Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Israel ramped up its bombing of targets on three fronts, including a rare airstrike in the West Bank, as humanitarian aid trickled into the Gaza Strip in an international effort to ease the hardship the conflict has wrought on the two million civilians trapped there. – Wall Street Journal

The streets of this northern Israeli town 2 miles from the Lebanese border were deserted. Shopping centers, falafel shops and convenience stores were all closed. Explosions boomed from the hills to the west, followed by plumes of smoke. Israeli authorities on Friday announced the evacuation of Kiryat Shmona, home to some 22,000 people, as the country prepares for the possibility of a two-front war: battling Hamas in the Gaza Strip to the south as well as its Islamist ally Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north. On Sunday, 14 more northern Israeli villages were evacuated. – Wall Street Journal

A convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza for the first time since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel by Hamas militants. – Wall Street Journal

As Israel plans a ground operation in Gaza, aiming to eradicate Hamas, recent history elsewhere suggests that the goal can be achieved—but only at a tremendous cost, to Israeli troops and much more so, to Palestinian civilians caught in the middle. – Wall Street Journal

Hamas released two U.S. citizens taken hostage in the Gaza Strip, amid rising pressure on Israel to put off a planned invasion on the enclave to allow time for diplomacy. – Wall Street Journal

During two decades in Israeli prison, Yahya Sinwar learned Hebrew fluently and devoured local newspapers and television. Now, the most senior Hamas leader in Gaza is using that knowledge to fight a war against Israel. Israel has accused Sinwar, alongside the commander of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, of coordinating the brutal Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, including 1,000 civilians. Hamas has taken about 200 people to Gaza as hostages. – Wall Street Journal

As recently as a few weeks ago, the Middle East seemed relatively calm. The principal story coming out of the long-troubled region was a positive one, the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, there looked to be hope that the U.S. and Iran were working to place an informal ceiling on the scale of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for some limited sanctions relief. – Wall Street Journal

An outpouring of support from militant Islamist groups for Hamas’s bloody incursion into Israel is stirring fears of a resurgence of terrorist acts in the West that, until recently, appeared to be on the decline. – Wall Street Journal

Yousof is one of at least 400 Americans trapped in Gaza as Israel mounts a siege of the enclave, cutting off supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine to more than 2 million people amid a relentless aerial bombardment. – Washington Post

After the release Friday of two Americans held by Hamas, officials in Israel distributed images of the women walking hand-in-hand to freedom with an Israeli envoy, and U.S. authorities shared photos of the pair talking by phone to President Biden. The Persian Gulf nation of Qatar was where it preferred to be: a bit out of the picture but very much in the mix. – Washington Post

The Gaza Strip runs on fuel. It powers the enclave’s hospitals, water pumps and taxis. It feeds the generators residents depend on for electricity and helps fire up the ovens at neighborhood bakeries. – Washington Post

Within days of pledging “rock solid and unwavering” support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’s vicious Oct. 7 attack that left at least 1,400 Israelis dead, President Biden began gently reminding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.” – Washington Post

President Biden on Friday delivered to Congress a $105 billion request for military aid, mostly for Israel and Ukraine, essentially daring lawmakers who oppose parts of the proposal to vote against an overall package that he said will ensure “American security for generations.” – New York Times

Five days after Hamas accused Israel of bombing a hospital in Gaza City and killing hundreds of people, the armed Palestinian group has yet to produce or describe any evidence linking Israel to the strike, says it cannot find the munition that hit the site and has declined to provide detail to support its count of the casualties. – New York Times

The Biden administration has advised Israel to delay a ground invasion of Gaza, hoping to buy time for hostage negotiations and to allow more humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians in the sealed-off enclave, according to several U.S. officials. – New York Times

The Israeli military carried out a rare airstrike on a mosque in the occupied West Bank overnight, killing at least two people in what Palestinian officials called a “dangerous escalation.” – New York Times

The Israeli authorities said on Sunday that they would evacuate 14 more Israeli villages near the northern border with Lebanon amid escalating tit-for-tat clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia, that have raised concerns that the Israel-Hamas war could ignite other regional confrontations. – New York Times

Israel bombarded Gaza with more air strikes on Monday ahead of an anticipated ground operation into the besieged Palestinian enclave as the United Nations warned that civilians were running out of places to seek shelter. – Reuters 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati it was important to respect the interests of his people, who would be affected if the country were drawn into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the State Department said on Saturday. – Reuters

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed Gaza in phone call with the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on Saturday. Erdogan told Haniyeh about Ankara’s efforts for a ceasefire, for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza and possible treatment of the wounded in Turkey. – Reuters

Israel has confirmed that 212 people are being held hostage in Gaza, the military spokesperson said on Sunday, adding that Israeli strikes overnight killed dozens of Palestinian fighters, including the deputy chief of Hamas rocket forces. – Reuters

Israeli warplanes bombarded areas near three hospitals in the Gaza Strip early on Monday, Palestinian media reported, but it was not immediately clear whether the hospitals themselves suffered damage. – Reuters

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will visit Israel this week. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the two leaders “will arrive on Monday and Tuesday” and meet with him. – Reuters

An explosion and the sound of ambulances were heard near the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, shortly after a second aid convoy had entered the crossing from the Egyptian side, witnesses said. – Reuters

Palestinians said they had received renewed warnings from Israel’s military to move from north Gaza to the south of the strip, with the added warning that they could be identified as sympathisers with a “terrorist organisation” if they stayed put. – Reuters

Israel has set up hundreds of volunteer security squads in the two weeks since the Gaza war erupted and is arming them should there be knock-on Jewish-Arab unrest, authorities said on Sunday, despite what police said was “exemplary” conduct so far. – Reuters

A top Treasury Department official is heading to Saudi Arabia and Qatar next week to intensify US efforts to cut off financial lifelines to Hamas and discuss humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip. – Bloomberg

Hamas terrorists who took part in the October 7 massacre of southern Israeli towns received precise instructions to make deadly chemical weapons to use on civilians, President Isaac Herzog confirmed in a Sunday night interview with Sky News. – Jerusalem Post

The precision “Iron Sting” mortar entered operational use for the first time as the IDF’s Maglan unit used the innovative weapon to target Hamas’s rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit revealed Sunday. – Jerusalem Post

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that Israel should already be devising a strategy for who will rule Gaza if the IDF completes its stated mission of toppling Hamas. – Times of Israel

The Mossad and Shin Bet have reportedly formed a special operations center tasked with tracking down and killing members of the Hamas commando unit that led the Gaza-ruling terror group’s deadly onslaught in southern Israel on October 7. – Haaretz

Editorial: The U.S. could afford to remove its troops from Beirut in 1983 because its survival wasn’t at stake. Israel doesn’t have that luxury. Israel may decide that there are better ways than a ground invasion to destroy Hamas and eliminate its threat. But that choice is up to Israeli leaders, whose people will endure the consequences. As the U.S. learned in Beirut, failing to respond is far from cost-free. – Wall Street Journal

Michael Oren writes: Only by destroying Hamas can Israel secure our borders and deter our enemies. Only when we have freed ourselves from the threat of Hamas barbarism can we begin restoring our faith in our governing institutions and armed forces. We can believe, as we once did, in the idea of Israel, and preserve its essential soul. – Wall Street Journal

Richard A. Epstein and Alexander Talel write: Narrow application of the force majeure doctrine is often appropriate. Its hasty and premature generalization isn’t. Any nonperformance by Evergreen based on that contention thus amounts to a breach of contract. An early finding to that effect would reduce the possibility of more opportunistic force majeure claims that would threaten to tip the balance of a coming war. – Wall Street Journal

Shany Mor writes: The Oct. 7 pogrom raised the rhetorical stakes. If the only thing that can explain a Palestinian action is Israeli evil, then Israel’s opponents have to imagine a level of Jewish evil commensurate with what Hamas did—shooting children in front of their parents, setting houses on fire with residents inside, raping women, beheading innocent people, mutilating bodies. When it is forbidden to criticize murderers or the society that created them, all that is left is to defame the victims. The accusation that Israel is committing genocide the week after Hamas’s massacre is entirely predictable. It tells us nothing about Israel and much about its enemies. – Wall Street Journal

Bernard-Henri Lévy writes: And these young Israeli soldiers, fervent and tormented—will they return alive from the Gaza that lies before them like a dark mass lit up from afar by incoming and outgoing rockets? Among the soldiers are men and women of the left and of the right; supporters of Mr. Netanyahu as well as opponents who recognize him only reluctantly as their commander in chief; Jews who wear the Tefillin and Jews who do not. I have heard none of them deny that this war is just and must be won. – Wall Street Journal

David Ignatius writes: The worst days of this war are ahead. Talking about reconstruction might seem delusional when Israeli bombs are falling and their tanks are rolling forward. But if Israel’s leaders aren’t careful, they could once again win the war but lose the peace. – Washington Post

Marc Champion writes: Uncertainty is normal in times of war, and it would take undeniable evidence to even begin to change minds in the Arab and Muslim world as to what happened at the hospital. By then it may be too late to make a difference. There’s no obvious way out of Israel’s dilemma, but if its tanks enter Gaza without the offer of a plan that gives Palestinians hope for life after Hamas, this pattern is guaranteed to repeat itself again and again to Israel’s detriment. – Bloomberg

Russia & Ukraine

A Russian court ordered an American journalist to be held in detention through at least Monday on charges that she failed to register as a “foreign agent,” according to her employer, in a case that threatens to further exacerbate tensions between Washington and Moscow. – Wall Street Journal

At a Ukrainian control room, notifications ping onto a screen as a U.S.-supplied radar locates Russian artillery guns firing on Ukrainian positions. A Ukrainian team plots the coordinates on a tablet map, sharing them online with drone units tasked with confirming targets and gunners tasked with destroying them. – Wall Street Journal

A Russian antiaircraft missile hit a sprawling mail facility near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv late Saturday, killing six postal workers and injuring 17 others, local officials said. – Washington Post

Russia’s long-running efforts to weaken the world’s democracies have expanded in recent years to sow public doubt in election integrity, according to a declassified State Department cable disclosed Friday, which says the U.S. intelligence community found evidence that Russian actors made a concerted effort to undermine faith in the voting process in at least nine countries, including the United States, between 2020 and 2022. – Washington Post

Late one evening this month, two Ukrainian commandos eased into a side street in Kyiv in a battered SUV. Back from a dangerous nighttime assault on Russian positions in the Crimean peninsula, they slipped into a sparsely furnished apartment where they sat at desks, weary and a little disheveled, and described their latest operation in matter-of-fact fashion. […]The two men had joined more than 30 others racing more than 100 miles across the western Black Sea on jet skis to attack critical Russian defense installations before making their getaway, the second Ukrainian amphibious raid in six weeks. – New York Times

Russian forces aiming to contain a four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive maintained unrelenting pressure on Sunday on the shattered town of Avdiivka in the east and intensified shelling in the southern area of Kherson. – Reuters

Russian forces have foiled several attempts by Ukrainian units to cross the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region over the past day, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday. – Reuters

For months after Ukraine’s Western allies limited sales of Russian oil to $60 per barrel, the price cap was still largely symbolic. Most of Moscow’s crude — its main moneymaker — cost less than that. – Associated Press

Russia named a replacement for the former head of the country’s Aerospace Forces, who was dismissed in the wake of this summer’s brief rebellion against the military establishment, state news agencies reported Friday. – Associated Press

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke with President Joe Biden about future U.S. support for his nation, and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a military headquarters near the Ukrainian border as the warring countries prepare for the winter and next year’s combat operations. – Associated Press

NATO should consider a halt to Russian shipping in the Baltic Sea if evidence emerges that the Kremlin is behind the damage to a pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia, Latvia’s president said. – Bloomberg

Ukraine will press forward with an effort to build support for a peace formula with the so-called Global South as Malta hosts a third gathering of senior officials to discuss the blueprint this month. The Oct. 28-29 meeting in Malta, a European Union island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, will aim to secure the “broadest possible international support” for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s plan, the Maltese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday. – Bloomberg

Elina Beketova writes: A stalemate or victory in Ukraine would also encourage the Kremlin to seek wars in Georgia and Moldova. But Vladimir Putin will not limit himself to these countries. As he seeks to restore the Russian empire, he would shift his attention to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and potentially even Finland. This won’t require him to convince the Russian public of the need for new wars, since opinion polls show that many believe that a war with NATO is already underway. If the world wishes to restore some semblance of global order, uphold the rule of law, and prevent Ukraine and other countries from becoming isolated and aggressive dark spaces, it needs to help Kyiv win, not Moscow. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Iraq

Katyusha rockets on Sunday targeted the Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. and other international forces in western Iraq, and one blast was heard inside the base, two army sources said. – Reuters

Two Iraqi soldiers and two fighters of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were killed on Sunday as the two sides clashed in a mountainous northern area, Iraqi and Kurdish security sources said. – Reuters

The U.S. State Department said on Sunday U.S. citizens should not travel to Iraq after recent attacks on American troops and personnel in the region. – Reuters

The Telegram brand that emerged in October 2023 is not a group per se, new or old, but rather a generic name used to denote unity among Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups during the Gaza crisis and de-emphasize individual faction identities. – Washington Institute

Arabian Peninsula

As the Israel-Hamas war escalates, there’s growing concern that the conflict will spread across the region, drawing in more actors that are hostile to Israel. Those fears appeared to be borne out on Oct. 19, when the US military said one of its destroyers in the Red Sea had intercepted cruise missiles and drones launched toward Israel by Houthi rebels, who control Yemen’s capital and the surrounding area. – Bloomberg

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes: The press should be the antidote to the engulfing sea of idiocy on all sides. Ours too often fails. What older Americans remember as the oil crisis was a product of domestic price controls, imposed by people in the Nixon administration who knew better. Not much has changed. Today’s U.S. policy makers are fully aware of how utterly their energy ministrations fail to benefit the American people, albeit in the fine print of policy documents, where the required cost-benefit disclosures are buried. Along the way, the country did manage to remove lead from gasoline and mandate catalytic converters, which improved air quality, showing that rational, economical policy outcomes are still possible amid the vast politicized waste that “energy policy” has otherwise become in the last 50 years. – Wall Street Journal

Ibrahim Jalal writes: Seventh, Yemen’s position toward the Palestinian cause is unchanged, but it remains to be seen whether the Houthis through a single political messaging attack will be able to achieve long-term gains, both internally and externally. Overall, this incident once again raises the question of which partner the world wants to have in Yemen. – Middle East Institute

Middle East & North Africa

As Israeli forces massed along the border with Gaza on Sunday ahead of an expected ground invasion, escalating clashes on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, as well as strikes in Syria and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, intensified fears of a widening regional conflict. – New York Times

The U.S. military said it would send more missile defense systems to the Middle East in response to “escalations” from Iran and its allies, who have threatened a broader war in the region. The deployment comes as Israel continues to signal intentions to invade Gaza after Hamas’s deadly incursion earlier this month. – New York Times

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, which he said amounted to genocide, and urged governments worldwide to work for a humanitarian ceasefire in the region. – Reuters

Oil prices fell more than $1 on Monday as concerns about supply disruptions eased due to diplomatic efforts intensifying in an attempt to contain the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. – Reuters

Fifty years after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the current crisis in the Middle East has the potential to disrupt global oil supplies and push prices higher. But don’t expect a repeat of the catastrophic price hikes and long lines at the gasoline pump, experts say. – Associated Press

President Joe Biden said Hamas attacked Israel in part to stymie its efforts to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, his most illuminating comments yet on the impetus for the crisis in the Middle East. – Bloomberg

At least two workers were killed on Sunday “as a result of Israeli bombardment targeting Syria’s Damascus airport at dawn,” Syria’s general directorate of meteorology said in a statement. – Reuters

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria continue to increase threats and attacks against US forces. On Sunday reports said that rockets targeted Ain al-Asad base, at least the sixth attack since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. – Jerusalem Post

Amir al-Kaabi, Michael Knights, and Hamdi Malik write: Interestingly, the latest Iraqi rocket attack—an October 20 strike on the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center (BDSC) complex at the international airport—has not been claimed. (The militias call this complex “Victoria,” erroneously referring to the former U.S. Victory Base Complex.) This could stem from the limited nature of the incident—only one of fifteen rounds in the attacking rocket battery was fired, and it was intercepted by U.S. forces. In fact, the attack was likely a deliberate under-performance near an especially sensitive civilian target (the airport), and the militias wanted to avoid blowback. – Washington Institute

Edward Lucas writes: A decisive European policy might not work any more than repeated American efforts have done in past years. Unreasonable people do not necessarily care about peace and prosperity. But at least the attempt would make the Europeans seem serious actors on the global stage. That would help deter foes. But more importantly, it impresses friends. The big question for the coming years is how far the United States can rely on European help in dealing with its big challenge, China, and how much transatlantic security assistance it will offer in return. On the evidence of recent days, the answer will be “not a lot.” Everyone in the free world will be worse off as a result. – Center for European Policy Analysis

China

Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week called for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war. Making his first remarks since the conflict began, Xi said during a meeting in Beijing with Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly that the establishment of “an independent state of Palestine” through a two-state solution was the “fundamental way out of” the conflict. – Washington Post

China’s top spy agency said on Sunday a Chinese citizen who worked for a defense institute had been accused of spying for the United States and his case had been transferred to a court in the southwestern city of Chengdu for trial. – Reuters

Chinese and Russian companies attending a regional conference in northeastern China signed a raft of cooperation deals on Monday in sectors ranging from manufacturing and logistics to e-commerce and agriculture, Chinese state media reported. – Reuters

China and Russia share the same position on the Palestinian issue and plan to try to work together to cool the situation and help establish a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, a top Chinese envoy said Friday. – Associated Press

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will try to reinforce his state’s role as a global leader on climate change as he begins a weeklong visit to China on Monday, a trip that presents both political risk and opportunity for crucial international collaboration. – Associated Press

Ross Douthat writes: Whatever anxieties you have about our current political divisions, whether you fear left-wing disillusionment with America or right-wing disillusionment with democracy or both, such a defeat seems more likely than anything to accelerate us toward a real internal crisis. Which is why, even with other foreign crises burning hot, a debacle in East Asia remains the scenario that the United States should be working most intensely to avert. – New York Times

Matthew Brooker writes: The thrust of the Five Eyes intervention is to reassert clarity: China is a country run by a party that is implacably hostile to the liberal values of open societies and intent on remaking the rules-based global order in a fashion more conducive to authoritarian regimes. This has always been the case, though it was possible for optimists to suspend disbelief during the years when China was developing fast thanks to that same US-dominated system. In the era of Xi Jinping, it’s no longer possible to maintain this illusion, especially after the “no limits” partnership with Russia proclaimed last year. – Bloomberg

Maya Carlin writes: The U.S. is not just sitting back while China develops its new long-range bomber. Last year, the Air Force revealed its new dual-capable penetrating strike stealth fighter the B-21. More than “fifty years of advances in low-observable technology” have gone into producing the airframe as noted by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, making it a formidable counter-part for China’s H-20. Additionally, the USAF’s existing fleet of B-2s have undergone extensive facelifts over the years and now retain sophisticated technology that could further threaten Beijing’s own abilities. – The National Interest

George Yean writes: The status quo of the Taiwan Strait has been maintained for over half a century, and Xi can wait. Domestic pressure doesn’t exist for him. With the trend continuing, the entire Chinese elite still believes time is on their side. Nobody can predict what will happen in twenty years. Nevertheless, if the trend continues, CCP leaders are certainly more likely to embrace a war to achieve political goals. – The National Interest

Asia

Australia will suspend a dispute with China before the World Trade Organization over antidumping duties on Australian wine after Beijing agreed to an expedited review of the measures, another sign of improving ties between the two countries. – Wall Street Journal

A Chinese coast guard ship collided with a Philippine vessel it was seeking to block in the South China Sea, the Philippines said, marking an escalation in tensions between Beijing and the U.S. ally in a volatile area. – Wall Street Journal

Australia said it won’t cancel a Chinese company’s lease on a commercial port despite concerns that the firm’s operations pose a security risk at a strategic location in the north of the country. – Wall Street Journal

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will seek progress on the AUKUS defence technology partnership and critical mineral supply chains during a visit to Washington next week, as Canberra tries to reduce its long-term trade exposure to China. – Reuters

Malaysia is proposing the creation of a free trade agreement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) its premier said on Friday at a summit of the two blocs. – Reuters

A Pakistani court announced charges against former Prime Minister Imran Khan for making the contents of a diplomatic cable public. This is the second indictment against Khan, who faces a maximum of 14 years prison if he is found guilty, complicating his attempts to contest in elections scheduled for late January. – Bloomberg

Graeme Dobell writes: Today’s lift in Australia’s defense budget—in our era of disruption, deterrence and dollars—is partly about contributing to the alliance. But it’s also a response to the questions raised by another big ‘d’ issue—the dysfunction of Washington. Albanese heads to take a close-up look at the great and powerful ally, and make some quiet soundings about the future of the friendship. – Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Africa

When Israeli businessmen Royi Burstien and Lior Chorev touched down in the busy capital of the West African nation of Burkina Faso, they had an urgent message for the country’s embattled ruler. The Israelis — one a veteran political operative and the other a former army intelligence officer — had been hired with the mission of keeping the government of President Roch Marc Kaboré in power. Their company, Percepto International, was a pioneer in what’s known as the disinformation-for-hire business. – Washington Post

The military junta in the West African country of Niger claimed that it had disrupted an attempt by the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, to escape on Thursday from the presidential residence, where he has been detained since he was overthrown in a coup nearly three months ago. – New York Times

On their first visit to an African country since ascending the throne a decade ago, the king and queen of the Netherlands made a symbolic visit on Friday to the Slave Lodge in Cape Town, South Africa, where Dutch colonists once enslaved thousands of Africans and Asians. – New York Times

Another French military convoy is scheduled to leave Niger for Chad in the coming days, marking the half-way point of the promised withdrawal of the 1,450 French troops based in the West African nation, Niger colonel Mamane Sani Kaiou said on Friday. – Reuters

An explosives-laden car detonated at a military facility on the outskirts of Somalia’s capital Saturday and killed at least six people, four of them soldiers, police said. – Associated Press

Latin America

In polling stations from Venezuela to the U.S. to Europe, Venezuela’s opposition put on a primary election Sunday in which a conservative, pro-business engineer was expected to be chosen as the candidate to challenge authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro’s regime in next year’s presidential election. – Wall Street Journal

Now, Elaine Cristella says that she is hopeful that a new diplomatic opening between the Biden administration and Venezuela’s regime will lead to the liberation of her son, a former manager for a solar company who turned 40 on Thursday, as well as other Americans who the U.S. classifies as wrongfully detained in Venezuela. – Wall Street Journal

Argentina’s presidential election is heading to a runoff vote between the economic minister and a right-wing admirer of former U.S. president Donald Trump — a contest that will pit the establishment left against a man who has vowed to destroy it. – Washington Post

Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes: He might succeed but first he has to get a proxy back in the presidency who is willing to pardon him and strong enough to influence the courts. His party’s defeat at the polls last week suggests the nation, for now anyway, is pinning its hopes instead on the promise of democratic capitalism and the rule of law with the U.S. as an ally. – Wall Street Journal

Cybersecurity

Hackers have stepped up efforts to take down the websites of Israeli and Palestinian humanitarian groups since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. – Wall Street Journal

A “key target” allegedly involved with the Ragnar Locker ransomware group was arrested in Paris on Monday, according to officials at Europol. – The Record

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Friday that the serious cybersecurity incident it detected in September was an act of espionage. In a statement on the Court’s website, it said the attack can be “interpreted as a serious attempt to undermine the Court’s mandate.” – The Record

Researchers have discovered possible signs of cooperation between the Palestinian militant organization Hamas and one of the longest-running groups of Arabic-speaking hackers. – The Record

Russia had been trying to crack into Ukraine’s critical infrastructure networks long before the war began, and they still haven’t given up, says Illia Vitiuk, head of the cyber department at the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU. His team responds to 12-15 serious cyberattacks every single day. – The Record

The European Commission sent Meta and TikTok letters Thursday, requesting information on the platforms’ efforts to rein in disinformation relating to the Israel-Hamas war. – The Record

Zhang Hongliang, a former restaurant manager in central China, took various gigs in and outside China to support his family after losing his job during the COVID-19 pandemic. […]Zhang is one of tens of thousands of people, mostly but not all Chinese, who have become ensnared in cyber scam networks run by powerful Chinese criminal syndicates in Southeast Asia. Regional and Chinese authorities have netted thousands of people in a crackdown, but experts say they are failing to root out the local elites and criminal networks that are bound to keep running the schemes. – Associated Press