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June 20th marked the start of the summer solstice, a moment that draws thousands of people from around the world to the ancient Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, Mexico, to see a phenomenon that appears each year - a sun shadow of a serpent descending from top of the site’s main period. What many visitors don’t know is that much of the modern understanding of the ancient Mayans is rooted in the work of a Ukrainian-born academic from the Soviet era. Marcus Harton narrates this report from Olga Pavlova in Moscow. Camera: Ricardo Marquina Montanana and Luis Ramirez

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

MANILA — The Philippines did not consider invoking a mutual defence treaty with the United States after accusing China of disrupting a resupply mission in the disputed South China Sea, officials said on Friday. A Philippine sailor suffered serious injury after what its military described as "intentional-high speed ramming" by the Chinese Coast Guard on Monday, aiming to disrupt a resupply mission for troops stationed on the Second Thomas Shoal. Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who also chairs the national maritime council, said the confrontation between Philippine navy sailors and the Chinese coast guard "was probably a misunderstanding or an accident". "We are not yet ready to classify this as an armed attack," Bersamin told a briefing. The Philippines has a mutual defence treaty with the United States, and U.S. officials including President Joe Biden have reaffirmed its "ironclad" defence commitments against any attack on Philippine aircraft and vessels in the South China Sea. Andres Centino, a presidential assistant for maritime concerns, said invoking the treaty was not considered in discussions. The council, however, had recommended to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that its resupply missions to the disputed shoal should continue to be "scheduled regularly".

WINDHOEK — A high court in Namibia on Friday declared unconstitutional two colonial-era laws that criminalized same-sex acts between men, in a landmark win for the LGBTQ community in the southern African nation. The case was brought by Namibian activist Friedel Dausab with the support of UK-based non-governmental organization Human Dignity Trust. Dausab told Reuters after the court's decision he was "just happy". "It's a great day for Namibia," he said. "It won't be a crime to love anymore." Rights campaigners say that while convictions under the laws on "sodomy" and "unnatural sexual offences" were relatively rare, they have perpetuated discrimination against the LGBTQ community and made gay men live in fear of arrest. Namibia inherited the laws when it gained independence from South Africa in 1990, though same-sex acts between men were initially criminalized under colonial rule. South Africa has since decriminalized same-sex sexual activity and is the only country on the African continent to allow LGBTQ couples to adopt children, marry and enter civil unions. Last year, Uganda enacted one of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, which included the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality", despite widespread condemnations from the West.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — For more than two years, Western countries have urged South Korea to directly arm Ukraine, insisting that South Korean weapons could play a pivotal role in helping Kyiv fight off Russia's invasion. South Korea, a major arms producer, has resisted, concerned that directly arming Ukraine could prompt Russia to expand its military cooperation with North Korea, which seeks help on advanced weapons that target Seoul. That calculation may be changing. This week, Russia and North Korea announced a mutual defense treaty. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted the deal could facilitate the provision of more weapons to Pyongyang. The formalization of North Korea-Russia ties surprised many observers, who had assumed Moscow was mainly pursuing short-term gains with Pyongyang. The move also enraged the government of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. In a briefing Thursday, South Korean National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin slammed the Russia-North Korea treaty as a violation of international law and said his government would reconsider its ban on sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. It is not the first time that Yoon's conservative government has hinted at a change in its Ukraine policy but its latest threat may be more serious, if comments by South Korean officials are any indication. According to the conservative Joongang Ilbo, a senior official in South Korea's presidential office said "we will consider whatever steps Russia would find most painful," while also noting Seoul is watching to see Russia's next moves. Andrii Nikolaeinko, a former diplomat at Ukraine's embassy in Seoul and now a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told VOA that he believes such statements suggest Seoul is prepared to modify its policy. "My contact and sources led me to believe that it's possible and is going to happen soon," Nikolaeinko said, without providing more details. "It's not just only my personal opinion, but also the expectation of Ukrainian officials that this time South Korea will really change its policy on supplying ammunition to Ukraine, probably openly and directly," he added. Though South Korea still faces a tricky situation and may proceed cautiously, some observers argue that Seoul's considerations might be changing in a fundamental way. "Putin signing a comprehensive strategic partnership with Kim Jong Un suggests that South Korea's self-restraint in supporting Ukraine buys it little to nothing in Moscow," Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Seoul's Ewha University, said. A Seoul-based European ambassador told VOA he is waiting to see how the situation will develop. But, the ambassador added, "Now it should be clear that one cannot expect that Russia is capable of playing any constructive role in providing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula." Major impact It is not hard to see why Ukraine has pushed for more help from South Korea. It is the world's ninth-largest arms exporter and has a reputation for quickly supplying affordable and reliable weapons. South Korea has so far only provided weapons to third parties, such as the United States and Poland, which themselves are directly arming Ukraine. To defend their approach, South Korean officials often cite domestic laws that strictly regulate or prevent sending arms to war zones, although Yoon has suggested in the past that such barriers could be overcome. In April of last year Yoon said South Korea could provide more than just humanitarian or financial support if Ukraine comes under a large-scale civilian attack. Since then, Yoon has not clarified what type of incident would meet those standards. At least in theory, a South Korea decision to arm Ukraine could be a game-changer, more than making up for the munitions that Russia has allegedly received from North Korea, analysts say. "South Korea's ability to produce weapons cannot be compared to that of North Korea," Cho Han-beom, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said. "North Korea's weapons help Russia barely sustain the war, but South Korea's weapons could change the entire landscape of the conflict," he said. Ankit Panda, a Washington-based defense analyst who follows the Koreas, agreed to an extent. "That's assuming a large volume of deliveries. Hard to say at this stage what the magnitude of ROK deliveries might look like," Panda, a senior fellow at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said. Two and a half years into the war, Ukraine is searching for whatever help it can find. Russia controls roughly a fifth of Ukraine, according to independent estimates, and has been gaining ground, as Kyiv struggles to find munitions to push back a Russian offensive. "Ukraine needs munitions as it can get them. South Korea has quite a few platforms that would be quite valuable for Kyiv," Panda said, "These capabilities likely won't be transformative … but will nevertheless offer real benefits." How South Koreans feel South Korea's domestic politics provide another possible barrier to becoming more involved in the Ukraine war. Nearly 60% of South Koreans oppose arming Ukraine, according to a poll published in April 2023. There do not appear to be any more recent surveys on the matter, which has not been a subject of intense public debate. Some left-leaning South Korean lawmakers say it would be foolish to upset the status quo, given there is no public evidence that Putin has yet provided Kim with advanced weapons. Kim Joon-hyung, a member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, said it would be "reckless" to intervene in a faraway war and become Russia's enemy. If South Korea wants to change its weapons exports policy, it must first get permission from elected lawmakers, Kim told VOA in an interview. Like some other South Korean foreign policy analysts, Kim questioned whether the Russia-North Korea treaty truly established an alliance, noting that Putin refrained from using that phrase in his public comments following the treaty signing. In Kim's view, Yoon should take a more cautious response to the region. "If you want peace, the president must abandon his false belief that you should prepare for war…if you want peace, prepare for peace," he said. Many South Korean analysts disagree, saying Yoon should draw an even harder line to deter Russia from arming the North. "For example, if Russia transfers core military technology and weapons systems to North Korea, we [would] start providing precision strike weapons to Ukraine," Park Won-gon, a North Korea specialist at Ewha University, said. "This treaty is a very serious problem," said Park. "There are plenty of examples historically, in terms of how we should handle Russia. We have no choice but to go strong."

Taipei, Taiwan — Analysts say China has been placed in an awkward position by the warming ties between Russia and North Korea, which signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit this week to Pyongyang.  The signing of the treaty, which stipulates that if one of the countries is in a state of war, the other will provide it with military assistance, climaxed a widely watched visit in which Putin was welcomed with lavish hospitality.   Putin described the treaty as a breakthrough document that will elevate the cooperation between the two countries to a new level. Kim called the treaty "peaceful and defensive in nature." An article in China's official media, Global Times, quoted Chinese analysts as saying the enhanced alliance is a “rational choice” for Russia and North Korea after the United States and its allies have long sought to isolate and suppress the two countries. But Kuo Yu-jen, a professor of China and Asia-Pacific studies at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, believes that Putin's other consideration in making his first visit to North Korea in nearly 25 years is to use Pyongyang to contain China. "Putin's economic dependence on China has deepened because the war in Ukraine has become a war of attrition. So, he must play the North Korea card to contain China, which is equivalent to saying that Russia and China are mutually hostage. North Korea's making trouble in East Asia is basically a very troubling thing for Beijing," Kuo said. As the war in Ukraine continues, Russia's economic dependence on China deepens, and China's role in the war has gradually become more important. Putin began to strengthen relations with North Korea to ease its financial reliance on China. Nine months ago, Kim visited Russia's Far East. Since strengthening its relations with Russia, North Korea's provocative behavior in East Asia seems to have escalated. In 2022, the country launched more than 90 missiles, the most since Kim came to power. In 2023, North Korea launched the solid-fuel Hwasong-18 missile for the first time. After analyzing the shape and color of the smoke at the tail of the missile, experts pointed out that these technologies clearly came from Russia.   Deng Yuwen, a political commentator and researcher at the Center for China Analysis and Strategy, said on VOA Mandarin's TV show on June 19 that Putin's visit to North Korea may also want to remind China it is not Russia’s only ally. "From China's perspective, it does have some implicit reminder to China that, 'I have other friends.' China always has a boss mentality when it interacts with Russia," he said. Kuo believes Putin's visit to North Korea may encourage closer cooperation among China’s pro-Western neighbors. "This is why we can see that on August 18 last year, the United States, Japan and South Korea formed a small alliance. This is basically very bad for China," he said. On August 18, 2023, the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea held talks at the Camp David presidential retreat in the U.S. in what some analysts described as a "historic" qualitative change marking the reappearance of an "iron triangle" of the three countries. Kuo said that once Russia and North Korea get closer, they will put pressure on China and at the same time, alienate Japan and South Korea from China. Unlike Russia and North Korea, Beijing seems to be deliberately downplaying the Putin visit. At the regular press conference on June 18, in response to a reporter's question, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said simply, "This is bilateral engagement between Russia and the DPRK." Lin said on June 13, "China welcomes Russia to cement and grow ties with countries they have traditional friendship with." Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an interview with Reuters that "China has certain reservations regarding North Korea's deepening military cooperation with Russia, which could undermine Beijing's near monopoly of geopolitical influence over Pyongyang. ...   "China is also careful not to create the perception of a de facto alliance among Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang, as this will not be helpful for China to maintain practical cooperation with key Western countries," Zhao said. China is in fact seeking to ease tensions with Japan and South Korea. Last month, China held a trilateral summit with the two countries to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons, which drew strong condemnation from Pyongyang. China and South Korea held their first vice-ministerial diplomatic and security 2+2 dialogue in Seoul on June 18. According to the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two sides introduced their respective diplomatic and security policies and exchanged views frankly and in-depth on China-South Korea relations and international and regional issues of common concern. However, Kuo believes the relationship between Russia and North Korea is not as close as the leaders of the two countries portray it. "The relationship between North Korea and Russia is that they need each other, but neither has met each other's expectations," he said. Last September, Kim visited Russia and reached an important agreement with Putin to address North Korea's energy shortage. Russia agreed to provide North Korea with 300,000 tons of refined oil and 100,000 tons of agricultural diesel, and asked North Korea to pay in U.S. dollars or rubles. However, due to North Korea's limited transportation capacity and ship safety issues, the actual delivery of oil and diesel was far lower than expected, resulting in severe challenges for North Korea's agricultural production.

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BEIJING — China's top prosecutor urged law enforcement officials across the country on Friday to focus efforts on combating drug trafficking, capping a week in which Beijing and Washington announced a rare joint counternarcotics investigation. The Supreme People's Procuratorate published "six typical cases," involving actions ranging from postal fraud to medical professionals selling illicit drugs on the side, and clarified the legal application standards to handle such cases. The prosecutor said in a statement that the release was meant to show its "determination and attitude to intensify efforts to crack down on related crimes, while hoping that this batch of typical cases will serve as a warning to the society." The United States and China held high-level counternarcotics talks on Thursday following a breakthrough in bilateral cooperation this week in which both sides went after a major drug-linked money laundering operation. The United States, where fentanyl abuse has been a major cause of death, has pushed China for deeper law enforcement cooperation, including tackling illicit finance and further controls on the chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl. These chemicals are often shipped to the U.S. and other destinations from China using mail packages that have unverifiable addresses or are mislabeled, experts say. The U.S. Postal Service has for years struggled with the problem. One of the examples highlighted in the prosecutor's note on Friday involved a case of a Chinese buyer, surnamed Yan, purchasing date-rape drug triazolam from overseas and then selling it in China by mail using mislabeled packaging. As a result, "the procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the postal administration department...urging the regulatory department to fulfill its main responsibility and perform its duties conscientiously." The postal administration then "urged the company to make timely rectifications," the prosecutor said. The note said "the procuratorate invited nearly 100 couriers and college students to attend the trial, focusing on the new characteristics and new forms of new drug cases to carry out anti-drug law publicity." Postal fraud was briefly mentioned in the opening remarks by Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, who on Thursday held talks in Beijing with China's minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong. Gupta said it was among the "areas where we're both being negatively impacted," listing it alongside illicit finance, "illegal drug trafficking and use, and the emergence of new and more dangerous drugs."

CAIRO — Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the GazaStrip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said. Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah, the city on the enclave's southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May. Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already  captured the east, south and center. Israeli forces fired from planes, tanks and ships off the coast, forcing a new wave of displacement from the city, which had been sheltering more than a million displaced people, most of whom have been forced to flee again. Palestinian health officials said at least 12 Palestinians had been killed in separate Israeli military strikes Friday. The Israeli military said on Friday its forces were conducting "precise, intelligence-based" actions in the Rafah area, where troops were involved in close-quarter combat and had located tunnels used by militants. It also reported actions elsewhere in the enclave. Some Rafah residents said the pace of the Israeli raid has been accelerated in the past two days. They said sounds of explosions and gunfire indicating fierce fighting have been almost non-stop. "Last night was one of the worst nights in western Rafah, drones, planes, tanks, and naval boats bombarded the area. We feel the occupation is trying to complete the control of the city," said Hatem, 45, reached by text message. "They are taking heavy strikes from the resistance fighters, which may be slowing them down." More than eight months into the war in Gaza, Israel's advance is now focused on the two last areas its forces had yet to storm: Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah in the center. "The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations," Ahmed Al-Sofi, the mayor of Rafah, said in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday. "The city lives through a humanitarian catastrophe and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombardment," he added. Sofi said there was no medical facility functioning in the city, and that remaining residents and displaced families lacked the minimum of their daily needs of food and water. Palestinian and UN figures show that fewer than 100,000 people may have remained in the far western side of the city, which had been sheltering more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people before the Israeli assault began in early May. The military accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, an allegation Hamas denies. "The soldiers located inside a civilian residence large quantities of weapons hidden in wardrobes, including grenades, explosives, a launcher and anti-tank missiles, ammunition, and arms," the military said in a statement late Thursday. Hamas' armed wing said Thursday its fighters had hit two Israeli tanks with anti-tank rockets in the Shaboura camp in Rafah, and killed soldiers who tried to flee through the alleys. There was no Israeli immediate comment on the Hamas claim. In nearby Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike on Friday killed three people, including a father and son, medics said. In parallel, Israeli forces continued a new push back into some Gaza City suburbs in the north of the enclave, where they fought with Hamas-led militants. Residents said the army forces had destroyed many homes in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday. Later Friday, an Israeli air strike on a facility of the Gaza City municipality killed five people, including four municipality workers, the territory's Civil Emergency Service said. It added that rescue teams were searching the rubble for more missing victims. Israel's ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left nearly the entire population homeless and destitute.

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the country’s new defense pact with North Korea on Friday, as border tensions continued to rise with vague threats and brief, seemingly accidental incursions by North Korean troops. Earlier Friday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a vague threat of retaliation after South Korean activists flew balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border, and South Korea’s military said it had fired warning shots the previous day to repel North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the rivals’ land border for the third time this month. That came two days after Moscow and Pyongyang reached a pact vowing mutual defense assistance if either is attacked, and a day after Seoul responded by saying it would consider providing arms to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion. South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun summoned Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to protest the deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and called for Moscow to immediately halt its alleged military cooperation with Pyongyang. Kim, the South Korean diplomat, stressed that any cooperation that directly or indirectly helps the North build up its military capabilities would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and pose a threat to the South’s security, and warned of consequences for Seoul’s relations with Moscow. Zinoviev replied that he would convey Seoul’s concerns to his superiors in Moscow, the ministry said. Leafletting campaigns by South Korean civilian activists in recent weeks have prompted a resumption of Cold War-style psychological warfare along the inter-Korean border. The South Korean civilian activists, led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it sent 20 balloons carrying 300,000 propaganda leaflets, 5,000 USB sticks with South Korean pop songs and TV dramas, and 3,000 U.S. dollar bills from the South Korean border town of Paju on Thursday night. Pyongyang resents such material and fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say. In a statement carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, called the activists "defector scum" and issued what appeared to be a threat of retaliation. "When you do something you were clearly warned not to do, it’s only natural that you will find yourself dealing with something you didn’t have to," she said, without specifying what the North would do. After previous leafletting by South Korean activists, North Korea launched more than 1,000 balloons that dropped tons of trash in South Korea, smashing roof tiles and windows and causing other property damage. Kim Yo Jong previously hinted that balloons could become the North’s standard response to leafletting, saying that the North would respond by "scattering dozens of times more rubbish than is being scattered on us." In response, South Korea resumed anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts with military loudspeakers installed at the border for the first time in years, to which Kim Yo Jong, in another state media statement, warned that Seoul was "creating a prelude to a very dangerous situation." Tensions between the Koreas are at their highest in years as Kim Jong Un accelerates his nuclear weapons and missile development and attempts to strengthen his regional footing by aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a standoff against the U.S.-led West. South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, says it is considering upping support for Ukraine in response. Seoul has already provided humanitarian aid and other support while joining U.S.-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it has not directly provided arms, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict. Putin told reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday that supplying weapons to Ukraine would be "a very big mistake," and said South Korea "shouldn’t worry" about the agreement if it isn’t planning aggression against Pyongyang. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Minister Cho Tae-yul on Friday held separate phone calls with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa to discuss the new pact. The diplomats agreed that the agreement poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region and vowed to strengthen trilateral coordination to deal with the challenges posed by the alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang, Cho’s ministry said in a statement. North Korea is extremely sensitive to criticism of Kim’s authoritarian rule and efforts to reach its people with foreign news and other media. In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported. South Korea’s military said there are signs that North Korea was installing its own speakers at the border, although they weren’t yet working. In the latest border incident, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several North Korean soldiers engaged in unspecified construction work briefly crossed the military demarcation line that divides the two countries at around 11 a.m. Thursday. The South Korean military broadcast a warning and fired warning shots, after which the North Korean soldiers retreated. The joint chiefs didn’t immediately release more details, including why it was releasing the information a day late. South Korea’s military says believes recent border intrusions were not intentional, as the North Korean soldiers have not returned fire and retreated after the warning shots. The South’s military has observed the North deploying large numbers of soldiers in frontline areas to build suspected anti-tank barriers, reinforce roads and plant mines in an apparent attempt to fortify their side of the border. Seoul believes the efforts are likely aimed at preventing North Korean civilians and soldiers from escaping to the South.  

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Beirut — Israel and Hezbollah traded fresh cross-border fire, as fears of a regional conflict grew after Israel revealed it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive and the Iran-backed militants vowed to blanket their foe in rockets. Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Thursday in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed one of the group's operatives. Hezbollah also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions over the course of the day. The Israeli military said its jets had struck two weapons storage facilities and several other sites belonging to the group, and that it had fired artillery "to remove threats in multiple areas in southern Lebanon." Just before midnight, the army said it had "successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon." And early Friday, Lebanese media reported fresh Israeli strikes in the country's south. Experts are divided on the prospect of a wider war, almost nine months into Israel's campaign to eradicate Hezbollah's ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire since Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the Gaza war, and the bellicose talk has escalated along with the strikes. Israel's main military backer the United States has sought to discourage any expansion of hostilities along the border. In a meeting with visiting Israeli officials in Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored "the importance of avoiding further escalation in Lebanon and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes," according to a statement. In a televised address on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had warned "no place" in Israel would "be spared our rockets" if a wider war began. He also threatened nearby Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel "to target Lebanon." European Union member Cyprus houses two British bases, including an airbase, but they are in sovereign British territory and not controlled by the Cypriot government. On Thursday, Cyprus government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis dismissed as "totally groundless" any suggestion of possible involvement in a conflict related to Lebanon. Warplanes from the British airbase in Cyprus have, along with U.S. forces, attacked Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have for months been targeting Red Sea shipping. On Thursday the U.S. military said it had destroyed several Houthi drones, a day after its forces struck two rebel sites in Yemen. 'Urgent' de-escalation The October Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 37,431 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The latest toll on Thursday included at least 35 deaths over the previous day, the ministry said. The Houthis and Hezbollah both say they are acting in response to Israel's actions in Gaza. On Tuesday, Israel's military announced that "operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated." The same day, Hezbollah published a video showing drone footage it purportedly recorded over northern Israel, including parts of Haifa's city and port. U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein on a trip to the region called for "urgent" de-escalation, while the UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said there was "no inevitability to conflict" as she visited UN peacekeepers in the country's south. The cross-border violence has killed at least 479 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country's north. Weary residents of Beirut on Thursday downplayed the chances of war in Lebanon, which political deadlock has left essentially leaderless while a five-year economic meltdown continues. In Israel, some citizens called for action against Hezbollah, and Noam Galili, 29, said: "I know what it is like to live close to Lebanon, but it never felt as dangerous as it does now." The violence has already displaced tens of thousands of people, mostly in Lebanon, but also in northern Israel. Pressures In southern Gaza, a United Nations mission found hundreds of thousands of displaced people "suffer from poor access to shelter, health, food, water and sanitation," a U.N. report said late Wednesday. In central Gaza, residents said they had turned to cooking oil to power their cars. U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the implementation of a cease-fire plan he outlined last month. Hochstein and Blinken say a deal to curb fighting in Gaza would by extension help resolve the Hezbollah-Israel violence. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners strongly oppose a Gaza cease-fire. Netanyahu is also facing regular street protests demanding a deal to free the hostages and accusing him of prolonging the war. "We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all of the hostages return," Netanyahu said Thursday to relatives of hostages killed in the territory. "We do not have the option of giving up." In a separate statement, he called the war a battle for Israel's existence. But the viability of the war's stated goal of eradicating Hamas has been questioned in some corners. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israel's Channel 13 on Wednesday: "To say that we are going to make Hamas disappear is to throw sand in people's eyes. If we don't provide an alternative, in the end, we will have Hamas." Blinken last month said Washington had not seen an Israeli post-war plan, adding "the trajectory Israel is on" would still leave thousands of Hamas fighters. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said Thursday that Hamas's "final stronghold" in Rafah on the border with Egypt was systematically being taken apart. "And we will win," he told a press briefing.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.