Israeli Troops Advance Into Gaza City

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israeli troop operations in Gaza, Russia de-ratifying a nuclear testing treaty, and Chinese military drills near Taiwan.

Israeli forces broke through Hamas’s front lines near Gaza City as part of their nearly weeklong incursion into the Gaza Strip, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Wednesday. Hamas and allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants temporarily retreated into Gaza’s underground tunnel network after Israeli troops repelled their mortar rounds and hit-and-run attacks. Israel’s land, sea, and air offensive is far from over, though, as IDF soldiers and tanks struggle to gain a secure foothold in the territory.

Israel’s latest moves followed an IDF strike on Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Wednesday, its second such attack in two days. According to the IDF, the strike killed Muhammad Asar, who led Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said “dozens” of Palestinians were killed or wounded in the assault, adding to the roughly 50 civilians killed and 150 others wounded in Tuesday’s camp strike. The first camp strike also killed Ibrahim Biari, a Hamas commander who Israel said helped orchestrate the Oct. 7 attack.

As Israel ramped up its offensive, a second convoy of foreign nationals evacuated the region on Thursday. Almost 600 foreigners, including 400 U.S. citizens, left Gaza on Thursday through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing. This was the second convoy to leave the war-torn area after ambulances transported more than 300 foreign nationals and around 80 critically wounded Palestinians out of Gaza on Wednesday.

After being confronted by a protester calling for a cease-fire during a campaign rally in Minneapolis on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden advocated a “pause” in fighting to help rescue hostages and deliver aid to Gaza. And on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed Washington for Israel, where he will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. He will then travel to Jordan to meet with top officials there.

The discussions in both countries are expected to focus on numerous issues, including securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and other militants, protecting civilians, getting more aid into Gaza, preventing the conflict from spilling over into the rest of the region, and planning for an end game in Gaza once the war is over. The talks will likely also address Jordan’s decision on Wednesday to recall its ambassador to Israel. This will be Blinken’s second trip to the region since the Israel-Hamas war began. He will be accompanied on the first leg of the trip by the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, who will stay in the country to begin his assignment.

• Ehud Barak on Israel’s Next Steps by Ravi Agrawal
• Hamas’s Tunnel Warfare Harks Back to the Viet Cong by Joe Buccino
• Universities Shouldn’t Ever Take Sides in a War by Stephen M. Walt

Testing limits. Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on Thursday, signaling another drop in U.S.-Russian relations. The Cold War-era policy bans all nuclear explosions. The Kremlin argued that de-ratification places Russia on more equal footing with U.S. foreign policy, as Washington signed but never ratified the treaty.

Although Putin’s decision has more symbolic than practical impacts, it leaves only one nuclear weapons pact between the two nations in place: New START. This strains already growing nuclear saber-rattling as Moscow tests new nuclear ballistic missiles to threaten Ukraine and as Washington releases a report warning of underinvestment in its own nuclear arsenal.

Chinese force posture. Taiwanese officials said on Wednesday that the military had detected 43 Chinese warplanes and seven naval vessels near the island within the last 24 hours. Nearly 90 percent of the planes crossed the Taiwan Strait’s so-called median line, which does not have legal status but is recognized by much of the international community as an unofficial barrier between the two nations. Taipei’s defense ministry quickly deployed fighter jets and ships armed with missile systems to guard against a potential assault.

In recent months, China has stepped up incursions into Taiwan’s airspace and exclusive economic zone. Beijing argues that these operations are military drills used to deter foreign intervention. But regional experts fear that Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific indicates efforts to counter Western hegemony and possibly invade the island in the near future. China does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.

Expelling Afghans. Pakistani authorities arrested dozens of Afghans living illegally in the country on Wednesday after a deadline for them to leave expired. According to caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, 64 Afghan nationals were detained and deported as part of Islamabad’s efforts to crack down on undocumented foreigners in the country, including 1.7 million Afghans.

“Afghans have become scapegoats as Pakistan weathers both one of its worst economic crises in years and a major resurgence of terrorism by the Afghanistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,” FP’s Michael Kugelman argued in this week’s South Asia Brief.

Top rights activists as well as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres have criticized the unprecedented expulsion.

Australian police raided a Melbourne house on Tuesday in a long-planned drug bust. But alongside the meth lab and gemstones, officers found 1,130 Lego boxes worth more than $200,000. A truck was needed to transport the plastic brick-building sets—an unheard-of find in type and size. Police intend to allege the Legos, like the gemstones, are proceeds of a crime.