Israel-Hamas War

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at escalating Israeli strikes in Gaza, the French president’s visit to Jerusalem, China’s defense cabinet shake-up, and Iceland’s full-day women’s strike.

Israel launched more than 400 strikes against alleged Hamas targets in Gaza overnight, killing dozens of militants, including three deputy commanders, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday. Of the infrastructure destroyed, Israel said it collapsed a tunnel that allowed Hamas to enter the territory from the sea and struck command centers based in mosques. The assault followed another wave of Israeli strikes that the IDF claimed hit 320 militant targets in Gaza the day before.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 700 Palestinians were killed during the overnight strikes—the highest 24-hour death toll since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7. If confirmed, that would bring the total number of Palestinians killed to almost 5,800 people, including around 2,360 children. Around 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and Hamas is holding more than 200 people hostage, having only released four people thus far.

As strikes escalate and Israel prepares for a ground invasion, the United Nations is asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow more aid into Gaza. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday that nearly two-thirds of all health facilities in the Gaza Strip, including 12 out of 35 hospitals, are no longer functioning. And the few dozen aid trucks that have passed through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing since Saturday only represent a minute fraction of the total assistance that residents in Gaza require.

“We are on our knees asking for that sustained, scaled up, protected humanitarian operation,” said Richard Brennan, WHO’s regional emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean region.

But Western leaders have been careful to toe the line between backing Israel’s right to defend itself and advocating for humanitarian relief in Gaza. On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron met with Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem to reiterate Paris’s support for the IDF while urging Israel not to fight “without rules.” He also stressed that releasing all hostages “without any distinction” is the West’s primary goal, warned against Israeli actions that could widen the conflict beyond its borders, and urged a “decisive relaunch” of the peace process.

Among his suggestions, Macron proposed expanding the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, an 80-plus member organization created in September 2014 to combat the Islamic State, to target Hamas operations. Israel is not a member of the international coalition, and Macron did not specify how he thinks the U.S.-led bloc should get involved.

The European Union as a whole remains fragmented in its approach to the conflict. On Monday, EU foreign ministers failed to pass an agreement calling for a “humanitarian pause” to allow more aid into the region—despite U.N. chief António Guterres calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also urged an end to the fighting on Tuesday to prevent a worsening “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

• Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Is More Successful Than You Think by Oz Katerji and Vladislav Davidzon
• Why Erdogan Is Unlikely to Cut Ties With Hamas by Sinan Ciddi
• The Best Books for Understanding the Israel-Hamas War by FP Staff and Contributors

You’re fired. After months of speculation, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu officially found himself on the chopping block on Tuesday. China fired the top-ranking general mere days before he was expected to host foreign defense leaders at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum from Oct. 29-31. Li had been noticeably absent from the public eye for the past two months, sparking early speculation of his firing far before Beijing made it official.

Li is not the first senior Chinese officer to be sacked this year. In July, then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang was removed from office after disappearing three weeks earlier under suspicious circumstances. Both Li and Qin were also stripped of their state councilor titles on Tuesday.

Removing top officials is far from an earth-shattering event in Beijing’s political playbook, argued FP’s James Palmer in China Brief following Qin’s removal. Yet it could hurt China’s diplomatic relationships. “It should be a reminder of just how fraught the party’s internal politics are, and why foreign officials or businesspeople investing time and effort in any single Chinese official is so risky,” he wrote.

Women’s day off. Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir took the day off from work on Tuesday in solidarity with tens of thousands of other women in the country who are striking to protest the gender wage gap and gender-based violence. The strike’s organizers called on women and nonbinary individuals to forgo all paid and unpaid labor on Tuesday and encouraged men to support the protest by taking on extra responsibilities.

The full-day strike is the first such action since 1975, when 90 percent of Iceland’s women skipped work and took a day off from domestic duties. That demonstration resulted in the passage of an equal pay law the following year—and one of the world’s first elected female heads of state in 1980.

Fulfilling a promise. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan submitted Sweden’s NATO membership bid to the Turkish parliament for ratification on Monday—months after he originally promised Stockholm a place in the alliance. Ankara blamed the delay on Sweden’s alleged harboring of members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey labels as a terrorist organization.

Both Swedish and NATO officials applauded Erdogan’s move but must now wait on Turkey’s parliament to approve the bill. Erdogan’s green light, though, signals that Stockholm’s application is likely to pass. Once Turkey dots the i’s, Hungary will be the last NATO member that needs to sign off on Sweden’s bid; membership requires unanimous approval from all 31 nations. However, Budapest has signaled that it will follow Turkey’s lead.

It’s survival of the fittest—er, loudest—in New Zealand’s streets as music enthusiasts battle to have the clearest and noisiest speaker systems. Locals in Porirua are begging authorities to crack down on the subculture’s pastime, in which people deck their cars in speakers and sirens that would put the country’s emergency warning system to shame and blast popular tunes through them. Evidently, remixed versions of Canadian pop star Céline Dion’s songs are particularly common. I guess there’s only so many times you can hear “My Heart Will Go On” before the so-called Queen of Power Ballads loses her appeal.