Five Things to Know, May 13, 2024
1. Two Air Force fighter jets recently squared off in a dogfight in California. One was flown by a pilot. The other wasn’t. That second jet was piloted by artificial intelligence, with the Air Force’s highest-ranking civilian riding along in the front seat. It was the ultimate display of how far the Air Force has come in developing a technology with its roots in the 1950s. But it’s only a hint of the technology yet to come. The United States is competing to stay ahead of China on AI and its use in weapon systems. The focus on AI has generated public concern that future wars will be fought by machines that select and strike targets without direct human intervention.
2. The Israeli military intensified its attacks on northern Gaza on Monday, battling a regrouped Hamas in areas it said it had cleared and renewing questions over Israeli strategy in the war as the United States issued some of its harshest public criticism yet. Israel has insisted that it must invade Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where more than one million people had sought refuge, in order to accomplish its core objective of "eliminating" Hamas' presence in the enclave after months of fighting further north. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday that even a full-scale ground assault on Rafah would fail to achieve that goal.
3. The exodus of Palestinians from Gaza’s last refuge accelerated Sunday as Israeli forces pushed deeper into the southern city of Rafah. Israel also pounded the territory’s devastated north, where some Hamas militants have regrouped in areas the military said it had cleared months ago. Rafah is considered Hamas’ last stronghold. Some 300,000 of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there have fled the city following evacuation orders from Israel, which says it must invade to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken from Israel in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.
4. Ukrainian troops are locked in intense battles with the advancing Russian army in two border areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while the death toll from a Russian apartment building collapse blamed on Ukrainian shelling rose to 15. Zelenskyy said “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive.
5. House Armed Services Committee leaders will skip subcommittee markups for sections of their annual defense authorization legislation in a break with tradition that could lead to less public transparency on the massive military bill. Committee officials last week said work on their draft of the bill, which typically stretches over several days and involves every subcommittee hosting a hearing on their priorities, will be condensed this year to the panel’s daylong markup of the legislation, expected to be held the week of May 20.