🌏 Four-Day Pause Begins In Gaza, Miss Nepal Becomes First Plus-Size Miss Universe And More

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A four-day pause in fighting begun on Friday Nov. 24 in Gaza but Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will keep fighting after the temporary truce ends.

The pause comes after the Israeli government and Hamas agreed to a deal that would see Hamas return 50 Israeli hostages in return for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisoners.

The Israeli cabinet backed the deal, which was mediated by Qatar, early on Wednesday Nov. 22.

Under the deal, there will be a minimum of a four-day ceasefire, during which Hamas will release at least 50 women and children it took hostage when it launched its surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

In return, Israel will release 150 Palestinian women and children it holds in its prisons.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said for every additional 10 hostages Hamas releases, it will extend the ceasefire for a day.

However, Netanyahu said Israel has no plans to stop the war after the ceasefire.

“We are at war, and we’ll continue this war until we meet all our objectives: dismantling Hamas, returning our hostages, and ensuring that in Gaza there will be no one that threatens Israel,” Netanyahu said, the New York Times reported.

More On Gaza

• Netanyahu, who had repeatedly rejected a ceasefire and said Israel will control Gaza’s security indefinitely after the war, had been under immense pressure both internationally and domestically to agree to a ceasefire. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau called on Israel to stop killing innocent women and children but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Lula condemned Israel’s actions as “terrorism”.  In Israel, the families of the Israeli hostages were joined by hundreds of supporters who marched for five days to his office to demand the government do more to bring the hostages back.
• Ahead of the pause, hundreds of medical staff, patients and civilians were forced to evacuate Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, on Nov. 18. 31 premature babies were also safely evacuated the next day, although nine premature babies and several patients died from lack of medicine and electricity before they could be evacuated.
• Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza have come under intense and repeated Israeli attacks since the war began. Israel has justified its attacks with claims that Hamas is running a “major command center” underneath Al-Shifa. However, it has yet to produce conclusive evidence.
• Conditions in hospitals in Gaza are dire, as doctors in Gaza are working in the dark to save lives. Doctors gave heartbreaking testimonies and interviews before being killed. The World Health Organization has called Al-Shifa a “death zone” and condemned the attacks on the hospitals as “unacceptable”.
• Israel bombed two schools run by the United Nations where at least 7,000 people had been sheltering before the humanitarian pause. This is not the first time that UN shelters have come under attack, with Israel allegedly dropping white phosphorus on another school run by the UN where thousands were sheltering earlier in the month.
• Israel also started ordering Palestinians in the south to evacuate. Tens of thousands of people are now being forced to evacuate again, after having just fled there from north Gaza on Nov. 8. It’s unclear where they are supposed to go as Israel has been bombing all parts of the Gaza Strip, leading to devastating scenes. Many Palestinians say they are fearful this will become another Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their lands during the creation of Israel in 1948.
• But the people of Gaza are not losing hope. Children in Gaza held their own press conference to ask the world to protect them. More than 40% of the more than 15,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are children, with the UN saying that Gaza has become “a graveyard for children”.
• Meanwhile, Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank continue, with Israel arresting more than 1,200 Palestinians since Oct. 7, including Ahed Tamimi, the young Palestinian activist who slapped an Israeli soldier in 2017.
• Israel has revised its death count from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack down from 1,400 to 1,200, admitting that some of the bodies actually belonged to Hamas fighters. Meanwhile, a Canadian woman peace activist was confirmed to have been killed in Hamas' attack.
• Israeli propaganda has been backfiring. An Israeli minister said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was an option and was suspended. An Israeli soldier then raised a LGBTQ pride flag during the invasion of Gaza, drawing accusations of pinkwashing. The Israeli military also said a calendar written in Arabic was a list of terrorist names, which was immediately debunked. A senior advisor to Netanyahu also admitted that Israel had been sharing disinformation after being confronted by a journalist on live TV.
• The war is leading to wider repercussions too. Church leaders have canceled Christmas celebrations across Israel and Palestine. Meanwhile, in Europe, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are both on the rise. Former US president Barack Obama has urged people to understand the complex history between Israel and Palestine and listen to people from the other side.

Also Happening Around The World

🇳🇵A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck Nepal and more than 150 people are dead.

🇭🇷 This Croatian politician tried to kiss a German woman politician at an EU summit and caused a controversy.

🇵🇰 Pakistan has started arresting and mass deporting thousands of Afghan refugees back to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s pacific coast has been hit by its worst ever hurricane, leaving dozens dead and missing.

🇲🇽 Also in Mexico, the country’s first openly non-binary judge has been found dead and people want answers.

Nepalese nursing student, Jane Dipika Garett, has become the first plus-size woman to participate at the Miss Universe pageant.

The 23-year-old from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu took home the crown of Miss Nepal in September and will represent her country at the Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador on Saturday Nov. 18.

Garett has emerged as a fan favorite, becoming one of the most applauded women on stage during the Miss Universe preliminaries on Wednesday Nov. 15, according to local newspapers.

She is an advocate for mental health and body positivity, saying that all women deserve to be represented in the fashion and beauty industry.

She also speaks openly about having polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a condition that causes hormone imbalance and irregular periods.

This year’s Miss Universe is one of the most diverse ever, with two trans women, two mothers, and a Miss Universe contestant from Pakistan, also competing for the first time.

More Women You Should Know About

🇵🇸 A Palestinian singer’s rendition of Lorde’s “Team” is going viral on social media for capturing the heartbreak of Palestinians’ struggle for liberation.

🇸🇪 Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg had the perfect response to a man trying to stop her from talking about Gaza at a climate protest.

🇮🇱 This Israeli-Arab woman lawmaker spoke out against the war and called for peace but was suspended.

🇮🇷 An Iranian mom who spoke out about security forces killing her son has been jailed for 13 years.

🇪🇸 In Spain, the re-elected prime minister named a women-majority cabinet.

Kenya's government created a special public holiday on Nov. 13 for people across the country to plant 100 million trees to help fight climate change.

Kenya's President William Ruto said that the country has set a goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032 and will start by planting 100 million trees this year.

Kenya's Interior Minister announced the holiday a week earlier on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing, "The country shall be expected to plant trees as a patriotic contribution to the national efforts to save our country from the devastating effects of climate change."

The government provided 150 million seedlings for free on Monday to be planted in designated public areas.

Kenyans were encouraged to plant a minimum of two seedlings each, to meet the aim of 100 million trees.

The official counts of seedlings used have not yet been released.

Kenya’s forest cover decreased from 12% to 6% between 1990 and 2010, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The government has set aside more than $80 million this year to restore the forest coverage to more than 10%, according to the Guardian.

More Good News For Your Week

🇬🇧🇰🇷 King Charles honored BLACKPINK and BTS in a speech and you gotta see it to believe it.

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