Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

U.S. arms sales to Israel are a potent symbol of Washington’s support for its closest Middle East ally, and potentially a powerful tool of influence over it. With prospects for a cease-fire in Gaza hanging in the balance, the Biden administration is facing the political limits of that power. – Wall Street Journal

One of the biggest sticking points to emerge from the on-running Gaza cease-fire talks is the future of a key crossing point into the enclave and control over two corridors within it. Hamas says Israeli troops must leave; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they have to stay. – Wall Street Journal

Funerals were held Wednesday for some of the six Israeli hostages retrieved from southern Gaza in a military operation the day before, their bodies returned for a final time to the kibbutzim from which they were abducted. – Washington Post

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israeli men protested outside a conscription center in Jerusalem on Wednesday and clashed with police officers amid rising national tensions about a court decision ordering a draft for the insular community. – New York Times

U.S. President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, stressed the urgent need to conclude a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal and pointed to upcoming Cairo talks as crucial, the White House said. – Reuters

Israel has not agreed to withdraw its troops from the so-called Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday, denying an Israeli television report. – Reuters

Israel’s outgoing head of military intelligence took responsibility for his country’s failures to defend its border on Oct. 7 at his resignation ceremony on Wednesday. – Reuters

At least 11 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya in the early hours of Thursday, official Palestinian news agency Wafa said. – Reuters

Rescued Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, whose heart-wrenching hostage-taking video on October 7 made her emblematic of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas, said Wednesday in Japan that she thought every night in captivity would be her last. – Agence France Presse

Editorial: If the IDF evacuates the area, whatever remains of Hamas after the war will use it – again – to rebuild its capabilities. The Philadelphi Corridor is Hamas’s lifeline. If Israel wants to prevent Hamas from reestablishing itself after the war, it needs to cut off this lifeline, and the only way to do that is for the IDF to be present. This brings us to another important lesson, although this one is from October 7: Technological solutions to real security problems are not always the answer. One idea floated in recent days to get Israel to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor was to rely heavily on state-of-the-art sensors to monitor the area. – Jerusalem Post

David Ignatius writes: Stopping the Gaza nightmare is the biggest challenge facing Biden in his remaining months in office. His team has crafted a three-stage peace plan that, if embraced, could begin a real process of reconstruction and recovery in Gaza. Gallant has told U.S. officials that it was the biggest American military effort to aid Israel since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Now is Biden’s moment. He needs to push Israel and Hamas to close the deal. If he succeeds, it would be one of the most significant achievements of his presidency. – Washington Post

Agam Goldstein-Almog writes: On Tuesday, news arrived that Israeli forces in Gaza had recovered the bodies of six hostages. It is unclear how many of the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas remain alive. Negotiations for their release continue. I pray for their freedom, but I have no illusions about the world to which they’ll return. – Washington Post

Michael Rubin writes: Rather than pressure Netanyahu and have aides, underlings, and surrogates slime a duly elected leader, Blinken should be introspective. Had Blinken at every opportunity not indulged Hamas’s conceits or played into the agenda of the group’s enablers such as Qatar and Turkey, the hostages today might be free and the Hamas-imposed war over. President Joe Biden’s base might hand wring and indulge in an orgy of antisemitism, but the road to peace rests on bringing so much pain to bear on Hamas that it has no choice but to release its captives and end its reign of terrorism over Gaza’s 2.5 million Palestinians. – American Enterprise Institute

John Spencer writes: But to win, Israel needs to emphasize its strategy. It must consolidate the gains it has made against Hamas by pushing forward a political solution. If Israel cannot fully remove Hamas from power, demilitarize the strip, and back a new authority in Gaza, then Hamas will likely reconstitute itself and fight another day. That result would be no victory for Israel or for the region. Israel must therefore take advantage of the present moment, when it has the upper hand and Hamas is on the run. – Foreign Affairs

Russia & Ukraine

Ukrainian troops said they are moving to encircle an estimated 3,000 Russian troops that are hemmed against a river in Russia’s Kursk province, seeking a fresh blow against Moscow in the third week of a surprise incursion. – Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday rejected Russian accusations of U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, after the Foreign Ministry summoned Chargé d’Affaires Stephanie Holmes to protest the “provocative actions” of American journalists who reported from the Russian region of Kursk under Ukrainian control. – Washington Post

A former U.S. Air Force airman who absconded to Russia after being hit with child pornography charges appears to be featured in a Russian propaganda video in which he defends his decision to enlist in the military there. – New York Times

Ukrainian forces are using U.S.-manufactured HIMARS rocket systems to destroy pontoon bridges and engineering equipment in Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday, targeting logistics in its major cross-border incursion. – Reuters

Ukraine’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, officials said, allowing the country to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a step Ukrainian leaders have cast as central to Kyiv’s European aspirations. – Reuters

Russia will take steps to respond after Latvia made it harder for Russian citizens to extend residence permits, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA news agency on Thursday. – Reuters 

Russian forces prevented a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance team from piercing the border in the western Bryansk region, about 240 km (150 miles) from the site of Ukraine’s incursion into the neighbouring Kursk region, a Russian official said. – Reuters

Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defences in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. – Reuters 

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese premier Li Qiang Wednesday, hailing growing trade relations as Moscow becomes increasingly dependent on Beijing for political and economic support. – Associated Press

Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether. – Associated Press

Mihir Sharma writes: “Modi will call for peace this week. But we all know that for peace to work, Kyiv will need to approach Moscow from a position of greater strength. Ukraine’s friends in Europe and the US have to buy it that time. That means ensuring the rest of the world doesn’t start finding ways to loosen the noose drawn around the Russian economy.” – Bloomberg

Joshua C. Huminski writes: Washington should ensure that its support sees Ukraine as a measure of victory, but strategic success is as much about defining what a viable, managed relationship with Russia looks like. Both are critical to Europe’s security and America’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific, and a positive outcome in one is only a partial strategic success. – The Hill

Middle East & North Africa

A Greek-flagged tanker was adrift in the Red Sea on Wednesday after repeated attacks that started a fire on the vessel and caused the ship to lose power, the UK maritime agency said. – Reuters

British security firm Ambrey said on Thursday a fire was spotted in the Red Sea approximately 58 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s port of Salif. – Reuters

Lebanon’s hopes of boosting a moribund economy with tourism revenue have been thwarted, after an Israeli airstrike on the capital Beirut and threat of all-out war triggered a series of travel bans and sent holidaymakers packing. – Bloomberg

Elizabeth Dent writes: More broadly, Washington and Manama have publicly stated their intent to expand C-SIPA beyond a bilateral agreement, pulling in like-minded countries in the Middle East and beyond. Despite the formidable regional obstacles to this goal, C-SIPA offers an unparalleled opportunity to build out an integrated security and defense structure while simultaneously forming a network of trusted partners for economic development and technological integration. – Washington Institute

China

China said it has opened an antisubsidy probe into dairy products imported from the European Union, the latest in a tit-for-tat round of actions between the two increasingly hostile trading powers. – Wall Street Journal

China is seriously concerned about a report that said the United States approved a nuclear strategic plan to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday. – Reuters

Taiwan’s defence spending will rise 7.7% next year, outpacing expected economic growth, the cabinet said on Thursday, as the island adds more fighter jets and missiles to strengthen deterrence against a rising threat from Beijing. – Reuters

Tom Rogan: As an extension, the panel argued that in the event of a looming war with China, the U.S. should offer debt relief to those nations China has previously dominated with high debt loads. Beijing uses these debt loads to extract resources and political obedience from impoverished nations. But this strategy has sparked growing popular ire and the associated opportunity for the U.S. to isolate Beijing as it moves toward conflict. – Washington Examiner 

Asia

Videos of this interaction in Bangkok last week, between Duangthip Yiamphop, a reporter for the Thai Public Broadcasting Service, and Prawit Wongsuwan, a retired general and former deputy prime minister, have led to anger in Thailand, where violence against women is prevalent and the military has repeatedly disavowed democratic norms. – New York Times

Indonesia’s parliament has delayed passing revisions to an elections law that had threatened to spark protests on Thursday, following outcry over legislation seen to strengthen the political influence of outgoing President Joko Widodo. – Reuters

Australia said it would jointly manufacture long-range Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles with Norway’s Kongsberg Defence in the city of Newcastle on Australia’s eastern coast, the only site outside of Norway. – Reuters

Africa

The military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written to the U.N. Security Council to denounce what they said was Ukraine’s support for rebel groups in West Africa’s Sahel region, Mali’s foreign ministry said. – Reuters

Uganda is exploring for oil in two new regions where potential discoveries of crude could increase the East African country’s proven reserves of 6.5 billion barrels, its energy minister said on Wednesday. – Reuters

Landlocked Niger has resumed crude oil exports via Benin after a dispute between the countries halted the flow of oil through a new Chinese-funded pipeline to the West African coast, according to a pipeline company agent and ship tracking data on Wednesday. – Reuters

Amid a global health emergency over mpox, African health authorities are now requesting more vaccines as Congo has reported a significant increase in mpox cases, with over 1,000 new infections recorded in just the past week. – Newsweek

North America

Hundreds of Mexican federal judges went on strike Wednesday to protest a judicial-system overhaul that they say is an authoritarian power grab by departing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. – Wall Street Journal

A judicial reform planned by Mexico’s government will not violate the country’s commitments with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday. – Reuters

Mexican prosecutors finally won convictions — and 50-year prison sentences — Wednesday against 11 drug cartel gunmen for the 2010-2011 massacre of 122 passengers who were pulled off passing buses and forced to fight each other to the death with sledgehammers. – Associated Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Canada’s two largest railways and unionized workers to reach an agreement to avert a work stoppage that businesses say will cause significant harm to the Canadian and US economies. – Bloomberg

Dozens of Jewish institutions across Canada received a threatening email early Wednesday morning saying bombs had been planted on their premises and would be detonated later that day, community groups said. – Times of Israel

Cybersecurity

Google (GOOGL.O) and Australia’s national science agency will join hands to develop digital tools that automatically detect and fix software vulnerabilities for operators of critical infrastructure, seeking to combat a surge in cyberattacks. – Reuters

Austrian advocacy group NOYB has filed two complaints with the EU privacy watchdog against the European Parliament, accusing it of inadequately protecting employees’ personal data, the group said on Thursday. – Reuters

The social media platform X banned an account used by a self-described pro-Palestinian hacking group on Tueday, shortly after the United States issued a warning about Iranian cyber actors targeting the country’s presidential election. – The Record

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal case against a scientist in Moscow suspected of carrying out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on behalf of Ukraine’s intelligence agency. – The Record

Alexa Corse and Dustin Volz write: Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said U.S. resilience to foreign-influence operations has deteriorated since the last election due to a variety of factors, including advances in artificial intelligence and legal challenges to government cooperation with social-media companies that have chilled efforts to police the threat. – Wall Street Journal