Gaza

• Israel announced the start of a major shift in its war in Gaza: the next phase will involve fewer and more targeted strikes against Hamas.
• This shift isn't just to appease the U.S. and other voices urging restraint; it will also bring a majority of the 50,000 Israeli troops that were deployed to Gaza back into the workforce.

• Hezbollah says an Israeli strike killed one of its commanders - Wissam al Tawil - in southern Lebanon, stoking fears that Hezbollah will retaliate and broaden the conflict.
• Israel has had Al Tawil in its crosshairs since at least 2006, when Hezbollah fighters under his command kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and sparked the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.
• An academic quoted by AP theorized that Israel might be taking shots now at long-wanted enemies like Al Tawil because it actually wants to provoke Hezbollah into responding and thus justify an escalation.
• On a possibly related note, there are credible reports that Israel has intensified its airstrikes in Syria and become - in the words of one Syrian official - "less cautious and less restrained in killing Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria" since Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks.
• Prior to Oct. 7, Israel exercised caution in Syria to avoid provoking Hezbollah into reprisals; now it seems to have abandoned that caution.

• Taiwan's vice-president Lai Ching-te - who's favored to win the presidency in this week's election - accused China of its "most serious" election meddling yet: "“Propaganda or military intimidation, cognitive warfare or fake news, they are employing it all.”
• China also apparently launched a satellite yesterday - via a rocket that Taiwan's Defense Ministry initially mistook for a missile, leading to predictable chaos.

• Ecuador's Pres. Noboa is making good on his campaign promise to beef up security and take forceful action against the violent drug gangs menacing the country: after Fito - the notorious leader of a major gang - escaped from prison on Sunday, Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency and deployed over 3,000 security personnel to enforce security and track him down (they haven't yet).