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The Washington Times

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A year after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, Israel is taking the fight to its enemies across the Middle East with a multipronged military campaign unlike anything seen in decades. 

… The Ukrainian military said it struck a key oil terminal Monday on the south coast of the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula, while Russian authorities sentenced 72-year-old American Stephen Hubbard to nearly seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.

…. Two Americans, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery of microRNA. 

… There’s a new twist in the ongoing feud between Elon Musk’s X and the government of Brazil: The social media giant reportedly paid $5 million in fines to the wrong bank in its effort to satisfy government fines related to alleged violations of hate speech laws.

… Iranian Gen. Esmail Qaani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, has reportedly gone missing since Israeli airstrikes in Beirut last week. The report suggests he also may have been killed by those Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

… And Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico vowed over the weekend that as long as he is in office, Ukraine will never join NATO, underscoring the deep divisions that still exist within the bloc over Kyiv’s prospective membership.

A year after Oct. 7, Israel takes the fight to its enemies

Mourners gather around the bodies of Palestinian men who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Oct. 7, 2023, was one of the darkest days in Israeli history. But a year later, it’s a very different picture as stunning Israeli military victories have resuscitated the fortunes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and left Israel’s prime adversaries — Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran — reeling.

Even the Biden administration, Israel’s primary military patron, has been forced to the sidelines as Israel seizes what it sees as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use the Oct. 7 attack to rewrite the region’s strategic map in its favor. Mr. Netanyahu delivered that message in person to Israeli soldiers on Sunday.

“In the past 12 months, we are changing the reality from end to end,” Mr. Netanyahu told the soldiers, according to Agence France-Presse. “The whole world is amazed by the blows you are delivering to our enemies. … Together we will fight, and together we will win.”

But the battle is far from over. The Washington Times’ Seth J. Frantzman offers a fresh dispatch from the ground and details the escalating battle in southern Lebanon. Separately, Hamas militants fired another barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday in an apparent attempt to disrupt Oct. 7 remembrance ceremonies.

The costs of war

President Joe Biden speaks to the media in the White House press room, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

In his own statement Monday, President Biden said the U.S. remains determined to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas and also wants to see a “diplomatic solution” to stop the Israel-Hezbollah clashes in Lebanon. With the situation there deteriorating, a State Department spokesperson told reporters Monday that it helped get another 90 Americans out of Lebanon, bringing the total number of U.S. citizens evacuated from the country to nearly 700.

It’s clear that the escalating war across the Middle East is having direct impacts on the U.S., including in financial terms. The U.S. has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to the spiraling conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project released Monday.

An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, researchers said in findings first provided to The Associated Press. Those operations include the ongoing U.S. military campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

China embraces AI to boost propaganda operations

In this photo released on July 18, 2024, by Xinhua News Agency Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held from July 15 to 18 in Beijing. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP) ** FILE **

China’s military and the ruling Communist Party have turned to artificial intelligence to boost the impact of propaganda and influence operations through American social media platforms, according to a new study of Beijing’s covert operations.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz has all the details. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in particular, is conducting three types of operations against the U.S. where AI tools have greatly increased the impact, the report by the Rand Corp. says. The study offers a fresh window into how Beijing is using cutting-edge artificial intelligence to undermine its rivals, chiefly the U.S.

Once fearful of social media as a threat to their power, China’s leaders are now embracing the use of Facebook and X as key tools for influencing foreign public opinion, the think tank stated in its 183-page study made public this week.

SS United States: World’s largest artificial reef?

The SS United States, a historic ship that still holds the transatlantic speed record it set more than 70 years ago, must leave its berth on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. Photo credit: Mike Glenn / The Washington Times

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has been tracking the fascinating saga of the SS United States, which shuttled politicians and celebrities between Europe and the United States in regal luxury for nearly two decades. It also broke the trans-Atlantic speed record during its maiden voyage in July 1952.

Often called “America’s Flagship,” the SS United States fell on hard times and was retired from service in 1969, a victim of fast and increasingly affordable airline travel. It has been docked for nearly the past three decades at a pier in Philadelphia.

But the stately vessel may soon get a second lease on life — this time on the ocean floor as the world’s largest artificial reef. The SS United States Conservancy and the Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners in Florida last week approved a contingent contract to acquire the ocean liner and purposely sink it off the coast of Destin-Fort Walton Beach.

It may be the last, best hope to save the ship from the scrapyard.

Opinion: Israel leads the world in counterterrorism fight

Israel as a global force against terrorism illustration by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has emerged as the leader in the global fight against terrorism with its aggressive campaign targeting Hamas, Hezbollah and other arms Iran’s “axis of resistance” across the Middle East. That’s the take from Tom Basile, a Times columnist and Newsmax television host, who argues that Jerusalem is setting a moral example for the globe — the kind of example that the United States ought to be following.

“The massacre perpetrated last Oct. 7 by Hamas on behalf of Iran has allowed Israel to take up the mantle of global leadership against terrorism abandoned by the United States,” he writes in a piece for The Times.

“Israelis have risen above their grief to demonstrate extraordinary moral clarity and resolve. They should be proud of it. David decided to take on Goliath. That’s how leaders are born. No people know that better than the people of Israel,” he writes.

Events on our radar

• Oct. 7 — A Region Aflame: October 7 a Year Later, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Oct. 8 — The Future of U.S. Strategy Toward Iran: A Bipartisan Roadmap for the Next Administration, Atlantic Council

• Oct. 14 — Safeguarding Democracy in an Era of Geopolitical Competition, Lowy Institute

• Nov. 8-10 — IISS Prague Defense Summit 2024, International Institute for Strategic Studies

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