Afghanistan-Pakistan, Sudan, Gaza

Today's three stories you should know

Afghanistan-Pakistan

Pakistan and Afghanistan have begun a fresh round of talks in China in an effort to end months of fighting, sources from both countries told Reuters. Both sides have suffered heavy losses in the cross-border violence, but Afghanistan has borne the brunt. Islamabad launched air raids on the Afghan capital Kabul last month, killing an estimated 400 people in a strike on a hospital used to treat drug addicts, Afghanistan’s Taliban government said. Pakistani authorities have long accused Afghanistan of harboring armed groups who carry out attacks inside Pakistan, which Kabul denies. Chinese intervention is reported to have eased fighting last month but stopped short of securing a full truce.

More from Reuters here.

Sudan

Sexual violence and rape against women and girls are being used as weapons of war in Sudan, an international medical aid group said in a new report. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) spoke to multiple women who had been subjected to vicious attacks, including gang rapes. MSF said at least 3,396 survivors of sexual violence had sought treatment at its facilities in Sudan between January 2024 and November 2025. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the perpetrators were identified as armed men, and 60 percent of the cases documented in South Darfur involved multiple attackers. MSF Emergency Coordinator Myriam Laroussi said that the numbers confirmed in the report were just the “tip of the iceberg.”

More from AP here.

Gaza

Eleven toddlers, who were evacuated to Egypt from a neonatal care ‌unit in Gaza two years ago as Israeli forces attacked medical facilities, today returned to the Palestinian enclave to be reunited with their parents. As Reuters put it, the children have “never known their parents, and they've ​never known Gaza.” They were among 29 preterm babies who were evacuated from the neonatal intensive care unit at Gaza's ​Al Shifa hospital in November 2023 when it was raided by Israeli forces. Their parents were not allowed to accompany them. "I couldn't touch her, I couldn't hold my daughter during the two and a half years," one of the children's ​mothers, Sundus Al-Kurd, said as she held her daughter Bissan. "Today is like a birthday, like a ​new beginning, and I will make up for everything my daughter was deprived of, God willing."

More from Reuters here.