Current events: 2024-07-31

Wikipedia Current Events · Jul 31, 2024

Armed conflicts and attacks

Israel–Hamas war
- Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
  - Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is assassinated in a missile strike in Tehran, Iran, after attending the inauguration ceremony of the Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian. Hamas and Iran blame Israel for the assassination, whose government officially declines to comment. (Al Jazeera) (AP)
- Killing of journalists in the Israel-Hamas war
  - Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman are killed in an Israeli airstrike during coverage near Ismail Haniyeh's home in the Gaza Strip. (Al Jazeera)
Israel–Hezbollah conflict
- 2024 Haret Hreik airstrike
  - A source close to Hezbollah tells AFP that the body of top commander Fuad Shukr has been recovered, almost 24 hours after he was killed in an Israeli strike on southern Beirut. (Al Arabiya) (Reuters)
Mali War
- Battle of Tinzaouaten
  - Mali announces that it carried out joint airstrikes with Burkina Faso on insurgents in and around Tinzaouaten. The CSP-PSD says that a Burkinabe drone strike killed dozens of civilians. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2024 Manila Bay oil spill
- The Cavite provincial government in the Philippines declares a "state of calamity" after an oil spill from the sunk MT Terra Nova reaches the shores of eight municipalities, requiring implementation of a no-catch zone and relief aid to be given to ~25,000 fishers. (GMA Network)
- The Mirola 1 is discovered to have ran aground near the coast of Bataan, becoming the third vessel to spill oil into Manila Bay in one week. (GMA Network)

International relations

Lukoil oil transit dispute
- Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico threatens to break off its diesel exports to Ukraine if its government continues to cut off pipeline oil transport from Russian oil company Lukoil, which Slovakia asserts is generating a national energy crisis. (The Kyiv Independent)

Law and crime

Human trafficking in Spain
- Twenty-six people are arrested in Madrid, Málaga, and Toledo by Spanish police for operating a sex trafficking ring that abused over 600 women. Thirty-two women were freed during the operation. (AP)

Sports