Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

As Arab leaders look to extend the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and come up with an alternative to President Trump’s plan to depopulate the enclave, they are being forced to deal with a question they have long kicked down the road: What to do with Hamas. – Wall Street Journal

One day after Israel began halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip, Palestinians there are already feeling the effects of the sweeping measure, with prices of essential goods on the rise. – New York Times

Israeli forces on Monday struck a military site where arms belonging to the previous Syrian government were stored in Qardaha, in the mountains of Latakia province, northwest Syria, the military said in a post on its Telegram channel. – Reuters

One person was killed and four were wounded in a stabbing attack at a bus station in the city of Haifa, Israel’s ambulance service said, in what police described as a terrorist attack. – Reuters

Israel this week introduced what it said was a new U.S. ceasefire plan — different from the one it agreed to in January — and is trying to force Hamas to accept it by imposing a siege on the Gaza Strip. – Associated Press

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas on Monday of consequences it “cannot imagine” if the Palestinian movement does not release the hostages held in Gaza. – Agence France Presse

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked US President Donald Trump’s administration for sending munitions he claimed had been held up by the previous administration, saying they would help Israel “finish the job” against Iran and its network of allied insurgent and terrorist groups. – Agence France Presse

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government after Netanyahu announced in Knesset in front of bereaved families on Monday that he would not agree to form a state probe into the October 7 security failure. – Jerusalem Post

The head of the Operations Directorate, Maj.-Gen. Oded Basyuk asked to resign from the IDF on Monday night. – Jerusalem Post

Israel has filed a written submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which it has detailed what it says are the connections of employees of the UNRWA Palestinian aid agency to Hamas and terror activity, including testimony from a freed Israeli hostage that she was held by the terror organization in an UNRWA facility in the Gaza Strip. – Times of Israel

Editorial: The message to Hamas is unmistakable: The Biden days are over. The question now is what Israel wants, and if it has a better plan to unseat Hamas than what it has tried already. The determination to cut off Hamas’s supply and control of new aid is a signal that Israel will no longer play by Biden rules, with one arm tied behind its back. – Wall Street Journal

Editorial: Israel is beyond justified in doing whatever it takes to make the terrorists keep up the hostage releases, whether that’s surgical strikes and clandestine warfare, re-arresting some of the criminals it released in Phase 1 or even resuming full-on military operations. […] Hamas is essentially back in power now, with fresh new recruits. Allowing it to survive intact would only pave the way for more horror later. If the terrorists want the cease-fire to continue, they’ll set up more hostage releases immediately, or Israel must move to destroy the group’s stranglehold for good. That’s the only road toward lasting peace. – New York Post

Editorial: The path forward must be one of strength and resolve – not indefinite waiting, but unyielding pressure that leads to the hostages’ swift return. Our healing, as a nation, can only begin once all the hostages are home, and not in a process that leaves them there for an indefinite period. Therefore, we need to be tough and demand what is just and proper – Hamas must release our hostages, all of them. – Jerusalem Post

Eugene Kontorovich writes: International law doesn’t bar outside actors from providing such support, but neither does it ban removing it or offering generous resettlement terms elsewhere. American sovereignty extends to a variety of far-flung places, from Alaska and Hawaii to the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, which became American only in 1986. In time, the American Levant—if not “Trump Gaza”—may sound as natural. – Wall Street Journal

Louis René Beres writes: The Iranian nuclear threat has not disappeared. Though seemingly “defanged,” this elemental country danger to Israel depends on far more than usual assessments of “clock time.” More exactly, it is to “sacred time” rather than the “profane time” of clocks that Iranian and other jihadi leaders will turn for compelling reassurances of life everlasting. “It is through death,” explains Levinas, “that there is time,” but it is also though time that Israel can meaningfully understand death. – Jerusalem Post

Russia & Ukraine

The U.S. will pause all military aid to Kyiv until President Trump determines that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making a good-faith effort toward peace negotiations with Russia, according to a White House official. – Wall Street Journal

Of all the grievances Ukrainians have aired since the public lambasting of their president in the Oval Office on Friday, comments over President Volodymyr Zelensky’s outfit may have hit closest to home — generating memes and jokes mocking anyone who seemed to take his wartime uniform as a personal affront to U.S. leadership. – Washington Post

President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Ukraine on Monday after a whirlwind diplomatic mission that included both humiliation, by President Trump, and a warm embrace, from European leaders. – New York Times

Russia has permanently banned nine Japanese citizens from entering the country, according to a list published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday. – Reuters

Russian authorities have put out fires at an oil pipeline in the southern region of Rostov sparked by a Ukrainian drone attack, a regional official said on Tuesday, with no injuries. – Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Kyiv was committed to intensive diplomacy to bring a rapid end to the three-year-old war with Russia and stressed that he hoped to be able to rely on U.S. support in securing peace. – Reuters

Ukraine acknowledged on Monday that a Russian missile strike on a military training ground at the weekend had inflicted deaths and injuries and said a criminal investigation was underway into possible negligence. – Reuters

The Kremlin said on Monday that pledges made by European leaders at a London summit on Ukraine over the weekend to increase funding to Kyiv will not help bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. – Reuters

The Kremlin said in remarks published on Tuesday that the next round of Russia-U.S. talks on ending the war in Ukraine is unlikely to happen before the embassies of both countries resume normal operations. – Reuters

Dmytro Kuleba writes: Germany moved out, Russia’s Red Army moved in and the state of Ukraine ceased to exist. It took 104 years between then and the Russian invasion in 2022 for Europe to finally recognize that Ukraine belongs to it by putting it on the track of the E.U. accession process. Moscow never really changes, but Europe still might. – New York Times

David Kirichenko writes: Once identified, the unit launches its own drones to intercept and destroy them before they reach their targets. While effective, the radars have limited range and are vulnerable to detection, demonstrating an urgent need for advanced counter-drone sensors across the frontline. While they may not revolutionize warfare on their own, the new drones represent the latest evolution in an intensifying technological arms race — one where innovation can tip the balance, even if only briefly. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Turkey

A Turkish court formally arrested an Istanbul district mayor from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) over alleged tender rigging, state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday, amid a crackdown on opposition figures. – Reuters

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu can be forgiven for losing count of the dozens of often bewildering court cases and investigations that the authorities have leveled against him. – Politico

Gönül Tol writes: Despite those challenges, Turkish officials think they have no option but to become an energy hub. They think that, amid the struggle between countries for power and influence in today’s uncertain world, energy is as critical as economic and military might. Ankara is determined to capitalize on its assets to position itself as a key energy player and the current regional context just might enable it to do that. – Middle East Institute

Michael Rubin writes: When revisionist states believe they engage in a win-win strategy, the world loses. The question now for NATO is how to derail Turkey’s ambitions. Perhaps a European army omitting Turkey would not be such a bad outcome in this case as it would free Israel both to destroy Akkulyu and relieve other NATO states of any obligation to prevent an outcome that would be to the benefit of everyone in the region outside Turkey itself. – Hellas Journal

Korean Peninsula

North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, criticised the Trump administration for stepping up “provocations” and said it justified the nuclear state increasing its nuclear deterrent, state media KCNA said. – Reuters

South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok said on Tuesday that the government, parliament and the private sector should be united to respond to the U.S. “trade war”. – Reuters

South Korea’s factory activity shrank in February as employment declined at the sharpest pace in 2-1/2 years while confidence was hit by heightened uncertainty over economic conditions overseas and at home, a private survey showed on Tuesday. – Reuters

South Asia

Pakistani and Afghan security forces clashed on Monday at the recently shuttered main border crossing between the two countries, killing at least one combatant and injuring several, officials said. – Reuters

A female suicide bomber killed a Pakistani paramilitary force member and injured four others in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, a district official said on Monday. – Reuters

India’s wealthy southern states are up in arms against a proposal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to redraw boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, arguing it will result in less representation for them compared to the poorer, more populous north. – Reuters

Myanmar’s leader and military chief Min Aung Hlaing was greeted in Moscow on Tuesday by one of President Vladimir Putin’s top security officials. – Reuters

Europe

Police in Germany said they had detained a man after a driver rammed a car into a crowd in Mannheim, leaving two dead and 10 wounded in the latest such incident in recent months. – Wall Street Journal

The argument between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the White House sent relations between the two countries into a tailspin. It also caused serious damage to an alliance at the heart of the post-World War II order: NATO. – Wall Street Journal

Austria’s first three-party government since the aftermath of World War Two took office on Monday, ending the country’s longest-ever wait for a ruling coalition and keeping the Russia-friendly, far-right Freedom Party (FPO) out of power. – Reuters

Germany’s energy independence from Moscow is crucial and it is not in talks with Russia over a “possible pipeline-based supply of Russian gas” via the partly damaged Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the economy ministry said on Monday. – Reuters

The European Union will provide Moldova with 60 million euros ($62.95 million) to spend on defence this year, the European Council’s president said on Monday, to boost the capabilities of the small agricultural country that neighbours Ukraine. – Reuters

The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday called out European Union’s content moderation law as incompatible with America’s free speech tradition and warned of a risk that it will excessively restrict freedom of expression. – Reuters

France’s prime minister on Monday tore into U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oval Office thrashing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling it a staggering show of “brutality” that aimed to humiliate Ukraine’s leader and bend him to the will of Russian President Vladimir Putin. – Associated Press

The European Union is considering helping finance central-east nations to store natural gas in Ukraine next winter. – Bloomberg

Ireland’s government will propose changes to its rules for sending troops abroad, as the neutral country ramps up its practical support for Ukraine. – Bloomberg

Editorial: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is right: “This is not a moment for more talk. It is a time to act.” Reluctant European leaders should recall how they responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, pledging $860 billion in recovery funds within a matter of weeks. The challenge of preparing for a world order in which the US may no longer underwrite Europe’s security is no less existential. They need to recognize their strengths and start deploying them before it’s too late. – Bloomberg

William McGurn writes: Not to find a way to get him out of the American Embassy and out of China makes no sense at all.” The letter was dated April 9, 1990. Eleven weeks later, Fang was in the U.S. If Mr. Starmer gets nothing in return for China’s embassy, he will only confirm Britain’s third-rank status. The better path is to reread Nixon, enlist Mr. Trump’s help—and then make the hard deal that’s in everybody’s interest. – Wall Street Journal

Daniel McCarthy writes: And when voters demand change, as Germans did by giving the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland a record 20% in last month’s election, establishment parties on the left and center-right form coalition governments that exclude these unwelcome agents of change. Donald Tusk is correct: Europe’s weakness is wholly self-inflicted. Now the question is whether the leaders responsible for three decades of decline can reverse course completely — or whether Europe needs its own Donald Trump-like figures to replace them. – New York Post

The Americas

Mexico’s president offered a warning last month in response to news that the Trump administration planned to designate drug cartels as terrorist groups. – New York Times

Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei came to office in late 2023 slamming China as a communist “assassin” and threatening to weaken ties with the Asian nation. Instead, exports to China including soy and lithium jumped 15% in his first year. – Reuters

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek Saab said on Monday his office has requested that 110 people arrested during protests over a contested July election have their detention measures revised, bringing the total number of protesters freed over the last few months to 2,006. – Reuters

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a Monday evening statement that retaliatory tariffs on the United States would take effect at 12:01 a.m.(0501 GMT) Tuesday in response to U.S. tariffs. – Reuters

Mexico will wait and see if U.S. President Donald Trump goes through with his threat to slap tariffs on its southern neighbor on Tuesday, the nation’s president said on Monday, adding that Mexico has back-up plans in case the tariffs go into place. – Reuters

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced a plan Monday to reduce coca planting in a northeastern region rattled by rebel attacks by paying farmers while they switch to legal crops. – Associated Press

President Gabriel Boric’s popularity was unscathed by Chile’s biggest blackout in over a decade, as the nation works to find those responsible for a rare failure that left most of the population in the dark and halted the world’s largest copper mines. – Bloomberg

Juan Pablo Spinetto writes: This ambivalence may be a tactical element in the difficult balancing act that Sheinbaum needs to pull off right now. But in the longer term, she runs the risk of not satisfying anyone. Mexico is poised to grow just 0.6% this year, flirting with a recession, and only 1.8% in 2026. Avoiding that grim fate — not constantly messing around with the constitution — should be the government’s priority. – Bloomberg

Cybersecurity

Servers used in a fraud case that Singapore announced last week were supplied by U.S. firms and may have contained Nvidia’s (NVDA.O), advanced chips, a government minister said on Monday. – Reuters

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) refuted reports that changes are being made to how it approaches cyberthreats from Russia. – The Record

Government services offered by one of the largest counties in Maryland are still being limited more than a week after it was targeted by a cyberattack. – The Record