Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a deadly Israeli attack on a Gaza hospital, a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, and a powerful typhoon in Vietnam.
Hospital Attack
Israeli forces struck a main hospital in Gaza twice on Monday, in a deadly attack that killed at least 20 people—including hospital medics and five journalists—and sparked sharp global condemnation.
The two Israeli strikes occurred just minutes apart, with the second strike taking place as journalists and rescue workers arrived to help victims and document the scene. The five journalists killed were Hussam Al-Masri, a Reuters contractor; Mohammed Salama, a camera operator for Al Jazeera; Mariam Abu Dagga, a freelance photojournalist; Ahmed Abu Aziz, a freelance journalist; and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance video journalist.
The attack marks one of the deadliest on journalists covering the war in Gaza since the conflict began in 2023. In the nearly two years since the war erupted, at least 197 journalists and media workers have been killed, 189 of whom were Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Since Israel has prohibited nearly all international journalists from entering Gaza to report on the war, that responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Palestinian journalists.
More than 1,500 health workers have also been killed in the war, per the United Nations, while the overall death toll in Gaza has surpassed a staggering 62,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The aftermath of the first strike was captured in a live video feed transmitted by Al-Ghad TV, a Cairo-based pan-Arab broadcaster. In the video, emergency responders can be seen with a white body bag on a staircase; the second strike then hits, producing smoke and dust, according to the New York Times.
“Israel’s broadcasted killing of journalists in Gaza continues while the world watches and fails to act firmly on the most horrific attacks the press has ever faced in recent history,” Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “These murders must end now. The perpetrators must no longer be allowed to act with impunity.”
Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin said Israel does not target civilians and accused Hamas of hiding among hospitals—including Nasser Hospital, the target on Monday—although he did not clarify whether Hamas militants were believed to be in Nasser during the strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that it “deeply regrets the tragic mishap” at Nasser and that “military authorities are conducting a thorough investigation” into the incident. “Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians,” the statement read. “Our war is with Hamas terrorists. Our just goals are defeating Hamas and bringing our hostages home.”
The attack triggered sharp condemnation from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and other world leaders and also appeared to dissatisfy U.S. President Donald Trump. When asked by a reporter about the attack during an Oval Office event, Trump said he hadn’t heard about it, before adding: “I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to see it. At the same time, we have to end that whole nightmare.”
Monday’s strikes come just days after the world’s leading hunger monitor found that famine is now officially gripping Gaza City and the surrounding territory and as Netanyahu appears to be moving ahead with plans to expand Israeli military operations in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces will call up 60,000 reservists, it announced last week.
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The World This Week
Friday, Aug. 29: Samoa holds a snap election.
Saturday, Aug. 30: Four-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sunday, Aug. 31, to Monday, Sept. 1: China hosts the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
What We’re Following
U.S.-South Korea talks. Trump hosted South Korean President Lee Jae-myung in the White House on Monday for talks set to focus on U.S. tariffs, trade opportunities, and shipbuilding. But just hours before their meeting, the mood between the two leaders appeared tense, with Trump musing about South Korea’s political stability in a post on Truth Social and questioning the two countries’ business ties.
“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution,” Trump wrote. “We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”
Trump later said his post was referring to “intel” he’d heard about recent and “very vicious” raids on churches in South Korea. The South Korean government even went to a U.S. military base and “got information,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, without offering further details.
But once in the White House together, the two leaders appeared friendly, with Trump congratulating his South Korean counterpart on his recent election and remarking that he feels “very warmly” toward Seoul. He appeared to brush aside his initial remarks about South Korean raids, saying that he was sure it was a “misunderstanding. ” Lee told Trump that South Korean authorities had investigated the South Korean unit within the U.S. military base, rather than directly investigating the U.S. base, and promised to explain in further detail later.
Trump also expressed his hopes for meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “in the appropriate future.”
Independence Day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rang in Ukraine’s Independence Day on Sunday with a speech vowing to continue fighting for the country’s freedom. “We need a just peace, a peace where our future will be decided only by us,” he declared in Kyiv’s central square. “Ukraine has not yet won, but it has certainly not lost.” He later met separately with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg, both of whom were in Kyiv over the weekend and attended the country’s Independence Day celebrations.
Zelensky’s speech comes during a particularly high-stakes moment in Russia’s invasion—which has now stretched past three and a half years—and followed a whirlwind week of diplomacy aimed at ending the war, with Trump meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and then separately with Zelensky and Ukraine’s European allies in Washington. Last week, Russia also launched its biggest wave of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine in weeks, according to Ukrainian officials.
“Terrifying” typhoon. A powerful typhoon slammed into Vietnam on Monday with winds exceeding 120 miles per hour. As of Monday, the storm, dubbed Typhoon Kajiki, had killed at least one person. In preparation for the typhoon’s arrival, authorities had ordered the evacuation of nearly 600,000 people, suspended flights, and closed schools.
One evacuee told Reuters that the experience was “terrifying.” “When I look down from the higher floors, I could see waves as tall as 2 meters, and the water has flooded the roads around us,” he said. Typhoon Kajiki’s arrival comes less than a year after Super Typhoon Yagi battered the region last September, killing around 300 people in Vietnam and causing power outages for around 1.5 million people.
Odds and Ends
Crowds of corgis (and their owners) from around the world descended on Lithuania’s capital over the weekend for Corgi Race Vilnius 2025, an international event where the popular pups compete to determine “which fluffball has the biggest explosive power,” which has “mightiest voice,” and which is the “most clever corgi,” among other coveted titles, according to the event’s website. The most explosive fluffball title went to a mighty corgi named Mango, who used his tiny legs to speed past all of his competition in the solo race. “He knows what he did, and he’s really proud of himself,” said Ignas Klimaika, Mango’s owner.
The post Israel Strikes Gaza Hospital Twice appeared first on Foreign Policy.
