Gaza

• lsrael has implied that Hamas's senior leadership is holed up in Gaza City's hospitals, which means Israeli troops will have to enter or target hospital buildings - which are generally supposed to be civilian sanctuaries during a war - to capture or kill them.
• The NYT reported that Israel and Hamas (via Qatari mediators) had nearly reached a deal to release up to 50 hostages but walked away from talks when Israel's ground invasion began.
• Negotiations have since resumed, but the prize is smaller: The Times of Israel says they're now discussing the release of only 10-15 hostages in exchange for a two-day "pause" in fighting.
• Hamas may not be able to commit to releasing all hostages in Gaza: its leaders now say other Islamist factions like Palestinian Islamic Jihad entered Israel Oct. 7 and took their own hostages.
• SecState Blinken said Gaza should be "unified" with the West Bank under Palestinian Authority (PA) control after the war as an alternative to Israel taking on "indefinite" responsibility for Gaza's security (as PM Netanyahu predicted it would).
• That's perhaps why Blinken was meeting with PA president Mahmoud Abbas last week. It's a strange plan though: Hamas kicked the PA out of Gaza in 2007 and Abbas is unpopular and politically weak even in the West Bank, which his PA nominally controls.

• Brazilian police foiled an attempted attack by Hezbollah on Jewish targets that they said was directed and financed by Iran.
• U.S. airstrikes targeted a storage facility in Maysalun, eastern Syria where the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard was thought to be hoarding weapons used to strike U.S. military bases in the region. Some "secondary explosions" seemed to corroborate the presence of munitions at the depot.

• French prosecutors think Russia may have paid agents to spray paint over 200 Stars of David in and around Paris last month, in a possible attempt to stoke antisemitism and sow discord in areas where tensions are already running high.
• Paris's police prefect speculated: "Do they want to divide us even more, try to shatter national unity even more? That isn’t completely ruled out."

• Global Witness, an NGO, accused BP of indirectly helping fund Azerbaijan's victorious war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh by continuing to operate two major energy projects in a country at war instead of abandoning them at a loss (as BP did its Russian projects when Russia invaded Ukraine).
• According to Global Witness reporting - which is usually thorough and well-supported - Azerbaijan's share of proceeds from BP projects amounted to four times what it spent on its military since the latest round of fighting started in 2020.

• A Russian missile struck a Ukrainian civilian ship in Odesa, marking the first strike on a civilian vessel since July, when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain transport deal and said it would consider all ships in the area legitimate targets. It's not clear whether this was an errant or mistaken strike or the first of many under a new strategy.
• Separately, the European Commission revealed its annual scorecard rating aspiring members on the reforms they've enacted to meet the bloc's standards for membership. The report concluded that Ukraine and Moldova are eligible to start accession talks, while seven other countries - including Serbia, Kosovo, and Turkey - have been deprioritized for membership because of recent backsliding.

• Afghanistan's underdog cricket team surprised the Cricket World Cup with victories over England - the current world champion - and Pakistan. Tomorrow they play South Africa and qualify for the semi-finals if they win.
• The Taliban has unusually embraced the sport and funds the team - even though it plays under the old regime's flag and its star players have spoken out against Taliban policies discriminating against women.
• I know nothing about cricket, but it's nice to see a good news story about Afghanistan.