Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Republican congressional leaders met on Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the Capitol, a show of support that comes after President Trump proposed that the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and displace the millions of Palestinians living there. – New York Times

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no U.S. troops would be needed on the ground. – Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Gaza currently is “not habitable” due to dangers such as unexploded weapons, and that people would have to live elsewhere while the area is rebuilt. – Reuters

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday that while an Israeli ban has not yet forced the agency to cease operations, it faces an “existential threat” in the long run. – Associated Press

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that countries denouncing President Donald Trump’s comments on Gaza should step forward and help the battered Palestinian territory. – Agence France-Presse

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said it was “worth listening carefully” to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on critics of the plan to come forward with their own solutions. – Times of Israel

Hamas is expected to release a fifth batch of Israeli captives on Saturday as part of the hostage release and ceasefire deal, as US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza fueled further uncertainty on whether the multiphase agreement will hold up. – Times of Israel

The Israeli Navy successfully conducted an operational test launch of the Gabriel 5 sea-to-sea missile, the IDF announced on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday warned that the “hypocrisy” of Spain, Ireland, and other European countries hostile to the Jewish state will be exposed if they do not take in Palestinians who choose to leave Gaza, the war-torn enclave that US President Donald Trump has said he intends to rebuild after the population resettles elsewhere for a unknown period of time. – Algemeiner

Editorial: “The violent crime in Arab society has become a national epidemic that threatens governance, economy, and society as a whole,” Daka wrote. “When the state decides that it truly cares, we will be there to support it,” he concluded, stressing that addressing this issue is not just about restoring security in Arab communities but is essential for strengthening governance and stability across Israel. As things move in the international arena and Israelis continue to deal with the aftermath of the horrors of October 7, it is important not to take the eye off the goal of internal security; it will be very hard to fight for our defense without it. – Jerusalem Post

Dov S. Zakheim write: Israel would likely once again become an international pariah. Regardless of American vetoes in the U.N. Security Council, many states, including the European Union, could impose an economic boycott on Jerusalem. Investment form anywhere other than the U.S. could dry up. The Israeli economy would be seriously damaged. The Abraham Accords would be unlikely to survive. And Egypt and Jordan might rupture their own long-standing peace treaties with the Jewish State. Israel’s prime minister argues that Trump’s plan “could change history.” It may well do so, but not in the way Netanyahu anticipates. He should be careful for what he wishes for. – The Hill

Yaakov Katz writes: The situation in Gaza requires a fundamental shift in strategy. As long as Hamas controls Gaza, as long as it remains mired in poverty and destruction, and as long as organizations like UNRWA continue to fund the perpetuation of conflict, the cycle of violence will persist. To break this cycle, alternative solutions must be considered. The conventional wisdom of the last 30 years has failed, and though Trump’s proposal may appear outlandish, sometimes drastic ideas are the only way to wake the world from its complacency. – Jerusalem Post

James Jay Carafano writes: Trump and Netanyahu will have to settle on a pacification plan for Gaza, one that won’t include past mistakes like funneling money to UNRWA to fund the next generation of Jew killers. Topping the list will also be putting Iran back into a box so small it will be catastrophic for the mullahs. Also, high on the agenda is getting the Abraham Accords back on track and jumping starting important regional projects like India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). – Heritage Foundation

Russia & Ukraine

In the flat farmland and shattered mining towns surrounding this eastern Ukrainian city, the war has become mainly a contest between Russian foot soldiers and Ukrainian explosive drones. – Wall Street Journal

Ukraine is sending its largest-ever delegation to a gathering of politically influential Christian leaders in Washington this week, seeking to lay out an argument that protecting religious freedom is a strong reason for continuing U.S. aid to resist Russian aggression. – New York Times

The U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump is disbanding an effort started after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin. – Reuters

Russia’s foreign intelligence service released an English-language video on Thursday, urging “true American patriots” who care about world peace to get in touch via secure communication in response to efforts by the CIA to recruit Russians. – Reuters

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will lead Ukraine’s delegation at the Munich Security Conference next week, which U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, are also expected to attend, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff said Thursday. – Associated Press

The broadcast, according to military officials, came from a Russian spy ship, the Kildin, as the vessel packed with intelligence-gathering equipment drifted temporarily out of control off the Syrian coast on Jan. 23, with flames and black fumes rising from its smokestack. – Associated Press

France has delivered Mirage 2000 fourth-generation fighter jets to Ukraine in a much needed strike capability boost for Kyiv as it continues to combat Russian forces. – Breaking Defense

The United States is handing off leadership of the international group that manages military aid to Ukraine, a sign that President Donald Trump’s Pentagon may play a lesser role in supporting Kyiv. – Defense News

Russian intelligence services are using messaging apps and online forums to recruit Ukrainian citizens for terrorist attacks, promising quick payoffs, according to Ukraine’s law enforcement. – The Record

Mila Tanghe and Tom Penny writes: A key question is whether Western enforcement will maintain its current intensity or escalate further. There is so far no sign that the Trump administration plans to change oil tanker sanctions policy. Some experts suggest President Donald Trump may intensify them. While the Biden administration aggressively expanded vessel-specific sanctions, Trump has indicated he will continue targeting Russia economically, with the possibility of further action if Moscow refuses to negotiate on Ukraine. Russia’s shadow fleet is under mounting financial and logistical strain, and there’s little sign that pressure will ease anytime soon. – Centre for European Policy Analysis

Turkey

A Turkish drone strike on Thursday killed three members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said, the latest military pressure from Turkey ahead of an expected announcement by the PKK’s jailed leader. – Reuters

Two years after the deadliest and most destructive earthquake in modern Turkish history, hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced, with many still living in temporary housing, as rebuilding efforts lag behind initial targets. – Reuters

Turkey surpassed Germany as Europe’s top polluter from fossil fuel power production for the first time in 2024, marking an important shift in Europe’s main polluting hubs away from traditional industrial centres to its fringes. – Reuters

Middle East & North Africa

The kingdom made clear that it is standing by its demand that a Palestinian state first be established before it will normalize relations with Israel. The precondition, which the Saudis have insisted on for the past year, is “nonnegotiable and not subject to compromises,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. – New York Times

The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of military-related design and construction services to Kuwait for an estimated cost of $1 billion, the Pentagon said on Thursday. – Reuters

Morocco stopped 78,685 migrants from illegally crossing into European Union territory in 2024, up 4.6% from a year earlier, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. – Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Israel and Arab states in mid-February, a State Department official said, making his first trip to the Middle East after a widely condemned proposal by President Donald Trump to displace Palestinians in Gaza. – Reuters

Israel says it has begun preparations for the departure of Palestinians from Gaza despite international rejection of President Donald Trump’s plan to empty the territory of its population. Egypt has launched a diplomatic blitz behind the scenes against the proposal, warning it would put its peace deal with Israel at risk, officials said. – Associated Press

President Trump’s emphasis on the release of hostages held in Gaza, Venezuela, and elsewhere is raising hopes for the family of an abducted 38-year-old Russian-Israeli woman, Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has been nearly forgotten after being held for nearly two years by an Iran-back militia in American-allied Iraq. – New York Sun

Donald Trump’s plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza poses a major threat to Jordan, with analysts saying the US president’s proposal would upend the balance the kingdom must strike between ensuring its US aid lifeline and safeguarding its security. – Agence France-Presse

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Saudi Arabia had enough land to provide the Palestinians with a state in a Channel 14 interview on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post

A newly announced agreement incentivizing CNN to operate in Qatar is raising questions among media observers about whether the network’s partnership could jeopardize its ability to report objectively on the Gulf state. – Jewish Insider

In mid-January, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani made an official visit to the United Kingdom. His delegation included at least three individuals linked to Iran-backed militias. – Washington Institute

Guy Laron writes: Should Riyadh move toward normalization with Israel without demanding a diplomatic process for Palestinian statehood, Trump would abandon his Gaza displacement plan as swiftly as he dropped his 25 percent tariff threat against Canada and Mexico. For him, rhetoric is leverage — his real goal is restoring American dominance over global trade routes. – The Hill

Elliott Abrams writes: The United States should always view such negotiations as a tactic in the long struggle for a peaceful Middle East—a goal that cannot be reached until the Islamic Republic is replaced by a government that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iranian people and that abandons its terrorist proxies, its hatred of the United States and of Israel, and its desire to dominate other countries in the region. Until that day, the military presence of the United States must not diminish. To hasten the arrival of such a day, Trump should maximally exploit Washington’s advantages, which were created in good part by Israeli action. In four years, Trump could leave behind a Middle East where Washington’s friends are far stronger and its enemies far weaker than ever before. – Foreign Affairs

China

President Trump’s order imposing additional tariffs on China this week also suspended a popular trade exemption known as the de minimis provision that has let bargain platforms such as Shein and Temu skirt import duties and red tape on low-value packages from China. – Wall Street Journal

Xinte Energy, a Chinese green-energy firm, says on its website that it is “delivering light and warmth to every corner of the world.” It is also losing tons of money. – Wall Street Journal

Hong Kong will file a complaint against the U.S.’s additional 10% tariff with the World Trade Organization, claiming the levies violate WTO rules. – Wall Street Journal

Beijing opposes U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza and have the U.S. take over the region, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, underlining a long-held position against forced displacement of people. – Reuters

The Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday U.S. tariffs were “vile”, “unilateralist” and exacerbated global trade tensions, after President Donald Trump threatened to heap import duties on major U.S. trading partners. – Reuters

HongKong Post said late on Thursday it would continue to suspend postal goods to the United States, despite the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) having reversed a decision to suspend parcels from China and Hong Kong. – Reuters

China and Thailand should deepen trust in each other and expand cooperation to counter growing global uncertainties, President Xi Jinping said on Thursday during a meeting in Beijing with Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. – Reuters

Timelapse images show China’s rapid construction of a military complex that U.S. officials say is on track to be at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon. – Newsweek

Yun Sun writes: Beijing thus sees Trump’s second term as a potential opportunity for China to expand its influence farther and faster. In this view, competition with the United States is not in itself the driving force behind China’s grand strategy. It is instead one component of a larger process: China’s rise and displacement of the United States as the world’s leading superpower, what Xi often describes as “changes unseen in a century.” Beijing assumes that Washington’s own policies will dismantle the foundations of U.S. global hegemony, even if it creates a lot of turbulence for other countries in the process. China’s top priority, then, is simply to weather the storm. – Foreign Affairs

Asia

Shigeru Ishiba is set to meet with Trump on Friday in Washington — becoming the first Asian leader — and only the second foreign one — to do so in Trump’s second term. – Washington Post

Azerbaijan has charged two more journalists with smuggling, their lawyers said on Thursday, in the latest of a series of arrests that have prompted Western criticism of its human rights record. – Reuters

Indonesia’s health partnerships with the U.S. Agency for International Development are on hold and it remains unclear whether they will be permanently suspended, its health minister said on Thursday. – Reuters

Thailand will host a regional BIMSTEC summit of the leaders of seven mostly South Asian countries in April, its foreign ministry said on Friday. – Reuters

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said on Friday she had been preparing since last year for impeachment and would welcome on her defence team her firebrand father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, if interested to join. – Reuters

A flurry of naval drills surrounding the Philippines involving the United States and its partners has prompted complaints from Beijing, which claims the entire South China Sea and accuses Manila of colluding with others to destabilize the region. – Reuters

Taiwan wants to purchase radar aircraft from its security partner, the United States, to track its powerful neighbor China’s stealth fighter jets, local media reported on Tuesday. – Newsweek

Africa

The Democratic Republic of Congo will present a motion to the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking an investigation into what it called “mass violations” of rights in the city of Goma, its envoy told reporters on Thursday. – Reuters

Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi will take part in a joint summit of Eastern and Southern African leaders starting on Friday to discuss the conflict in its east, where Rwandan-backed rebels are seizing more territory. – Reuters

The International Monetary Fund is “actively engaged” with the Senegalese government regarding the suspension of its financing program after a government audit uncovered last year larger debt and deficit figures than the previous administration reported. – Reuters

A Swiss aid group said on Thursday that three of its local employees were killed during an attack while on a humanitarian mission in eastern Congo where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have made advances. – Reuters

Africa’s leading public health official will write to the U.S. Secretary of State on Thursday to highlight how the U.S. aid freeze is threatening the lives of people across the continent and efforts to contain disease outbreaks that could ultimately impact Americans. – Reuters

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that his country “will not be bullied,” days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would cut off funding to South Africa over a land reform act. – Reuters

U.S. health officials on Wednesday urged Americans traveling to Uganda to take precautions because of an Ebola outbreak — and said they are helping Ugandan health officials respond to the threat. – Associated Press

The Rwanda-backed rebels who captured eastern Congo ‘s key city of Goma sought to reassure its residents Thursday, holding a stadium rally and promising safety under their administration as they try to shore up public support amid growing international pressure. – Associated Press

China expressed its support for South Africa’s presidency of the Group of 20 nations, hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he’ll boycott a meeting of foreign ministers from the bloc this month. – Bloomberg

United States

The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to repatriate the U.S. Agency for International Development’s overseas workforce has thrust the agency’s global staff into chaos and despair, as workers scramble to uproot their lives and brace for what they fear will be a shutdown of all American aid missions in 30 days. – Washington Post

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, claiming that it “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” – Washington Post

The largest U.S. government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration on Thursday in an effort to reverse its aggressive dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. – Reuters 

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday reintroduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would mandate the Department of Education to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. – Algemeiner

The Trump administration’s campaign to root out perceived disloyalty or waste at the Justice Department, the US Agency for International Development and other federal agencies has lawmakers and former senior spy officials worried that the intelligence community is up next for a purge. – Bloomberg

Tom Nicholson writes: The current conservative and the older liberal critiques of USAID are both valid. This moment presents a chance to change foreign aid radically. Aid should be maintained for assisting other countries when and where needed, for maximum benefit of recipients, with a plan to hand activities over to capable local partners. Subcontractors should be properly vetted and their windfall revenues from public coffers made public. Domestic political manipulation should be forbidden. Congress should lead the way in improving the foreign aid model, lest the deeply flawed USAID simply be reinstalled when the White House changes hands. We don’t want to end up back where we started. – Wall Street Journal

Barton Swaim writes: Listen carefully, though, and you will note that Mr. Trump’s language on tariffs is usually pragmatic rather than dogmatic. He doesn’t defend his protectionist policies in the high-minded rhetoric of his economic-nationalist boosters. He doesn’t speak of America’s manufacturing base having been “hollowed out” by free trade or “neoliberal” policies. Mainly he says we’ve been “taken advantage of” and “ripped off” by other countries. The latter terms suggest the need to right wrongs or readjust the balance; they don’t suggest an urge to remake an entire economic system. Mr. Trump is still a real-estate magnate from Queens, and not an ideologue. – Wall Street Journal

Bob Davis writes: Trump never singles out China, his former aides say. He feels that gives Xi plenty of room to make concessions without seeming weak. A small devaluation of the Chinese yuan would eliminate most of the impact of the 10 percent tariff just imposed, for instance. Market reaction is another reason Trump may be wary of pressuring China too hard from the start. The first year of the Trump trade war against China was a lousy year for stocks and acted as a constraint on Trump’s trade threats. – Foreign Policy

Defense

One U.S. military service member and three defense contractors were killed on Thursday when their aircraft crashed in the southern Philippines, the U.S. military said. – Reuters

Facing the Chinese missile threats to its air bases in the Western Pacific Ocean, the United States recently tested its fighter jets on enhancing their survivability while on the ground. – Newsweek

The combatant command that oversees American military operations in the Middle East has a new chief technology officer. – Defensescoop

U.S. leaders should invest at least $40 billion every year to grow and maintain the country’s fleet of battle force ships in preparation for long-term and large-scale wars, the nonprofit Navy League urged in a policy statement unveiled Thursday. – Defense News

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has drafted an all-hands-on-deck memo for crafting an action plan to deploy a comprehensive missile shield over the United States, including readying a budget request for fiscal 2026, Breaking Defense has learned. – Breaking Defense

Parmy Olson writes: Still, with any luck, Google’s U-turn will put greater pressure on government leaders next week to create legally binding regulations for military AI development, before the race dynamics and political pressure makes them more difficult to set up. The rules can be simple. Make it mandatory to have a human overseeing all AI military systems. Ban any fully autonomous weapons that can select targets without a human approval first. And make sure such AI systems can be audited. – Bloomberg

James Stavridis writes: The cost — certainly in the range of tens of billions of dollars annually — has the potential to crowd out other important defense spending. But that price tag must be weighed against the cost of the potential loss of American lives and treasure that an effective missile shield for the United States could prevent. – Bloomberg

Nevada Joan Lee writes: The U.S. military should test and refine innovative alternatives to civilian energy generation on domestic bases to protect from power disruptions – whether from natural disasters or an adversary. Microgrids powered by non-fuel-reliant energy sources offer a promising solution to enhance domestic base resilience. By investing in and implementing these innovative energy solutions, the U.S. military can simultaneously strengthen installations now and better prepare for the operational challenges of tomorrow. – Defense News