A step toward peace
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By Jodi Rudoren
I’m a former Jerusalem bureau chief.
The longest and deadliest war in the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be about to end. Israel and Hamas said they had agreed to the first phase of President Trump’s cease-fire plan: All hostages abducted from Israel will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troops will pull back, and humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.
The breakthrough, which Trump announced on social media last night, came two years and a day after the Hamas terror attack on Israel that sparked the assault on Gaza. It was the middle of the night in the Middle East, but Israelis and Palestinians stayed glued to the news and reacted with intense emotion. “That’s it, it’s over!” the mother of one of the hostages said on Israeli TV as family members cheered in the background. In Gaza, an English teacher said he felt “joy for the end of the war and the killing, and sorrow for everything we’ve lost.”
Details of the deal remain unclear, but the release of the 20 hostages believed to still be alive in Gaza is expected as soon as Sunday, when Trump has said he might travel to the region. (The bodies of 28 others will be released in stages.) Trump’s plan calls for the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and of 1,700 Gazans who have been detained during the war in exchange.
The toll
The war that began with the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — 1,200 were killed and 250 kidnapped by Hamas fighters who broke through the fence from Gaza — has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s two million residents and destroyed most of its buildings. Israeli bombs and bullets killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, nearly a third of them under 18 years old; the United Nations estimates that 500,000 are at risk of starvation.
Israel has meanwhile scored major military victories against its other enemies in the region: Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But it has become isolated — accused of genocide in the International Criminal Court and subjected to academic, cultural and economic boycotts. Antisemitic harassment and violence have spiked around the world.
Hamas has lost its military and political leadership and most of its arsenal. Trump’s plan calls for its disarmament and departure from Gaza. Overnight statements about the agreement from Hamas, Israel, Trump and Qatar did not mention the militant group’s weapons, and Israel’s statement did not say anything about withdrawing its troops from Gaza.
Our reporters on the ground in Israel, Gaza, Egypt, Washington and around the world are providing live updates as they unfold. Here are the details of Trump’s 20-point plan.
Breakthrough
‘A great day.’ Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the deal heralded a “Historic and Unprecedented Event.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a great day for Israel” and said he would convene his government Thursday to sign off on the deal. Hamas called on Trump and others to ensure that Israel fully implements the agreement and not to “allow it to evade or delay.”
Who’s at the table. The talks began Monday, a week after Trump unveiled his plan alongside Netanyahu at the White House. They are taking place in Sharm-el-Sheikh, an Egyptian coastal resort town that has been the site of numerous peace conferences and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. On Wednesday, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined Netanyahu’s top aide, Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence chief at the table.
Hostage families. The main group representing them said the agreement had provoked “a mix of excitement, anticipation, and concern” among its members. It expressed “profound gratitude” to Trump and warned the Israeli government that “any delay could exact a heavy toll.”
Beware of A.I. slop
I’m the host of The World.
I recently asked my daughter about the word “slop.” She gave me a giant eye roll and explained that slop was A.I.-generated content — like duh, Mom. That made me determined to know more about it than her, so I contacted my colleague Kevin Roose.
Kevin co-hosts “Hard Fork,” a podcast that is part comedy, part cutting-edge tech chat. Tune in for the great banter with his co-host, Casey Newton! Kevin is also living proof that being a tech nerd presents serious romantic pitfalls.
Two years ago, the Microsoft/OpenAI chatbot Sydney fell hard for Kevin and told him to leave his wife. Now Sora, a brand-new A.I. app from OpenAI, has generated a video (see above) showing Kevin flirting with a robot (“Your presence causes my circuits to overheat”). It was a full-circle moment that shows just how fast this stuff is moving.
So Kevin, let’s talk about slop. All the big tech companies are currently launching these A.I. video apps where you can generate synthetic video content on your phone. You showed me the video of you from Sora.
It looks so real — it’s insane! Tell me about Sora.
It is insane!
In order to use Sora, which is currently only available in the United States and Canada, you have to be invited by a friend. Once you sign up, it asks you to create what it calls a cameo of you. So you say a few words into the camera. You move your head around a little bit. And it uses this to create a digital likeness of you that you can then drop into any situation.
You can change your settings so that any of your friends on the app can do the same thing with your digital likeness. A Sora user created the video above by instructing the app: “An ’80s rom-com set in New York City. We see a young and preppy @kevinroose falling in love with a robot made of found parts and a CRT monitor. They are on a picnic date in Central Park.”
Love it. How does it work?
In a nutshell, these models work by predicting the next chunk of video in a sequence. They’re based on the same underlying technology that powers ChatGPT and other text-based models, and they’re trained on massive amounts of data scraped from the internet. Eventually, they learn patterns in how the world looks and moves, so when you give it a prompt, it can imagine how that scene would unfold over time.
How popular is this likely to become?
Judging by my social media feeds, I think A.I.-generated video is going to be a hit. I’m not sure whether an all-A.I. social media app like Sora will be big, or whether people are just going to use it to generate clips to post on TikTok, Instagram, and in their group chats. But people seem to be having a lot of fun putting their friends into silly clips.
What’s happening in this space around the world, in China and elsewhere?
ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is building its own video-generation models, and you can see some of their A.I. effects in TikTok today. Black Forest Labs, a German start-up, is also working with Meta on its new video-generation app, Vibes.
My teenage kids are excited — they see this as an opportunity to create stuff, like a movie without the Hollywood budget. But the ways this can abused seem endless. What are you worried about?
I’m worried about these apps being used to generate hyper-realistic A.I. deepfakes and further erode our information ecosystem. It’s trivially easy to generate, for example, a fake video of a politician accepting a bribe or saying something incriminating.
I’m also worried about the social and mental health effects of giving everyone on earth access to an infinite library of hyper-personalized, ultra-stimulating A.I.-generated media. (If you thought phone addiction was bad now, wait until everything on the phone is generated specifically for you!)
Are there ways to safeguard against the dark side of this?
Big A.I. companies can (and will) try to clamp down on some of the worst abuses of these systems with content filters, prohibitions on using copyrighted material and public figure likenesses without permission, watermarks, etc. But there will almost certainly be smaller outfits who don’t take those precautions, or open-source video models that can be used without restrictions.
Unfortunately, I think the A.I.-generated cat is out of the bag.
MORE TOP NEWS
Macron won’t call snap elections
Emmanuel Macron, who is trying to pull his country out of a deepening political crisis, will soon appoint a new prime minister, his office said. The announcement ruled out the possibility of imminent snap parliamentary elections and came after last-ditch talks that Sébastien Lecornu, the departing prime minister, held with political parties.
Lecornu came out of those talks with cautious optimism. But the dizzying pace of French politics over the past week and major disagreements between France’s parties made it clear that challenges remained.
OTHER NEWS
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Colombia’s president said that his government believed one of the boats recently bombed by the U.S. in its campaign against alleged drug traffickers had been carrying Colombian citizens.
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James Comey, the former F.B.I. director targeted by Trump, pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied to Congress. His lawyer called the case “vindictive.”
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Myanmar’s military junta used a paraglider to drop a bomb on a Buddhist festival, killing at least two dozen people, according to witnesses.
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The perpetrator of an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last week had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the police said.
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists for the development of molecular building blocks.
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Britain’s exhausted Conservative Party is trying to restore credibility while fending off a threat from the right.
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Four workers died in Spain when a building under construction collapsed in central Madrid.
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A dangerous trend called “bluetoothing,” in which people inject themselves with the blood of other drug users to get high, is contributing to spikes in H.I.V. rates.
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The European Parliament voted to stop meatless products from using terms like “burger” or “steak” on their labels.
SPORTS
Football: Arsenal got tips from the Red Arrows, an elite fighter jet squadron, to help them win the Premier League.
Tennis: Roger Federer caused a stir with his comments about the speed of grass, clay and hard courts.
Mixed martial arts: The former U.F.C. champion Conor McGregor was handed an 18-month ban for missing three drug tests.
NUMBER OF THE DAY
3.5 million
Taylor Swift has already broken the record for opening-week album sales, beating Adele. And it’s only been five days.
MORNING READ
Syrian weddings are loud. Music blares, drums reverberate, women break out into choruses of ululation. Then, there’s the crack of celebratory gunfire.
But after nearly 14 years of war, the government is clamping down on the practice. (Falling bullets have occasionally wounded or even killed people.) If a weapon is fired at a wedding, the authorities can seize it and impose a $100 fine. If the gun is not handed over, a relative of the groom — his father or an uncle, perhaps — can be detained. “We don’t take the groom,” one official in Aleppo said. Read more.
AROUND THE WORLD
What they’re feasting their eyes on in … Florence
There’s a once-in-a-generation art exhibition in Italy: More than 140 works by the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, who brought devotional painting into the here and now, are on display at two shows in Florence.
Before Fra Angelico, the way to make something appear sacred was to make it appear strict. But he rendered the sacred as something natural and emotional — the expression of the human mind and heart.
“Such is the promise of an art you make with your whole self, your body and soul,” writes our critic-at-large Jason Farago. “Rich with feeling, full of grace.” Read more.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Travel: Taiwan’s east coast is a gem for nature lovers.
Watch: A new documentary shows Ozzy Osbourne’s awe-inspiring efforts to make one final onstage appearance.
Read: A team of crime-solving retirees returns in the latest book in “Thursday Murder Club” series.
Care: Here’s how to protect your pets from pollution.
RECIPE
Mazemen is a brothless ramen created in Japan as a quick bite that is both satisfying and easy to eat. In this homemade version, you can top the fast-cooking ground chicken with fresh sprouts, grated radishes and perhaps tahini for a more silky texture.
WHERE IS THIS?
Where is this hilltop?
TIME TO PLAY
Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.
You’re done for today. See you tomorrow! — Katrin
We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at [email protected].
Jodi Rudoren oversees The Times’s newsletters, including The Morning, DealBook and scores of emails focused on specific topics.
The post A Gaza Breakthrough appeared first on New York Times.
