Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

An Israeli scheme to move hundreds of thousands of already uprooted Palestinians to a so-called “humanitarian city” in Gaza has led politicians to spar with the defence establishment, but officials say a practical plan has yet to be crafted. – Reuters

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Tuesday he had asked Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing of a Palestinian American who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, describing it as a “criminal and terrorist act.” – Reuters

A rescheduled United Nations conference this month will discuss post-war plans for Gaza and preparations for the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and others, France’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. – Reuters

The European Union is seeking updates — and more action — from Israel on implementing a new deal to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday. – Associated Press

A team of three independent experts working for the U.N.’s top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel’s first such group resignation. – Associated Press

Israel is calling out international organizations and the United Nations for allegedly leaving pallets of aid uncollected while decrying the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. – Fox News

The UN warned Tuesday that mass displacement in the West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel’s military control of the Palestinian territory nearly 60 years ago. – Agence France-Presse

Former US national security adviser Mike Waltz told senators during a hearing on Tuesday that he would work to dismantle the UN agency for Palestinian refugees if confirmed to be the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations. – Times of Israel

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced Tuesday that the EU decided against adopting punitive measures against Israel over its military conduct in Gaza, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the matter. – Times of Israel

The IDF on Tuesday evening confirmed that dozens of Druze-Israeli civilians had managed to infiltrate Syrian territory from the area of the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the North. – Jerusalem Post

U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee publicly criticized Ireland’s proposed legislation to criminalize the import of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. – Arutz Sheva

The Israel Defense Forces announced Wednesday that, following the Philadelphi and Morg corridors, it has completed the opening of a new route in southern Gaza that effectively splits Khan Younis, the territory’s second-largest city, into two parts. – Ynet

Yossi Mansharof writes: Israel’s main challenge in this new phase is to combine heightened intelligence alertness with strategic coordination with the US, in order to block any Iranian attempts to obtain nuclear weapons, and to prevent a miscalculation that could trigger renewed war. Concurrently, Israel must reach the most accurate possible assessment of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program so it can plan its next steps accordingly. – Jerusalem Post

Russia and Ukraine

After seeing footage of Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities late on July 11, President Trump called German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on his cellphone to express frustration over Vladimir Putin’s continued assault on his smaller neighbor, according to two people familiar with the conversation. – Wall Street Journal

President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. wasn’t planning to provide long-range missiles to Ukraine as part of a new aid initiative and he warned Kyiv against targeting Moscow. – Wall Street Journal

President Trump seems to have grasped that Russia will not stop its war in Ukraine until it is too costly to continue. Selling sophisticated American weapons to aid Ukraine will help Kyiv defend itself, European officials and analysts say, and is an important shift, at least for now, in Mr. Trump’s thinking about Russian aggression. – New York Times

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Tuesday he had submitted a resignation letter, as part of the country’s largest wartime governmental reshuffle expected this week. – Reuters

Several European countries said on Tuesday they were willing to buy U.S. arms for Ukraine under a scheme announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, although arrangements still needed to be worked out. – Reuters

Daniel Martindale, a U.S. citizen who helped the Kremlin target Ukrainian troops and was then spirited out of eastern Ukraine by Russian special forces, has received a Russian passport in Moscow. – Reuters

President Vladimir Putin intends to keep fighting in Ukraine until the West engages on his terms for peace, unfazed by Donald Trump’s threats of tougher sanctions, and his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance, three sources close to the Kremlin said. – Reuters

President Donald Trump’s ultimatum to Russia to accept a peace deal in Ukraine within 50 days or face bruising sanctions on its energy exports has given the Kremlin extra time to pursue its summer offensive. – Associated Press

Top officials in Russia say it can withstand the secondary tariffs that President Donald Trump has threatened if Russian leader Vladimir Putin does not reach a Ukraine war deal soon. – Business Insider

Marc Champion writes: But to offer American missiles to bomb Moscow would be an altogether different matter. A success would humiliate Putin, a man who measures himself by his imperial predecessors in the Kremlin. It would expose his inability to defend even his own capital in a war he has falsely cast as collective act of Western aggression. If my assumptions and the White House spin are wrong, if Trump both said what the FT has reported and meant it, then there could be only one conclusion: That the most powerful man in the world would also the most reckless. – Bloomberg

Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman write: Within Russia, Putin has many options. He commands the infrastructure for mass mobilization, including the security services and the state-controlled media. He could enact a ruthless, ideological conscription campaign with harsh punishments for those unwilling to enlist. If Putin has so far refrained from traveling down this path, it is not because he is unwilling to deploy coercive power in Russia but because he is hesitant to destroy the calm that he has so painstakingly fashioned. Were he to abandon that equilibrium, Putin would end up waging a fanatic’s war in Ukraine, dragging Russia further in and wreaking ever greater havoc on the Ukrainian people. He would be unrestrained as generalissimo abroad and as tyrant at home. As such, he could transform a tacit dictatorship into a full-blown one, with a dictatorship’s grim political prerogatives and a dictatorship’s unbound geopolitical appetites. – Foreign Affairs

Turkey

Turkey’s most popular opposition politician, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, appeared in court in a case that could end his career. – Bloomberg

Salih Berke Sendag writes: Thus, faced with political pressure at home, regional crises offer Erdogan both a distraction and a strategic opportunity. As long as tensions persist in Turkey’s close neighborhood, he can continue leveraging external conflicts to deflect domestic criticism and rally his base. At the same time, Turkey’s strategic importance to both regional and global powers grants Erdogan an indispensable role on the international stage, one that he skillfully uses to project strength and maintain political relevance at home. In this dynamic, regional instability serves as a means of domestic survival that enables Erdogan to further his political hold despite deepening internal weaknesses. – Washington Institute

Robert Ellis writes: Apart from Turkey’s plans to acquire 40 F-16 fighter jets from the United States, despite CAATSA sanctions, it still hopes to be readmitted to the F-35 program. The US Ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, has indicated that a solution is possible by the year’s end. In addition to the TCG Anadolu, which has already been commissioned, Turkey, together with Spain, is building a second aircraft carrier. Given Turkey’s expansive maritime strategy, outlined in Mavi Vatan (“Blue Homeland”), this does not bode well for either Greece or Cyprus. However, Europe is prepared to prioritize security over principle, even though there is justified doubt as to whose side Turkey is really on. – National Interest

Yemen

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday authorized continued reporting on attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have defied its previous demands to immediately halt all such attacks. – Associated Press

Fighters allied to Yemen’s exiled government claimed Wednesday they had seized 750 tons of Iranian-supplied missiles and weaponry bound for the country’s Houthi rebels, the latest interdiction of arms in the country’s decadelong war allegedly tied to Tehran. – Associated Press

Eran Ortal writes: Other actors are watching closely as well. Regional states, long menaced by Iranian proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, are breathing more freely now, after Israel’s successes against both. However, they will doubtless remain concerned that, absent serious, sustained pressure on these groups and others, the Iranian regime will revert to its time-tested approach of proxy warfare. That proxy strategy was once the source of Tehran’s extensive influence in the region. Now, in the wake of the recent Israel-Iran war, those very proxies represent a way for the US-led alliance in the region to deter further, contain, and roll back the Iranian regime. We should take it. And we should start with the Houthis. – National Interest

Korean Peninsula

South Korea’s defence ministry summoned Japan’s defence attache on Tuesday to protest over an annual white paper published by Tokyo, which made a territorial claim over disputed islands located in the East Sea. – Reuters

The president he killed is no less divisive, lauded for his country’s economic rise and reviled for his authoritarian rule. Kim’s family fought for the retrial, arguing that he cannot be remembered as a traitor. They will now have their day in the Seoul High Court – hearings began on Wednesday – just as impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol goes on trial for the same charge that sent Kim to the gallows. – BBC

Japan is facing its most severe security environment since World War II as three potential adversaries in East Asia – China, Russia and North Korea – ramp up military activities in the region, the country’s defense minister said Tuesday. – CNN

South Asia

The deadly Air India crash last month has renewed a decades-old debate in the aviation industry over installing video cameras monitoring airline pilot actions to complement the cockpit voice and flight data recorders already used by accident investigators. – Reuters

The demand outlook for India’s $283-billion IT sector remains uncertain due to U.S. tariff risks and global geopolitical factors, a senior Wipro executive said on Wednesday. – Reuters

Mihir Sharma writes: The US is clearly worried that some countries will evade its tariffs. Those concerns will be shared, especially by India. New Delhi seems to believe that, if world trade blocs form, then Asean has already chosen its side — and it won’t be the one India picks. Trade’s impossible without trust, and these two partners will have to work to rebuild it. – Bloomberg

Milan Vaishnav writes: Some Indian strategists rightly worry that it takes a dangerous leap of faith to bet on the United States returning to moderation in 2028. But the alternative—strategic estrangement—could come at an even greater cost. In an era of global uncertainty, strategic altruism may be the highest form of self-interest India can exercise. – Foreign Affairs

Europe

Factory output in the eurozone partly rebounded from a tariff-induced slump in May, but trade is likely to remain a headwind even as manufacturers harbor hopes of better times on government pledges to increase defense and infrastructure spending. – Wall Street Journal

The British government revealed Tuesday that thousands of Afghans were resettled secretly in the United Kingdom after a significant data breach by a British defense official mistakenly exposed their personal details, some of which later appeared on Facebook. – Washington Post

European Union officials have spent this week working to finalize a plan to retaliate against President Trump’s tariffs, laying the groundwork to hit more than $100 billion worth of American imports with levies if negotiations on a new trade deal fail. – New York Times

The police in Spain have arrested the leader of an anti-immigrant group on charges that he helped to incite days of violent clashes between far-right demonstrators and police officers in the southeastern town of Torre Pacheco, the interior ministry said on Tuesday. – New York Times

U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed Britain would fight to defend the United States but suggested he could not say the same for the European Union, a factor in his decision not to sign a trade deal with the bloc. – Reuters

The European Union failed to approve a new package of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, as Slovakia demanded more guarantees that it would not be harmed by a separate EU plan to phase out Russian gas. – Reuters

A concert in Italy by a top Russian conductor shunned in the West since the invasion of Ukraine could send the wrong message, the Italian culture minister said on Tuesday, stopping short of asking organisers to cancel it. – Reuters

The head of an influential EU-funded migration advisory body has urged the bloc to bolster expulsions of rejected asylum-seekers under its new migration pact and defended his group over human rights concerns. – Agence France-Presse

King Charles III will host Donald Trump for a state visit in September, the second time the US president will have received the UK’s highest honor offered to a visiting dignitary. – Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump said he plans to meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during an upcoming visit to Scotland to “refine” their trade pact. – Bloomberg

Martin Sherman writes: There are accumulating signs of a new political assertiveness and a growing appreciation of Israeli resolve to resist, and stare down what, until recently, seemed to be intimidating radical Islamist threats. With it, a grudging appreciation of Trump may also be emerging, together with a budding acknowledgment of the efficacy of his tough stance on issues his predecessors eschewed. Hopefully, the recent Vienna conference is a sign that the edifice of Europe’s socio-cultural heritage can still be salvaged. – Jerusalem Post

Chris Stephen writes: And while opposition to the ICC is one of the few things that unites America’s Republicans and Democrats, Congress has given powers to US courts to hold their own war crimes trials. The first such conviction came in April when a Gambian was jailed in Colorado for torture while serving in a notorious death squad in his home country. Human rights groups complain that Trump’s sanctions may break the ICC, but the deeper problem lies within the court itself. In its 22-year existence, despite investigating 17 wars, it has convicted just six war criminals. With such a poor return, many member states wonder if the court is worth saving. – Center for European Policy Analysis

The Americas

Miners in Peru who have been allowed to operate with temporary permits have paused protests that blocked a major copper transit route for more than two weeks, one of the protest leaders, Luis Huaman, told Reuters on Tuesday. – Reuters

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Tuesday he had launched an investigation into Brazil’s “unfair” trading practices, a week after President Donald Trump threatened a 50% tariff on imports from Latin America’s largest economy. – Reuters

Brazil will work to get the United States to reverse 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods before they are set to take effect on August 1, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on Tuesday. – Reuters

Brazil’s chief prosecutor has called for a guilty verdict in the case of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, on trial accused of leading an alleged coup plot to overturn the 2022 election in which he was defeated by a left-wing rival. – Associated Press

United States

Zohran Mamdani said he would discourage the use of the slogan “globalize the intifada” in a roughly hourlong meeting with some of New York City’s most powerful executives on Tuesday, seeking to defuse an issue that has prompted a backlash from the business community and beyond. – Wall Street Journal

The Trump administration’s plan to deport people to countries where they are not citizens represents a sharp change for the United States, where such expulsions have been rare. But other countries have tried similar policies. – Washington Post

President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he plans to place tariffs of over 10% on smaller countries, including nations in Africa and the Caribbean. – Associated Press

The Trump administration has recalled about half of the California National Guard troops that were deployed to Los Angeles under federal orders last month after a series of high-profile immigration raids and anti-deportation protests. – Bloomberg

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Waltz has faced scrutiny from US senators over his role in a sensitive Signal group chat in which officials discussed war plans. – BBC

Editorial: All of this will influence the Federal Reserve, which is considering the relationship between tariffs and inflation as it decides when and how much to cut interest rates. Mr. Trump has been bashing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell as “too late,” but the June report vindicates the Fed chief’s caution. It also probably takes a rate cut in July off the table. Americans elected President Trump to increase real incomes and reduce inflation, yet so far he isn’t succeeding at either. Tariffs aren’t helping either mission. – Wall Street Journal

Jonathan Greenblatt writes: The implementation of this resolution isn’t a done deal. There is a window for the NEA’s executive board to reject it and the antisemitism it represents. The board has an opportunity to make clear that the NEA is an organization in which Jewish educators can feel welcome, and that Jewish students and families can count on to protect and support their Jewish identities. This is the least we should expect. – Wall Street Journal

Defense

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned on Wednesday that countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia. – Reuters

NASA retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson splashed down safely in the Pacific early on Tuesday after her fifth trip to the International Space Station, joined by crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary returning from their countries’ first ISS mission. – Reuters

House Armed Services Committee members passed their initial draft of the annual defense authorization bill Tuesday after a day of debates regarding potential censures of Pentagon leadership and President Donald Trump’s national security policies, with Republicans ultimately rejecting any Democratic-led reprimands. – Defense News

Lockheed Martin has delivered all of the F-35 fighter jets that were stored in long-term parking at its facilities in Texas after software problems held up deliveries of the jet for a year. – Defense One

The Pentagon has awarded a $295 million contract for the construction of a command center that will coordinate a system dedicated to the defense of Guam from air and missile threats. – USNI News

Pat Gelsinger writes: The U.S. is already moving in the right direction with promising initiatives. The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital is funding the market deployment of laboratory breakthroughs in areas like robotics and quantum technologies. The Commerce Department’s Investment Accelerator injects capital into critical supply-chain projects. The U.S. International Development Finance Corp.’s equity authority allows the government to support frontier-tech ventures in allied markets. These initiatives prove governmental strategic investment can succeed, but are too fragmented and small-scale to make the difference in our race against China. – Wall Street Journal

Michael Peck writes: But none of this is good news for the US or Europe. If the Western bloc could benefit from sharing any platform, it would be an AEW aircraft. Regardless, the US seems determined to change its doctrine to favor space-based sensors. The old AWACS and its instantly recognizable mushroom will soon be gone. Quite what replaces it is anyone’s guess. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Kathleen H. Hicks and Wendy R. Anderson write: Every generation of Americans has faced the same choice: retreat into scarcity or rise to create abundance. The Greatest Generation chose to become the arsenal of democracy. Cold War leaders chose to invest in the technologies that defined the modern world. Now it’s our turn. We are the United States of America. We don’t manage decline. We build the future. – National Interest