Thursday Briefing: U.S. assesses Israel’s war in Gaza
Good morning. We’re covering cease-fire talks for Gaza and a court order dismissing Thailand’s prime minister. Plus, a Stonehenge mystery solved.
Israel has achieved its military goals in Gaza, U.S. officials saidMediators, Israeli negotiators and officials from around the world are expected to meet in Qatar today for a high-stakes push to end the war in Gaza. Ahead of the meeting, U.S. officials have said that Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza. Their latest assessment is that continuing to bomb the enclave was only putting more civilian lives at risk, and that the possibility of further weakening Hamas had diminished. In many respects, Israel’s military operation has done far more damage against Hamas than U.S. officials predicted when the war began in October. Israeli forces can now move freely throughout Gaza, the officials said, and Israel has destroyed or seized crucial supply routes from Egypt into Gaza. About 14,000 combatants in Gaza have been killed or captured, the Israeli military said last month. The military also said that it had eliminated half the leadership of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, including some of the top leaders. But current and former U.S. and Israeli officials have said that one of Israel’s biggest remaining goals — the return of the hostages — can’t be achieved with force. Related:
A Thai court ousted the prime ministerThailand’s Constitutional Court ordered the dismissal of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin yesterday, just days after it dissolved the main opposition, the progressive Move Forward Party. In a 5-4 verdict, the court ruled that Srettha had violated ethics standards. The decision is likely to further disillusion many Thais, who will see more proof that an unelected establishment is steamrolling the people’s will. But it’s not likely to provoke much outrage. Srettha, a billionaire tycoon, wasn’t a popular leader. He was installed only because a military-backed Senate prevented the Move Forward candidate from becoming premier when the party won last year’s election. From Opinion: The court decision is a last-gasp attempt by the old guard to cling to an outdated status quo despite demands for change by millions of politically literate young Thais, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor of Thai politics, wrote.
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