Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Since Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza in October under a cease-fire agreement, Hamas has moved quickly to fill the void. Its police forces are out on the streets again. Its fighters have executed opponents. And its officials have levied fees on some costly goods being imported into Gaza, according to local businessmen. – New York Times

Israeli authorities entered the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency’s East Jerusalem offices on Monday and raised Israel’s flag, in a raid they said was ordered over unpaid taxes but was condemned by the agency as a challenge to international law. – Reuters 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet U.S. President Donald Trump on December 29 to discuss the next steps of the Gaza ceasefire, an Israeli government spokesperson said on Monday. – Reuters

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in several areas in southern Lebanon, including what it described as a training compound used by the armed group’s Radwan forces. – Reuters

Hundreds of Haredi protesters blocked a major highway east of Tel Aviv Monday evening, jamming commuters during rush hour, including a driver who attempted to ram through the demonstrators, injuring a teen. – Times of Israel 

Israel and Bolivia are restoring diplomatic relations, two years after the South American country severed ties with Jerusalem over the war in Gaza, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced Monday. – Times of Israel

The Association and Club of Foreign Press Correspondents USA bestowed posthumous honors on individuals exposed as terrorists who were posing as journalists for the Qatari news network Al Jazeera, Honest Reporting shared on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

United States ambassador to the United Nations, Michael Waltz, met with the parents of slain Gaza hostage Ran Gvili, to discuss the ongoing efforts to retrieve his remains on Monday, according to a statement released by the Government Press Office. – Jerusalem post 

The IDF struck and killed a Hamas terrorist who was planning “an imminent attack” in the central Gaza Strip, the military confirmed on Monday. The strike was carried out in order to “remove the threat posed to IDF soldiers” operating in the area, the IDF added. – Jerusalem Post

Editorial: Unrwa maintains refugee “camps” — some shanty towns, others thriving cities — in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Even after a Palestinian Authority was established in Judea and Samaria, it kept refugees in “camps.” In Hamas-controlled Gaza, Unrwa grew into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the terrorists. President Biden and other world leaders suspended funds after Unrwa employees committed atrocities. Today Israel took the next logical step. – New York Sun

Editorial: In a region where minorities are often persecuted, expelled, or massacred, the fact that so many members of minority communities are choosing Israel and not its enemies is remarkable. It is a quiet vote of confidence in the only Jewish state and in the possibility of a shared future. Our task, as a society, is to justify that confidence. – Jerusalem Post

Harel Menashri writes: In conclusion, the use of Chinese technologies in Israel’s healthcare system, together with dependence on Chinese basic medical supplies and deep Chinese penetration into critical national infrastructures encouraged for years by Israeli governments, poses a strategic threat. – Jerusalem Post

Russia and Ukraine

Ukraine will not surrender territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Monday, rejecting a central Russian demand that President Donald Trump had incorporated into his latest proposal to end the Kremlin’s war. – Washington Post

The Russian political exile and his wife were fighting. This was painfully clear to their roommate, who could hear them through the thin walls of the dormitory they shared in the southern Polish city of Sosnowiec. – New York Times

Oleksiy Melnychenko, chief barista and manager of a cafe in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, held out as long as he could, serving doses of caffeine and normality to residents struggling amid Russian artillery and air attacks. – Reuters 

Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Tuesday that Moscow’s forces were advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and were targeting surrounded Ukrainian troops in the town of Myrnohrad. – Reuters 

Leaders from seven EU member states urged the EU on Monday to move ahead quickly with a proposal to use frozen Russian assets to provide financing to Ukraine. – Reuters 

Russian drones attacked the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy late on Monday in the second major strike on the city in 24 hours, triggering a power outage, the regional governor said. – Reuters 

Ukraine’s sovereignty must be respected and its security guaranteed for the long term in any peace deal with Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa said on Monday. – Reuters 

Several regions in southern and western Russia issued warnings about possible drone attacks, and four southern airports suspended operations over safety concerns early on Tuesday. – Reuters 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow had received no word on the outcome of talks in Florida on a settlement in Ukraine between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. – Reuters

Korean Peninsula

South Korea’s military said it had scrambled fighter jets when Chinese and Russian military planes entered and left its air defence zone on Tuesday. – Reuters 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a message of condolence to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and sympathies to the embassy in the country regarding the death of Aleksandr Ivanovich Matsegora, Russian extraordinary ambassador to North Korea, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday. – Reuters 

A review is underway to examine how South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s third-largest retirement fund, might raise dollars, including by issuing dollar bonds, the welfare ministry said in a statement. – Reuters

South Asia

Nepal’s anti-graft watchdog has charged 55 people, including five former government ministers, with corruption, accusing them and a Chinese state-owned company of inflating the construction costs of an international airport in Pokhara, the country’s second-biggest city. – New York Times

One of Peshawar’s largest markets in western Pakistan once bustled with thousands of Afghan-owned shops and carts, selling everything from deep-fried khajoor pastries to kitchen items and cricket gear. – New York Times

Militants stormed a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwest near the Afghan border, killing six soldiers, three police and security sources said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

An air strike last week by Myanmar’s military on a tea shop in the country’s upper-central region of Sagaing killed at least 18 civilians and wounded 20 others, a local villager and Myanmar’s independent online media said Monday. – Associated Press

Pakistan’s newly appointed armed forces chief called on Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Monday to choose between maintaining ties with Islamabad or supporting the Pakistani Taliban, the militant group blamed for a surge in deadly attacks in recent years. – Associated Press

India has asked its citizens to be cautious while traveling to China after a national was subjected to additional checks, a development that has the potential to roil ties between the neighbors. – Bloomberg

Two separate US delegations are in New Delhi this week to hold talks with their Indian counterparts, seeking to repair bilateral ties even as a trade deal remains elusive. – Bloomberg

Myanmar’s economy will contract this year amid civil war and ongoing drag from a March earthquake, according to the World Bank, which sees growth also constrained by weak domestic demand, labor shortages and frequent power outages. – Bloomberg

Europe

EU countries on Monday agreed their final negotiating positions for several proposed migration laws on new asylum rules, a common EU list of “safe countries of origin” and an EU-wide policy for illegal migrant returns, statements from the Council of the European Union said. – Reuters 

Britain’s trade minister will visit the United States this week for trade talks, after announcing a deal that would eliminate tariffs on pharmaceutical and medical products in return for the UK agreeing to pay higher prices for new drugs. – Reuters 

A U.N. committee on Monday urged Britain and Mauritius not to ratify a deal seeking to settle the future of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, saying it risks perpetuating long-standing violations of Chagossians’ rights. – Reuters 

European Union members and parliament reached a deal on Tuesday to cut corporate sustainability laws, after months of pressure from companies and governments, including the United States and Qatar. – Reuters 

Lithuania on Tuesday declared a state of emergency due to threats to public safety from smuggled balloons originating in Belarus, the government said. – Reuters 

Three Dutch centre and centre-right parties will start trying to form a government together, government negotiator Sybrand van Haersma Buma said on Monday. – Reuters 

The United States and Greenland pledged to show “mutual respect” on Monday as the new U.S. ambassador to Denmark made his first visit to the island in the wake of President Donald Trump’s interest in acquiring the semi-autonomous Arctic territory. – Reuters 

The European Union is studying options for strengthening Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to help free up the Lebanese army to focus on disarming the armed group Hezbollah, according to a document seen by Reuters on Monday. – Reuters 

A top European Union official on Monday warned the United States against interfering in Europe’s affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them. – Associated Press

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu faces a key vote on the social security budget on Tuesday that risks fueling political turbulence and uncertainty over how the country will plug holes in its public finances. – Bloomberg

Editorial: The report says “economic growth can mitigate some of the effects” of an aging society. But in the current political climate it’s easier to tax the productive parts of French society to pay for ever-expanding social benefits. The report says that workers age 40 to 59 are contributing more than $22,500 to the social-protection system on average each year. That tax burden is anti-growth. The report is more evidence of how the growth of entitlements is enfeebling Western democracies, and the U.S. is well on the road to French perdition. – Wall Street Journal

Lionel Laurent writes: A jointly financed push to invest in nuclear energy, industrial policy and defense technology should be on such a coalition’s agenda. France and Germany must be at its core; Italy and Poland, too. For all the justified gloom about the European project, the show’s not over yet. The far right is polling strongly almost everywhere but may have plateaued around the 30% mark. A side-by-side “whatever it takes” message from Germany’s Friedrich Merz and France’s Emmanuel Macron might meet this historical moment. Until Europe’s elites fully wake up, expect Dimon to keep on saying what they have trouble hearing. – Bloomberg

The Americas

Five months into the massive U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is feeling the pressure but refusing to go into exile, people close to his government say, opting instead to dig in and wait out President Donald Trump’s threats of an imminent attack. – Washington Post

The Honduran attorney general announced on Monday night that he had issued an international arrest warrant for the country’s former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was recently pardoned by President Trump and released from prison in the United States. – New York Times

American officials say that many of those senior Russian spies were relocated to Mexico to take advantage of the country’s proximity to the United States. Some of the Biden administration’s top diplomats voiced their concerns to Mexican officials about Russia’s espionage efforts in the country, only to have their warnings shrugged away, current and former officials told The New York Times. – New York Times

Cuba denied it had reached out to the United States about what the region would look like without President Nicolas Maduro leading Venezuela, calling the media report “absurd and false.” – Reuters 

Honduras’ conservative National Party candidate Nasry Asfura, backed by Donald Trump, edged ahead in the count of the Central American nation’s presidential election on Monday, in an extended process marked by delays and accusations of fraud. – Reuters

A new contingent of 230 Kenyan police arrived in Haiti on Monday, Haiti’s national police said, marking the first foreign deployment since the U.N. Security Council approved expanding an existing gang-fighting force in the Caribbean island. – Reuters 

Ecuadorean police found 13 people dead in a prison in the country’s southwest on Sunday, Ecuador’s prison agency SNAI said on Monday. – Reuters 

An Ecuadorean judge on Monday ordered former president Lenin Moreno to stand trial on charges of alleged bribery connected to the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric power plant. – Reuters

United States

President Trump said he would let Nvidia NVDA export its H200 chip to China and that the U.S. would receive a 25% cut, his latest bid to make money for the government in an unusual agreement with a private company. – Wall Street Journal

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said on Monday that he signed an executive order declaring the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups, a foreign terrorist organization. – New York Times

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to brief the “Gang of Eight” lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon, according to two sources familiar with the plan and a Trump administration official. – Reuters 

A federal judge on Monday cleared the way for a Tufts University PhD student and pro-Palestinian activist Rumeysa Ozturk to work on campus after ordering the Trump administration to restore her status in a key database used to track foreign students. – Reuters 

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said he wants undocumented immigrants to push back against improper law enforcement, urging residents to refuse entry, remain silent and legally record agents during an encounter. – Bloomberg

Editorial: But you can bet America’s enemies are reading this document, and what they’ll see is a country consumed with its own infighting and unwilling to be honest about the real threats from China and Russia. Americans elected Mr. Trump in 2016 in part because they didn’t fancy Barack Obama’s naivete about our adversaries and his retreat from U.S. leadership. The mystery is why Mr. Trump is reviving much of that failed grand strategy in his second term. – Wall Street Journal

David R. Shedd writes: Finally, economic security must be elevated within the administration to be at the same priority as traditional national security, going back to the era of the Cold War when we faced the Soviet Union as the principal adversary in the world. Only then can America hope to secure its place atop the global technological hierarchy and safeguard its national security against a PRC/CCP intent on undermining America’s strength through subterfuge and theft. – Fox News

Defense

President Donald Trump on Monday said he will let Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decide whether to release the full video of a controversial military strike on alleged drug smugglers off the coast of Venezuela, backing away from comments last week when he said that “whatever” footage the Pentagon possesses “we’d certainly release, no problem.” – Washington Post

The final text of a U.S. military spending bill released on Monday would require the Pentagon to end its reliance on China and other countries for electronic display technology by 2030. – Reuters

The U.S. Navy wants a special railroad car to transport unarmed ballistic missiles, according to a recent request for information. – Defense News

Editorial: To be clear: The United States needs a stronger military primarily to deter future wars, not to start them. As we rebuild our military, we must pursue diplomacy with our adversaries. At the same time, we need to prepare for the worst. Deterring war is the first goal of any successful strategy to avoid protracted conflict, and we need to address our weaknesses before enemies look to exploit them. Mr. Trump and his administration have received the latest warnings of the Overmatch brief. The need for change is urgent. The question is whether we will do so in time. – New York Times

Stavros Atlamazoglou writes: However, even after the statements by US defense officials, it would be hard to imagine a world in which the United States would not come to the aid of some of its closest and oldest allies, including the United Kingdom—with which the United States shares “a special relationship”—France, and Germany. Indeed, the reports indicate a US willingness to step back from being the primary conventional defense provider of NATO. The wording suggests that the US military will still contribute forces and capabilities, but might not be the main force in a potential conflict. Moreover, the wording suggests that the US military will still provide nuclear deterrence capabilities to the alliance. – National Interest