Israel Weighs Gaza Strategy
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Top of the Agenda
Israel said private sector merchants will be allowed to gradually channel aid into Gaza for the first time in almost a year amid growing global scrutiny of hunger in the territory. Today, Israel’s government delayed a planned cabinet meeting on its Gaza war goals, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he would convene top officials this week to determine how Israel will defeat Hamas and achieve the release of hostages.
Growing pressure to end the war.
- Around six hundred former Israeli security officials—including former directors of the military and of the Mossad intelligence agency—wrote an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, calling on him to steer Netanyahu to end the war and bring home the hostages. Hamas no longer posed a strategic threat to Israel, they wrote.
- Foreign governments have appealed to Israel to end the war, citing growing starvation in Gaza. Yesterday, six countries airdropped food into Gaza, with Canada saying Israel was violating international law in blocking aid.
- It was not immediately clear how the permission for private sector aid disbursal would meet humanitarian needs in the enclave, which UN officials say require six hundred aid trucks per day.
Political turbulence in Israel.
- Yesterday, Netanyahu’s government voted to dismiss the attorney general, who is prosecuting him on corruption charges. The country’s top court issued an injunction barring the move. It was the first time an Israeli administration had attempted to fire the country’s top law enforcement official.
- Netanyahu’s coalition has a tenuous hold on political control in the country after two governing partners quit last month. He relies on far-right parties for support.
“People can debate whether what Israel is doing in Gaza constitutes a war crime, genocide, both, or neither. What cannot be debated is that Israeli policy is morally wrong and strategically flawed.”
—CFR President Emeritus Richard N. Haass on X
Across the Globe
Plastic treaty talks. Negotiators from around the world began meeting in Geneva today to discuss a plastics pollution treaty. Previous rounds of talks failed to reach a deal. On Sunday, medical journal The Lancet published a research review saying that in addition to being an “under-recognized danger to human and planetary health,” plastic pollution causes $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses per year.
U.S. visa bonds. The State Department plans to launch a pilot program that would require visa applicants from countries deemed to have high overstay rates to post up to $15,000 in bond, according to a notice slated for publication today. Last week, the State Department introduced an in-person interview requirement for certain people renewing visas.
Syria clashes. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said yesterday they fought with government forces in Aleppo province despite a March agreement that aimed to integrate them into the country’s military. Syrian forces were also involved in clashes over the weekend in the southern region of Sweida, where violence last month displaced tens of thousands of people.
U.S.-India tensions. Trump wrote on social media yesterday that he plans to “substantially” hike tariffs on India for its continued purchase of Russian oil, a move that the Indian foreign ministry said was “unjustified and unreasonable.” India’s typical energy suppliers diverted their oil to Europe at the start of the war, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. Separately, a Kremlin spokesperson today criticized “attempts to force countries to cut trade relations with Russia.”
Brazil’s Bolsonaro in house arrest. Brazil’s top court ordered the house arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro yesterday for violating a social media ban as his trial proceeds on attempted coup charges. Bolsonaro’s lawyers said they would appeal. The Trump administration has sanctioned the judge overseeing the trial, saying it is “politicized,” and yesterday condemned the house arrest order.
UN austerity plan. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is preparing a plan to cut some three thousand jobs from the United Nations amid a pullback in funding from the United States, Bloomberg reported. Guterres is expected to formalize the proposal in a September budget. UN staff in Geneva passed a no-confidence motion in Guterres and the plan, saying it “lacked focus.”
EU stays countertariffs. Brussels today is formally suspending two planned packages of retaliatory duties against the United States for six months. The delay gives the countries time to finalize duties on certain products—such as spirits—that did not have rates immediately set in a recent economic agreement.
Capsized migrant ship. Fifty-six African migrants died and 132 were reported missing after their vessel sank off the coast of Yemen over the weekend, the UN immigration agency said. Yemen is a common transit point for African migrants aiming to reach Gulf countries; despite its civil war, more than sixty thousand migrants arrived there last year, the agency said.
What’s Next
- Today, the UN Security Council is expected to hold a special session on hostages in Gaza.
- Today, Belarus’s foreign minister begins a visit to Indonesia.
- Today, a UN conference on landlocked developing countries begins in Turkmenistan.
- Tomorrow, Karol Nawrocki is sworn in as Poland’s president.