Netanyahu Says Israel Could Oversee Gaza for ‘Indefinite Period’ After War |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that Israel “for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip once the war against Palestinian militant group Hamas ends, he told ABC in an interview that aired yesterday. Talks about the postwar future of Gaza have been a focus of ongoing diplomacy by U.S. and Middle Eastern officials. Netanyahu said Gaza should be governed by “those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas,” without specifying (FT) whether he was referring to the Palestinian Authority or an international force. He added that there would be no general cease-fire in Gaza without the release of hostages, but voiced openness to short tactical pauses of “an hour here, an hour there.”
As the humanitarian cost of the war continues to mount inside Gaza, its Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday that more than ten thousand people had been killed (NYT) in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. The numbers could not be independently verified, but a Pentagon spokesperson said “we know the numbers are in the thousands.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said yesterday that this is the deadliest-ever war (NYT) for UN personnel, with eighty-nine employees so far killed in Gaza.
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“Many scenarios [for a postwar Gaza] are based on what actors should do rather than what they are likely to do, which is also misleading. Such scenarios also risk seriously underestimating the difficulties of any diplomacy. Instead, policymakers should examine how unfolding events will affect what the actors are likely to do and the ways in which the violence may deepen divisions,” George Washington University’s Nathan J. Brown writes for the Carnegie Endowment.
“The further out that one looks, the murkier Gaza’s future becomes. If Hamas is removed after running the Gaza Strip since 2007, the most obvious candidate to fill the void would be the Palestinian Authority (PA), which runs the West Bank,” Foreign Policy’s Amy Mackinnon writes. “The very survival of the PA has come into question in recent years, let alone its ability to take 2 million Gazans under its wing in the wake of a war.”
At this virtual media briefing, four CFR experts discuss the current state of the Israel-Hamas war and its implications for Gaza and the Middle East.
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China Introduces New Reporting Requirements for Rare Earth Exports, Commodity Imports |
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Media Watchdog Urges Pakistan Against Expelling Afghan Journalists in Mass Deportation |
Reporters Without Borders called on Pakistan not to deport (AP) some two hundred undocumented Afghan journalists, as deportation would expose them to danger in Afghanistan. Pakistan ordered undocumented Afghans to leave the country by November 1, but the journalists remain, as well as some twenty-five thousand Afghans waiting for relocation to the United States under a special refugee program.
India: Voting begins today (AP) in two Indian states where the contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Indian National Congress party is seen as a test of public sentiment ahead of India’s national election next year.
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Middle East and North Africa |
Jailed 2023 Iranian Nobel Laureate Goes on Hunger Strike |
Activist Narges Mohammadi needs urgent medical care but has been banned from leaving Iran’s Evin Prison for refusing to wear a hijab, her family said. Her hunger strike is in protest (Time) of the “delaying and neglecting” of medical care for sick inmates and the mandatory hijab policy for women, they said in a separate statement yesterday. |
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South Africa Recalls Diplomats From Israel |
South Africa’s foreign minister said that Pretoria believes Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas amount to “collective punishment” and called for a cease-fire (BBC). An Israeli foreign affairs spokesperson said that South Africa’s decision to recall its diplomats was a “victory for the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Kenya: A Kenyan pharmaceutical company became the first manufacturer in Africa (The Guardian) to receive approval from the World Health Organization to produce a lifesaving malaria medication that until now has been imported to African countries from China and India.
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Italy Announces Deal With Albania to Create Migrant Processing, Detention Centers |
In the first such deal between a European Union (EU) and non-EU country, migrants intercepted at sea but who have not reached Italian shores will be processed and potentially detained (Politico) in Albania. Children, pregnant women, and vulnerable people will not be sent to the centers, expected to open by the spring, the Italian prime minister said. The deal is similar to one planned between the United Kingdom and Rwanda, which was blocked after a court found it unlawful.
Russia: The country formally withdrew (Reuters) from a post-Cold War treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe after having suspended its participation in the treaty in 2007 and halting active participation in 2015. In 2011, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) stopped implementing the treaty in relation to Russia.
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Peruvian Foreign Minister, Ambassador to U.S. Resign |
Foreign Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi stepped down (MercoPress) after failing to arrange a bilateral meeting between Peruvian President Dina Boluarte and U.S. President Joe Biden on Boluarte’s trip to Washington last week. Peru’s ambassador to the United States also handed in his resignation yesterday over his role in the incident.
Canada/Nigeria: Canada is probing an explosion (Reuters) at its embassy in Nigeria that killed two people yesterday. Ottawa issued a warning against nonessential travel to the country.
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Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Case on Gun Rights and Domestic Violence |
The case could invalidate a federal law (NPR) banning firearms for people subject to court orders for domestic violence and erode other similar laws across the country. It comes after the Supreme Court last year broke with previous handling of gun law cases by ruling that a gun law must be analogous to laws at the time of the United States’ founding to be constitutional.
This Backgrounder by CFR’s Jonathan Masters compares gun policies around the world.
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