Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Hamas militants engaged in “fierce fighting” with Israeli soldiers on Thursday in the south of the Gaza Strip near Rafah, the Palestinian militant group said. – Reuters

Some global airlines have again halted their flights to and from Tel Aviv after a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels towards Israel on Sunday landed near the country’s main international airport. – Reuters

European Union foreign ministers will hold formal discussions later this month on a demand to review an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza, the bloc’s top diplomat said Thursday. – Associated Press

A group of American security contractors, ex-military officers and humanitarian aid officials is proposing to take over the distribution of food and other supplies in Gaza based on plans similar to ones designed by Israel. – Associated Press

The IDF on Friday morning released the names of two soldiers who fell in battle in Rafah’s al-Jeninah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post

A former hostage held in Gaza for over 500 days said Thursday she was in “shock and pain” after a Gaza-born writer who appeared to justify her abduction and denigrated other captives on social media was awarded the Pulitzer Prize this week. – Times of Israel

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday wished new Pope Leo XIV success, and called on him to pursue the “peace efforts” of his predecessor Francis. – Arutz Sheva

President Trump met Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday and discussed the nuclear talks with Iran and the war in Gaza, according to two sources briefed on the meeting. – Axios 

Melanie Phillips writes: So people believe the lies told by these bodies that the Israelis are slaughtering Gazan babies or causing Gaza’s civilians to starve, despite the evidence to the contrary that’s available to anyone who bothers to look. But they don’t, because those telling these lies have been elevated onto a pinnacle that puts them above mere considerations such as evidence, facts and truth. Like the blood libels of the medieval church that caused the slaughter of countless thousands of Jews, the secular religion of universalism is inciting mass anti-Jewish lunacy under a doctrine of infallibility that has chilling historical echoes. – Arutz Sheva

Russia and Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin describes them as a battle-hardened cohort who “will not back down, will not deceive, and will not betray,” while his deputies enlist them to lend a veneer of valor to their own political careers. – Wall Street Journal

Ukraine’s parliament overwhelmingly voted to ratify a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal signed on April 30 in a show of support for a closer relationship with Washington, even as a Russian-declared ceasefire failed to halt fighting in Moscow’s three-year-old war on Ukraine. – Washington Post

Russia marks the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Friday with a military parade attended by China’s Xi Jinping that Moscow fears Ukraine will try to disrupt after three years of devastating war. – Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a statement on Thursday to deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between their two countries. – Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday he told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone call that a 30-day ceasefire was a “real indicator” of moving towards peace with Russia and Kyiv was ready to implement it immediately. – Reuters

Ukraine will host a group of foreign ministers in Lviv on Friday to endorse the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute the leadership of Russia, Belarus and North Korea for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, a senior Kyiv official said. – Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Thursday their two countries should be “friends of steel”, as they pledged to raise cooperation to a new level and “decisively” counter the influence of the United States. – Reuters

Russia and Ukraine both reported attacks on their forces Thursday on the first day of a 72-hour ceasefire called by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian lawmakers unanimously approved a landmark minerals deal with the U.S. – Associated Press

Andrei Kolesnikov writes: Of course, Putin has already made huge numbers of Russians into his accomplices, and to a certain extent, that guarantees their loyalty. But there is a downside to keeping an entire population as political hostages. If you remove this system’s main element—Putin—it will start to collapse. In such a scenario, as Russians adjust to new external circumstances, new inflated expectations may arise. But by that point, they will be directed at a new leader. – Foreign Affairs

Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko write: It is therefore unwise to take their current publicly stated positions as bottom lines. Such positions are often just an opening offer. Each side is naturally interested in creating the impression that its positions are nonnegotiable. The bargaining comes in the process. A peace agreement may prove very difficult—perhaps impossible—to attain. But as the 2022 talks demonstrated, failed negotiations could augur many more years of war. – Foreign Affairs

Saudi Arabia

The United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalise ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit next week. – Reuters

Saudi Arabia has held off formally joining the BRICS bloc of nations despite attending a meeting in Brazil last week, two sources said, finessing an issue that could upset Washington as Riyadh seeks to seal deals with its U.S. ally. – Reuters

Saudi Arabia and the United States are discussing a deal to cooperate on the kingdom’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, talks that have long been complicated by regional politics and concerns over weapons proliferation. – Reuters

Korean Peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a test of a short-range ballistic missile and long-range artillery on Thursday and stressed the importance of the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear forces, state media reported on Friday. – Reuters

South Korea’s presidential frontrunner said Seoul should not rush a trade deal with the United States and called for a coordinated response with other countries to U.S. tariffs, arguing that Washington risked isolation with its policy. – Reuters

South Korea’s conservatives risk splitting their supporters in the upcoming presidential election after a second round of talks between two rival candidates ended in disagreement amid a deepening rift within the ruling party. – Bloomberg

South Asia

India said it intercepted missiles and drones launched by Pakistan on Thursday that targeted military installments on its territory, turning up the heat in a confrontation between the two nuclear-armed states that has been simmering since militants killed tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month. – Wall Street Journal

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that India and Pakistan should de-escalate tensions, but he added that the U.S. cannot control the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors and a war between them would be “none of our business”. – Reuters

Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged de-escalation and expressed support for direct dialogue in separate calls with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said. – Reuters

Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. said on Thursday that India and Pakistan have had contacts at the level of their respective National Security Councils, when asked if the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors had any ongoing lines of conversation. – Reuters

India’s executive director at the International Monetary Fund will put forward the country’s position at a board meeting on Friday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Thursday in response to a query on New Delhi asking for a review of loans to Pakistan. – Reuters

Airlines in India have suspended flight operations from two dozen airports across northern and western regions of the country amid heightened tensions with Pakistan. – Associated Press

Zvika Klein writes: There are more than a billion Hindus in the world, many of whom see Israel as an ally in the fight against extremism. We should embrace that alliance – and amplify it. Because when India defends itself, Israel doesn’t just gain an ally. It gains a mirror. And the reflection, though painful, is unmistakable. So perhaps the next time a massacre like this happens, students at Harvard will pitch their tents. Just don’t expect it when the victims are Indian, the terrorists are Pakistani, and the narrative is inconvenient. Selective outrage is easy. Moral consistency is harder. – Jerusalem Post

Europe

The Roman Catholic Church elected the first American pope in its history, placing its 1.4 billion faithful in the hands of a missionary-turned-Vatican prelate who has been critical of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. – Wall Street Journal

Rheinmetall Chief Executive Armin Papperger said he expects members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to ramp up their defense spending quickly, following talks with the alliance’s secretary general. – Wall Street Journal

The European Union said it could target American cars, car parts, airplanes and other products with tariffs if negotiations with the U.S. break down. – Wall Street Journal

President Trump said Thursday his administration and the U.K. agreed to the outlines of a deal on trade, the first in what the White House hopes will be a series of agreements in the wake of U.S. tariffs imposed on allies and adversaries alike. – Wall Street Journal

Slovakia’s prime minister embarked on a circuitous route to Moscow on Thursday to attend Russia’s World War 2 victory parade after Lithuania shut its airspace to flights carrying him to the event and other Baltic nations imposed similar restrictions. – Reuters

Norway said on Thursday it would seek to deepen security ties with Nordic neighbours and major European allies, bolstering protections against a resurgent Russia and signalling a shift for a nation long one of NATO’s most Atlanticist members. – Reuters

The UK will sanction as many as 100 oil tankers that it says are part of a shadow fleet of vessels helping Russia to move its oil. – Bloomberg

Ukraine and the European Union are poised to announce a special court aimed at prosecuting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leading Kremlin officials for orchestrating the invasion of their neighbor, according to the EU’s top diplomat. – Bloomberg

Editorial: Mr. Trump still has a long way to go to mitigate the harm from his tariff barrage, and some of it will be permanent in the form of higher border taxes and prices. But the British deal offers a template for a partial face-saving exit, if Mr. Trump will take it. – Wall Street Journal

Mila Tanghe writes: It’s really important for us to recognize that this Axis of Aggressors poses a threat to the free world, and we should act accordingly. We shouldn’t be diminishing our commitment in one area — Europe, for example — so that we can all run over to the Indo-Pacific. Because all that will do is create opportunities for the aggressor on the continent where we have very important interests, in terms of our common principles and values, but also just trade relationships. The people who argue myopically for this disengagement from Europe to prioritize the competition with China, I think they’re misguided. – Center for European Policy Analysis

The Americas

The designation of Haiti’s major gangs as terrorists by Washington could risk further entrenching their power by limiting financial and humanitarian aid, NGOs focused on organized crime and human rights have warned. – Reuters

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday said that repatriations of Mexican citizens from the United States had increased in recent weeks, mostly via flights, as the U.S. government ramps up deportations of migrants across the region. – Reuters

The United States’ new ambassador to Panama pledged on Thursday to strengthen ties with the Central American country while pushing China as a common threat. – Reuters

Russia said its businesses would invest more than $1 billion in long-time political ally Cuba by 2030, Cuba’s presidency said on Thursday, promising a lifeline for the communist-run Caribbean island amid a gruelling economic crisis. – Reuters

Panama President José Raúl Mulino said Thursday that he will not renegotiate an agreement with the United States to give U.S. troops access to Panamanian facilities, despite protests charging that he compromised the country’s sovereignty. – Associated Press

Cybersecurity

Nvidia plans to release a downgraded version of its H20 artificial intelligence chip for China in the next two months, following U.S. export restrictions on the original model, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. – Reuters

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and executives from Microsoft and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices testified on Capitol Hill about the biggest opportunities, risks and needs facing an industry which lawmakers and technologists agree could fundamentally transform global business, culture and geopolitics. – Associated Press

Researchers at Google have discovered a new malware, dubbed Lostkeys, which they say is being used by a Russian government-backed hacking group Coldriver in an espionage campaign. – The Record

Bryan Vorndran, who has helped guide the FBI to be more aggressive in disrupting malicious hackers and cybercrime gangs, will retire from the agency soon, Recorded Future News has learned. – The Record