When Erdina Laca goes grocery shopping in Eichsfeld these days, she pulls out a special payment card that’s for asylum-seekers only.

She no longer pays in cash for her apples, eggs and fish — like most of the Germans standing in line with her at the register.

Laca, 45, came from Albania with her husband and three children and applied for asylum in Germany last September. The family lives in the county of Eichsfeld in the eastern state of Thuringia and has been one of the first in the country to receive half of their government benefits in the form of cashless payments on a plastic card.

“With half the money that is on the card, I can buy groceries, and with the other half (in cash) I can buy in every shop whatever I need for me and my children,” Laca said.

The new rule, which was passed by parliament last month, calls for asylum-seekers to receive their benefits on a card for use at local shops and to pay for services. They will only be able to withdraw limited amounts of cash and won’t be able to transfer money outside Germany. The aim is to prevent migrants from sending money to family and friends abroad, or to smugglers.

Migrant advocates groups have criticized the new regulation as discriminatory — especially as it’s being implemented in a country that’s still much more cash-centric than many other European countries and where some businesses, especially restaurants, won’t even accept card payments.

They say people fleeing war and persecution won’t be deterred from coming to Germany just because their benefits will no longer be paid out in cash only. Instead, they claim that the payment cards will single out migrants and may possibly add to them being ostracized further.

“It has to be said quite clearly that people are coming because of civil war and persecution — they won’t be deterred by a payment card,” said Wiebke Judith from Pro Asyl. “The aim here is to create an instrument of discrimination and to bully refugees.”

Germany has been trying to clamp down on migration for months, and this latest measure comes just weeks before the European Union election on June 9.

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, has been successfully exploiting Germans’ hardening attitudes toward migrants. AfD, which takes an anti-migration stance, is expected to make significant gains compared to the 10.3% that the party won during the last federal election in 2021.

Attitudes toward migration have hardened in Germany as large numbers of asylum-seekers have arrived, in addition to refugees from Ukraine, and local authorities have struggled to find accommodation.

The number of people applying for asylum in Germany last year rose to more than 350,000, an increase of just over 50% compared with the year before. The largest number of asylum-seekers came from Syria, followed by Turks and Afghans.

In January, lawmakers approved legislation intended to ease deportation of unsuccessful asylum-seekers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly said that authorities need to speed up deportations.

Germany, like several other European countries, has also started classifying some countries, such as Moldova and Georgia, as “safe countries of origin” — meaning asylum-seekers from there can be quickly rejected and deported faster than in the past.

Eichsfeld, where Luca and her family live while their asylum plea is being processed, was one of the first counties to introduce the plastic payment cards, which look similar to ATM or credit cards. The small town started handing them out to asylum-seekers in December.

The legislation gives local authorities latitude to decide on exemptions and on how much cash asylum-seekers can withdraw. Eichsfeld decided to pay out about 50% of the monthly benefits for asylum-seekers in cash, with the other half going on the payment cards.

While Laca doesn’t have any problems with the changes, county officials say that some migrants don’t like the new cards.

“We have a lot of nationalities who grew up with cash — they don’t know how to pay by card,” says Thomas Dreiling, who runs a local shelter for asylum-seekers. Still, he supports the new system because he thinks that having less cash available will be an incentive for migrants to look for work and thus get off government benefits.

Jihad Ammuri, a 20-year-old asylum-seeker from Damascus, Syria, said not all stores have been accepting his payment card and he’s been turned away from some places.

Dreiling said that of the about 400 asylum-seekers who were slated to get the payment cards in December, more than 50 said “no” to the card and left Germany — most of them citizens from North Macedonia and Georgia. Another 40 people have found work in the meantime and no longer receive government welfare payments. 

Moscow’s forces captured five villages in a renewed ground assault in northeastern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday, and Associated Press journalists in the city of Vovchansk described multiple buildings destroyed after Russian airstrikes and barrages of Grad rockets.

Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm whether Russian had taken the villages, which lie in a contested “gray zone” on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia.

Ukrainian journalists reported that the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha were taken by Russian troops on Friday. Russia said the village of Pletenivka was also taken.

In an evening statement Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said fighting was still ongoing in the settlements of Strilecha and Pletenivka, as well as Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove, Lukyantsi and Hatyshche.

“Our troops are carrying out counterattacks there for a second day, protecting Ukrainian territory,” he said.

The Institute for the Study of War said Friday that geolocated footage confirms at least one of the villages was seized. The Washington-based think tank described recent Russian gains as “tactically significant.”

The renewed assault on the region has forced more than 1,700 civilians residing in settlements near the fighting to flee, according to Ukrainian authorities. It comes after Russia stepped up attacks in March targeting energy infrastructure and settlements, which analysts predicted were a concerted effort by Moscow to shape conditions for an offensive.

On Saturday, Russia continued to pummel Vovchansk with airstrikes and Grad rockets as police and volunteers raced to evacuate residents. At least 20 people were evacuated to safety in a nearby village. Police said that 900 people had been evacuated the previous day.

AP journalists who accompanied an evacuation team described empty streets with multiple buildings destroyed and others on fire. The road was littered with newly made craters and the city was covered in dust and shrapnel with the smell of gunpowder heavy in the air. Mushroom clouds of smoke rose across the skyline as Russian jets conducted multiple airstrikes.

The AP journalists witnessed nine air attacks during the three hours they were there.

“The situation in Vovchansk and the settlements along the border (with Russia) is incredibly difficult. Constant aviation strikes are carried out, multiple rocket missile systems strikes, artillery strikes,” said Tamaz Hambarashvili, the head of the Vovchansk military administration.

“For the second day in a row, we evacuated all the inhabitants of our community who are willing to evacuate,” he said. “I think that they are destroying the city to make (local) people leave, to make sure there are no militaries, nobody. To create a ‘gray zone.’”

Evacuees bade tearful goodbyes to their neighbors as they were taken away from their homes.

“You lie down and think — whether they will kill you now, or in an hour, or in three,” said resident Valentyna Hrevnova, 75. “I hope that they (Russians) will not come, but ours (Ukrainians) will be here.”

Vera Rudko, 72, was among those who left.

“We drove through Vovchansk in the city center,” Rudko said. “I can’t look at this without tears. Everything is trembling. We didn’t sleep these two nights at all.”

Russia’s recent push in Kharkiv seeks to exploit ammunition shortages before promised Western supplies can reach the front line, and pin down Ukrainian forces in the northeast and keep them away from heavy battles underway in the Donetsk region where Moscow’s troops are gaining ground, analysts said.

Russian military bloggers said the assault could mark the start of a Russian attempt to carve out a “buffer zone” that President Vladimir Putin vowed to create earlier this year to halt frequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions. Fears also mount that without adequate supplies, Russia might even be able to cut supply routes and besiege the city of Kharkiv, where 1.1 million people reside.

Ukrainian officials have downplayed Russian statements about captured territory, with reinforcements being rushed to the Kharkiv region to hold off Russian forces.

On Telegram, Kharkiv region Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said that heavy fighting continued in the areas around Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Oliinykove, but that the situation was under control and there was no threat of a ground assault on the city of Kharkiv.

In the meantime, artillery, mortar and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages in the region on Saturday, killing at least three people and injuring five others, Syniehubov said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Friday evening that Russian forces were expanding their operations. He also called on the country’s Western allies to ensure that promised deliveries of military aid would swiftly reach the front lines.

“It is critical that partners support our warriors and Ukrainian resilience with timely deliveries. Truly timely ones,” he said in a video statement on X. “A package that truly helps is the actual delivery of weapons to Ukraine, rather than just the announcement of a package.”

The attack was launched from two areas in the Kharkiv region early Friday, Ukrainian officials and analysts said. Russian assault groups attempted to break through Ukrainian defensive lines in the city of Vovchansk and in the region north of the village of Lyptsi.

Separately, Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Friday night, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said, with air defense systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

Another strike set ablaze an oil depot in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, killing four people and wounding eight more, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, said on the messaging app Telegram on Saturday.

There was also shelling in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region Saturday, where three people died when an explosion hit a local restaurant, said Denis Pushilin, the area’s Kremlin-appointed leader. Eight more people were wounded, including a child.

In the war’s early days, Russia made a botched attempt to quickly storm Kharkiv but retreated from its outskirts after about a month. In the fall of 2022, seven months later, Ukraine’s army pushed them out of Kharkiv. The bold counterattack helped persuade Western countries that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield and merited military support. 

Aid workers are struggling to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by what Israel says is a limited operation in Rafah, as the two main crossings near the southern Gaza city remain closed.

The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees said 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past week, out of 1.3 million who were sheltering there before the operation began, most of whom had already fled fighting elsewhere over the course of the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has portrayed Rafah as the last stronghold of the militant group, brushing off warnings from the United States and other allies that any major operation there would be catastrophic for civilians. Hamas has meanwhile regrouped in some of the most devastated parts of Gaza that Israel had previously claimed to have cleared with heavy bombardment and ground operations.

Thirty-eight trucks of flour arrived through the Western Erez Crossing, a second access point to northern Gaza, Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the U.N.’s World Food Program, said Monday. Israel had announced the opening of the crossing on Sunday.

But no food has entered the two main crossings in southern Gaza for the past week.

The Rafah crossing into Egypt has been closed since Israeli troops seized it a week ago. Fighting in Rafah city has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, though Israel says it is allowing supply trucks to enter from its side.

For the past week, the Israeli military has intensified bombardment and other operations in Rafah, while ordering the population to evacuate from parts of the city. Israel insists it is a limited operation focused on rooting out tunnels and other militant infrastructure along the border with Egypt.

Israeli forces were also battling Palestinian militants in Zeitoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, areas where the army had launched major operations earlier in the war.

Etefa said WFP is distributing food from its remaining stocks in the areas of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah further north to which many of those escaping Rafah have fled. Inside Rafah, only two organizations partnering with WFP were still able to distribute food, and no bakeries were operating.

“The majority of distributions have stopped due to the evacuation orders, displacement, and running out of food,” she said. “The situation is becoming increasingly unsustainable.”

Israeli protesters on Monday halted a convoy of aid bound for Gaza at a checkpoint between the occupied West Bank and Israel. Videos circulating online showed them hurling some of the aid off the trucks and destroying it. Police said a number of arrests were made, without elaborating.

Almost the entire population of Gaza relies on humanitarian aid to survive. Israeli restrictions and ongoing fighting have hindered humanitarian efforts, causing widespread hunger and a “full-blown famine” in the north, according to the U.N.

The director of the Kuwait Hospital, one of the last functioning medical centers in Rafah, said medical staff and residents living near the facility have been told to evacuate. Sohaib al-Hams warned that any evacuation of the hospital itself would have “catastrophic consequences.”

Israel has also ordered new evacuations in northern Gaza, even after hundreds of thousands of people fled in the opening weeks of the war.

Mahmoud Shalabi, the senior program manager for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity, said he was recently ordered to relocate from Beit Lahiya in the far north to Gaza City.

“I have left my house several times now, along with my parents, who are both older than 70, my three children and my wife,” he said. “The journey of terror and displacement is beyond words.”

The war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. Militants still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Israel says it has killed over 13,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel marked an especially somber Memorial Day on Monday, with ceremonies across the country commemorating fallen soldiers, including the more than 600 killed since Oct. 7, more than half of them in the initial attack.

At a ceremony at Mount Herzl cemetery on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed once again to defeat Hamas.

“We exacted and will exact a high price from the enemy for their criminal acts. We will realize the goals of victory and at the center of them the return of all our hostages,” he said.

Sirens announced two minutes of silence at 11 a.m., and a formation of four fighter planes flew over Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.

Protesters and hecklers interrupted some of the ceremonies, reflecting growing discontent with the country’s leaders that has brought thousands of protesters into the streets in recent months. Critics blame Netanyahu for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack to happen and for the failure to reach a deal with Hamas to release the hostages.

Months of internationally mediated talks over a cease-fire and hostage release ground to an apparent standstill last week after Israel launched its incursion into Rafah. Israel has refused Hamas’ central demand for an end to the war and the withdrawal of its forces from the territory, saying that doing so would allow the militant group to regain control and launch more Oct. 7-style attacks.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for the offensive, has expressed growing impatience with Israel, saying it won’t supply offensive arms for a full-scale Rafah assault.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday that Israel could face an “enduring insurgency” if it doesn’t come up with a realistic plan for postwar governance in Gaza. Israel has rejected U.S. proposals for the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza with help from Arab states because those plans depend on progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu opposes.