Multiple international charities suspended food deliveries to Gaza on Wednesday after seven aid workers, including a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, were killed by an Israeli airstrike.

The development comes amid growing fears of famine among Palestinians, while the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza shows no signs of easing. There were signs Wednesday of the war spreading to the West Bank. Israel War Room circulated video purporting to show Palestinian Authority reinforcements arriving in the West Bank city of Tulkarm amid serious clashes there between Palestinian security forces and Hamas. 

Seth J. Frantzman, Threat Status’ special correspondent in Israel, wrote on X that “the chaos in Tulkarm is an example of one of the long-term goals of October 7, which is to have Hamas and other groups take over the West Bank.” Former CIA officer and National Intelligence Manager for Iran Norman Roule wrote on the platform that the development shows how “Hamas — like every other Iranian proxy — inevitably turns on its own people to seize power.”

Washington Times online opinion editor Cheryl Chumley is in Israel conducting interviews. Her Bold & Blunt Podcast recently featured exclusive discussions with Knesset Security and Foreign Affairs Committee member Ohad Tal and Gil Hoffman, executive director of Honest Reporting in Israel.

China‘s desire to participate in the global governance debate over artificial intelligence is motivated by a rising concern that Beijing is getting left out and left behind at a moment when Europe, the United States and other democracy-ruled corners of the world are pushing ahead with regulations on how the sensitive technology should and should not be used.

National Security Tech Correspondent Ryan Lovelace takes an in-depth look at the move, citing close observers of China’s leadership who say Beijing’s perception that it was keeping pace on AI with the U.S. was turned upside down by the rise of ChatGPT, the large language model-powered chatbot from California-based OpenAI. 

After recognizing its disadvantage, the Chinese Communist Party has made changes to boost domestic AI research efforts. American AI companies such as Scale AI — also a California company — have said they observed China aggressively pursuing generative AI tools and large language models in a bid to catch up. China is also looking for any way to join global efforts to write the regulatory rules of the road for AI to ensure it does not get left out, according to Kendra Schaefer, a partner at the Beijing-based strategic advisory consultancy Trivium China.

Ms. Schaefer told a recent China AI event hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies that Beijing’s concerns sprang into full view during the Chinese government’s “Two Sessions” meeting last month, when a local-level official made a policy proposal saying the emergence of generative AI threatens to marginalize China in international governance.

President Biden’s telephone summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday featured what the White House described as “candid and constructive” discussions on Taiwan and growing tensions between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. Ahead of the call, a senior administration official said Mr. Biden planned to raise the issue of Chinese interference in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Tuesday’s call was a follow-up to two face-to-face meetings between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi over the past two years, with both sides attempting to lower the temperature following increased U.S.-China friction throughout much of 2023. U.S. officials described the administration’s policy toward China as a combination of “invest, align, and compete.”

The call comes ahead of a session of the so-called U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Commission this week in Hawaii featuring “operator-level” talks between Chinese and American military officials. Previously halted military-to-military communications resumed in December when Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with a Chinese military leader in Washington.

Direct U.S.-North Korea diplomacy appears nearly nonexistent as Pyongyang rapidly deepens its military and political relationships with Russia, one of Washington’s leading geopolitical adversaries. 

But some analysts say the moment may offer the Biden administration a golden opportunity. “Strangely, paradoxically, this fairly recent real uptick in North Korea-Russia relations actually gives them something to talk about,” according to John Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies.

Mr. Delury tells The Washington Brief, a monthly forum hosted by The Washington Times Foundation, that there may now be an opportunity to capitalize on animosity and distrust between North Korea and China and use them as a carrot to draw Pyongyang toward new negotiations with Washington. “I still believe Kim Jong-un has ambitions to drag [North Korea] out of economic backwardness,” he says. “If the Biden administration showed up with serious willingness to let [North Korea] prosper, I’m convinced Kim Jong-un would be interested.”

Regular columnist Clifford D. May homes in on a recent Institute for Science and International Security analysis showing that the Iranian regime is constructing deep tunnels and underground rooms at Natanz that could produce weapons-grade uranium.

Noting that the regime’s production of highly enriched uranium production has expanded since Mr. Biden began lifting pressure on Iran’s rulers in 2021, Mr. May raises the question of whether anyone in Washington is “giving serious thought to what it will mean for America’s national security if Iran becomes nuclear-armed right now, as it strengthens its alliances with the anti-American rulers of China, Russia and North Korea?”

“Is anyone imagining the possibility that these regimes might — sooner or later — demand the U.S. end its support for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea, and perhaps also acquiesce to Houthi control of the Red Sea, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and Beijing’s dominance in the South China Sea?” he writes. “The alternative, they’d imply, might be nuclear war.”