First Thing: Date set for Israel’s invasion of Rafah, Netanyahu says

Israel buys 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the southern Gaza city. Plus: how green onions became a symbol of voter anger in South Korea

Good morning.

Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that a date has been set for an Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. He did not disclose a the specific date. In preparation for the invasion, Israel is buying 40,000 tents for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the city on the border of Egypt.

Israeli officials maintain that Rafah is Hamas’s last major stronghold in Gaza. Many western countries, including the US, have voiced strong opposition to the proposed Israeli ground invasion as any attack on Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians – more than half of Gaza’s population – have taken refuge after fleeing Israeli bombardments elsewhere in the territory.

What’s the situation in the rest of Gaza? The world’s global authority on food security is predicting a famine was either already happening or would begin before July. “Everyone here has lost more than a quarter of their body weight due to malnutrition. There is no food,” said Mohammed Salha, acting director of al-Awda hospital.

What about in Khan Younis? After Israel withdrew its troops from Khan Younis, thousands of Palestinians returned to the devastated city, where about 55% of buildings in the city have been destroyed or damaged. Ahmad Abu al-Rish said: “It’s all just rubble. Animals can’t live here, so how is a human supposed to?”

David Cameron meets with Donald Trump to urge more US support for Ukraine

David Cameron, the British foreign security, has met with Donald Trump in Florida amid a push to shore up support for Ukraine and advance a new package of aid that is held up in Congress. “It is standard practice for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said.

Cameron and Trump purportedly discussed Ukraine, the war in Gaza and the future of Nato during their meeting. The meeting took place before Cameron’s visit to Washington, where he is expected to push to be given the resources needed to “go on the offensive” in 2025 and will urge congressional leaders to “change the narrative” on support for Kyiv, the Foreign Office said.

In other news …

Joe Biden announced plans to cancel student loans for 30 million borrowers, in the administration’s latest push on addressing student debt before the presidential election.

More than 100 Indigenous people in Brazil’s Javari valley – 80% of the Korobu tribe – have fallen ill, raising fears that the situation could escalate into an epidemic.

The special counsel pursuing federal criminal charges against Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss have filed a brief urging the supreme court to reject the former president’s bid for immunity from prosecution.

Fulton county prosecutors have asked the Georgia state court of appeals to reject Trump’s request to consider his claim that the district attorney should be disqualified over a relationship with her deputy.

Stat of the day: Global surface temperatures in March were 0.1C higher than the previous record for the month

March marked the 10th consecutive month in which yet another global heat record was shattered. Over the past 12 months, average global temperatures have been 1.58C above pre-industrial levels, exceeding the 1.5C benchmark set as a target in the Paris climate agreement. The planet has been warming at a pace of 0.3C per decade over the past 15 years, almost double the 0.18C per decade trend since the 1970s. “Is this within the range of climate variability or signal of accelerated warming? My concern is it might be too late if we just wait to see,” said Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, one of the vice-chairs of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Don’t miss this: Green onions in South Korea

Green onions, a simple staple of Korean cooking, have become a powerful symbol of voter anger in the weeks leading up to South Korea’s national assembly elections. After a botched visit to a supermarket by Yoon Suk Yeol, the country’s conservative president, in an effort to seem relatable amid a cost of living crisis, the National Election Commission has banned green onions outside polling stations, citing concerns over “electoral interference”.

… or this: Coffee in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, where coffee comprises about a third of its export earnings, new European legislation could have significant impact on the industry. The EU regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR) – due to come into force in 2025 – bans the sale of coffee, rubber, cocoa and other products if companies cannot prove that it did not come from deforested land. Ethiopia’s coffee industry is claiming that the new rules are unfair since almost all Ethiopia’s coffee is grown by poor farmers who own small plots of land and lack the expertise to gather the complex data needed to show compliance.

“Meeting the criteria requires a lot of technology and manpower that we simply don’t have,” said Abebe Megnecto, the manager of Kafa’s coffee union, which represents 13,676 local farmers.

Climate check: The world’s biggest economies are financing the expansion of fossil fuels in poor countries

Despite their commitments on the climate, the world’s biggest economies have continued to finance the expansion of fossil fuels in poor countries. The G20 group of developed and developing economies, and the multilateral development banks they fund, put $142bn into fossil fuel developments overseas from 2020 to 2022.

“While rich countries continue to drag their feet and claim they can’t afford to fund a globally just energy transition, countries like Canada, Korea, Japan and the US appear to have no shortage of public funds for climate-wrecking fossil fuels,” said Claire O’Manique, a public finance analyst at campaigning group Oil Change International.

Last Thing: The US couple with a record height difference

A West Virginia woman has set a world record by marrying a man who is nearly three feet shorter than her. Jessica Burns-McDonnell is 5ft 10in (1.8 metres) while her husband, Larry – who was born with diastrophic dwarfism – is 3ft (91.4cm).

“I mean, you might find a person who looks exactly like what you want but you need someone who makes you feel and think and love,” Burns-McDonnell said. “That’s what I got with Larry, and I don’t think there’s anybody out there that’s taller than Larry that could come close.”

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