Coming Up This Week

• The UK's inaugural AI Safety Summit will take place Wednesday and Thursday in Bletchley Park - a fitting location, given the site's history of codebreaking and transformative innovation.

Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,220/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $11,950/ton
• Cobalt: $33,420/ton
• Copper: $8,099/ton
• Gold: $1,966/toz
• Lead: $2,123/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.34/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $84.49/barrel
• Zinc: $2,473/ton

Gaza

• Israeli troops crossed into Gaza in at least three places since Friday in a more intense incursion than the overnight raids we've seen recently. Hamas said it would meet Israeli forces with "full force."
• Israel agreed to allow 100 trucks of aid per day into Gaza - but it also seems to have cut off phone and internet comms that Gazans would've used to coordinate aid distribution.
• The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for a "humanitarian truce" and immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. and 13 other countries opposed it, but the U.S. doesn't have veto power in the General Assembly.
• The Economist published an insightful profile of the Qatari emissary who has delivered an estimated $1.5 billion to Hamas in Gaza. See below.

Ukraine

• Emissaries from around 60 countries gathered in Malta to discuss Pres. Zelensky's proposal for peace in Ukraine.
• Russia wasn't invited and wouldn't have accepted an invitation anyway: it categorically rejected Zelensky's ideas - which call for a complete withdrawal of Russian troops and reparations for their war crimes in Ukraine - and derided the summit as having "absolutely no perspective."

Iran

• Armita Geravanad, the 16-year-old Iranian girl who fell into a coma after a murky subway encounter with morality police, has died.
• From my perspective, it seems like government sensors mostly succeeded in quieting public outrage over the incident that led to her death so it didn't lead to widespread protests like we saw after Mahsa Amini's death in police hands last year.
• A female human rights lawyer was arrested at Geravanad's funeral for not wearing a headscarf - the same offense that drew police attention to Geravanad.

Weekend profile: Muhammad al-Emadi, Qatar’s envoy to Gaza (Economist) For five years Qatar sent Muhammad al-Emadi to bankroll Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organisation that runs Gaza. Once a month, the Qatari envoy and construction magnate would pack three suitcases with $100 bills, load them onto his private jet in Doha, the capital, and fly to Ben Gurion airport in Israel. At HaKiriya, Israel’s defence ministry in Tel Aviv, he would chat with commanders while they inspected his suitcases, then drive an hour down the coast, crossing into Gaza. Settled into his tiled villa in Gaza city, and sporting his Gulf white thobe, he would hand over the money.

Flatterers in Hamas praised Mr Emadi as Gaza’s de facto president. The cash he doled out served several purposes: some went towards basic infrastructure; some towards welfare handouts for around 100,000 people, including the injured from Israel’s earlier bombardments; and some towards salary payments, of $400 a head, for Hamas officials. Over the years, his monthly payments increased from $15m to $30m. By some estimates Israel co-ordinated Qatar’s payment of over $1.5bn to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The arrangement, in effect, split the Palestinian polity between the West Bank, ruled by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and backed by the West; and Gaza, the Qatari-funded Islamist statelet run by Hamas. This division appealed to Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, because it helped him stave off pressure to negotiate over creating a single Palestinian state.

It was always risky: a shortfall in payments might prompt Hamas to release fire balloons, setting Israeli farmland ablaze, or throw stones at Mr Emadi’s convoy. But as soon as the funds flowed again, quiet would resume. While Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant organisation, launched rockets, Hamas held fire.

In May, however, the funds dwindled sharply. Islamist politicians warned Mr Emadi that they were losing what sway they still had over the commander of Hamas’s military wing, Muhammad Deif. On October 7th, Hamas broke out of its cage.

Mr Emadi has not given up trying to tame Hamas. From his Doha office, he has negotiated the release of four hostages. He maintains the prospect of a truce, even a deal. “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial,” tweeted Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, on Friday.

Other Israelis, though, see Mr Emadi as a terrorism financier. “Satan,” spat one normally sober Israeli mediator. An Israeli official warns that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, will soon begin hunting Hamas and its abettors—possibly in Doha, where Hamas is based abroad. The bankroller might worry.