Israeli Defense Minister to Discuss ‘Future of the War’ in Washington |
Yoav Gallant arrived in Washington yesterday to discuss Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip as well as escalating hostilities on its northern border with Lebanon during multiday talks that he called “critical for the future of the war.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview that aired yesterday that Israel will soon shift to a less intense phase of combat against Hamas and move some personnel to northern Israel amid rising tensions with Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The scope and pace of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have grown in recent weeks. In a video message released on Saturday, Hezbollah threatened to attack critical Israeli buildings if a full-scale conflict were to break out in Lebanon. While Netanyahu suggested Israel will refocus its forces on Hezbollah, he said he aimed to continue fighting in the Gaza Strip but is prepared to make a partial deal with Hamas to free some hostages. (Times of Israel, AP, WaPo)
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“The U.S. and France are leading diplomatic efforts to prevent an all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group, which is far stronger than Hamas,” Bloomberg’s Paul Wallace writes. “[Israel] keeps stressing that Hezbollah is too dangerous a threat to leave alone. It’s keen to get a commitment of US support if a full-blown conflict erupts.”
“After nine months of grueling war, it is time to recognize the stark reality: there is no military-only solution to defeat Hamas,” the University of Chicago’s Robert A. Pape writes for Foreign Affairs. “In the absence of a plan for the future of Gaza and the Palestinian people that Palestinians might accept, the terrorists will keep coming back and in larger numbers.”
This In Brief by CFR’s Christina Bouri discusses what escalating Hezbollah-Israel tensions mean for Lebanon.
Read the full suite of Foreign Affairs and CFR.org resources on Israel and the current conflict.
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Gun Attacks in Russia’s Dagestan Kill at Least Nineteen |
Gunmen opened fire on targets including two Orthodox churches, a synagogue, and a police post in two cities in the southern republic of Dagestan yesterday. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which authorities are investigating as terrorism incidents. They come three months after an attack on a Moscow concert hall killed more than 140 people. (RFE/RL, CNN)
Russia/Ukraine: Russian aerial attacks on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv over the weekend killed at least four people and wounded dozens more, local officials said. On Sunday, Russian authorities reported six deaths and more than one hundred wounded after Russian forces shot down Ukrainian missiles over Russia-occupied Crimea yesterday. (Kyiv Independent, AP)
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China, EU Agree to Hold Talks on EV Tariffs |
China and the European Union (EU) said they would hold talks on the EU anti-subsidy probe that led Brussels to announce an increase in tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV) earlier this month. Their announcement was made during a visit to Beijing by Germany’s vice chancellor. (FT) For CFR’s RealEcon, Fellow Liana Fix looks inside Europe’s China dilemma.
Philippines: A former senator who was a prominent critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s harsh war on drugs was fully cleared of her own drug charges today. Leila de Lima had been detained in 2017 and was released on bail in 2023. (Rappler, NYT)
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UN Reports Surge in Attacks by Taliban Opposition Groups |
Armed opposition to the Taliban carried out twenty-nine confirmed attacks in the past three months, a UN report said on Friday. It assessed that the groups “did not pose a significant challenge” to the Taliban’s territorial control of Afghanistan since they regained power in 2021. One of the groups rebuffed the UN findings, posting on social media that their operations this year numbered more than 160. (VOA)
Bangladesh: Flooding has stranded some 1.8 million people in northeast Bangladesh in the second instance of heavy flooding in less than a month. A disaster official with international development organization BRAC said climate change is making floods “more intense and less predictable.” (CNN, BSS)
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Middle East and North Africa |
Bahrain, Iran to Agree to Discuss Resuming Ties |
Foreign ministers from both countries met in Tehran and agreed to move forward with the talks, Bahraini state media reported. Bahrain cut off relations with Iran in 2016; their rapprochement comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran announced in March 2023 that they would restore diplomatic ties. (The National)
Saudi Arabia: More than 1,300 people have died making the Hajj pilgrimage this month amid high temperatures, Saudi Arabia’s health minister said. It is unclear if the death toll is higher than usual because Saudi Arabia does not regularly report such data. The minister said most of the pilgrims who died were making the journey without permits. (NYT)
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Sierra Leone Parliament Passes Bill to Ban Child Marriage |
Activists celebrated the bill as a victory for children’s rights, as it outlaws marriages with girls under eighteen years old. One-third of all girls living in Sierra Leone are married before they turn eighteen, according to the UN Children’s Fund. (Africanews)
Mali: The International Criminal Court (ICC) unsealed an arrest warrant for Islamist militant leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, who is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that were allegedly committed in 2012 and 2013. The warrant was not immediately made public when it was issued in 2017 because of “potential risks to witnesses and victims,” AFP reported. (VOA, Reuters, AFP)
This Backgrounder by Claire Klobucista and CFR’s Mariel Ferragamo explores the role of the ICC.
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U.S. to Resume Checks Needed to Export Produce From Mexico’s Michoacán |
Inspections of avocados and mangos will gradually resume after they were suspended last week following the assault and detention of U.S. inspectors, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico said. He added that “more work still needs to be done” so that agriculture inspectors are safe. (AP)
Haiti/Kenya: A Kenyan police force of some one thousand officers will depart for Haiti tomorrow, unnamed government and police sources told AFP. The Kenyan officers will lead a multinational security mission to assist Haitian police that was greenlit by the UN Security Council last October. (AFP)
This Backgrounder by Rocio Cara Labrador and CFR’s Diana Roy explains Haiti’s troubled path to development.
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