Kathmandu, 15 December (RSS): As 2024 draws to a close, the world is preparing to welcome the New Year. This is also a good time to reflect on the significant events that shaped this year. 2024 was a year of various crises around the world. This year saw many major events and disasters, and their impact will likely be felt for a long time.
Here are some of the notable events in 2024:
Middle East conflict
The events of Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel have reverberated across the Middle East in 2024. Israel continues its war in Gaza. The death toll from the Israeli offensive has now surpassed 45,000, and northern Gaza is on the brink of famine.
Israel achieved several strategic victories, including the assassination of Hamas leader and chief planner Yahya Sinwar on October 7. However, its strategic objective—defeating Hamas—remained unfulfilled.
In April, Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel after Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Israel, with US and Western support, repelled the attack. Israel responded with limited airstrikes on Iranian air defenses.
Israel assassinated senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July while he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president in Tehran. Two months later, Iran responded with another missile attack on Israel. In late October, Israeli airstrikes crippled Iran’s missile production and destroyed its air defenses.
In mid-September, Israel punished Hezbollah, which was launching missile and rocket attacks against northern Israel, with a covert operation in which explosive pagers were used to kill dozens of Hezbollah operatives. Two weeks later, an Israeli airstrike killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli ground forces then invaded southern Lebanon, pushing Hezbollah forces back.
The weakness of Hamas and Hezbollah created an opportunity for Turkish-backed forces in Syria to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad in December. After two months of open warfare, a fragile ceasefire came into effect in Lebanon on November 27.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad
President Bashar al-Assad was forced to flee the country to Moscow after an 11-day surprise offensive launched by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria on November 27. One symbolic moment in the fall of Damascus was the release of prisoners from the notorious Sednaya prison, a prison north of the capital that has been a symbol of torture and executions under the Assad dynasty’s 50-year rule, especially since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
The country’s Islamist-led government has sought to reassure both the country’s minorities and governments abroad that it will protect all Syrians. However, the international community has not immediately lifted sanctions on Syria in light of the new government’s activities, due to its links to al-Qaeda. Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on Syrian military sites, claiming to want to prevent the country’s weapons from falling into the hands of the interim government after Assad’s ouster. Israel has also occupied the UN-controlled buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
Russia-Ukraine conflict
Following Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, Ukraine launched a surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region in August. However, Ukraine has failed in its goal of distracting Moscow’s forces from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Russia responded with deadly attacks. Kiev’s forces are struggling to stop the steady advance of Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donbas region.
In November, Ukraine used a long-range missile supplied from the West on Russian territory for the first time, after receiving approval from the US and UK. Russia responded by striking Ukraine with a hypersonic Oresnik missile without a nuclear warhead, and pledged to continue such attacks if Kiev continued to use Western weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has even threatened to attack countries that provide weapons to Ukrainians. Russia launched a major attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in late November. In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up attacks in southern Ukraine, raising fears of a new Russian offensive in the region.
North Korean soldiers in the European War
The deployment of more than 11,000 North Korean troops this year turned the Russia-Ukraine war into a truly global conflict. The North Koreans were first deployed for training at Russian bases to learn the language and understand the operational procedures of their new fellow soldiers.
They fought in the final weeks of the year, trying to push back Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region. According to Ukrainian and US officials, hundreds of North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in the fighting.
Sudanese Civil War
The civil war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, continued unabated in 2024. The fighting has pitted the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the Rapid Support Force (RSF) militia led by Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedi’ Dagalo. The two men jointly seized power in a coup in October 2021. The notorious RSF, responsible for the Darfur genocide two decades ago, seized control of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and much of Darfur.
In late September, the SAF launched a major offensive to retake Khartoum. They recaptured parts of the city but failed to completely dislodge RSF forces. The Sudanese people have suffered since the fighting began. The exact death toll is unknown. Although the death toll is estimated at 20,000, the number could be as high as 60,000 or even higher when war-related diseases and starvation are included. A famine has been declared in Darfur.
The conflict has displaced about 11 million people out of a total population of about 50 million. Both the SAF and the RSF believe they will prevail, as they have powerful external supporters who enable them to continue fighting.
Trump’s comeback
Donald Trump has shocked the world once again, defying predictions of a very close race to win the US presidential election. Trump easily defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, who had run to replace President Joe Biden, who had withdrawn from the campaign.
Trump, 78, who faces four indictments and a criminal conviction, has faced two failed assassination attempts. Trump will return to the White House on January 20, 2025. Trump’s victory in the US is likely to lead to a revival of ‘America First’ as well as the withdrawal of the US from many international institutions that Trump sees as siphoning off US taxpayer money.
Climate change
The weather is getting warmer. Scientists have been warning for decades that our addiction to fossil fuels will cause climate change. The facts back them up. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising. 2024 will go down as the warmest year on record. In 2024, the average global temperature was 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time. This is a dangerous sign at a time when the 2015 Paris Agreement sought to prevent the world from permanently breaching that level.
Some of the consequences of a changing climate are already visible. In the first 10 months of 2024, 24 weather-related natural disasters in the United States caused at least $1.1 billion in damage. Record droughts have devastated northern South America. Parts of the Amazon, the world’s largest river system, have dried up. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 1,500 people have died in an unusually heavy rainy season in West and Central Africa.
In September, Hurricane Helen lashed the southeastern United States. Typhoon Krathon hit Taiwan, and Hurricane Boris brought flooding and destruction to central Europe. Typhoons Yagi and Bebinka caused devastation in Asia. In October, a devastating Mediterranean storm hit eastern Spain, causing its worst flooding in decades and killing more than 230 people.
In December, Cyclone Chido devastated the French overseas territory of Mayotte. COP29, the annual international climate conference, has made little progress in providing financial support to developing countries for emission reductions and climate adaptation.
