Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

In Ramat Aviv, a quiet and green neighborhood in northwest Tel Aviv, some of the buildings hit by Iranian missiles during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June still stand in ruins. – Washington Post

Israel’s Competition Authority is considering sanctions against flag carrier El Al Israel Airlines (ELAL.TA), for “breaching obligations as a monopoly” for aircraft maintenance after it allegedly denied its smaller rival Arkia access to its hangars, the authority said on Monday. – Reuters

The Bank of Israel held short-term interest rates steady on Monday after two successive cuts, citing fears about the impact of a U.S. strike on Iran which overshadowed easing inflation pressures and a strong shekel. – Reuters

The foreign ministers of Brazil, France, Spain, Turkey and various other states condemned Israeli decisions that they said introduce sweeping extensions to unlawful Israeli control over the West Bank. – Reuters

The European Union’s top diplomats met Monday in Brussels with the director of the Board of Peace after a shaky and controversial embrace of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. – Associated Press

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said the Adriatic nation is free to pursue cooperation with Israel, rejecting his president’s refusal to back any such military deals. – Bloomberg

Officials working with Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” are exploring setting up a stablecoin for Gaza as part of efforts to reshape the devastated Palestinian enclave’s economy, according to five people familiar with the discussions. – Financial Times

The Jordanian Parliament voted unanimously to remove mentions of “Israel” from the minutes of a debate on Monday, Jordanian and Israeli media reported. – Jerusalem Post

Israel will reply with “unimaginable” force if Iran launches an attack on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday evening while speaking at a 40-signature debate at the Knesset. – Jerusalem Post

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s planned visit to Israel has been delayed, two sources confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

The first official delegation from Somaliland arrived in Israel on Monday for a visit, following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state from Somalia in December 2025. – Jerusalem Post

Opposition parties will boycott the special Knesset session hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday if Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit is not invited, opposition leader Yesh Atid MK Yair Lapid warned on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

A lengthy video from 2022 shows a group of Hamas leaders sitting in a conference room and appearing to manage a dry run for what would be the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack. – Times of Israel

US President Donald Trump is pushing full steam ahead with his vision for a post-war Gaza that is not ruled by Hamas. But evidence seen by The Times of Israel shows how Hamas is moving effectively to subvert him. – Times of Israel

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that he expects Hamas to be given an ultimatum on its disarmament “in the coming days,” and that “in the end,” Israel will occupy the Gaza Strip and reestablish Jewish settlements in the coastal Palestinian territory. – Times of Israel

With Hamas constrained by a host of political and military factors, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the most prominent Palestinian terror group after Hamas, has upped its recruitment and propaganda efforts in the West Bank, analysts and former officials told The Times of Israel. – Times of Israel

Gadi Ezra writes: This can be done calmly, without alarmism. Hospital directors can speak about preparedness. The prime minister and emergency officials can issue coordinated statements. The strength of the economy can be emphasized without harming the stock market. The readiness of transportation and energy systems can be demonstrated. This list is partial, but the point is clear. Shaping national morale cannot be left solely to editorial decisions in media outlets. It requires initiative. A stronger home front makes the entire country more resilient. Neglecting it will ultimately narrow the room for maneuver at the front as well. – Ynet

Russia and Ukraine

A Ukrainian counterattack in the country’s southeast is chipping away at Russian advances there and demonstrating that Kyiv’s forces have got plenty of fight left as Moscow’s invasion stretches into a fifth year. – Wall Street Journal

The European Union had hoped to make a big show of support for Ukraine this week, on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion and at a moment when there has been little sign of progress in U.S.-mediated efforts to end the war. – New York Times

In mid-January, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, a little-known Ukrainian bureaucrat tasked with the high-stakes work of jamming the gears of Russia’s war machine, convened about 30 Western ambassadors and diplomats inside the Ukrainian presidential compound in Kyiv. – New York Times

Ukraine’s economy is enduring its toughest period since the early months of Russia’s invasion after sustained air strikes left its power system in tatters as the war enters a fifth year, forcing firms to cut output and shrinking state revenues. – Reuters

Ukrainian drones have struck a Russian pumping station serving the Druzhba oil pipeline set up to supply Moscow’s crude to eastern Europe, a Ukrainian security official said on Monday. – Reuters

Another round of talks aimed at ending the war inUkraine could be held at end of this week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff told Ukrainian media on Monday. – Reuters

Ukraine has regained control of 400 square kilometres of territory, including eight settlements, along a section of the southern frontline since the end of January, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Monday. – Reuters

Ukraine has defended its independence since Russia’s invasion and will not betray the sacrifices made by its people as it seeks peace, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the war. – Reuters

An unidentified assailant detonated an explosive device next to a patrol vehicle in Moscow early Tuesday, killing himself and a police officer, and leaving two other officers injured, officials said. – Associated Press

Ukraine joining the European Union would give a “significant boost” to the bloc’s single market, according to Dutch Central Bank governor Olaf Sleijpen. – Bloomberg

Russia has sent two plane-loads of food aid to cyclone-hit Madagascar just days after the African island nation’s new leader met with President Vladimir Putin. – Bloomberg

Colin Freeman writes: Whether Putin wants the conflict to stop is another matter. Peace would bring back hundreds of thousands of battle-hardened, traumatized troops from the front. And if sanctions-battered Russia is no longer a home fit for heroes, then hard questions may be asked about whether it was worth it. Indeed, as Putin’s “Special Military Operation” becomes the most disastrous five-year plan since the days of the Soviet Union, the real miracle is not that Ukraine is still hanging on, but that he is. Zelensky may not have “the cards” to win, but no longer does Putin — despite having once held all the aces. – New York Post

Elena Davlikanov writes: Ukrainians are very grateful for the support already provided, but it is a two-way street. Europe is helping itself by helping Ukraine. As some Europeans have the honesty to say, Ukrainian blood is buying the continent time to rearm and prepare for what’s coming next. It is especially clear to those of us still fortunate enough to travel between the nightly air raids and freezing temperatures of wartime Ukraine, and the rich, peaceful cities of Europe, that the Ukrainian people’s bloody down payment is giving Europeans a peaceful life right now. Ukraine understands this is how the world works. That is exactly why it must have a fair deal. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Middle East & North Africa

A Tunisian court on Monday ordered the release of prominent lawyer Ahmed Souab, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, his family said, in a move the opposition hopes will pave the way for the release of other jailed opponents. – Reuters

The State Department is pulling out non-essential government personnel and their eligible family members from the U.S. embassy in Beirut, a senior State Department official said on Monday, amid growing concerns about the risk of a military conflict with Iran. – Reuters

Islamic State militants killed four Syrian government security personnel in northern Syria on Monday, the Syrian state news agency reported, in what would be the group’s deadliest attack on government forces since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. – Reuters

U.S. forces began pulling out of their largest base in northeastern Syria on Monday, three Syrian military and security sources said, part of a wider departure as the U.S.-allied government in Damascus consolidates control. – Reuters

A Turkish court adjourned to April 1 the trial of jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and several others over alleged irregularities at the main opposition party’s 2023 congress. – Bloomberg

Senior Trump administration officials have called around to several Arab countries in recent days to mollify their concerns after Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed Israel has a right to control much of the Middle East. – Politico

Cairo’s failure to tackle the exporting of weapons and drugs via drones to Israel is likely contributing to the Arab crime crisis in Israel and empowering terrorist acts against the Jewish state, two former diplomats told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

Rany Ballout: At this moment, Hezbollah’s disarmament in north of Litani features as the most serious phase in Lebanon’s efforts to achieve sovereignty and bring all weapons under state authority and this remains dependable on international backing, while keeping Lebanon out of regional conflicts. At the least, in setting a clear timetable of four to eight months to implement the second stage, the Lebanese government has shown that it is squarely committed to expanding the state’s authority over arms. – The National Interest

China

China banned the export of critical minerals and other goods with potential military uses to several major Japanese companies, further escalating its pressure campaign against Tokyo over remarks Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan. – Wall Street Journal

The battleground of the U.S.-China trade fight has suddenly shifted. With President Trump on the back foot following a stinging judicial rebuke of his power to impose tariffs, Xi Jinping is spying a chance to reset relations with the U.S. on Beijing’s terms. – Wall Street Journal

The U.S. met a Russian delegation in Geneva on Monday and will meet a Chinese delegation on Tuesday for talks about forging a potential multilateral nuclear arms control treaty, a senior U.S. State Department official said. – Reuters

China was once the promised land for German industry. Now it’s a massive strategic headache for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who departs on his inaugural visit to Beijing on Tuesday. – Politico

Jimmy Goodrich and David Feith write: If it begins now, the U.S. government can combine the knowledge of our National Labs with the engineering prowess of pulsed-power startups to maintain U.S. dominance in the energy and military applications of fusion, with new facilities coming online during this administration. China’s planned pulsed-power ICF build-out is set to give it key nuclear-weapons capabilities on par with or surpassing America’s—if Washington sits back and lets it happen. – Wall Street Journal

Matthew Lynn writes: China seems to have started to work that out, which may well explain why it has kept on increasing military spending at a rate well above its GDP growth. It realized that the Belt and Road program may have been a colossal waste of money if it can’t be backed up by hard power. The U.S. will have to match with higher spending of its own. The lesson of the last decade is surely this: You can’t buy an empire, nor can you purchase global influence. It is only hard power that counts for anything. – Washington Post

Asia

Japan continues to maintain a tight dialogue with the U.S. on foreign-exchange moves, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Tuesday, as traders remain on alert about potential market intervention. – Wall Street Journal

The International Criminal Court has begun five days of hearings to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence to try Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, for crimes against humanity over his crackdown on drugs, in which human rights groups said thousands were killed. – New York Times

Taiwan’s parliament will discuss late next week the government’s stalled bill on a $40 billion special defence budget, which has been held up by opposition party objections attracting the concern of U.S. lawmakers. – Reuters

Australia on Tuesday opened a government-backed inquiry into antisemitism, after a mass shooting at a Jewish event at Bondi Beach killed 15 people in December 2025. The attack at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration shocked a country with strict gun laws and fuelled calls for tougher controls and stronger action against antisemitism. – Reuters

As the Philippine Coast Guard plane descended toward the country’s most strategically important outpost in the disputed South China Sea, passengers’ phones lit up with a roaming alert: “Welcome to CHINA.” – Reuters

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would back plans to remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of succession to the British throne in a letter he sent to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office. – Reuters

Mikheil Saakashvili writes: But restoring relations without a change in Georgia’s governance would look like a sign of weakness on the part of the U.S. administration. It is important to keep the conversation open, but only under conditions that could strengthen U.S. allies in Georgia and the region. The U.S. administration did a magnificent job setting Belarusian political prisoners free, and there is definitely no need to give the oligarch Ivanishvili a free ride. Certainly, it would be extremely painful for the multiple protesters carrying U.S. flags and pictures of America’s leaders. – The Hill

Masataka Okano writes: Japan’s outreach to like-minded partners, including many in the global South, can also help consolidate support for international law and reinforce the principle that any attempt to occupy the land of a foreign country or otherwise disrupt the status quo by force will not be tolerated. Adjusting to a world of complex security threats and to a new relationship with the United States calls for strong defense, intelligence, and economic capabilities. But working toward a less tense, less fragmented future calls for diplomacy – Foreign Affairs

Africa

Chad closed its eastern border with Sudan on Monday after weekend clashes linked to Sudan’s civil war killed five Chadian soldiers, two sources told Reuters. – Reuters

The World Bank is aiming to provide Mozambique with $6 billion of mostly concessional financing for its public investment projects over the next five years, a senior bank official said on Monday. – Reuters

Uganda wants to link a new railway line it is building to one under construction in neighbouring Tanzania, a government document seen by Reuters showed, potentially opening up a new export route for minerals like gold, copper and iron ore. – Reuters

The youngest son of Zimbabwe’s former leader Robert Mugabe appeared in a South African court on Monday, charged with attempted murder after a gardener was shot and wounded last week at the Johannesburg mansion where Mugabe’s son had been staying. – Reuters

Hundreds of supporters of detained Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye held a defiant prayer service inside a Catholic cathedral on Monday to press authorities to free him after more than a year without trial on treason charges, saying he is in failing health. – Associated Press

Justice Malala writes: In a region where presidents for life are sadly still common, this is a remarkable testament to the strengthening of South African democracy. It’s also possible that the ANC will — as some polls predict — lose in 2029, ushering in a totally new era in which Zille may become the nation’s leader. With Zille and Motsepe’s campaigns, South Africa is continuing to shed extremist ideology for pragmatism, to widen its electoral choices beyond narrow racial divides and to strengthen its democracy by changing its leaders often, peacefully — and democratically. – Bloomberg

North America

Mexican security forces located the drug kingpin known as “El Mencho” in part by tracking one of his girlfriends to a secluded cabin in his home state of Jalisco, authorities said Monday. […] Intelligence provided to Mexico by the CIA was instrumental in allowing Mexican security forces to locate Oseguera, two people in Washington familiar with the matter said. – Washington Post

The Mexican military raid that killed the country’s most wanted cartel leader on Sunday was President Claudia Sheinbaum’s biggest bet yet, doubling down on her historic offensive against the country’s most powerful organized crime groups. – Reuters

Canada said on Monday it plans to provide assistance to Cuba while the island grapples with fuel shortages after Washington moved to choke off Cuba’s oil supplies. – Reuters

President Donald Trump on Monday called on Mexico to boost its efforts targeting drug cartels as widespread violence spread across the United States’ southern neighbor one day after a military raid killed a notorious Mexican drug lord. – Reuters

Editorial: Most Mexicans, apart from many in Ms. Sheinbaum’s Morena party, welcome the assistance. They’re tired of cartel violence like the murder of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán state who was gunned down for standing up to cartel extortionists. Their country has become lawless in many places and they want relief. Mr. Trump can also help by telling Americans to stop feeding the cartels by using drugs, and he can roll up networks in the U.S. Mexico can expect more violence if it continues to press its cartel campaign, but that is one price of letting the drug lords gain so much power. – Wall Street Journal

León Krauze writes: El Mencho is dead. But a new phase of the war against the cartels is just beginning. It will feature American eyes in the sky and Mexican boots on the ground. Many Mexican voters, exhausted by the endless cycles of violence, will probably welcome this development. And, indeed, the cartels should have no illusions about what they’re facing. They should not sleep easy. – Washington Post

Juan Pablo Spinetto writes: For months, Trump has repeatedly said the cartels are running Mexico, in a clear challenge to Sheinbaum’s authority. Sunday’s events show that, even with the government’s many shortcomings, it has the teeth to strike back, reducing the case and pressure for unilateral US military action inside Mexico. Having withdrawn the hugs, Sheinbaum will now have to prove that her long-term crime strategy is more than just bullets. – Bloomberg

Daniel Dorman writes: In fact, the Trump administration has recently retreated from some of the harshest ICE tactics as Americans decried overreach of the federal government. No such outcry has occurred (or ever could) in China. This is not the fault of the Chinese people; the Chinese Communist Party’s tightly controlled information environment would never allow the truth of such crimes against humanity to be widely known. And importantly, if protests did erupt, there would be no free press to report on them. The U.S. is still Canada’s democratic ally. China is an enemy of democracy, the rule of law, and universal human rights. The sooner Canadians remember this, the better. – The Hill

Cybersecurity

Canadian officials have summoned leaders from OpenAI for a meeting following revelations that the company did not inform the authorities about a user whose account had been suspended months before she committed a mass murder in British Columbia. – New York Times

Russia is investigating Telegram founder Pavel Durov as part of a criminal case on the “facilitation of terrorist activities”, state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported, citing the Federal Security Service (FSB). – Reuters

ISIS recruits are being encouraged to use artificial intelligence and chatbots to aid their terror campaigns. The two most recent editions of Voice of Khorasan — the English language magazine of the Afghanistan branch of Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) — contain pages devoted to explaining how supporters of the group can use AI to be a “responsible mujahid.” – Politico

A legal and security drama is unfolding in Silicon Valley after a federal grand jury indicted three engineers from San Jose on suspicion of stealing sensitive trade secrets from Google and other leading semiconductor firms. According to the indictment, the information was transferred to unauthorized destinations, including a direct transfer to Iran, as part of an alleged conspiracy to remove confidential material from the companies. – Arutz Sheva