Daily News Brief

February 23, 2023

Top of the Agenda

Fighters in the Gaza Strip launched rockets (Times of Israel, AFP) into Israel and Israel carried out air strikes on Gaza today following the Israeli military’s deadly raid in the West Bank yesterday. No casualties were immediately reported after today’s exchange of fire. Envoys from Egypt and the United Nations were attempting to mediate (Reuters) the situation. 

The Israeli military said yesterday’s raid in the West Bank city of Nablus aimed to arrest a senior leader of the Lion’s Den terrorist group. Six militants and five civilians were killed, and some one hundred people were wounded. While no Palestinian group claimed responsibility for today’s rocket fire, the leader of Islamic Jihad said it was the group’s duty to respond to the raid. Sixty-two Palestinians and ten Israelis have been killed in 2023, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Analysis

“The Palestinian death toll is rising at alarming rates and with home demolitions in East Jerusalem ramped up and not a single voice in the Israeli political echelon to calm things down, situation likely to get worse,” the International Crisis Group’s Mairav Zonszein tweets.

“To prevent a third [Palestinian uprising], Israelis, Palestinians, and their partners need to think small—working every day to prevent all possible sparks from occurring and, if they do, acting quickly to prevent all the dry tinder from catching fire,” Georgetown University’s Daniel Byman writes for Foreign Affairs.

Pacific Rim

Taiwan’s foreign minister and its National Security Council chief met with (CNA) the U.S. deputy secretary of state and other senior officials for around seven hours on Tuesday. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment (VOA) on the meeting but said the United States and Taiwan maintain a “robust, unofficial relationship.”

China: Authorities have urged state-owned companies to phase out ties with the world’s four largest accounting firms due to data security concerns, unnamed sources told Bloomberg. The move is reportedly part of the ongoing financial decoupling between the United States and China.

South and Central Asia

In a statement accompanying a new report from the organization, a senior Afghanistan consultant said (Al Jazeera) pulling back international aid over the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s freedoms “will only make the [humanitarian] situation worse for all Afghans.”

Pakistan: President Arif Alvi signed a new law (Dawn) raising taxes, while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced pay and benefit cuts (TNN) for government ministries as part of efforts to unlock a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Middle East and North Africa

The explosion in the Lebanese capital’s port killed more than two hundred people. Some victims’ families have opted to file lawsuits abroad (AP), including against the London-based company that delivered explosive ammonium nitrate to the port.

Sub-Saharan Africa

The eighteen candidates pledged to ensure (Al Jazeera) that Saturday’s vote will be free, fair, and peaceful. 

For the Africa in Transition blog, CFR’s Ebenezer Obadare lays out what’s at stake in Nigeria’s election.

South Africa: Troubled state electricity company Eskom removed its chief executive (FT) a month before his scheduled departure after he gave a television interview alleging the firm had links to organized crime.

Europe

The UN General Assembly will vote today (Euractiv) on a nonbinding resolution that demands Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine.”

CFR’s Thomas Graham explains how Ukraine has held back Russia’s invasion.

China/Brussels: The European Commission banned staffers from using TikTok (WaPo) on their work phones, citing security concerns. The move follows a similar ban by the U.S. Congress in December. 

This In Brief unpacks the U.S. government’s concerns about TikTok.

Americas

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported the move, which critics say represents a weakening of the rule of law (NYT). The new law is expected to be challenged in court.

U.S./Peru: Washington agreed to extradite (AFP) former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to be prosecuted for corruption. He has been under house arrest in the United States since 2019.

United States

The number of such killings in the 2010s was at least three times higher than during any decade since the 1970s, an Anti-Defamation League report said. Last year, all extremist killings in the United States were linked to right-wing extremism, and most linked to white supremacism.

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