precisely summed up the significance of Mao to both China and the world," Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. Mao proved that Marxism could be adapted by the Chinese context. By innovating and reforming the ideological system of Marxism based on China's national conditions and practices of the CPC, China was able to ensure the Chinese revolution's success and find the correct path for the country's development. 
Jin Canrong, associate dean of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "if we can add one more title for Mao in the future, it could be 'the father of China's industrialization.' Mao's era accomplished the industrialization of China in only about 30 years, while the West spent about 300 years to do this." 
"After Mao's era ended, China became a nuclear-armed power with a complete industrial system and capability to explore space. This is a remarkable contribution and it was the foundation for China's successful reform and opening-up, as well as Chinese modernization today," Jin noted. 
Mao also led the people in establishing an advanced socialist system and founded a new model of people's army that is invincible, Xi said. Mao made indelible historic contributions to the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, which will go down in history, Xi said.
Comrade Mao Zedong devoted his life to the Party and the people, and his noble spirit will be forever remembered by posterity. Noting that the central task of the whole Party and the entire nation on the new journey of the new era is to build China into a stronger country and rejuvenating the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization, Xi said it is a cause passed down from veteran revolutionaries including Mao Zedong, and is the solemn historical responsibility of today's Chinese Communists.
Zhang Yiwu, a professor from Peking University, told the Global Times that "Mao is the pioneer of Chinese modernization. He opened the way for China to step on the path of its own modernization." Mao will always be a symbol of China's spirit and Chinese culture, Zhang said.⍐

An explosion near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi

No embassy staff hurt in blast near Israeli mission in Delhi

By Anushree Fadnavis and Krishn Kaushik December 26, 2023

Reuters

NEW DELHI, Dec 26 (Reuters) - An explosion near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday did not kill or wound any staff members, authorities said, adding that investigations into its cause were ongoing.

Officials were still inspecting the area but it had been reopened to the general public. There was no information suggesting anyone on the street had been hurt.

Israeli missions around the world have been on alert amid a rise in antisemitic attacks since Israel launched its counteroffensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

"We can confirm that around 5:20 pm there was a blast at close proximity to the embassy," Israeli Embassy spokesperson Guy Nir told Reuters, adding that local police and security teams were investigating.

Nothing had been found in the search operation three hours after the blast, an official involved in the investigation told Reuters.

In January 2021, a small bomb went off near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi without harming anyone. An Israeli official said at the time that Israel was treating the blast as a terrorist incident.

Reporting by Anushree Fadnavis, Tanvi Mehta, Kanjyik Ghosh and Krishn Kaushik; Editing by David Goodman, William Maclean and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

NDTV

New Delhi: The Delhi Police received a call about a "blast" being heard near the Israeli embassy this evening.

A team of the Delhi Police along with the dog squad, crime team, and the bomb disposal squad reached the spot. Soon, experts from the forensic laboratory also reached the spot.

At an empty plot of land, just a few metres away from the embassy, the police found a letter addressed to the Israeli Ambassador.

They also found a flag wrapped with the letter. The letter has been seized by the police

The teams, after a thorough search of the area, collected exhibits as evidence and sent them for forensic examination, the police said.

Israel's deputy envoy Ohad Nakash Kaynar, in a video statement, said, "This evening, several minutes after 5 pm, an explosion occurred in close proximity with the embassy. All our workers are safe. Our diplomats are safe. Our security teams are working in full cooperation with the local Delhi security."

The police have increased security at the Chabad House in central Delhi's Paharganj area. A security cordon has been created around the Jewish community center. The cops are monitoring the area through CCTV cameras.

⍐

Ukrainian Missile Strike Hits Russian Warship in Occupied Crimea

Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged that the Novocherkassk had been damaged in what appeared to be one of the most significant attacks on the Black Sea Fleet in months. 

By Constant Méheut Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine Dec. 26, 2023

A Ukrainian missile strike hit a Russian warship moored in Crimea early on Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of the most significant attacks against Moscow’s prized Black Sea Fleet in months amid Kyiv’s intensified campaign to target the Russian-occupied peninsula.

The Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement that it had destroyed the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, in the southeastern Crimean port of Feodosia overnight. Russia’s Defense Ministry told the Tass state news agency that the ship had been damaged in an attack using “aircraft-guided missiles,” but did not say whether the vessel had been permanently disabled.

Videos of the attack that appeared to be taken by residents and were released by the Ukrainian Air Force showed a huge explosion that produced a large fireball, followed by a giant cloud of smoke and fire billowing into the night sky.

The footage could not be immediately verified, but Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, said that the attack had started a fire in Feodosia. One person was killed and two others were wounded in the assault, he added.

“The fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller!” Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine’s Air Force, wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app celebrating the strike, which he noted came after Ukrainian missiles sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last year.

The Ukrainian military has long maintained that the war cannot be won without taking aim at Russian assets and operations in Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. In recent months, Ukraine has sharply accelerated the pace of strikes on the peninsula, which Russia’s military uses as a logistics hub for its hold on southern Ukraine — stockpiling fuel, ammunition and other supplies to be funneled to the battlefields — but also as a launchpad for attacks.

The Black Sea Fleet has fired devastating precision cruise missiles at cities and towns deep inside Ukraine. In an attempt to reduce the threat, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly targeted the fleet this year — damaging a warship in August and hitting the fleet’s headquarters a month later.

Those attacks were significant achievements for a country without warships of its own, and rare successes in a year marked by disappointing efforts to break through Russian defensive lines on the battlefield.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that it had used cruise missiles in Tuesday’s attack, which took place at around 2:30 a.m. local time in southeastern Crimea. Russia’s Defense Ministry told Tass that two Ukrainian Su-24 fighter jets involved in the attack on Feodosia had been “destroyed” — a claim that Ukraine’s military denied.

While the extent of the damage to the ship was not immediately clear, the attack hit what appeared to be a valuable target. Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported that President Vladimir V. Putin had been informed of the attack and the damage to the vessel.

The 360-foot long Novocherkassk was capable of transporting up to 10 tanks and several hundred troops, according to Russian news media, which reported that it had previously been involved in Russian military operations in Syria. About a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine’s Air Force said it had targeted the Novocherkassk in an attack on the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk. In June of that year, Tass reported that the ship was part of a group of 12 vessels “ready to perform combat tasks in the Black Sea.”

Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday that it suspected that the ship was carrying Iranian-made attack drones for use in the war. Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army in the south, told national television that “it is clear that such a large detonation was caused not just by fuel or ammunition of the ship itself.”

Andrii Klymenko, the head of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies, agreed. “Judging by the video of the explosion, which was very powerful, it was carrying explosives: either shells or missiles, or, as some people say, drones,” he wrote in a text message.

Mr. Klymenko noted that the port of Feodosia was close to Cape Chauda, which he said Russia has long used as a launch site for attack drones.

Data compiled by his institute shows that the Ukrainian military carried out at least 155 attacks on Crimea and the Russian Black Sea Fleet from January to October of this year — averaging one every other day. Amid the intensified campaign, Russia relocated vessels from Sevastopol harbor, the fleet’s home port.

Some of those ships, Mr. Klymenko said, were moved to the port of Novorossiysk, a Black Sea naval and shipping hub, or to the eastern side of Crimea, which was seen as less vulnerable to attacks by Ukrainian sea drones. But Tuesday’s attack on Feodosia, which is on Crimea’s eastern coast, underscored that those ports were still at risk.

The strike came as Ukraine signaled that it was girding for a protracted war against Russia. On Monday, the government introduced a bill in Parliament that proposes lowering the age of people who can be drafted into the military to 25 from 27.

The bill also proposes the introduction of a three-month military training course for all Ukrainians ages 18 to 25, and changes to the conscription process.

As the Ukrainian Army suffers from a shortage of troops to battle Russia’s repeated assaults, the conscription process has come under scrutiny amid reports of wrongful draft notices and coercive mobilization tactics.

Military officials have said in recent days that a large-scale mobilization of up to 500,000 soldiers would be necessary. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said a plan still had to be drawn up before he could make a decision.

Constant Méheut has covered France from the Paris bureau of The Times since 2020. 

⍐