Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Israeli prosecutors on Thursday charged a Jewish settler over the killing of a Palestinian community ‌leader last year in the West Bank, the first such indictment in more than seven years amid a rise in settler violence in the occupied territory. – Reuters

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and ​several other countries on Thursday strongly condemned what they ‌described as ongoing Israeli violations in the Gaza Strip, including attacks on healthcare facilities, medical infrastructure and civilian infrastructure. – Reuters

Mossad Director Roman Gofman has removed two of the spy agency’s most senior officials who were closely involved in developing an unsuccessful plan to topple the Iranian regime, Israeli television reported Thursday. – Times of Israel

Tamerlan Amshukov, 26, and Alina Kushnirenko, 24, were indicted on Thursday for allegedly carrying out a months-long series of surveillance and intelligence-gathering missions for Iranian agents in exchange for cryptocurrency. – Jerusalem Post

A newly published UNICEF-led survey revealed that the levels of malnutrition in children are lower or similar to those registered before the Israel-Hamas war, with Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon saying on Thursday that it was proof that the “false narrative against Israel” of there being a famine in the Gaza Strip is falling apart. – Jerusalem Post

Hamas urges Palestinians to target leading figures in the Israeli-backed armed groups in the Gaza Strip. The terror organization’s special security unit, Rada Force, which is responsible for addressing internal threats – specifically suspected collaborators with Israel – stated that the solution to dismantling what it described as “collaborator gangs” is to eliminate their top members. – Jerusalem Post

Elliot Kaufman writes: If the terrorists now tell the mediators that they are ready to deal, it is likely because they are steadily losing territory and top members, with no political horizon to compensate. They surely didn’t expect to be left to sit and stink for 10 months postwar while Israel chips away and the Board of Peace prepares to split off the population. Better, then, for Hamas to initiate a political process that it might turn to its advantage. But Hamas has run out of hostages. Unlike during the war, it can’t use them to call timeout or manipulate the Israeli public. Israel owes Hamas and its mediator-allies nothing, least of all adherence to terms accepted under duress. You never actually give the hostage taker his airplane, and Americans know that best of all. Denzel Washington says it in “Inside Man” (2006). – Wall Street Journal

Ari Cicurel and Robert Sofge writes: The United States could repurpose and expand the senior-level Israel-EUCOM-CENTCOM (ICE) dialogue to form a drone defense center of excellence within the Air Warfare Center in the United Arab Emirates, which already brings Gulf air forces together. The hub would help Kyiv exchange cutting-edge classified data beyond its open-source TrophyLab project, improving tactics for fiber-optic-guided systems, combined missile-drone salvos, long-range strike routes, decoys, and attacks on drones before their launch. While the Iran War tested US, Israeli, and Gulf defenses against the Iranian systems Ukraine has fought for years, none has matched the counter-drone expertise Kyiv built under fire. Washington should help our partners gain that edge before the next fight starts. – The National Interest

Russia and Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test NATO’s resolve with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years, according to new U.S. intelligence reports that posit possible scenarios ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion. – Wall Street Journal

Overhead, the skies were reverberating with the thud of missiles and the whine of drones. But most of the people taking shelter in a Kyiv subway station one night last month were looking down at their phones, following social media channels that track attacks in real time. – New York Times

For much of the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeals to Western allies for air defenses have paid off. His lobbying helped persuade Washington to give Kyiv its first U.S.-made Patriot air defense system in 2023, followed by several more sent by Western nations over the years. – New York Times

In the space of three weeks, Vasily Klimov’s online shopping pick-up point in Moscow has gone from a healthy small business to a loss-making operation he is now desperately trying to sell. – Reuters

Ukrainian kamikaze ​drones killed ‌two civilians and injured ​five others ​in Russia’s Bryansk ⁠region ​which borders Ukraine, ​Yegor Kovalchuk, the acting regional ​governor ​said on Thursday. – Reuters

Ukraine hit more oil facilities deep inside Russia in overnight attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday, as Kyiv kept up its campaign to undermine Moscow’s wartime economy and embarrass the Kremlin. – Associated Press

Many of Russia’s elite increasingly fear the Federal Security Service is out of control as President Vladimir Putin tasks the agency with maintaining his grip on power amid growing unease over the war in Ukraine. – Bloomberg

The share of Russians who believe the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is going well fell to its lowest point since April 2022, when the Moscow-based independent pollster Levada Center began tracking the question. – Bloomberg

Editorial: One problem is the lack of clarity at a national level about who is responsible and legally authorized to intercept a drone that poses a security danger. NATO members also can do more to clarify their treaty obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, so that they can target ships that launch threatening drones. The IISS report observes that the Kremlin conducted its drone campaign “with substantial impunity.” That is, European governments said and did little in response. This is a failure of deterrence, and Mr. Putin will keep testing Europe as long as he can get away with it. – Wall Street Journal

George Weigel writes: Ecumenical dialogue isn’t possible with men who have betrayed the Gospel, blessed an autocrat’s aggression, trampled on religious freedom and mortgaged the liberty of their own church to state power. A thorough rethinking of Vatican ecumenical strategy toward the Christian East is essential. That old idea of a “road through Moscow” hasn’t led to Constantinople. It has led only to the betrayal of Christian truth and the shattering of ecumenical hope. – Wall Street Journal

Marc Champion writes: Ordinary Russians don’t care about these towns, so this is not something Putin is focused on for fear of popular backlash. They’re important because he, too, understands their strategic value. Kyiv can’t hand them over, precisely because the Kremlin wants them so badly — evidence, in itself, of Putin’s continued appetite for conquest. Sadly, that makes scenario three — more war, stretching at least into 2027 and likely beyond — the default outcome, with all the attendant costs in blood and treasure that implies. The Ukrainians did their part. Whether or not another window of opportunity to end the war gets missed is a choice for the US and Europe to make. – Bloomberg

Julian G. Waller writes: In other words, the longer Russia’s gerontocratic elites sit atop the institutions that have political legitimacy, constitutional centrality, and access to resources and loyalists, the less likely an orderly transition to the next president will be. Those who think they are in pole position to manage the post-Putin future will be pressed by others who have waited far too long in the wings yet have never really gained the skills to rule a country. Even if Putin remains healthy, each potential office change among his inner circle will become the target of many individuals vying for a single coveted position in a potential selectorate. With a generation warped by disappointment and frustration, the pressure is mounting to exploit any opening. Instead of clarity and stability, the future of Russian politics will reflect the consequences of the seemingly deathless regime that Putin has built. – Foreign Affairs

Paul Hockenos writes: Ukraine may be inflicting economic damage on Russia, but it’s also straining global grain supplies itself, even as it asks the U.N. to force Russia to stand down on humanitarian grounds—a contradiction that Kyiv didn’t acknowledge in New York. Russia’s main grain lobby group complained on July 31, apparently with a straight face, that Ukrainian strikes on its transports could result in hunger ​in Africa and the Middle East. Global grain markets are jittery but functional for now. “In September and October, however, there’ll be a new harvest,” Nivievskyi said. Come autumn, the world could face a food crisis every bit as severe as the one in 2022. – Foreign Policy

Turkey

Turkey, ​Saudi Arabia ‌and Pakistan ​will ​sign a ⁠joint ​defence agreement ​in Saudi Arabia ​on ​Friday, two ‌regional ⁠sources with direct ​knowledge ​of ⁠the matter ​told ​Reuters. – Reuters

Veysi Dag and Ofra Bengio write: Israel has historically viewed these communities, including the Kurds, as natural partners and has generally supported their aspirations for security, recognition, and self-determination. Preserving constructive Kurdish-Israeli relations therefore remains in the interests of both peoples. Political disagreements and ideological shifts should not overshadow a longer history of mutual respect and shared experiences as minorities in a turbulent region. Ocalan’s latest paradigm shift may reshape the PKK’s future, but it should not rewrite history or undermine the foundations of Kurdish-Jewish relations. – Jerusalem Post

Michael Jacobson and Matthew Levitt write: Although Turkey is unlikely to assist much with these efforts, U.S. officials should nonetheless press Ankara—both publicly and privately—for action. Given President Trump’s strong relationship with President Erdogan, Washington has more leverage now than in the past on this difficult issue. Ankara will not stop Hamas from operating on Turkish soil, but even scaling this activity back somewhat would be helpful. If President Trump is serious about his ambitious plans to disarm Hamas, cracking down on the group’s transatlantic funding sources is essential. – Washington Institute

Middle East & North Africa

Morocco is ready to cooperate with Spain and ​other European partners on the return ‌of unaccompanied minors who were among tens of thousands of migrants who crossed into ​the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, state news ​agency MAP reported on Thursday. – Reuters

The European Union should ​use all available leverage, including visa and trade policy, to secure cooperation from Morocco on migration, EU Migration ‌Commissioner Magnus Brunner said on Thursday. – Reuters

An attack by Yemen’s Houthis on southern Saudi ​Arabia wounded 11 civilians on Thursday, a military official said, as the kingdom warned that coordinated attacks by ‌the Houthis and Iran-backed Iraqi militias were imminent. – Reuters

At least 30 Yemeni government troops were killed in attacks on military camps in Yemen’s Marib and Hadramout provinces on ​Thursday, government sources said, adding that the death toll could rise. – Reuters

A bomb planted in a minibus killed two people and wounded 14 others on the outskirts of Syria’s capital Damascus on Thursday night, officials said. – Reuters

Chama Mechtaly writes: The objective is not to correct one Emirati policy in Sudan, but to dismantle the regional front built by Israel, Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain against the Muslim Brotherhood, the IRGC, and the forces that require permanent war. Israelis should not watch these campaigns in silence, and should defend the sovereignty of Morocco and the UAE with the same seriousness Israel defends its own, not as diplomatic courtesy, but to protect the civilizational alliance they are building together. – Jerusalem Post

Amine Ayoub writes: Strategic realism demands that the United States and its allies cease treating Qatar as a benign partner or an honest broker. The West must hold the Doha regime accountable by demanding an absolute, verifiable end to its financial and logistical patronage of extremist networks. Sheikh Hamad has passed away, but the devastating fires of radical Islamism he systematically ignited and funded continue to burn across the Middle East, and the civilized world will suffer the catastrophic fallout of his decisions until it finds the courage to extinguish the source. – Jerusalem Post

China

China’s export growth maintained robust in July, though at a slower pace from June, on persistently strong global demand for artificial-intelligence products. – Wall Street Journal

Chinese authorities have marked the deaths of two Coast Guard personnel on a “frontline” mission in the South China Sea in August ​last year, the first apparent acknowledgement of fatalities in the high-profile ‌collision between Chinese vessels. – Reuters

China’s latest barrage of countermeasures against the US drew on an expanding legal arsenal, demonstrating Beijing’s growing capacity to retaliate while warning Washington against further tech curbs before Xi Jinping’s expected visit next month. – Bloomberg

Hal Brands writes: The best the US and its allies can do is fortify military capabilities and bonds of cooperation. Yet while military spending is rising throughout the democratic world, strategic cohesion is plummeting — along with faith in American competence and leadership. The costs of that decline only rise as autocratic convergence becomes more pronounced. We aren’t, yet, living through an all-consuming maelstrom of the sort that tormented humanity in World War II. But the US and its allies are confronting something only moderately less sinister and challenging: an age of colluding revisionists and converging conflicts around the globe. – Bloomberg

Brahma Chellaney writes: What Beijing increasingly seeks is to shape the global institutions that determine which arguments are heard, which voices are considered legitimate, and which histories become accepted as authoritative. Its more-fundamental objective is to encourage preemptive self-censorship, effectively narrowing what the world can say, see and study. The larger struggle over who defines the world’s understanding of Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea — and China itself — is gathering pace, with universities and scholarly institutions emerging as a critical battleground in the geopolitical competition. – The Hill

Mark Jia writes: The U.S. government’s aggressive use of export controls, technology restrictions, and financial chokepoints has encouraged other countries to reduce their exposure to U.S. jurisdiction. If Washington continues to undercut its own advantages, China has established the foundations to provide at least some plausible replacements. Party supremacy may limit the credibility of Chinese courts, but it does not prevent China from winning cases abroad or from shaping global legal norms. China need not embrace a liberal rule of law to become a formidable legal power. – Foreign Affairs

Asia

Hundreds of thousands of people in southwestern Japan were ordered to evacuate and more ​than 500 flights cancelled on Friday as slow-moving ‌Typhoon Dolphin approached the region to bring violent winds, heavy rain and high waves. – Reuters

Taiwanese troops on Thursday practiced defending a bridge at a critical chokepoint that could give Chinese forces a shortcut to take the ​capital Taipei, as annual war games entered their second day testing the island’s ability ‌to repel an attack. – Reuters

Pacific Island foreign ministers failed to agree on Friday to a joint response to China’s missile launch in July, with further discussions expected at the Pacific leaders meeting at the end of August, ​New Zealand’s foreign minister said. – Reuters

The Solomon Islands is repairing ties with traditional partners including the U.S. and Australia while maintaining ​its “friends to all and enemy to none” foreign policy, Foreign ‌Minister Rick Houenipwela said on Friday, signalling a broader diplomatic approach under new Prime Minister Matthew Wale. – Reuters

The U.S. State Department and the chair of the ​Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Friday reiterated their calls for ‌the unconditional release of Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. – Reuters

The U.S. has requested the extradition of a Philippine celebrity pastor accused of sex trafficking ​and sexually abusing his followers, Philippine officials said ‌on Thursday. – Reuters

New Zealand’s ruling centre-right coalition may retain a razor-thin parliamentary majority if an election were held now, a poll showed on Friday, but a ​surge for the new centrist Opportunity Party could reshape coalition talks ahead of ‌the November vote. – Reuters

A student shot several people at a high school outside Bangkok on Friday, killing three teachers and three students and wounding several others, police said. – Associated Press

A Malaysian court postponed proceedings to charge former Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob with failing to declare his assets after he was admitted to a heart hospital following questioning by the country’s anti-graft agency. – Bloomberg

Eswar Prasad writes: So the two economies are in different places. But they are tied together by one big problem: unsustainably high levels of government debt. Currency market intervention is a desperate attempt by Tokyo and Washington to evade the blaring warnings from financial markets. In the end, neither government is likely to outrun the discipline that market forces bring to unrestrained debt accumulation. Perhaps it’s time both countries learned a lesson from Argentina. – New York Times

Karishma Vaswani writes: Lai could also lean into the deepening sense of Taiwanese identity. While the young may easily be swayed by Chinese propaganda, polls have also shown that more people identify as Taiwanese than Chinese — in particular those who have grown up with democracy, and have little emotional attachment to the mainland. China knows it doesn’t have to win the confidence of citizens overnight — it can afford to wait and play the long game. Taiwan’s greatest challenge then, is to ensure that this generation thinks democracy is still worth fighting for. – Bloomberg

Africa

The scariest thing about the Ebola strain ripping through East Africa this year might be rather surprising: It isn’t quite as lethal as those in earlier outbreaks. – Wall Street Journal

Congolese health authorities were screening more than 300 people travelling on a river boat intercepted near Kinshasa on ​Thursday after the death of a passenger suspected of having Ebola raised ‌concerns the virus may have spread on board, officials said. – Reuters

A Senegalese court sentenced three TikTok influencers to serve prison time and pay a fine for ​insulting the president, their lawyer said in a ‌video posted on Facebook, a move that critics said was an assault on free speech in the West African country. – Reuters

Uganda’s parliament on Thursday voted to approve the deployment of its military to the Gaza Strip, if it was needed as part of ​a multinational security force proposed under U.S. President Donald Trump’s ceasefire ‌plan for the enclave. – Reuters

Nigerian security forces have rescued 308 people abducted in separate attacks in northern ​Niger and Kwara states, in what President Bola ‌Tinubu described as the largest same-day rescue operation carried out by a joint security team. – Reuters

Angola is working to resolve a fuel crisis caused by rising domestic demand, higher global prices and subsidies, RNA reported. “We have to acknowledge that we have a fuel crisis,” the state broadcaster said, citing Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo. – Bloomberg

North America

There’s been something in the air in D.C. this summer — namely wildfire smoke and frustration over Canada’s inability to keep it on its side of the border. President Donald Trump has suggested repeatedly that he’d like to see Canada pay for the spread of wildfire smoke across the U.S. over the last month. – Washington Post

Two weeks before proposed 50 percent tariffs take effect, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney turned President Trump’s rhetoric back on him, calling trade talks with the U.S. “nasty.” – New York Times

Canadian officials had a “constructive and detailed ​meeting” with U.S. ‌Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington on Thursday, said ​Dominic LeBlanc, the ​Canadian government minister in ⁠charge of trade relations ​with the United States. – Reuters

The former governor of Mexico’s southern Guerrero ‌state has been arrested for allegedly ordering the destruction of evidence that could have helped shed light on the whereabouts of 43 students who disappeared in 2014, authorities said on Thursday. – Reuters

Mexico deployed more than 1,500 soldiers and National Guard personnel to ​the western state of Michoacan on Thursday in ‌an attempt to resume U.S. export inspections suspended a day earlier over safety concerns – Reuters

The United States imposed sanctions Thursday on five Cuban entities and eight individuals who ​help Cuba secure weapons and maintain relationships with foreign ‌militaries, including Havana’s military attaches to China and Russia. – Reuters

Toronto police announced the arrests Thursday of a 19-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy in the second shooting at the U.S. Consulate in five months, alleging the attack was part of a gun-for-hire network. – Associated Press

Cybersecurity

China has launched a cybersecurity review of products ‌sold in the country by U.S. company Palo Alto Networks citing risks to critical information infrastructure and national security, the country’s cyberspace regulator said on Thursday. – Reuters

In a rare show of bipartisanship, Democrats and Donald Trump’s conservative supporters both blame the president’s ties to the tech industry ​for his administration’s limited response to recent hacks carried out by OpenAI and Anthropic’s AI agents. – Reuters

The chair of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, said on Thursday that restrictions on imports of Chinese robots and power inverters are aimed at quickly spurring U.S. production and ​addressing national security risks. – Reuters

Ransom-seeking hackers who use phone calls to compromise their victims targeted dozens of prominent U.S. financial institutions and ​other businesses over the past month, according to Google and internet intelligence data reviewed by Reuters. – Reuters

A New Mexico court has ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from its platforms in the second phase of a landmark trial. – Associated Press

The U.S. Postal Service is exploring the use of artificial intelligence in its hiring processes and to streamline operations, potentially in hopes of saving some cash, according to a white paper report released this week by its Office of the Inspector General. – Fedscoop

Georgia’s State Security Service has opened a criminal investigation into an alleged foreign disinformation campaign that it says sought to portray the country as unsafe and unwelcoming for Russian tourists. – The Record

A senior official from the State Department told senators Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump raised the issue of Southeast Asian cyber scam compounds with Chinese President Xi Jinping. – The Record

North Carolina Ports is in the process of restoring its systems after a cybersecurity incident forced a shift to manual operations on Tuesday. – The Record

A Belarusian cybercriminal who U.S. authorities say was  the creator and leader of the Ransom Cartel ransomware operation was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Wednesday. – The Record

Editorial: This includes fraud, failed internal controls and cyberattacks. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange failed because of ineffective internal controls and misuse of customer funds, some of which financed risky investments. Under the Clarity Act, an exchange could offer what is effectively a 10% yield on stablecoin deposits that it may not be able to financially sustain. If something goes wrong and investors get burned, politicians will demand government come to the rescue. We’ve seen this many times before, and it stretches credulity to believe politicians will let crypto firms fail if they threaten bank failures. – Wall Street Journal

Jonathan Zhukovsky writes: When American labs ship serious open models, the community responds: Nvidia’s Nemotron is adopted at 17 to 20 times the pace of the rest of its size class, according to the ATOM report. The demand for American open models is enormous. The supply isn’t. The day the typical AI paper out of Stanford fine-tunes an American open model—simply because it is the best model available—is the day we are winning. Until then, every export-control hearing in Washington is a sideshow. The real scoreboard is in Berkeley, and we are behind. – Wall Street Journal