Shares in China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest electric vehicle battery maker, surged as much as 18% on its first day of trading in Hong Kong, shrugging off geopolitical uncertainties. On Tuesday, CATL shares opened at 296 Hong Kong dollars ($37.8), well above the subscription price of 263 Hong Kong dollars ($33.6) in a stock listing that raised $4.6 billion last week. Its shares rose to as much as 311 Hong Kong dollars during the trading day, according to Refinitiv data. The listing, the world’s largest so far this year, is the latest example of how Chinese companies are pressing ahead with their global expansion plans despite ongoing trade tension with the US. In January, CATL was added to a Pentagon blacklist of companies that it alleges work with China’s military, although it has denied such links. Last month, the House Select Committee on China demanded that US investment banks JPMorgan and Bank of America withdraw from underwriting CATL’s Hong Kong listing. Both stuck with the deal. “The Hong Kong stock listing signifies our deeper integration into the global capital markets,” Robin Zeng, the company’s founder and chairman, said at a listing ceremony at the Hong Kong stock exchange. “CATL is not just a battery component manufacturer, but also a provider of system-level solutions, and is more committed to becoming a zero-carbon technology company.” The firm supplies major EV makers – including Volkswagen, Stellantis and BMW – and its overseas sales accounted for over 30% of its revenue last year, according to a May 12 stock exchange filing. The National Business Daily, a Chinese state-run newspaper, said the listing would provide a necessary capital boost for CATL’s international expansion as it has been constrained by limited foreign currency reserves and rising geopolitical risks. The company’s Hong Kong listing will not only build up its foreign currency reserves, providing ample “ammunition” to support its overseas projects, but also leverage international capital to enhance its ability to integrate cross-border resources, the paper quoted an unnamed CATL representative as saying. Largest EV battery maker CATL’s Hong Kong debut came weeks after it unveiled an EV battery that boasts a range of 320 miles on a five-minute charge, compared to Tesla-rival BYD’s technology which provides 250 miles in range at a similar charge time. CATL held the title of the world’s largest electric battery supplier for the eighth year in 2024, holding 38% of the global market, according to SNE Research, a market research and consultancy firm. By late last year, its batteries were used in one out of every three EVs worldwide, powering about 17 million vehicles, according to the May filing. This is the second listing for the company based in the city of Ningde in southeast China’s Fujian province. In 2022, it raised $6.7 billion in a Shenzhen IPO. CATL first announced its intention to list in Hong Kong last December, as part of a plan to grow the company’s global footprint in places such as Europe, with the expansion of its facilities in Hungary. As of last year, CATL operates 13 battery factories around the world, including in China, Germany and Hungary, according to its filing. It is also making progress on a joint venture in Spain with Stellantis, the owner of Fiat and Chrysler, to build a battery plant, and a separate battery-related project in Indonesia. For now, even though US and China have temporarily rolled back their triple-digit tariffs, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on vehicles and car parts have remained. In response to the levies, CATL said in the filing that it cannot predict future tariff policies or the potential impact from them. Its revenue from products directly exported from China to the US has been relatively small in recent years. “Tariff policies are still evolving rapidly. At this stage, it is difficult to accurately assess their impact on our business. We will closely monitor the developments,” the company said in the May 12 filing.

HONG KONG — In the latest sign of the growing edge China’s clean energy companies have on their U.S. competitors, the country’s leading electric vehicle battery maker raised $4.6 billion in its Hong Kong trading debut Tuesday — the largest in the world this year. Shares of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL, the largest EV battery maker, traded as much as 18.4% above the listing price of 263 Hong Kong dollars ($33.61), raising at least $4.6 billion. At a ceremony at the stock exchange in central Hong Kong, CATL’s billionaire founder, Robin Zeng, marked the start of trading by banging a bronze “megagong” reserved for only the biggest listings. The company, which makes batteries for Tesla and other automakers and has a tech licensing agreement with Ford, controls more than a third of the global market for EV batteries. “It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the battery space,” said Lei Xing, an independent analyst of the Chinese auto industry based in Amherst, Massachusetts. “You could look at it as the Tesla of batteries.” China's leading electric vehicle maker selling cars for $10,000 02:50 International investors clamored for CATL stock despite U.S.-China tensions that have effectively kept it and other Chinese EV and battery makers — and their world-leading technology — out of the United States, the second-largest passenger vehicle market in the world after China. U.S. investors were restricted from buying stock unless they had offshore accounts. Zeng was joined by officials representing the coastal city of Ningde in China’s Fujian province, where CATL is based. “The Hong Kong listing means that we are more deeply integrated into the global capital market, and it marks a new starting point in promoting the global zero-carbon economy,” he said. The listing is also a boost for the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, an international financial hub where the market has been sluggish in recent years. One reason Chinese companies are choosing to list in Hong Kong is to mitigate geopolitical risk, Xing said, as it’s “closer to home, safer.” In the United States, CATL is among dozens of companies the Defense Department blacklisted in the final days of the Biden administration over alleged ties to the Chinese military, which CATL denies. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party cited that blacklisting last month in letters urging Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase to withdraw from the deal — both banks remained involved. A group of men bang a gong and clap in celebration CATL Chairman Robin Zeng, second right, bangs a gong to mark the Chinese EV battery maker’s trading debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.Peter Parks / AFP via Getty Images Ford has faced questions from lawmakers over an agreement to license technology from CATL to produce battery cells at a $3.5 billion battery plant in Michigan. Chinese EV and battery makers also face a 100% U.S. tariff on EVs and a 25% tariff on lithium-ion EV batteries introduced by the Biden administration, as well as the steep tariffs on all Chinese imports imposed by President Donald Trump, with both presidents citing unfair trade practices by Beijing. CATL says the impact of tariffs is minimal given its limited business in the United States. Experts say the trade barriers could slow the development of American EVs, whose high prices have discouraged consumers from buying. It would take “at least a decade” for the United States to develop its own version of CATL, Xing said. The company, which was founded in 2011 and is already listed in the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen, reported $50 billion in revenue last year, about 70% of it in China. It faces intense competition, however, from Chinese rivals such as BYD — reporting an almost 10% decrease in revenue last year, the first such drop since CATL began releasing operating figures in 2015. CATL says it will use almost all of the money raised in Hong Kong to build a $7.3 billion factory in Hungary, allowing it to make batteries in Europe for automakers such as BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen. “They know that in order to continue to grow the way they want to, they really need to establish a presence outside of China,” said Tu Le, the Detroit-based founder and managing director of Sino Auto Insights. “And the $4½ billion-dollar IPO is effectively building a war chest for them to do that.” The “irony,” Le said, is that “it could be the CATLs and the BYDs that provide the jobs for Americans moving forward, because they’re really leading the way.” CATL said last month that its new battery cell could give a car more than 300 miles of driving range with just five minutes of charging. “At the end of the day, the only way to make more affordable electric vehicles is to lower the battery pack price,” Le said. “And the only game in town currently able to do that are Chinese players.”

Edan Alexander, who was believed to be the last living U.S. citizen held captive in Gaza, was freed May 12 after being captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. TEL AVIV — On Mother’s Day, Yael Alexander got perhaps the best gift: the news that her son Edan Alexander would be released from Hamas captivity the following day. One week after that life-changing phone call, NBC News spoke to Yael Alexander and her husband, Adi Alexander, about their son’s more than a year in captivity and his eventual release. Edan Alexander, who was believed to be the last living U.S. citizen held captive in Gaza, was freed on May 12 after having been captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. Born in Tel Aviv, Edan, 21, grew up in New Jersey but had returned to Israel to serve in the army. His parents said he recounted to them the details of his capture and his time in captivity. Attacked on his army base on Oct. 7, Edan faced off with almost 30 militants by himself before he was kidnapped, Adi Alexander said. His son called the first year in captivity “complete hell,” he said, because he was frequently moved around to various locations above ground, underground and in tents, at one point during the war living in a tent that, his father recounted, Edan said he couldn’t leave for weeks. “The conditions in those tents are not easy. They couldn’t get out,” Adi said, noting that Edan’s time in the tent was his “toughest period” in captivity. Edan was in good physical shape when he was taken, whereas a number of other captives, including injured people, children and the elderly, weren’t, Adi said, so Edan helped those being held with him, especially when they moved between locations. Edan endured hunger, eating only hummus, pita bread, rice and whatever his captors served him from cans, his father said, a reflection of the food scarcity in Gaza since the start of the war. Fears of famine have heightened there in recent weeks as Israel has carried out a nearly three-month blockade on the enclave — the longest of its kind since the start of the conflict. Israel said Sunday it would begin allowing limited resources to flow into the Gaza Strip to avoid a “hunger crisis.” Worries of such a crisis aren’t new, with aid groups warning about such conditions for months as a result of Israel’s military operation. Food began to flow more regularly during the fragile January ceasefire brokered during the Biden administration, offering the hostages an opportunity to eat meat, Adi Alexander said. Edan told his parents conditions improved during what Adi called the “second phase” of his son's captivity — after Donald Trump was elected president. By then, he said, Edan, who had lost about a quarter of his body mass, stayed in one “secure and safe” location for the rest of his time in Gaza and was able to regain some weight. Adi lauded his son’s “wisdom to get along with the captors and survive,” even when death from bombardments by the Israeli army — which he said Edan described as “like an earthquake” — seemed possible. At one point, Edan also survived a tunnel collapse, his father said. “We consider ourselves lucky that he survived that day,” Adi said of the collapse. “He has some injury from that event, but I don’t think it’s something major now.” Adi said he and his family were devastated when the ceasefire collapsed and “the war re-started.” On May 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an intensive military operation aiming to take the whole of the Gaza Strip in an effort to eliminate Hamas, a move approved by the country’s security Cabinet. But the plan hasn’t been without pushback. A number of military reservists have rejected the call to serve in the operation, saying it is part of a war that has become politically motivated. At a Knesset committee meeting this month, the father of one of the remaining hostages called on soldiers “not to report for reserve duty for moral and ethical reasons.” More than 1,200 people were killed in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and around 250 hostages were taken, according to Israeli tallies. Fifty-eight hostages are believed to remain in captivity. More than 53,000 people — many of them women and children — have been killed in Gaza in the resulting war, according to health officials in the enclave, which Hamas has run since 2007. Talks to end the war have stalled, even as many Israelis urge their leaders to bring the rest of the hostages home. Adi Alexander expressed reservations about the “mixed messaging.” “My hope is that it’s just a political posture,” he said of Netanyahu's plan for an expanded military operation. “My expectation is going back to the bargaining table, rising above politics and prioritizing human life.” The Alexander family knows all too well the suffering of the hostages. Yael Alexander recalled how her son said he held on to hope in captivity, thanks in part to seeing glimpses of his family on the news. “He saw us,” she said. “He knew we were fighting for him.” Their fight culminated on Mother’s Day with a call from Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who told the Alexanders that Hamas would be announcing the release of their son momentarily. Yael said she immediately packed her things and got the next flight to Israel. Adi and their other children followed on a later flight. “It was perfectly timed, and everyone was together just one time,” Yael said of Edan’s release. “It was amazing.” Despite being a bit thinner, paler and weaker, Yael said, her son is the same as before he was captured, and in their first conversation since his kidnapping, he joked that he needs a tan. “It’s the same laughter, the same smile, the same kind eyes,” she said. “This is our boy.”

The Israeli leader doubled down on allowing "basic" aid into the Gaza Strip, even as the ground and air assault on the enclave killed 300 in the three days to Monday, health authorities said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his country's military was “moving toward full control” of the Gaza Strip as its intensifying airstrikes and ground operation there killed dozens more people overnight. Israeli bombardment had killed more than 300 people in the 72 hours to early Monday, the Health Authority in Gaza said. Children were among the dead after a wave of airstrikes in the southern city of Khan Younis that came even after Netanyahu said his forces would allow in limited amounts of food to avoid the risk of famine. In a statement Monday, Gaza's Hamas-run government urged the international community to pressure Israel to allow the entry of at least 500 aid trucks and 50 fuel trucks daily, adding that “signs of famine and humanitarian collapse are worsening at a terrifying rate.” That came after the Israeli government announced plans Sunday that, if actioned, would end its 11-week aid blockade of Gaza and allow in “basic” quantities of food. Netanyahu doubled down Monday on his decision, responding on Telegram to critics from Israel’s political right wing. “There is a lot of criticism from the right this morning regarding the humanitarian issue — and that’s understandable. But it’s important to know the facts,” he said, adding that “we must avoid a situation of famine, both in substance and in perception.” “If there is famine,” he added, “we will lose international support and won’t be able to achieve victory.” That decision came even as Israel moved ahead with plans for a new ground offensive, dubbed “Chariots of Gideon,” after its security Cabinet earlier this month unanimously approved plans to seize all of the Gaza Strip. It was in his statement Monday that Netanyahu said that “there is intensive and large-scale military activity in Gaza” and that the Israeli military was “moving toward full control of the entire Strip.” Israel says the operation is aimed at defeating Hamas and ensuring the return of the remaining hostages of the 250 taken captive during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli counts. The ensuing war in Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people in the enclave, Palestinian health officials say. That death toll is still rising. Those killed in airstrikes added to what has become one of the deadliest weeks of the conflict since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in March. In a statement Monday, Hamas said that the Israeli military had launched “hundreds of highly destructive shells, missiles, and bombs daily, targeting residential neighborhoods and densely populated civilian areas.” The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that it had struck 160 of what it called “terror targets” in the past 24 hours. The attacks come as international aid groups have repeatedly warned in recent weeks of the risk of famine in Gaza after the Israeli government maintained a complete aid blockade since March 2. “We’re in a race against time to avoid famine,” the United Nations' World Food Programme said in an X post Sunday, in which it urged the international community to “act urgently to get aid flowing again.” Those warnings have sparked alarm among even Israel’s closest allies, with President Donald Trump telling reporters Friday that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza. The United Nations said Monday that 92% of homes in Gaza have already been destroyed or damaged, in a post on X, adding that “countless people have been displaced multiple times, and shelter is scarce.” In footage captured Sunday by NBC News’ crew on the ground, Israeli missiles struck a cluster of tents sheltering displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people and injuring dozens of others. “I brought five charred bodies to Nasser Hospital, but many more are still by the tents — we couldn’t reach them because of the flames,” Jaafar Ezzedine, a civil defense medic, told NBC News. Warda Waleed Al-Shaer, a displaced woman from Rafah, told NBC News that her brother, his wife and their children had been killed in the attacks. “Why? What happened? How can I live with losing all of them at once?” she said. Following Israel’s announcement to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza, Reuters reported that aid trucks were seen lining up Monday in Egypt’s northern Sinai city of Arish, apparently waiting to enter Gaza through its southern Rafah crossing.

Tanzania’s main opposition leader Tundu Lissu told his supporters to have no fear as he appeared in court on Monday for the first time since his arrest on charges that include treason. Lissu refused to participate in a hearing on April 24 because authorities conducted a virtual, rather than an in-person trial, with him appearing via video link from prison. On Monday he entered the court with his fist raised in the air as supporters chanted “No Reforms, No Election,” according to a video of the courtroom shared by his CHADEMA party on X. “We will be fine. You should not fear,” Lissu said as he took his place in the dock, waving victory signs. Lissu, who was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack and came second in the last presidential poll, was charged with treason last month over what prosecutors said was a speech calling upon the public to rebel and disrupt elections due in October. A series of high-profile arrests has highlighted the rights record of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who plans to seek re-election. Hassan says the government is committed to respecting human rights. Several Kenyan rights activists, including a former justice minister, said they were denied entry to Tanzania as they traveled to attend the trial. Kenya’s former Justice Minister Martha Karua, a prominent lawyer and opposition politician, and former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga were among those detained when they landed at Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, they said on X. Tanzania’s immigration spokesperson Paul Mselle did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “Today was going to be a big day and we went out there in solidarity,” Karua told Kenyan broadcaster NTV on Monday after she was denied entry and sent back to Nairobi. “The state cannot be used as a personal tool. You cannot deport people whom you don’t like, who are not aligned to your views.” Mutunga and rights activist Hussein Khalid were being held in an interrogation room at Julius Nyerere airport on Monday and expected to be deported, Khalid said on X.

A Japanese comic book warns of a “real catastrophe.” A psychic predicts mass destruction. A feng shui master urges people to stay away. This might sound like the plot of a disaster movie but for Japan’s tourism industry, a recent spate of so-called earthquake-related “predictions” like these has led to more superstitious travelers, particularly in East Asia, canceling or delaying their holidays. Seismologists have long warned that accurately predicting when an earthquake might strike is all but impossible. Japan is a country with a good track record of withstanding even powerful tremors and the prospect of a major quake is something its population lives with on a daily basis. But the fear of a “big one,” amplified by both soothsayers and social media, is prompting some travelers to get cold feet. And for many, it’s a comic book that’s scaring them away. Published by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki in 1999, “The Future I Saw” warned of a major disaster in March 2011, a date which turned out to coincide with the cataclysmic quake that struck Japan’s northern Tohoku region that month. Her “complete version” released in 2021 claimed that the next big earthquake will hit this July. At the same time, psychics from Japan and Hong Kong have shared similar warnings, triggering some unfounded panic online that has led to a flurry of cancelations of travel plans from destinations in the region. CN Yuen, managing director of WWPKG, a travel agency based in Hong Kong, said bookings to Japan dropped by half during the Easter holiday and are expected to dip further in the coming two months. The speculations have scared off mostly travelers from mainland China and Hong Kong, which are Japan’s second- and fourth-largest sources of tourists, respectively. But the fear has also spread to other markets such as Thailand and Vietnam, where social media platforms are overflowing with posts and videos warning people to think twice before traveling to Japan. Anxieties provoked by these prophecies have, according to Yuen, become “ingrained.” He added that “people just say they want to hold off their trip for now.” The premonitions Japan is no stranger to severe earthquakes. It lies on the Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Fears of a “big one” have been mounting since the Japanese government warned in January that there was an 80% chance of a severe earthquake hitting the country’s southern Nankai Trough within 30 years. Some seismologists have been critical of these warnings, questioning whether they can ever be accurate. Tatsuki’s work has a significant following in East Asia and her fans often believe she can accurately see future events in her dreams. She draws a cartoon version of herself in the manga, where she shares visions she gleans from her slumbers with other characters. Some of these dreams turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events. Her 2011 quake prediction — or coincidence — made Tatsuki famous not just in Japan but also in other parts of Asia like Thailand and China. The comic book has sold 900,000 copies, according to its publisher. It has also been published in Chinese. Fans believed she also predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and singer Freddie Mercury, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, however critics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously. The manga’s cover bears the words “massive disaster in March, 2011,” leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0-magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku. The quake triggered a deadly tsunami that killed tens of thousands and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia raised the alert level of Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki to the highest after it erupted eight times over the weekend, its volcanology agency has said. Lewotobi Laki Laki, located on Flores island in eastern Indonesia, spewed volcanic ash between 1.86 and 3.42 miles high on Sunday, agency head Muhammad Wafid said in a statement late Sunday. “Our analysis showed that the activities of Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki are still high so we raised the status level starting on Sunday” at 8 p.m. (9 a.m. ET), he said. Images shared by the agency showed clouds of thick gray ash billowing from the crater. Rumbling noises with low to high intensity were heard from the nearest monitoring post during the eruption, Wafid added. On Monday morning, the volcano erupted again, belching ash clouds three-quarters of a mile high. The agency said a radius of more than 3.5 miles from the crater must be cleared and warned residents of the risk of cold lava flow from the crater once heavy rains took place. There has not been any evacuation of residents or flight cancellations due to the eruptions so far, said Heronimus Lamawuran, a local government official. In March, an eruption at Lewotobi Laki Laki forced some airlines to cancel and delay flights into Bali, including Australia’s Jetstar and Qantas Airways. At least nine people were killed and thousands were evacuated when the volcano erupted in November last year. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high seismic activity atop multiple tectonic plates.

Health workers in Gaza have said that hundreds of people have been killed in recent days, including at least 103 people overnight and into Sunday. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade to avoid a “hunger crisis,” after global experts on food crises warned of famine. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his Cabinet approved a decision to allow a “basic” amount of food into the territory of over 2 million people. Israel imposed a complete blockade on humanitarian aid starting March 2. Netanyahu said allowing some aid in would enable Israel to expand its new military operation, which began Saturday. It was not immediately clear when aid would enter Gaza, or how. Netanyahu said Israel would work to ensure that Hamas will not control aid distribution and ensure the aid does not reach Hamas militants. Earlier on Sunday, Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza. Airstrikes in its new offensive killed at least 103 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said. The bombardment forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close as it reported direct strikes. Israel began the offensive — the largest since it shattered a ceasefire in March — with the aim of seizing territory and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a path to ending the war as part of any deal. “When the Jews want a truce, Hamas refuses, and when Hamas wants a truce, the Jews refuse it. Both sides agree to exterminate the Palestinian people,” said Jabaliya resident Abu Mohammad Yassin, who was among those fleeing the new offensive on foot or in donkey carts. “For God’s sake, have mercy on us. We are tired of displacement.” Israel’s military, which recently called up tens of thousands of reservists, said the ground operations are throughout the Palestinian territory’s north and south. Israel’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said that plans include “dissecting” the strip. Before the announcement, airstrikes killed more than 48 people — including 18 children and 13 women — in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition of bodies. In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in Jabaliya killed nine members of a family, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services. Another strike on a residence there killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Israel’s military had no immediate comment. Its statement announcing the ground operations said preliminary strikes over the past week killed dozens of militants and struck more than 670 targets. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas. Shortly afterward, Israel’s military said that it intercepted a projectile from central Gaza and another fell in an open area, with no injuries reported. Talks in Qatar Israel had said it would wait until the end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East before launching its offensive, saying it was giving ceasefire efforts a chance. Trump didn’t visit Israel on his trip that ended Friday. Netanyahu’s office said his negotiating team in Qatar was “working to realize every chance for a deal,” including one that would end fighting in exchange for the release of all remaining 58 hostages, Hamas’ exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the territory. Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm. Israel ended the previous eight-week ceasefire in March. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said almost 3,000 people have been killed since then. Days before resuming the war, Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza. The blockade is now in its third month, with global food security experts warning of famine across the territory of more than 2 million people. Frustration in Israel has been rising. A small but growing number of Israelis are refusing to show up for military service, even risking imprisonment. Other Israelis have been displaying photos of children killed in Gaza during weekly rallies demanding a deal to free all hostages and end the war. The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. Hospital cites Israeli ‘siege’ Health officials said fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down. It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli strikes last year forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals to stop offering services. “There is direct targeting on the hospital, including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr. Marwan al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility that had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside. Israel’s military said that troops were operating against militant infrastructure sites in northern Gaza, including the area “directly adjacent” to the hospital. Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, accusing Hamas of being active in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system. In northern Gaza, at least 43 people were killed in strikes, according to first responders from the Health Ministry and civil defense. Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said 15 children and 12 women were among the dead. A drone strike Sunday afternoon killed at least seven Palestinians near a school sheltering displaced people northwest of Gaza City, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. Other strikes in central Gaza killed at least 12 people, hospitals said. One in Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing parents and their child, the hospital said. In Gaza City, Um Mahmoud al-Aloul lay across the shrouded body of her daughter, Nour al-Aloul. “You took my soul with you,” she cried. “I used to turn off my phone from how much you called.”

The Israel Defense Forces appeared to be moving ahead with plans of a new ground offensive, including the buildup of tanks along the border. Israel has launched a major new offensive in Gaza following a wave of airstrikes that have killed more than 300 people in 72 hours, according to local authorities, in one of the deadliest weeks of the conflict since the ceasefire collapsed in March, and recalling the intensity of the early months of the war. The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday appeared to be moving ahead with plans of a new ground offensive, including the buildup of armored forces along the border. In a statement late Friday, the IDF said it had “launched extensive attacks and mobilized forces to seize strategic areas in the Gaza Strip, as part of the opening moves of Operation Gideon’s Chariots and the expansion of the campaign in Gaza.” The statement described the latest offensive as a renewed effort to release hostages and defeat Hamas. It comes after Israel’s security Cabinet unanimously approved plans earlier in May to seize all of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations says 70% of Gaza is already “within Israeli militarized zones, under displacement orders, or both.” Fresh evacuation orders were issued last week, just days after Israel declared large swaths of Gaza City unsafe. On Friday, an NBC News team in Gaza captured people moving in search of safety, some driving in battered trucks and others using carts pulled by donkeys, while others fled on foot. “I’ve been displaced four times, back and forth,” said Yusra Abu Warda from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. “There is no place, no shelter. I will stay on the streets.” Other residents have given up on moving despite the evacuation orders, too exhausted or disillusioned to flee yet again. “Last year, we saw hundreds of thousands forced from area to area, but now people are just too exhausted,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency serving Palestinians, speaking to NBC News from Amman, Jordan. “They’re just too tired to move.” After returning home during a six-week ceasefire in January and February, Wateridge said many Palestinians are now disregarding new orders, uncertain of their safety wherever they move. “They’re just kind of staying put and accepting that wherever they go, they’re not going to be safe,” she added. No aid has entered Gaza since March 2, and the risk of famine hangs over Gaza’s population, prompting alarm even among some of Israel’s closest allies. A U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aims to start work in the enclave by the end of May, transporting aid into Gaza via so-called secure hubs, from which aid groups will handle distribution, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters. Wateridge said the plan was “essentially using food to bait people, to move people around, to forcibly displace people.” “Is this going to be used to move people out of areas? Because if people are starving, of course they will go,” she said. “If the intent was genuine to feed people, that can be done tomorrow,” Wateridge said, referring to existing humanitarian systems that had been effectively distributing aid in the 16 months prior. “So that does beg to question what the intent is.” Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, a claim the group denies. A senior Israeli security official said last week that the “humanitarian blockade will continue, and only later — after the operational phase begins and a large-scale civilian evacuation to the south is completed — will a humanitarian plan be implemented.” They added that, unlike in the past, the military “will remain in every area it secures to prevent the return of terror.” The mass internal displacement of Palestinians comes amid further reports that Palestinians could be relocated outside of Gaza. Earlier this year, Trump said that Jordan and Egypt could take in Palestinians from Gaza. On Friday, sources told NBC News that the Trump administration may be working on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, according to five people with knowledge of the effort. The plan is under serious enough consideration that the administration has discussed it with Libya’s leadership, two people with direct knowledge of the plans and a former U.S. official said. No final agreement has been reached, and Israel has been kept informed of the administration’s discussions, the same three sources said. The State Department and the National Security Council did not respond to multiple requests for comment. However, after publication, a spokesperson denied the reports were true.

MALIPO, China — The rural villages of Malipo are a world away from gleaming Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, reached by narrow roads that sometimes skirt dangerously close to deep ravines. Schoolchildren eat simple breakfasts while squatting on sidewalks, and even a local official complained that the remote mountain villages lacked access to the latest 5G internet connection. But Chinese officials point to overall progress in this thickly forested, highly mountainous border region in southwest China as a reason for their “confidence” in the country’s development model and in its ability to weather any trade war with the United States. “We have full confidence and the capability to overcome all difficulties,” Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying said last week during a government-sponsored trip to the rural county of Malipo in Yunnan province, on the border with Vietnam. “As for what the United States is doing, we really don’t want any kind of war, but if we have to face up to reality, then we have no fear at all,” she told reporters at a middle school. “The ordinary people already feel the suffering from the tariff war, so I really hope the [U.S.] administration will come back to normal.” Hua was speaking before the U.S. and China agreed to slash tariffs on each other’s imports in what Beijing said showed the effectiveness of its resistance against President Donald Trump’s tariff “bullying.” She and other officials said Malipo, where 233,000 people are spread among several towns and hundreds of “village groups,” is a model for China’s poverty alleviation efforts in recent decades. Per capita disposable income in Malipo was $2,300 a year last year, compared with about $69 a year in 1992. But Beijing’s professed confidence belies real concern about the work that remains to be done as well as the potential impact of U.S. tariffs as China struggles with structural imbalances and slowing economic growth. The situation spans China’s urban-rural divide and is obvious even to residents of Malipo. “The economy is not that good,” said Liu Huixin, a vendor selling processed fruits and other products from Vietnam and Thailand at a market. “Look at many shops around, people are not buying,” he said. Ending “absolute poverty” — a goal that Chinese President Xi Jinping said was officially achieved at the end of 2020 — is considered essential for reducing income inequality in the world’s second-biggest economy as it strives to catch up with the United States. More than 450 million of China’s 1.4 billion people live in rural areas, and getting them to spend more on consumer products is crucial as China tries to reduce its economic dependence on exports threatened by tariffs. China has also touted its “poverty alleviation” program as a model for developing countries in the Global South that face similar challenges. “The experience of Malipo in poverty alleviation has global significance,” said Liu Guiqing, 40, a senior Chinese diplomat who is also county vice mayor of Malipo under a program that partners central government ministries and wealthy provinces and institutions with impoverished areas. Hua said the strength of China’s system is its ability to “concentrate resources” on people’s urgent needs. Beijing is thought to have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on poverty alleviation since 2015. China’s approach to reducing inequality combines “coercive top-down control” with high social spending in an effort to “highlight the perceived failures of liberal free-market capitalism,” Rana Mitter, a historian and political scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote in a new Foreign Affairs article. Programs such as the one in Malipo are “an increasingly important part of China’s messaging, that it has development solutions for rural as well as urban areas,” Mitter told NBC News. “This is likely to be particularly attractive in the many Global South countries that still have large agricultural sectors and may look to Chinese examples to find ways to modernize their own rural area,” he said. Companies investing in Malipo are still motivated by the “invisible hand of the market forces,” said Jason Choi, director of the Sunwah Group, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. He said the improved infrastructure and government support were important factors in the decision by his family’s company to invest about $7 million in a modern tea factory in Malipo, as well as the branding potential associated with Malipo’s ancient tea trees. “We have created employment directly for more than a hundred people, and for some 10,000 people downstream and upstream,” said Choi, 25. In nearby Jinping, another county targeted for poverty alleviation, Colorful Group, a company based in the Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen that specializes in graphics cards used in video games, has invested some $15 million in a smart agriculture company and other ventures, creating production jobs for more than 200 people, and for many more engaged in contract farming. Its corn products are sold in China at Walmart’s Sam’s Club, 7-Eleven shops and on the e-commerce platform JD.com, in addition to being exported to Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Asked about the impact of the U.S.-China trade war, Malipo Mayor Xiao Changju pointed to the rapid development prospects of border trade with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations. She also echoed a line frequently used by Chinese officials, saying: “We don’t like to fight a trade war, but we are not afraid of one.”