WORLD BRIEFING: August 1, 2024

The man accused of plotting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and two of his accomplices have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death-penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prosecutors said Wednesday. Prosecutors said the deal was meant to bring some “finality and justice” to the case, particularly for the families of nearly 3,000 people who were killed in the attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field. The defendants Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawireached the deal in talks with prosecutors across 27 months at Guantánamo and approved on Wednesday by a senior Pentagon official overseeing the war court. The men have been in U.S. custody since 2003. But the case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on the question of whether their torture in secret C.I.A. prisons had contaminated the evidence against them. - NYT

The funeral for assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard has been held in Tehran, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading the prayers. Yesterday, the UN Security Council , currently chaired by permanent member Russia, held an emergency meeting amid regional tensions after Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr were assassinated. “The international community has a choice to make – let it be for peace and security, do not let Israel drag us all to the abyss,” Feda Abdelhady Nasser, Palestine’s deputy UN representative, told the council. The assassination of Haniyeh on Wednesday risks the region spiralling into a wider conflict and could help or hurt prospects for a ceasefire deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza, several analysts told Al Jazeera.

'It's not going to be easy for Iran to respond,' Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer at Reichman University told Israel 24 News, 'but they have to respond' to the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. He added however tgat Tehran's capability to engage in a long-term war is greatly hampered by a lack of funds

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged “all parties” in the Middle East to stop “escalatory actions” and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, after Hamas’s political leader was killed in a strike that Iran blamed on Israel. Achieving peace “starts with a ceasefire, and to get there, it also first requires all parties to talk [and] to stop taking any escalatory actions,” Blinken told reporters in Mongolia.

Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip. The reporters were killed when their car was hit on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information. They were in the area to report from near the Gaza house of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was assassinated in the early hours of Wednesday in Iran’s capital, Tehran, in an attack the group has blamed on Israel.

President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday asked Venezuela’s high court to conduct an audit of the presidential election after opposition leaders disputed his claim of victory, drawing criticism from foreign observers who said the court is too close to the government to produce an independent review. Maduro told reporters that the ruling party is also ready to show all the vote tally sheets from Sunday’s election. “I throw myself before justice,” he said outside the Supreme Tribunal of Justice headquarters in the capital, Caracas, adding that he is “willing to be summoned, questioned, investigated.” This is Maduro’s first concession to demands for more transparency about the election. However, the court is closely aligned with his government; the court’s justices are proposed by federal officials and ratified by the National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro sympathizers. - AP

Russia launched almost 90 drones against Ukraine in one of its largest attacks since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The overnight attack, which lasted for seven hours and well into Wednesday morning, mainly targeted Kyiv where more than 30 drones were shot down, according to Ukraine’s air defence forces. It marked an escalation in Russia’s renewed offensive, which has prompted Ukrainian forces to also increase their aerial attacks on Russian targets. Kyiv city administration head Serhiy Popko described it as “one of the most massive drone attacks on Ukraine during the entire war”, while noting that none reached their targets. Authorities said 13 houses in the Kyiv region were hit by falling debris and the rest of the drones were downed outside of residential areas. Explosions were reported in four other Ukrainian regions — Mykolayiv, Dnipro, Sumy and Poltava. It was the first nationwide attack since July 8, when Russian missiles overpowered Kyiv’s air defences, killing 42 people and injuring 190 in an attack on a children’s hospital and several residential buildings. - FT