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A potential hot war between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah looms as Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Gaza cease-fire push has stalled amid demands by Hamas for changes.
…Russian warships and aircraft have entered the Caribbean in an attempt to project strength amid tensions over Western support for Ukraine.
…South Korean forces fired live warning shots inside the Demilitarized Zone after a North Korean patrol crossed the heavily mined border.
…The European Union is increasing tariffs on Chinese electric car imports.
…And the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights office says the daring Israeli raid that secured the release of four hostages abducted by Hamas terrorists may have amounted to a war crime because of the number of Palestinians killed in the mission.
A potential hot war is brewing in Israel’s north even as the U.S. and its allies struggle to impose a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Iran-backed Hezbollah militants fired a massive barrage of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel on Wednesday to avenge Israel’s killing of a top Hezbollah commander, escalating regional tensions as the fate of a U.S.-led plan for a cease-fire in Gaza hung in the balance.
Threat Status Special Correspondent Seth J. Frantzman has a dispatch from the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, writing that “despite the drain of troops and resources in the fight against Hamas, Israel Defense Forces officials say they are ready to open a second front against Lebanon’s Hezbollah if ordered by the government.”
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under increasing pressure to act against Hezbollah’s escalating attacks. Hezbollah has been exchanging missile barrages with Israel since the Hamas rampage on Oct. 7 ignited yet another Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
About 80,000 Israelis were evacuated from northern Israel in October when the Hezbollah attacks began, and about 1,000 buildings have been damaged in communities near the Lebanese border. The Biden administration, which has been eager to prevent the Hamas conflict from igniting a more general regional war, has consistently urged restraint on the Netanyahu government in the clash with Hezbollah.
Israel has unveiled a jet-launched ballistic missile capable of defeating advanced air defenses and delivering precision strikes. The missile can strike road-mobile missiles or ships by changing course in mid-flight, according to Israel’s state aerospace company.
“Equipped with either blast fragmentation or deep penetration warheads, Air Lora is optimized for stand-off range accuracy, capable of striking targets with supersonic velocity within minutes,” Israel Aerospace Industries said in announcing the missile recently. The company said the Air Lora has increased precision, “minimizing collateral damage and maximizing mission success.”
By deploying the Air Lora, Israel joins China and Russia in fielding compact air-launched missiles that travel through space before reentering the atmosphere to hit land or sea targets. The missiles pose major headaches for traditional air defense systems.
A large-scale attack on the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is the most likely scenario if Russia makes a move against NATO, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that comes as the Kremlin expresses increasing fury at U.S. and Western efforts to arm Ukraine.
The analysis, “Is NATO Ready for War?” assesses the alliance’s efforts to strengthen defense and deterrence since a NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022. NATO has made “substantial progress” on defense spending and collective defense exercises, along with fully integrating new members Finland and Sweden into the alliance. But that may not be enough to deter Russia.
“While NATO might be ready for war, the question remains whether it is ready to fight — and thereby deter — a protracted war,” according to the CSIS analysis. “To meet this goal, allies still need to spend more, boost industrial capacity, address critical capability gaps and bolster national resilience.”
NATO leaders are slated to gather in Washington in early July for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit.
The U.S. federal agency in charge of nearly $1 billion in funding for government broadcasting sought to cover up improper activities by a fired Voice of America manager who was rehired under the Biden administration, according to a three-year investigation by a House oversight panel.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee stated in a new report that the U.S. Agency for Global Media, known as USAGM, engaged in corrupt practices related to the vetting of Setareh Derakhshesh Sieg, a director of the Voice of America’s Persian news network. Ms. Sieg was fired in the closing days of the Trump administration but rehired a day after President Biden took office.
The report accuses USAGM of attempting to cover up its mishandling of the case, failing only as a result of persistent congressional oversight. USAGM chief executive Amanda Bennett said the agency cannot comment on specific personnel matters. The agency has also rejected what it called “damaging” mischaracterizations of USAGM employees set forth in the report.
Chinese social, military and economic institutions are on the march to take America down, according to Rick Berman, the president of RBB Strategies.
“Books and articles have provided wake-up calls warning about how we are being threatened. Yet too many in our government and business leadership are still asleep,” writes Mr. Berman, who notes that “between 2019 and 2023, China spent more than $330 million on lobbyists — up from $60 million between 2015 and 2018.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s “cognitive warfare” is being carried out by TikTok, where nearly 97% of Hamas-related videos shared on the platform are supportive of the Palestinian militant group, he writes, adding that “too many American leaders are soft on China, partly because toeing the Communist Party line can be lucrative.”
Russia’s representation in the world stage “should shift to anti-fascist forces — those opposing the Putin regime and its efforts to destroy Ukraine, wage war on democratic nations, and eradicate the freedoms of the Russian people themselves,” writes Evgenii Savostianov, who argues the West should invite representatives of Russian democratic resistance to major international remembrance gatherings.
“A step in this direction could have been taken on June 6 at Omaha Beach, but other opportunities are on the horizon,” writes Mr. Savostianov, who was a candidate for president of Russia in 2000.
“On Aug. 15, we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in southern France. And on Nov. 9, we will mark the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he writes. “On those occasions, it would be appropriate to invite representatives of the Russian democratic resistance to the celebration, whether they are from a political movement or those directly fighting Mr. Putin’s fascism on the battlefields of Ukraine.”
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