After Al Shifa raid, Erdogan in Germany, Musk's tweets, Biden and Xi, David Cameron returns

Now it's on to the next objective, with many parts of northern Gaza laid to waste. Israel has now dropped leaflets telling Palestinians to evacuate four specific neighbourhoods of Khan Younis. In the last 24 hours, Israel's ground operation has netted the bodies of two hostages: a 65-year-old woman and a 19-year-old female soldier, a reminder that there's more than 200 still believed to be held.

Meanwhile, Germany has welcomed Turkey's president for a long-planned state visit, one that shows up opposing views on the eruption in the Middle East. 

The EU's executive arm has joined IBM and halted advertisements on Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The last straw was Musk's seeming endorsement of a tweet from a far-right account claiming that members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against White people.

What this world certainly needs is a healthy dose of de-escalation. So even if they didn't issue a joint statement, many found reason to at least exhale when Joe Biden sat down with Xi Jinping for four hours on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco. A joint agreement on climate targets, reassurances on opening a hotline between US and China's military all seemed positive signs. But then there was a press conference where reporters asked if Biden stood by his June branding of his Chinese counterpart as a dictator.

Finally, David Cameron has become the first former UK prime minister in decades to return to government. His first trip abroad was to Ukraine: a reminder that David Cameron was in power a decade ago when it all kicked off.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Brown and Lila Paulou.

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