Israeli ground operations in Gaza. Israel is building up the forces necessary for a ground operation, potentially as early as next week, as its attempts to restore military deterrence against rocket attacks from Palestinian militants. In Israel itself, security forces are struggling to contain intercommunal violence between Israeli Arabs and far-right Jews, a situation that remains explosive and is likely to result in more violence throughout the next week. In the West Bank, lone Palestinian attacks against Israeli troops and settlers appear poised to escalate as popular anger over the ongoing Gaza military operation grows. Tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon will also continue, with accidental escalations sparked by provocateurs within Lebanon being a particularly distinct possibility in the coming week.

A U.S.-Russia meeting in Iceland. On May 20, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet on the sidelines of the biennial Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. Their meeting will take place amid heightened bilateral tensions over a range of disputes and concerns that the Arctic is becoming a new area of competition. During the ministerial meeting, Russia will take over the two-year rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council, the international forum of eight countries whose remit specifically excludes security issues, despite growing regional military activities. Aside from offering insight into the potential for Arctic cooperation and a broader de-escalation of U.S.-Russia tensions, the meeting between Blinken and Lavrov may also pave the way for a highly speculated meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, next month.

A race to conclude U.S.-Iran nuclear talks. Negotiators in Vienna hope to conclude nuclear talks before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s temporary agreement with Iran expires on May 21. But significant disputes remain on the scope of U.S. sanctions suspensions on Iran and how to address Tehran’s more advanced centrifuges. If the IAEA-Iran deal expires without extension, the international community may lose access to monitor Iran’s nuclear program. This would, in turn, reduce the precision of Western estimates on Iran’s nuclear timeline, while further fueling calls in the United States and Israel for the White House to take a stronger stance against Iran. The failure to reach a deal before the deadline, however, would more likely result in an extension or another ad-hoc agreement to allow access to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities. There’s also a good chance the United States and Iran will ink their own deal, though this is unlikely to happen before the latter’s June 18 presidential elections.

A new global plan for net-zero emissions by 2050. On May 18, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) will release a new special report titled The World’s Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050. The report will lay out recommendations for government actions needed to hit the global target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and thereby reduce the pace of climate change. The IEA hopes the report will build off momentum from the U.S. climate summit in April and the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference. Governments and companies will likely establish more specific intermediate targets around 2030 and 2035 in line with the 2050 net-zero emissions goal. But global coordination on environmental issues remains an uphill battle, with China (the world’s largest carbon emitter) and fast-growing India continuing to fall behind Western demands for more aggressive climate action.

An attempted Mars landing by China. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced that the Tianwen-1 space probe will attempt to land on Mars sometime between May 15 and May 19. The landing will mark stage two of China’s three-stage Mars mission, with stage one being the February orbit of the probe around Mars and stage three being the launch of the Zhurong Mars rover. China plans for the rover to spend at least three months on Mars, collecting and analyzing rock samples, among other research endeavors. If the Mars landing is successful, China would only be the third country in the world to accomplish the technical feat after the United States and Russia, marking a major success for the CNSA.