Ukrainian City Falls, Israel's Rafah Plans, Texas Steps Up Border Operation

anniversary.

assault?

Despite international pressure, Israel seems set on a ground invasion of Rafah, the last

city in Gaza up against the Egyptian border.

Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas, but the city is filled with over a million

displaced civilians searching for safety.

The state plans to build a new military base in the border city of Eagle Pass.

It's the latest escalation in the immigration fight between Texas and the federal government,

so how do local residents feel about the plan?

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And this weekend, Russia secured an important win.

Its forces occupied a strategically important town in Ukraine's east.

and weapons.

The White House blames Congress for holding up military aid, and Ukrainians fear more

losses without more support.

Joanna, first tell us about this town and why its occupation by Russia is significant.

Russia has been attacking Vdyvka for 10 years, ever since Russian proxies occupied part of

eastern Ukraine back in 2014.

The Russians really stepped up their attacks on Vdyvka last October, destroying nearly

the entire town and driving out nearly all of the 30,000 residents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated his soldiers on the Kremlin website, and now

Putin can tout this battlefield gain ahead of next month's presidential elections.

Ukrainians of course are heartbroken, they're on edge.

The capture of Vdyvka sets up pressure for more gains in eastern Ukraine.

takeover of Vdyvka.

Is that what Ukrainians are saying too?

A Ukrainian lawmaker told me Ukraine is being held hostage by election-year politics in

the U.S.

She's referring to how Republicans in Congress have been blocking a military aid package

to Ukraine.

At the Munich Security Conference this weekend, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, look, we

do not have enough weapons, and we will lose if we can't get more soon.

Meanwhile, Russia already had a much bigger arsenal than Ukraine, and now it's getting

even more weapons from Iran and North Korea.

The Ukrainian soldiers defending Vdyvka also said that they were outgunned by the Russians,

and on land that's flat with no cover for them.

The 110th Mechanized Brigade defended Vdyvka for two years, and they shared some videos

with NPR of soldiers talking about the withdrawal.

Here's a soldier identified by his military call sign, Munch.

He's heard here through an interpreter.

Everyone knows the Russians have no problems with the supply of ammunition, no problems

with firepower, so they shoot everything at us.

Everything possible was flying there.

after wave of soldiers.

No matter how many Russian soldiers were killed, there were always more coming.

Ukrainian soldiers were about to be encircled in Vdyvka, so military chief Oleksandr Syrskiy

decided that the human cost of keeping them there was just too high.

In Munich, Zelensky said Ukraine is trying to build its own arsenal, but also said Ukraine

cannot defend itself from Russia alone.

Here he is.

Ask yourself, why is Putin still able to continue it?

that will grow much larger if Russia keeps winning.

Joanna, thank you.

pressure, and is still making plans for an offensive in southern Gaza in the town of

Rafah for the stated goal of eliminating Hamas.

the Egyptian border.

It's the last place so many have sought refuge from the Israeli military campaign, and much

of the world is watching.

against the invasion because of the toll it will take on civilians.

Greg, we've been hearing about a possible Israeli operation in Rafah for weeks now,

for a couple of weeks.

How likely is it, and where would people go if this happens?

allow any part of the Hamas military force to survive in Gaza.

He says that would essentially be a win for Hamas and a loss for Israel.

Now, Netanyahu has called for both a military plan and a blueprint to evacuate these more

than one million civilians, most of them living in tents.

But there's been no word of such a plan, and it would be extremely complicated.

So the thinking is, before any Israeli military operation takes place, we're likely to see

efforts to evacuate civilians on a large scale.

We're not seeing that now, and many of these displaced say they simply have nowhere else

to go.

Now, after more than four months of this, how much damage has the Israeli military done

on Hamas?

Israeli officials estimate, and this is just an estimate, about 10,000 Hamas fighters have

been killed and a similar number injured.

We can't independently confirm this, and Hamas refuses to give figures.

But if accurate, or reasonably so, this is probably half or more of the Hamas fighters.

We've also seen an almost complete halt to the Hamas rocket fire coming out of Gaza into

Israel.

But Hamas shouldn't be underestimated.

This is the analysis of Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security advisor in

Israel.

The vast, vast tunnel network, which is just mind-boggling.

And the rocket capability, I would be cautious in saying that they probably don't have too

much in Gaza.

They may have, and they have a lot more than we thought.

So, Greg, given all that, I mean, what's the war looking like on a day-to-day basis in

Gaza?

but they're still facing resistance from Hamas.

Israel says this is largely small-scale resistance.

Hamas is no longer fighting in larger, organized unit.

And the main fighting is in the southern city of Han Yunis.

Israel says it's in control, but not full control.

Han Yunis is about seven miles north of Rafah.

This is the distance separating the main Israeli force from the last major stronghold of Hamas,

as well as all those displaced Palestinians.

So far, does that seem realistic?

It controls most of Gaza.

It says it's defeated 18 of the 24 Hamas battalions.

So, if accurate, that means Hamas has been badly weakened, but not destroyed.

On the political side, the Hamas leadership, both internal leaders in Gaza and external

leaders, are still intact.

And the group has long had public support in Gaza.

So, it seems politically it's still reasonably strong.

That's NPR's Greg Myhre in Tel Aviv.

Greg, thanks.

2,300 National Guard soldiers.

Their mission is to secure the Texas-Mexico border, and the project represents the latest

escalation in a tug-of-war between the Biden administration and Texas over who controls

immigration on the border.

Pablo, so why is the state building this base?

Over the past three years of just continuous expansion on the governor's border security

mission, Operation Lone Star to deter migration on the border.

But more than anything, it's a really big leap towards making that mission much more

permanent.

So, it's a big move, but we've seen him challenge the federal government's exclusive purview

on immigration enforcement from the very beginning of Operation Lone Star.

You know, he's greatly expanded the militarization on the border, deploying barriers, which some

have called dangerous, in the water, deploying heavily armed tactical marine units on the

water.

So, we first heard about this from Governor Abbott when he spoke about the new military

base from the construction site on Friday.

along this border.

Having the soldiers located right here, right by the river, it will amass a large army in

a very strategic area.

You mentioned that it's an Eagle Pass.

That's where the base is going to be built, pretty much the symbolic center of Greg Abbott's

immigration fight.

What's the community in Eagle Pass' reaction?

You know, nobody knew anything about this.

I spoke to a few people throughout the weekend, even two state reps I talked to hadn't heard

about this project.

This town, Eagle Pass, has gone through so much over the past few weeks and months, you

know, since Texas took over Shelby Park by the Rio Grande, kicking out the federal government.

This is a public community space where, you know, people celebrate birthdays.

They've celebrated Easter.

Now it's totally militarized.

And I had a chance to speak with Jesse Fuentes, who's a longtime resident there.

He owns a kayak business on the water where those buoys are that I just mentioned.

He's a plaintiff in litigation with the state over those barriers, and I had a chance to

speak with him.

I mean, why are we allowing this to happen?

Why are we allowing our governor to become a dictator and authoritarian as to how policy

is supposed to be enforced when it comes to immigration?

So, Pablo, what are the chances then for this becoming yet another legal showdown between

Texas and the federal government?

I mean, the governor has argued in a variety of ways that he believes the state has a right

to secure the border.

Of course, you know, constitutionally, that has always fallen under the purview of the

federal government, exclusive purview of the federal government.

So we're actually waiting to hear how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on some Department

of Justice lawsuits against Texas over these barriers.

Pablo, thanks.

I'm A. Martinez.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Mark Katkoff, Denise Rios,

and H.J. Mai.

It was produced by Claire Murashima, Ben Abrams, and Milton Guevara.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange.

You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and a lot more

on NPR's Morning Edition.

That's the radio show that Laila, Steve Inskeep, Michelle Martin, and I host.

You can find Morning Edition and your NPR station at stations.npr.org.