Gaza

• Hamas and PM Netanyahu both made statements yesterday that cast doubt on the likelihood of them working out a peace deal soon.
• Netanyahu said he could only agree to terms that "allow Israel to resume fighting until all of the objectives of the war have been achieved" - something Hamas has said it couldn't support - and Hamas said that Israel's ongoing military operations in Gaza threaten to revert "the negotiating process to point zero."
• Nonetheless, talks continue in Cairo.

• On Sunday, Ukraine targeted a warehouse in Russia's southwestern Voronezh region that it claimed was storing ammunition. That claim is probably correct: Ukraine's drone strikes ignited fires and explosions characteristic of burning munitions.
• Russia vowed to respond to Ukraine's strikes, and indeed it did - with a flurry of airstrikes across Ukraine yesterday.
• One of Russia's strikes yesterday was a direct hit - in broad daylight - on Ukraine's largest children's hospital, Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt.
• Pres. Zelensky lambasted Russia for that strike: "Russia cannot help but know where its missiles are flying, and must fully answer for all its crimes: against people, against children, against humanity in general."

• Pres. Zelensky also criticized India's PM Modi for honoring Pres. Putin with a state visit on the same day Russian missiles destroyed the Okhmatdyt hospital, calling Modi's outreach a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts."
• India benefits from cheap Russian gas, so Modi is happy to play both sides. But behind closed doors, he plans to complain to Putin about Indian nationals being "duped" into fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

• ECOWAS tasked Senegal's President Basirou Diomaye Faye with trying to coax junta-led Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso into recommitting to the regional bloc, which they were ousted from (and simultaneously quit) following their respective coups.
• The three outcast Sahel states just signed a pact forming their own breakaway bloc and seem uninterested in returning to ECOWAS, which they complain is too close to the West - and especially to France, their reviled former colonial power.

• A new UN Security Council (UNSC) report estimated that there are 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers directly fighting with M23 rebels in eastern Congo, and said that the Rwandan troops "were critical to the impressive territorial expansion [M23] achieved between January and March 2024."
• There are only around 3,000 Congolese M23 rebels, so the UNSC's assessment would mean at least half of M23's force strength is made up of Rwandan soldiers.
• The UNSC also reported that Uganda's army provided some operational support for the M23-Rwandan force - even though Uganda officially sides with - and conducts joint operations with - DRC's army against the rebels.