Dear ST reader,
We hope you’ve been keeping well.
War returned to the Middle East on Saturday, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a shock attack on Israel, killing over 1,200 people and injuring over 2,700. The coordinated assault, in which an estimated 1,000 armed fighters rampaged for hours gunning down civilians and capturing hostages after breaching the border fence enclosing the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, has been described as the deadliest day of violence in Israel in 50 years.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, questions were raised about security failures of Israel’s intelligence agencies, hitherto considered amongst the best in the world. Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance”, and the Israeli military’s ensuing retaliatory strikes on Gaza have claimed 1,200 lives so far.
Our global affairs correspondent Jonathan Eyal examines the larger powers at play, including how Iran’s next steps could determine if the war engulfs the entire region. While there is as yet no firm evidence that Israel’s most significant regional enemy was behind Saturday’s assault, Iran had previously bankrolled Hamas and has benefited politically from the war, which sets back a US-sponsored deal to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Another war-zone humanitarian crisis could unfold soon, Jonathan reports, with Israel imposing an economic blockade on the estimated 2.2 million residents of Gaza. Not only have homes and hospitals been flattened in retaliatory strikes, the population here has been cut off from their usual supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel from Israel.
The conflict has also roused concerns closer to home. While Muslim-majority countries Indonesia and Malaysia have condemned the war, religious groups from both nations have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians and planned gatherings to show support for their cause. Over in India, the ruling party BJP seized on domestic goodwill towards Israel to consolidate political support, comparing the war to terror attacks perpetrated when its rival party Congress was in power.
Read also about how South-east Asian countries with citizens stranded in Israel and the Palestinian Territories are making arrangements to evacuate them, and how Singaporeans living in Jerusalem are coping with the heightened tensions.
In other news, Indonesia correspondent Hariz Baharudin gives us the lowdown on Bitung, a coastal city in Sulawesi that’s charming digital nomads. And our former US correspondent Charissa Yong pens her final missive from Washington, in which she reflects on her five years in the land of contradictions.
What Israel lost in the Hamas attack
Indian politicians turn Israel-Hamas war into hot-button issue
Friend or foe: Why China’s unsatisfactory answer undermines its diplomacy
Digital nomads flock to Bitung
Audio-based devices power India’s digital payments
Land of contradictions: A correspondent reflects on America
The vast scale of the US means that life in one state can be very different from life in another.
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