Thursday Briefing: U.S. assesses Israel’s war in Gaza

August 15, 2024

	By Justin Porter

Good morning. We’re covering cease-fire talks for Gaza and a court order dismissing Thailand’s prime minister.

Plus, a Stonehenge mystery solved.

The war in Gaza has gone on for more than 10 months with only a one-week pause in November. Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Israel has achieved its military goals in Gaza, U.S. officials said

Mediators, 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.

One of President Biden’s most trusted national security advisers met with Lebanese officials in Beirut in a bid to avert a war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Turkey’s complex role in the Gaza war was on full display as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
The Times spent several weeks with former hostages in Israel as they tried to rebuild their lives.

Srettha Thavisin speaks into a microphone while standing in front of an arched, stone entryway to a building.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said he accepted the court’s decision. Rungroj Yongrit/EPA, via Shutterstock

A Thai court ousted the prime minister

Thailand’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.

🇺🇸 U.S. ELECTION 2024

The presidential election is fewer than 90 days away. This is what we’re watching.

Kamala Harris stands at a lectern, smiling.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Harris rose in key states

New polls show Vice President Kamala Harris slightly ahead of or tied with former President Donald Trump in six of the seven battlegrounds — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The reversal in North Carolina is particularly stark: Trump held one of his largest leads there in May.

In more good news for the Democrats, U.S. inflation fell below 3 percent in July, new data showed. The news most likely cements the case for the Fed to cut rates at its mid-September meeting, a move that could lift economic sentiment in the U.S. under President Biden ahead of the November election.

Here’s what else to know:

Harris will outline her economic agenda in a speech tomorrow. It’s expected to be a reboot of the Biden administration’s.
New voter registration data in two swing states adds to the evidence that Harris’s candidacy has energized potential Democratic voters.
President Biden is upset with Nancy Pelosi, and the two have not spoken since she began her effort to push him out of the race.

Do you have questions about the election? Send them to us and we’ll find the answers.

Stay up-to-date: Live coverage | Poll tracker | The “Run-Up” podcast | On Politics newsletter

MORE TOP NEWS

Two women wearing matching white outfits walk under a damaged brick apartment building. Debris covers the ground in their path.

A damaged apartment building in Kursk, Russia, on Monday. Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Russia: The military moved some troops from Ukraine to fight Kyiv’s incursion into the country’s west.
Health: The World Health Organization declared a current outbreak of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in Africa a global health emergency.
Japan: Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose approval ratings have been plummeting, announced that he would step down.
Tech: The U.S. has reportedly considered breaking up Google to end its monopoly status.
Sudan: Peace talks backed by the U.S. opened in Switzerland despite the absence of the military, one of the two main sides in the country’s civil war.
Germany: The authorities issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022.
U.S.: Hunter Biden asked for help from the U.S. government for an energy deal in Italy while his father was vice president, according to records and interviews.
Trade: Overseers of the Panama Canal want to store more water after a drought forced them to limit shipping last year. Their plan could threaten farmers’ livelihoods.
Climate: Extreme heat is closing schools around the world for days or weeks at a time, threatening global education gains.
New Zealand: A local charity accidentally gave out chunks of methamphetamine that were disguised as candy.

Sports

Manchester City’s Issa Kabore, center. Andrew Couldridge/Action Images, via Reuters

Soccer: The Premier League returns this weekend. Our writers make their predictions for the season.
Olympics: China’s gold medal champions are now facing a darker side of their success: extreme fans.
Boxing: French prosecutors opened an investigation into a complaint made by the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif about online harassment over her gender.

MORNING READ

Sunlight flares through a hole in the silhouetted rocks of Stonehenge, creating a perfect golden starburst pattern.

William Edwards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Near the center of Stonehenge in England is the so-called Altar Stone, a six-ton, rectangular chunk of red sandstone. Legend holds that the wizard Merlin magically transported it there from Ireland.

Using chemical analysis, researchers have now pinpointed the stone’s source to the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland. To reach its current location, it would have had to have traveled at least 465 miles by land or more than 620 miles if it came by sea. But how?

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Art gone bust: The artist Christoph Büchel has generated a buzz in Venice by turning an 18th-century palace into a fictional pawnshop.
Friendly fashion: Copenhagen Fashion Week has managed to avoid some of the egos and the excesses of the shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris. Take a look.
Going gray: Does stress turn your hair gray? This is what we know.
Junk science: We’re debunking the year’s top health trends, like apple cider vinegar and pimple patches.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times .

ARTS AND IDEAS

A small photo of Elon Musk is overlaid on top of several other blurry, zoomed-in photos in an illustration.

The New York Times

That’s not Elon Musk. It’s a scam.

After Elon Musk endorsed an investment opportunity in a video, Steve Beauchamp drained his retirement account and sank it into the project. The problem was, it wasn’t Musk in the video. And the money vanished.

Thousands of deepfake videos of Musk have flooded the internet in recent months. They are cobbled together with A.I. from real interviews and have deceived scores of would-be investors. These eerily lifelike creations are expected to contribute to billions of dollars in fraud losses each year, according to estimates.

“It’s probably the biggest deepfake-driven scam ever,” said Francesco Cavalli, the co-founder of a company that monitors and detects deepfakes.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Chunks of chicken covered in a red-orange tikka sauce lie on a serving platter with wilted greens.

Bryan Gardner for The New York Times

Cook: Tikka marinade gives this plain white fish rich flavor and layered heat.

Listen: Jimi Hendrix’s recording studio hosted some of music’s greatest artists. We prepared a set list for you.

Travel: Here’s how to enjoy Lake Como on the cheap.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Justin

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