Houthis are pushing their luck

The Houthis had got away with their outrageous barrage of drones and cruise missiles and ballistic missiles flying over the Red Sea from Yemen on a regular basis in the last two months. Today the impunity they had enjoyed - apart from losing most of them by being shot down by US warships - has ended. Three of the four boats the Houthis had sent to harrass and fire on a commercial tanker in the Red Sea were blasted out of the water by US armed helicopters operating from the carrier, USS Dwight D Eisenhower, and another warship. This was the first time the US had struck back at the Houthis and should serve as a warning to the Islamic, Iran-backed rebels, that in future any time they threaten commercial shipping they are going to get zapped. It's about time. The Houthis have played an extraordinary role in this developing Middle East war, firing off missiles and drones whenever they want and getting nothing in return. They seem to have an inexhaustible supply of missiles, thanks to Iran. But perhaps the strike-back by the US Navy today will make them think twice about their targeting of commercial shipping.

There has to be a post-Hamas peaceful future for the Palestinians

By the sound of it, Binyamin Netanyahu is putting all his efforts into destroying Hamas in Gaza, along with much of Gaza's infrastructure, and is not thinking of what should happen after the war comes to an end. In fact, the only way he is going to win this war is if he designs a twin-track policy: eliminating Hamas but also coming up with a brilliant new solution for the Palestinian people which will mean giving up parts of Israeli territory to create a proper country to be called the Democratic Republic of Palestine. Only then will Netanyahu be granted a decent legacy. Right now, if he were to fall under a bus, his legacy would focus solely on how he destroyed Gaza and its people in revenge for the Hamas October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, how his complacency led to that massacre and how his alignment with extreme right wingers produced the most radically conservative and dangerous cabinet in Israel's history. But if he were to come out with a visionary idea about a new future for the Palestinians and made solemn pledges to hand over territory for their new nation state, Netanyahu would be given credit and praise, and there would be new optimism for the suffering Palestinian people. So far, he has shown absolutely no interest in creating this sort of legacy for himself which means he will be booted out of office in ignominy and the Palestinians will continue to face a bleak future.

Trump's future rests with the US Constitution

The way the US works is that everything in the end depends on the interpretation of the Constitution which was written in 1798 and amended 27 times, the last time in 1992. It's the Bible for the courts. Donald Trump will probaby become the next president of the United States unless the interpretation of the constitution by the US Supreme Court rules otherwise. Since three of the judges on the supreme court were appointed by Trump he ha a pretty good chance of winning all the rulings that are going to be coming out of the court over the next few months, not least the one expected on whether Colorado and Maine have the right to ban Trump's name from appearing on the ballot for the primaries next year. The huge debate going on since the Colorado and Maine decisions, the former by the state supreme court and the latter by the state secretary, will guarantee that Trump will get more publicity than all the other presidential candidates put together, and that may not do him any harm at all. He loves being the centre of attention. Other Republican candidates will hardly get a look in. Yes, it's Trump all the way from now on.

The trauma of October 7 for Israel has changed the country for ever

Reading more appalling descriptions in The New York Times today of what happened on October 7 when Hamas terrorists raped, brutalised and murdered hundreds of girls and women, it is impossible not to conclude that Israel will never be the same nation again. What those girls and women suffered that day cannot and must not ever ever be forgotten by the whole of the rest of the world. For Israel, the trauma will never go away, but whatever happens in Gaza over the next few months, those responsible for ordering and carrying out the butchery of these girls and women should be found and identified. There are so many witnesses to the horrific attacks on October 7, as well as masses of video evidence, that no one can doubt that the aim of the Hamas terrorists was to brutalise the whole of Israel. It is difficult to see how Israel can ever feel safe again, even if a large proportion of the Hamas organisation is eliminated. This is exactly what Hamas, backed by Iran, wanted - to destroy every Israeli's peace of mind. It may have been on a much smaller scale than the al-Qaeda hijacked-planes attack on September 11, 2001. But the October 7 slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and other nationalities was magnified even beyond the horror of 9/11 by the mass raping, torturing and killing of so many Israeli girls and women.

Where are the top Hamas leaders on Israel's Most Wanted list?

Everyone in Gaza knows who Israel is hunting for, but do any of them know where they are? The top two on Israel's Most Wanted list are Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of the Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades. The latest flyers dropped all over Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), offering bounties for their capture, claim Hamas is finished, and using an Arabic folk phrase, say the Hamas leaders can no longer fry an egg. In fact, Hamas is putting up a helluva fight when confronted by the IDF. The casualty statistics are bleak: Israel claims to have killed around 8,000 Hamas fighters and has acknowledged that 162 IDF soldiers have died.The fact that Israel is admitting the war could go on for months indicates that the military objective of wiping out Hamas is not going to be easy and may well be totally unrealistic. To reach this goal in Gaza alone would mean the killing or capturing of around 4,000 fighters. So, to put it bluntly, that's 32,000 to go. Then there's the Hamas organisation in Qatar and elements in several other places, such as the West Bank and Lebanon. Are they all to be eliminated as well? Sinwar and Deif are still functioning as the top leaders but even if they were to be killed or captured, other leaders will be ready to step in. This is the way such organisations work. Al-Qaeda, for example, has lost many leaders in the past but others have been appointed. Those IDF flyers, I fear, are somewhat premature. If the IDF does find Sinwar and Deif, will Israel claim a major victory and start thinking of ending the war or will it just be a spur to continue until all 40,000 Hamas members have been annihilated?

Putin loses another warship

Another Russian warship "destroyed" by the Ukrainians, using a Storm Shadow cruise missile. As one Ukrainian military wag put it, Russia's Black Sea Fleet is getting smaller and smaller. I wonder whether this is bothering Putin or whether he just shrugs his shoulders, knowing that in the end he is going to win. But in fact if the Ukrainians do manage to pick off warships of the Black Sea Fleet on a relatively freqent rate, Putin is going to find probaby the most important fleet on his books has been emasculated. Shouldn't that bother him? After the loss of the Moskva, the Black Sea Fleet's flagship warship in April last year, Putin has been on notice that Kyiv is determined to target and destroy whatever it can pinpoint with its long-range missiles, especially in Black Sea Fleet ports and throughout Crimea. Will this change the way Putin is fighting the war in Ukraine? Will it make him think about negotiating a settlement? I doubt it.

Biden and Netanyahu don't mention The Word

In a long conversation on the phone Joe Biden and Binyamin Netanyahu talked in detail about the war in Gaza but no mention of the word that the Israeli leader dislikes more than any other word in the dictionary - ceasefire. From an Israeli military point of view, a ceasefire now would make no sense because the mission is only half completed, if that. The Israel Defence Forces claim they have most of northern Gaza under control. So there's a mass of fighting to do in the south still. A ceasefire would be a huge bonus to Hamas, especially since the IDF has failed so far to eliminate any of the top leadership of the terrorist-designated group. But it's probaby true to say that the rest of the world, including the US, would like a ceasefire, if only for the release of more hostages and a calming-down of the mass bombardments which have destroyed so much of Gaza. But Biden presumbaly knew that if he urged Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire he would get short-shrift from the Israeli leader. So Biden's only alternative was to plead for a different style of fighting to reduce the appalling toll of deaths and injuries among the Palestinian civilians. This might force the IDF to drop airstrikes and go for the option which will cause more casualties among the Israeli soldiers - a full-scale assault down the tunnels in the south. The IDF has avoided ths so far because of the risks but it may now become the only option.

Does Putin really want a ceasefire?

There are new reports that despite all his public bravura about how well the war in Ukraine is going for the Russian troops, President Putin is actually ready for a ceasefire deal, provided, of course, he can hang on to the territory he has managed to seize in the last two years. There is a report in The New York Times quoting Russian sources saying this is how Putin is thinking at the moment. But I don't believe a word of it. I don't think Putin is ready, let alone, willing to negotiate with his Ukranian counterpart, President Zelensky. He doesn't even recognise Zelensky as a human being worthy of doing business with. Putin claims he is happy with what has been achieved so far but I'm pretty sure he wants not just to hang on the territory Russia currenty occupies but he is determined to get more. Most important for him, he wants the whole of Ukraine to feel it has been defeated and subjugated and as a result will be for ever neutralised as a sovereign state. And he also wants the West to suffer humiliation. After the billions and billions of dollars spent on helping Ukraine to fight his troops, Putin would like to see the look of defeat in the eyes of the Nato leaders. This would truly make his day. So,the idea that Putin is seeking a way out now after two years just doesn't stand up. He is prepared to carry on for ever, and let Ukraine and the West go hang.

Hamas working to a long-planned strategy

The announcement by Hamas leaders that they will not release any more hostages until Israel stops fighting is all part of a carefully worked-out strategy. The kidnap of Israelis on October 7 was all about giving Hamas leverage on the assumption that Israel would go to war following that terrible day of killings and rapes. Now after two months of Israeli bombardment, it is clear the Hamas leaders decided it was time to move to the next stage in their plan: obstruct all attempts to release more hostages to place maximum pressure on Israel to stop the war. From their underground bunkers they will have been monitoring the worldwide outcry against the killing of so many Palestinian civilians and judged that it would meet their objectives by calling a halt to any more hostage releases. The Hamas strategy places the Tel Aviv government in a hugely challenging dilemma. With more and more protests emerging in Israel over the hostage crisis, Binyamin Netanyahu cannot for ever say that the war has to go on and that is the overriding priority. That is his position at the moment and many Israelis agree with him. But if this goes on for months and there are no more hostage releases, that priority may have to change. This, again, is the Hamas strategy. It could decide whether the Israeli objective of annihilating Hamas is beyond reach.

US warships versus the Houthis

More military firepower has been deployed in the last few weeks in the Red Sea by America than at any time in the last few decades, defence sources said. America is trying to stop the crisis in the Red Sea from escalating into a full-blown regional war that could drag Saudi Arabia and Iran into conflict. The US has spent tens of millions in the last fortnight to block attempts by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen from provoking other players in the Middle East. The USS Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group, now in the Gulf of Aden, and an extra guided-missile destroyer, USS Laboon, which has just arrived in the Red Sea, will now also play key roles if there is any decision by President Biden to launch retaliatory attacks on Houthi targets. While the US is shooting down Houthi drones fired at Israel to avenge its war against Hamas, the Pentagon insists that the US is not engaged in armed conflict with the Houthis. But Washington has been trying to shoot down Houthi drones and missiles to prevent them hitting commercial shipping. The cost of the defensive action is spiralling. While the Houthis are launching drones that will have cost $1,000-$2,000 each, the US Navy warships engaged in knocking them out of the sky are believed to have fired, among other weapon systems, the short-range, anti-ballistic missile weapon, called Standard SM-3 which costs more than $11 million each. The costs are being absorbed because the US knows the alternative, a much wider war, would require significantly increased funding from a budget already under strain from backing Israel and Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Red Sea and Suez Canal have become such a danger zone for container ships and other merchant vessels that all the major shipping lines have had to reroute around Africa. Alternative transit options have also been reduced because of the continuing drought conditions affecting water levels in the Panama Canal. The US Navy currently has three destroyers close to the Bab el Mandeb Strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They are the USS Carney, USS Mason and USS Thomas Hudner. All of them have intercepted cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and large numbers of Iranian-made Shahed armed drones. At the weekend, USS Carney shot down 14 drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The US on Tuesday announced the establishment of a new international maritime force to protect ships transiting the Red Sea. Under Operation Prosperity Guardian, up to 19 nations are expected to be involved in sending ships. Bahrain, host nation of the US Fifth Fleet, has so far been identified as the only country joining the new force from the Gulf nations. Some US defence sources suggested the almost daily drone and cruise missile strikes across the Red Sea by the Houthis were a deliberate attempt to entice a military response by the Americans. The Pentagon said that so far the movement of warships into the region had not been affected by the challenges in the Suez Canal and Panama Canal. For those shipping companies with vessels queuing up to enter the Suez Canal, the presence of US warships, as well as the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond and French frigate, FS Languedoc, has prevented wholesale closure of the canal.

Biden avoiding war with Houthis

The Pentagon has sent aircraft carriers, destroyers, fighter aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Middle East but is desperately trying to avoid a war. There is enough firepower on the warships and additional weaponry on the US base in nearby Djibouti to launch widescale strikes on the Houthi militants in Yemen who have been firing daily drones and cruise missiles across the Red Sea ever since Israel began its military operation against Hamas in Gaza. However, no authority has been given by President Biden to take any action other than to shoot down the drones and missiles at huge expense – more than $1 million a shot. The reason is simple. The US wants to contain the war between Israel and Hamas and prevent he conflict becoming a regional security crisis that would lead to a conflagration involving the Houthis, Iran, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and possibly other parties. The Pentagon has drawn up target lists for attacking Houthi military facilities but contingency planning is a long way from a political decision by the White House to go to war with the Yemeni rebels who are armed and funded by Tehran. The US naval forces sent to the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea, including two aircraft carrier battle groups, were deployed to act as a deterrent to the Houthis and Iran. But the presence of so much firepower has failed to stop the persistent attacks on commercial shipping, and rocket strikes by Iran-backed Islamic militias on American troop positions in Iraq and Syria. As a result, there is a war of sorts going on between the US and the Houthis and, by linkage, with Iran. But with the Houthis it’s purely defensive and with Iran it has involved limited airstrikes on the militia forces in Iraq and Syria. The next step for the US, striking Houthi targets in Yemen and even military facilities in Iran connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would run the risk of inflaming the whole Middle East region and undermining any hopes of bringing the war in Gaza to an end in the near future. The US would also be on its own. While 19 countries have signed up for the maritime patrol mission to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea, none would get involved in a war with the Houthis. Saudi Arabia, not a participant in the new Operation Prosperity Guardian maritime force, led a coalition of nine countries in airstrikes against the Houthis for eight years but recently forged a fragile peace agreement . Riyadh would not want to put that at risk by joining with the Americans in new retaliatory strikes on the Houthis. So, at present, the US has good reason to stick with the current policy of protecting commercial shipping and shooting down anything coming from Yemen but holding off from striking Houthi targets.

The polls on Biden are mostly dire

It's fairly traditional for the incumbent president of the United States to experience poor polling mid-stream and/or as the next election approaches. But Joe Biden is getting really bad poll results, suggesting that he is not only running behind Donald Trump but also, in some states, Nikki Haley who looks like she is going to grab the Number Two slot in the Republican race for the White House. Biden dismisses the polls, saying the media are not looking at all the polls, just the poor ones. But I suspect the polling figures are pretty accurate. US voters are worried about going for a president who will be into his mid-80s when he's done after a second term. But Biden has a big plus in his favour and that, bizarrely, is his age because with age comes long experience. It could be argued that Trump has the experience becasuse of hs four years in the White House, but if Trump fails to get the Republican nomination because of all the charges against him or because voters might feel he would be a dictator, not a democracy-loving leader, then the alternatives would all be far less experienced than Biden. And let's look at what might be coming in the next four-to-five years to challenge the man or woman in the White House: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, another war in the Middle East, nuclear sabre-rattling by North Korea, upheaval in Europe as countries struggle to cope with mass illegal immigration, climate-change disasters, more aggression from President Putin, and another pandemic. Someone with huge experience in the toughest job in the world would be vital. So I guess that might mean there is hope for Biden, despite the polls. But Trump still looks an odds-on bet.

Israel told again to stop killing civilians

Lloyd Austin, US Defence Secretary, is the latest American official to plead with Israel to stop killing so many civilians in Gaza. Israel is now getting almost daily calls and appeals from around the world to stop adding to the appalling toll of civilian deaths, now totalling more than 18,000, according to the Gaza health ministry which is controlled by Hamas. The answer from Israel is always the same. If it was that easy and straightforward to just send troops in to isolate and eliminate Hamas fighters, they would have done it a long time ago. But, as the Israeli gvernment tells its frequent visitors from the US and Europe, Hamas is deliberately hiding among civilians and civilian buildings, so it's inevitable that innocent Palestinians are dying. It's a Catch-22 for the Israeli troops and it's definitely a tragic Catch-22 for the Palestinian people who are caught in the middle and have nowhere truly safe to go. I doubt Austin will get any promises from Israel, other than a pledge to focus as much as possible on targeting visible Hamas fighters rather than buildings below which they believe Hamas is hiding. This has been the dilemma for Israel ever since they launched their retaliatory strikes on Hamas after the October 7 terrorist massacre. Austin arrived im Israel as Hamas claimed more than 100 Palestinians had been killed north of Gaza City. This horrific death toll I fear is going to continue whetever Austin and others say because the Israel Defence Forces are nowhere near finishing the job of eliminating Hamas.

Only one Israeli hostage has been rescued so far after ten weeks

One hundred of the 240 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 have been released. But only one has been rescued in a military operation. It is an extraordinary statistic. The Israeli security and intellligence service have a legendary reputation for rescuing hostages and tracking down their captors. But in this war, the obstacles are clearly greater than they have ever encountered before, yet they must surely be planning further rescue missions. The one successful mission took place towards the end of October. Private Ori Megidish who had been serving with an army observation unit on the border with Gaza when Hamas burst through the fences on October 7. Among the locations where they murdered and raped and kidnapped was the Nahal Oz base where she worked. But remarkably, in a secret mission involving the Israel Defence Forces and the Shin Bet security service, she was found and rescued and returned home. No details have emerged since abut how she was rescued. But with her knowledge as an observation specialist, she was able to pass on vital details about Hamas and its strongholds. But since that successful mission there has been no word of any other bids to free hostages other than through negotiations with Hamas via the Qatari government as mediators. The IDF had the chance of rescuing three more hostages when they suddenly emerged - escaped? But, tragically, they were assessed to be Hamas fighters and were shot dead by an IDF soldier. So the hostage-rescue list still has only one name on it.

Israel on mission impossible to eliminate Hamas

Is Israel engaged in a “mission impossible” in Gaza? The stated aim of Operation Swords of Iron is to annihilate Hamas, but after more than two months of fighting and bombardment, that military objective would seem to be unrealistic. With the firepower and combat experience at its disposal, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will have started the full-scale war confident of its ability to destroy a terror organisation of 30,000-40,000 members, all within a strictly limited territorial area. However, as the world watched in increasing horror, it became clear that the only option open to the IDF for reaching the Hamas fighters operating underground was to bomb everything above them. In the process, more than 18,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed. Israel claims around a third – more than 5,000 - were “enemy combatants”. The history of warfare in recent decades has demonstrated that initial military objectives can be overblown or beyond reach or, in some cases, subject to mission creep. The US-led war against the Islamic State (Isis) was in many respects a successful mission, although it took four years. In September, 2014, President Obama, in an address from the White House declared his intention to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Isis. In December, 2018, President Trump claimed Isis had been defeated. And yet, five years later, the Isis ideology remains a potent threat in many parts of the world . The terrorist organisation’s affiliated franchises are operating in Syria, Iraq and throughout Africa, especially Mozambique, Burkino Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Mali, as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It took the US-led coalition 20 years to accept that its overall objective of converting Afghanistan into a democratic nation capable of defending itself without outside help was a mission too far. The Taleban, only ever about 80,000-strong, was initially routed in 2001, but came back from their hideouts in Pakistan to challenge the western-backed Kabul government. In 20 years of war, the US-led mission had multiple objectives. But the priority ones were to ensure al-Qaeda could never again enjoy a safe haven in Afghanistan, that the Taleban movement be wiped out and the Afghan security forces trained and equipped to withstand all future challenges. In the two decades it took for the Taleban to return to power, after the collapse of the Afghan army, and watch their western enemies hastily withdrawing, more than 48,000 Afghan civilians were killed. In the war in Gaza, the IDF has systematically bombed the buildings highlighted on a comprehensive target list of locations where Hamas has been known to operate from in the past and during the current conflict. Yet Hamas is still operating as a fighting unit, it is holding about 130 hostages as a permanent brake on IDF combat missions, and the killing of so many civilians may now compel Israel’s war cabinet, under pressure from Washington, to change its tactics from wholesale bombardment to precision assaults by special forces. Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, warned two weeks ago that Israel risked “strategic defeat” if Palestinian civilians were not protected. He was criticised by Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican hawk. Graham called him naive. However, the fate of Palestinian civilians is now at the heart of Washington’s concerns about the way Israel is prosecuting the war. A tactical victory, such as the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, and the elimination of his command structure, could prove to be a false dawn if the ideology of the terrorist-designated organisation spreads throughout the civilian population, and a new generation of fighters emerges.

Who needs friends like Viktor Orban?

Hungary, like all the other eastern European former Soviet satellite nations, was desperate to join Nato when the Soviet Union collapsed. The country joined the western alliance in 1999. But all the gratitude and relief shown by the then Hungarian government when they were accepted as Nato members has all gone to rot now because the prime minister, Viktor Orban who is about as dictatorial as you can get and loves Vladimir Putin, wants to screw up Nato's policy of helping Ukraine to fight the Russian invaders. It beats me how you can have a member of the alliance who seems intent on thwarting everything the alliance stands for. Orban stepped in and refused to allow billions of dollars of EU aid to be sent to Kyiv and vowed to continue blocking it in the future. He has decided apparently that Ukraine can't defeat Russia, so what's the point of pouring more money down the big black hole. So, thanks to this Soviet-era-looking politician, Ukraine is going to struggle like mad to survive the winter against an increasingly confident Russian force which is under orders from Putin to stay put in Ukraine whatever happens. Perhaps Orban will receive a special honour from Putin - Hero of the Russian Federation.

Putin says he is winning in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin carried out his now legendary annual press conference today which went on for hours. There is no question that he sounds in an ebullient mood. He believes he is winning in Ukraine and says he has no interest in any peace settlement until he has achieved all of his military ohjectives, one of which is denazification whatever that means. It sounds like a reason for Putin never to give up in Ukraine but to plough on for ever. The fact that he thinks he is winning is worrying but also probably true. Apart from the battlefield stalemate which is likely to last all winter, Putin will be loving reading about the disenchantment in the Republican party in the US Congress. Everything Putin had planned for is now happening. The great 50-nation coalition helping Ukraine is beginning to fall apart, largely because Kyiv has failed to win back much territory. So the dream of driving every Russian soldier out of Ukraine and back over the border into Russia is getting more and more unrealistic. And if the US and its European partners start to waver over sending more munitions, the result will mean victory for Putin and disastrous defeat for Zelensky. Ukraine cannot survive without western help. So we have genuinely reached a pivotal moment in the war in Ukraine. If the West cold-shoulders Kyiv, Putin will be able to claim a victory and will be an ever-present danger to other countries in the region.

Climate deal on fossil fuels is great but.....

Of course the agreement to move away from fossil fuels altogether and focus on renewable energy is terrific progress, and the fact that it was the UAE's oil minister who managed and orchestrated the decision at the climate summit in Dubai makes it somehow more poignant. But there are so many buts. First of all, it's non-binding, and second it's "transitioning" away from, rather than abandoning for ever. So oil and gas and coal are going to be with us for some time, perhaps a long time. It's only noble words in a multi-nation-signed document. How many nations' leaders will go back to their capitals and start immediately "transitioning" from oil and gas and coal to wind and tidal and solar etc? I doubt any will. Rather, they will return with the good news that the world has made a big decision and then get on with anything and everything else, especially how to save their economies. Going renewable means a huge gigantic investment and industrial revolution and few countries, if any, can afford it right now. So great news but.....

Gaza and Ukraine wars will never end

Even if there were to be agreed ceasefires and an end to killing and destruction, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are never going to be wrapped up all neatly and satisfactorily. If there is a ceasefire deal in Gaza - very unlikely I have to say - Gaza will be a territory filled with displaced people and destroyed homes and eternal resentment against Israel. If there is a deal between Kyiv and Moscow - also pretty unlikely although it may be forced on Zelensky by the Republicans in US Congress - Ukraine will be a smaller nation and will NEVER feel safe again. So, in that sense, the wars will be with them for ever even when the occupying troops have left. Gaza will be in an immeasurably worst state because after the last bomb has been dropped the 2.3 million Palestinian people will have nowhere to go. The war will also never go away for the devastated Israeli families who lost loved ones and their homes and had daughters and mothers raped and family members kidnapped on that terrible October 7 day. Their suffering will not stop once the fighting stops. Wars never end neatly. There is always agony and suffering and anger and hatred for ever.

It's Bibi Netanyahu versus Yahya Sinwar

The war in Gaza is not going to stop until Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel, finds and kills his Number 1 enemy, Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas. It has become a totemic battle for Netanyahu. Israeli troops are hunting for the Hamas leader but have yet to pinpoint him. It seems they thought he was in a bunker below the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, but so far they have failed to find him. They surrounded the Hamas headquaters in northern Gaza, but he wasn't there either. Netanyahu mentions him all the time, so it's clear the Israeli prime minister will never consider calling off the war until his troops have either captured or killed Sinwar. The trouble with this obsession with getting the man who planned the horrific massacres and rapes in Israel on Octber 7 is that the remaining 137 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza might never be released. Hamas has already said that the hostages could all die unless Israel returns to negotiating a ceasefire. While one can understand Israel's determination to eliminate Sinwar and his cohorts, the rescue of these hostages should be the priority.

The Sixty-Five Day War. So far

And tomorrow it will be the Sixty-Six Day War. Despite all the claimed reports that Washington has told Tel Avv it wants the war in Gaza wrapped up and finished by the end of this year, it looks far more likely that it will still be going on well in to 2024. How will the Palestinian civilians be able to cope with an extended war when they are already being shunted into a corner of southern Gaza to escape the constant airstrikes and tank shellings? Hamas is putting up fierce resistance, so the chances of the fighting ending with total elimination of the terrorist-designated organisation or, alternatively, mass surrender, seems remote. So Tel Aviv, backed by an increasingly worried United States, will keep going, and that means beyond-belief suffering for the Palestinian people. They have never had their own nation, their own sovereignty, their own strong and secure borders. What's more they have had the gravest misfortune of being ruled by the Hamas terror oganisation since June 2007 which has led to this appalling war. What hope is there for them?

Putin is no longer losing in Ukraine

Putin has not won a strategic victory in Ukraine on the battlefield. But if the US-led coalition of 50 nations helping Kyiv starts to fall apart, then the Russian president will have won a strategic pressure victory against the West. It would be a mighty blow for Putin which might well give him new ideas and ambitions for his next six-year term in office. The war in Ukraine has effectively ground to a halt with neither side gaining or losing anything of consequence. The much-promoted Ukrainian counter-offensive has largely failed and now that winter has set in, the territorial stalemate will be fixed in mud and snow and misery. Putin, not for the first time, will be very pleased with himself. When he launched his so-called special military operation, it became apparent that his military chiefs had planned the invasion so badly that no one had properly thought out how to keep the Russian forces fed, watered and fuelled. I suppose they believed it would all be over so quickly it wasn't necessary to set up a logistical back-up. Thus, tanks and other armoured vehicles ran out of gas and presented shooting targets for the Ukrainians. The West held its breath and became convinced that Russia was facing a humiliating defeat which would be good for democracy, good for Ukraine, and good for the planet. But Russia survived and started fighting back and then dug in, and that's how it has been ever since. I doubt 2024 will be a good year for Ukraine or for the West.

Putin says he would like to be president again please!

So the biggest surprise of the week is that after a long and careful assesssment, Vladimir Putin has decided that he has a pretty good chance of winning the election next March and has announced he will be standing in order to remain the Russian boss for another six years. How Rishi Sunak must be glowing with envy. Putin knows he is going to win because the main opposition politician is in jail and no one else will dare to stand against him. So it's a fait accompli or whatever the equivalent is in Russian. Sunak on the other hand has such a tiny chance of winning the next election that he must already be planning his future a long way away from 10 Downing Street. There are so many things going wrong, in particular his extraordinary immigration policy under which unsuitable asylum seekers are sent to Rwanda, that the general picture coming out of Downing Street is mayhem. But, even though his war in Ukraine hasn't been going too well, Putin seems to be able to rise above it all and can look forward to another six years and is no doubt wondering whether to move on from Ukraine and start annoying Poland and the Baltic nations. Bizarre thing to say, but perhaps Donald Trump might be the only one who can stop him!

Russian spy chief says Ukraine is America's second Vietnam!

Now we really know what the Kremlin thinks about the massive US financial involvement in the war in Ukraine. Sergei Naryshkin, chief of the Russian SVR intelligence service, has proclaimed that Ukraine will be America's second Vietnam, draining endless resources without achieving anything. He may well be right but surely Ukraine could also be Russia's Vietnam. Thousands and thousands of soldiers dying in a war the Russians can never win outright. Maybe Moscow will have its Saigon moment, pulling everyone out by helocopter from the rooftops in a panic evacuation. Either way, Naryshkin knows how to use propaganda to undermine the enemy - America in this case. Unfortunately, it is true that the amount of money being spent on propping up Ukraine's ability to defend itself against the Russian invaders is already staggering and it will go on and on as long as both sides refuse to consider a deal. I see that Lord Cameron, the back-to-the-future UK foreign secretary, is the latest western official to warn that if the funds dry up for Kyiv, Putin will just march into Poland and the Baltics. I don't see that argument because Putin knows that if he invades any country which is a member of the Nato alliance, it will lead to a full-scale war which Russia would lose. He is not winning in Ukraine but at least he thinks he has achieved some territorial advantange. If his troops invaded Poland, Putin would gain nothing except more bodybags.

Israel has to resolve what to do about the tunnels under Gaza

It has already been eight weeks since the Israel Defence Forces blasted into northern Gaza to start attacking Hamas. Now that the main thrust of their military operation is in southern Gaza, the IDF seems to be accelerating its offensive, with soldiers mounting door-to-door fighting in an attempt to sweep up the majority of Hamas fighters. But at some point the IDF will have to decide what to do about the tunnels and the underground bunkers.In the north they poured concrete into hundreds of tunnel shafts to block them up. But that didn't per se kill Hamas members hiding in the tunnels. They will have just moved further down the network of tunnels. Now the Israelis are talking about flooding all the tunnels with sea water, pumped in from the Mediterranean Sea. But there are two things stopping them from taking this drastic action. First of course are the hostages. The 130 or so left in Hamas hands will be in the deepest and most impenetrable bunkers. Netanhyahu cannot under any circumstances decide to sacrifice the lives of the hostages in order to eliminate all the Hamas fighters down in the tunnels. The second thing stopping the flooding option is the potential damage it would cause to the foundations of every building left standing in Gaza. While tunnels collapsed under the weight of the sea water, the ground structure could be severely affected across the Gaza Strip. So if flooding the tunnels has to be put off for now, is the only other option for IDF troops to storm the tunnels and follow them wherever they go. It's reported that many of the tunnels have been boobytrapped, so a full-scale assault down under Gaza would seem to be far too dangerous. It's a Catch-22 situation which currently is in favour of Hamas.

Where is the world outrage over the Hamas rapes of young Israeli women?

Amidst all the slaughter and kidnapping by Hamas on October 7 which led to the war with Israel in Gaza, scores of Israeli girls and women were brutally and ferociously and horrifically, and often fatally, raped. It was a deliberate weapon of war deployed with maximum terror and violence by the Hamas invaders. Where is the world outrage? The video collated by the Israel Defence Forces, taken from Hamas cameras and local witnesses of the rapes and murders, recorded this outrage in overwhelmingly graphic detail. Brilliant reporters such as Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times, have highlighted the appalling violence used against women on October 7. Everything about wars is horrific for the innocent victims, whether caught in crossfire or as "collateral damage" in airstrikes. Brutalising, murderous rapes are only committed by males who do not ever deserve to be classed as human beings. These poor Israeli girls and women were not collateral damage. They were not victims of an errant bomb. They were deliberately targeted and subjected to the most disgusting and terrifying violence. And it was ordered and approved by the leaders of Hamas. The animals responsible, if they are still alive, should be hunted down and identified for the whole world to see.

Relationship between the US and Israel on tiptoes

From the moment Hamas burst through the border fences and started its horrific onslaugt of murder, rape and hostage-taking, the United States has given Israel totally committed support, includihg hundreds of thousands of munitions to retaliate against the terrorist organisation. Joe Biden said Israel had every right to meet its objective of eliminating Hamas. Now eight weeks later, after more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed including 6,000 children (according to Hamas), Biden and his administration officials are literally on tiptoes, trying to sound tough on Israel's side but desperate to stop the killing of civilians and destruction of property. So far, since the ceasefire came to an abrupt halt and the Israel Defence Forces renewed its attacks, there has been little sign of restraint on their part. IDF soldiers are moving into every part of Gaza and there are daily airstrikes. For Biden, it's a tricky time. He wants two things which are contradictory, an end to Hamas as rulers of Gaza, but with as little violence as possible. Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said that if Israel continued to kill civilians it would suffer a strategic defeat. I'm not sure what he means by that. Killing civilians won't encourage the rest of the world to look on Israel with sympathy but is that equivalent to a strategic defeat? I don't think so. A strategic defeat would be if Israel admitted it had failed, pulled its troops out of Gaza and let Hamas get on with doing what it did before, running Gaza and threatening Israel with more attacks. And I seriously doubt that is going to happen. Meanwhile Biden and co seem to be crossing their fingers that Israel will wrap it all up so that the focus can switch to finding a new solution for the Palestinian people. I suspect we are a long way off that right now.

What about the remaining hostages?

Under what circumstances are the remaining 130 or so hostages held underground by Hamas in Gaza going to be released? Right now the war is back in full swing, and Israel's negotiators in Qatar have been withdrawn. So there seems little prospect of a new round of hostage-releases in the near future. This is terrible news for the hostages who are being held in poor conditions and with limited food, and for the hostage families who are getting more and more desperate for the return of their loved ones. As I have written before, Israel cannot advance its battle aims at the same time as negotiate freedom for the men, women and children still being detained. Israel has chosen to return to airstrikes and ground operations, so the war cabinet clearly decided it was time to pummel Hamas for a period, perhaps to encourage them to release hostages. I suspect that's a false logic. Hamas is more likely to drop any plans to free more hostages and will just focus on firing rockets into Israel. This is an organisation designated by the US, UK and others as terrorists. So, like other terrorists, they are not given to acts of humanity. It's not in their DNA. They have only released hostages so far to get a quid pro quo from Israel, ie hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails. So Hamas is never going to free more hostages while Israel is launching airstrikes. I fear some of the hostages will never be freed.

Israel's war strategy was guided by the yearning for revenge

Israel has three main objectives in its war with Hamas: revenge for the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, the elimination of Hamas from the planet and the release of all hostages. I think the three objectives conflict with each other. First, you can't have all-out war while the hostages remain. They won't be released if the battle is raging. And the objective of revenge, while totally understandable, is never a good foundation for a properly-orchestrated war. The soldiers go onto battle determined to kill as many Hamas fighters as possible, even when there are a helluva lot of other obstacles in the way, such as innocent civilians, apartment blocks, houses and hospitals. Revenge motivation muddies the brain. So the first few weeks of the Israeli operation against Hamas in Gaza were all about revenge, and the resdult is there for all to see - about 15,000 Palestinian civilians killed, including 6,000 children, and whole buildings demolished, and more than a million people displaced after being ordered out of their homes. When they had got the first rush of revenge out of their system, the Israelis calmed down and started talking about hostage releases. Now, Israel is talking of fighting the war in a different way with more focus and precision. But this is what Israel's commanders should have planned from Day One. Not mass slaughter and destruction for seven weeks, but clinical attacks aimed at the Hamas leadership and keeping the Palestinian people as safe as possible. Israel's war is with Hamas, not with Gaza and not with the Palestinian civilians. But it's all too late. The revege motivation got in the way.

Israel underestimated Hamas

No nation is militarily invincible. The US found this out in Vietnam and Afghanistan, Russia is discovering its vulnerabilities in Ukraine. Israel, however, has proved again and again that on the battlefield it has a deserved reputation for military prowess. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel defeated three Arab armies, captured and occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Taken by surprise when Egypt and Syria launched a joint attack on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur in October 1973, Israel fought them off and in 19 days the Egyptians and Syrians had lost 15,600 men, 440 combat aircraft and 2,250 tanks. Now Israel is facing an enemy which, while incapable of launching a full-scale offensive and lacking the sort of military capabilities to threaten the whole country, is using a combination of underground urban fighting, hostage retention and psychological warfare to put maximum pressure on an opponent with far superior technology, firepower and manpower. The inexplicable intelligence failure prior to the Hamas onslaught over the border on October 7 laid the groundwork for what looked like a hurried operation to try and eliminate the terrorist-designated organisation by mass airstrikes, artillery bombardment and tank warfare. The revelation that the high command of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had received and dismissed a detailed intelligence analysis report, codenamed Jericho Wall, a year before which outlined precisely what Hamas was planning to do, according to The New York Times, has underlined how Tel Aviv totally underestimated the enemy across the border. Israeli intelligence on the underground network beneath Gaza also appears to have been out of date. “The underground tunnel infrastructure is way deeper and more complex than even the Israelis had imagined,” a former senior US defence official told The Times. “So the degree of difficulty of what they are up against is enormous, and because Hamas co-locates so much of its command and operational infrastructure, including rocket manufacturing facilities and arms caches, in civilian buildings, hospitals and religious sites, the optics look terrible for the Israelis,” he said. Responding to these challenges, Israel has dropped more than 20,000 munitions on targets but, by Israeli estimates, have only managed to kill 5,000-10,000 out of Hamas’s total force of around 40,000 “hardened terrorist fighters” over a period of seven weeks. In the process, about 60 per cent of Gaza’s housing stock has either been destroyed or damaged, around 280,000 houses and flats, according to the United Nations. “As they look to the south, the Israelis will have to take a more nuanced and targeted approach,” the former defence official said, reflecting the advice urged on Tel Aviv by the Biden administration. Apart from the international pressure on Israel to temper its air and land bombardments, there are now fresh reasons for a change in tactics. “They have succeeded in compressing the Hamas fighting force into a smaller geographic area in the south which means that Hamas can generate more combat power and inflict more casualties on the IDF,” the former defence official said. “Until now, the Israelis have been pleasantly surprised that they have not suffered more KIA [killed in action], around 70 so far,” he said. “But their stocks of munition are running down and they need reserves for the potential that they might face a conflict on the northern front [Hezbollah in southern Lebanon] as well,” he said. “Understandably, Israelis are enraged over the butchery and barbarism of the Hamas attack on October 7 but there are no easy answers when it comes to destroying Hamas and preventing Israel from ever being attacked like this again,” he said. There is one other challenge for the future. Many former senior US military officers, including those involved in the sieges of Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria, have expressed concerns that the Israelis may be creating more terrorists than they are killing.

The war in Gaza is now very complex

I don't know how long the Israelis thought their war in Gaza would last but I bet it wouldn't have been longer than three months. But now there are so many additional complexities that it looks like it could go on for much longer. In other words, well into next year. The war has to be seen from multiple perspectives: more fighting between Israel and Hamas in the north and then switching to the south; the humanitarian disaster which is getting worse by the day; the herding of Palestinian citizens to alleged places of safety in some patch of territory in the south, away from the expected fighting in that part of Gaza; the releaase of more hostages; diplomatic/political to-and-froing between Washington and Tel Aviv; and world opinion. All these factors have to be taken into account by Binyamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet over the next few weeks. They are all so interlinked, Netanyahu has to guage how one element will impact on the other elements as he makes decisions. For all these reasons, this terrible war could go on for a long time. With the Ukraine/Russsia war looking to go on for ever, Joe Biden will have very little time to campaign to beat Donald Trump in the November election next year.

Will Israel be allowed to finish the job?

As negotiations get underway for more pauses in the fghting in Gaza for the release of other hostages, it has to be asked: will Israel be able or allowed to actually finish what they started, the elimination of Hamas, rulers of Gaza? As each negotiation starts and finishes, that objective looks less and less likely. The reason is obvious. Gaza and the rest of the world, especially the US, are getting more and more accustomed to ceasefires and basically want them to continue for ever to help the Palestinians recover from the seven weeks of airstrikes and artillery bombardment, to receive humanitarian aid, and just to survive. If Israel approves one more negotiated hostage-release and then goes ahead with all-out war to kill as many Hamas fighters as possible and destroy their infrastructure in the south, they will face the risk of being condemned by the rest of the world. Hamas leaders knew this was how it would work out as soon as they started to release hostages. The more hostages released the more difficult it will be for Israel to restart the fighting because Hamas will hang on to just enough hostages to deter Israel from launching an attack in southern Gaza. It's a clever and deadly strategy. I don't see how Israel is going to win this one.

Trucks away!

China has begun launching “trucks” from its new-generation aircraft carrier to test an advanced electromagnetic system for catapulting fighter jets into the air. The Chinese navy has copied the US by turning to an electromagnetic-powered catapult for its third carrier, the Fujian. The two other carriers in its fleet, the Liaoning and Shandong, use a ski jump at the end of the deck for launching aircraft. China’s navy has also turned to the technique used by the US for testing the new catapult by launching what are called trucks instead of aircraft for the first series of launches, to avoid the risk of losing fighter jets. The trucks are purpose-built sleds on four wheels loaded with up to 30,000lbs in weights which can be recovered from shallow waters and used again. The catapult system and truck launches are identical to the equipment used for the US Navy’s new class of nuclear-powered carriers, the first of which, USS Gerald R Ford, is currently off Gaza in the eastern Mediterranean. All the other American carries use steam-driven catapults. Electromagnetic catapult systems need less manpower to operate. Each three-second launch consumes about 100 million watts of electricity. The truck-launches from the Fujian, also known as Type 003, have appeared on video images. They demonstrate that the new carrier is now approaching the final stages of its development at the Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai before it carries out sea trials and enters operational service, expected in 2025. A naval version of China’s J-35 stealth fighter is being developed to operate from the Fujian. The construction of multiple carriers is a key part of Beijing’s ambition to have a navy capable of competing with the US for global reach and power projection. Apart from the Gerald R Ford carrier operating off Gaza, the US Navy currently as the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in the Middle East region. Yesterday the carrier, with its steam-driven catapult system, entered the Gulf waterway after passing through the narrow Strait of Hormuz. The carrier was sent to the Gulf after an increasing number of rocket and missile attacks by Iran-backed militia against US troops in Iraq and Syria.

Israel wants the October 7 planner

Probably more than anything, Israel wants to get to and eliminate the man who planned the October 7 atrocities on Israeli soil. Yahya Sinwar is the Hamas political leader in Gaza and is on Israel's Most Wanted list. He is believed to be in a bunker in southern Gaza, possibly under the city of Khan Yunis. Either he was initially underground in one of the many tunnels under Gaza City and then moved south, also through tunnels, or he has always been in southern Gaza, knowing that the Israel Defence Forces would start their campaign by hammering the north. Several Hamas leaders are known to have been killed in the north during Israeli airstrikes. Sinwar is said to have not only planned the October 7 brutalities and massacres but is also now the chief strategist behind the drip-drip hostage releases to get as many jailed Palestinians out of Israeli prisons as possible. He will no doubt also be involved in regrouping his Hamas fighters and preparing them for whatever Israel has in store once the war gets going again, if it ever does. It is estimated that Hamas may have lost between 1,000 and 1,500 members since the Israeli counter-attack began. He will still have more than 35,000, and possiby closer to 40,000, fighters left to destribute around Gaza. So as soon as the Israel Defence Forces gets the green light from Binyamin Netanhyahu to continue the war, Sinwar will have a target on his back. But because Hamas is largely operating from underground, we may never know whether Sinwar is alive or dead.

Hamas and psychological warfare

Hamas is using every aspect of psychological warfare against the Israelis and it's working. When the current pause in the fighting ends tomorrow, all Hamas has to do is announce that it will start preparing a next list of hostages to be released provided the ceasefire is extended, and when that period comes to an end, to make another statement that it will be willing to consider another 20 or so hostage releases, as long as the ceasefire holds, and then when that finishes to accounce a few more releases etc etc, and drag it out for as long as possible and then say that the final 40, let's say, will remain hostages until Israel agrees to withdraw all troops from Gaza. And guess what, three of the final 40 will be Americans, just to keep the pressure on Washington to restrain the Tel Aviv government. The Israelis know this is what's going to happen, so at some point they will have to make a decision, prosecute the war as planned and hope for the best re the remaining hostages or give up and go home. I can't imagine them doing the latter, so it will become a huge psychological warfare confrontation to see who blinks first.

After the pause in fighting how will Israel continue the war?

After four days of no airstrikes or artillery bombardment in Gaza, there is going to be a huge appetite for a permanent ceasefire. But Israel has vowed to carry on where it left off before the first pause-for-hostage-release ceasefire. But I think it's going to get increasingly difficult for Israel to prosecute the war in southern Gaza in the same way it did in the north for seven weeks. And this is what Hamas is counting on. The strategy is obvious. If Israel starts battering the south and destroying apartment blocks where Hamas is said to be hiding beneath, Hamas will probably announce it will release no more hostages until the bombardment stops. Tel Aviv will then come under huge pressure from the hostage families, as well as from Washington and the world to stop. Then what does Binyamin Netanyahu do? He has committed to eliminating Hamas and has Washington's backing. But reducing southern Gaza towns and cities to rubble would bring worldwide condemnation. As I wrote yesterday, Hamas holds the trump cards because it can play the hostages game for as long as it wants. For Netanyahu to achieve his objective before his own people and the rest of the world turn against him, time is running out.

Hamas holds all the hostage cards

Negotiating with terrorists has always been anathema to successive US administrations. Yet President Biden himself has taken a leading role behind the scenes in forging the agreement between Israel and Hamas , designated a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997, for the release of a first batch of 50 hostages held in underground tunnels in Gaza since October 7. The remaining 190-200 hostages will now be subject to future deals in which Hamas will have the controlling hand, providing their military commanders with maximum leverage over the Israeli government and, as a consequence, also over the US. However this is interpreted, it is not an ideal situation. But it does underline one crucial reality after six weeks of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza: freeing the hostages by military means must have been assessed as too risky both for the hostages and for the Israeli commandos who would have carried out the mission. Doing a deal with Hamas became the only practical option and that is to the Gaza terror organisation’s advantage, something which their leaders would have planned for and anticipated before the October 7 brutal assaults on Israel took place. They may also have anticipated that Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, would come under such pressure to get the hostages released, most of them Israeli citizens, that he would have no alternative but to negotiate, through the good offices of the Qatari government. Hamas can now be expected to exploit the hostages in every which way to try and frustrate and stall and, ultimately, stop the Israel Defence Forces from continuing the attacks in Gaza. Key to this planning would have been the selection of hostages. Hamas grabbed women and children as well as male civilians in order to generate maximum emotional outrage, creating the greatest possible pressure on Tel Aviv, and Washington, to negotiate on their terms. The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers would have been crucial to their thinking. The soldiers are likely to be the last to be released because of the high value placed on each one of them by the Israeli government. It’s classic terrorist pragmatism. In 2011, Israel agreed to release 1,100 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar, the organisation’s current leader in Gaza, in exchange for just one Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid in 2006. With up to 40,000 members, according to CIA estimates, including at least 60 currently in Israeli jails, Hamas will attempt to dictate its terms, forcing Israel to agree continuous pauses in the fighting, leading to an eventual permanent ceasefire. The US state department includes in its definition of terrorist activity, “the seizing or detaining and threatening to kill, injure or continuing to detain another individual in order to compel a third person (including a governmental organisation) to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the individual seized or detained”. Political and military reality has forced both Israel and the US to discard this golden rule in dealing with a terrorist-designated organisation.

Can there be any doubt that Putin will stand again in March and win?

There is lots of speculation over whether Vladimir Putin will stand for reelection next March. That has to be the haha joke of the month. Of course Putin will stand for and win next March's election. Even though there must be some Russians who hate the fact that their sons and husbands and brothers etc have been forced to fight a terrible war in Ukraine with thousands of them dying or suffering injuries, Putin will still be president post-March because that's the way Russia is and always has been. They like a guy who struts the world stage and even though Putin has been afraid to go anywhere abroad because of the risk of being arrested for war crimes, he has remained a global figure. So there is no way he is suddenly going to decide to step down and retire to his dacha/palace on the Black Sea. We're stuck with Putin for many years to come. Meanwhile, autocracy is becoming more prevalent around the world. Donald Trump could well become the US president again next November. An extreme right-wing ideologue has just won the election in The Netherlands, and also in Argentina. Marie Le Pen must be getting excited for when she has another go at becoming president of France. But here in Britain, we will be going the other way if we have an election next year, as expected. The Conservatives will be thrown out after 13 years in charge and a centrist Labour politician, Keir Starmer, looks set to become the new leader of the country. We like being different.

US deterrence in the Middle East has worked. So far

Sending two aircraft carriers, each with around 90 aircraft on board, plus guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, nuclear-powered submarines and a US Marine amphibious force does actually work. Since they all arrived in the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea, this superpowe presence has shown that the United States is still the dominant mi;itary power on the planet, despite superpower pretensions from China and Russia. They are not in the same league, although China is desperately trying to catch up. We could by now be in a Middle East regional war, but thanks to the US firepower sitting off the coast of Gaza, the potential participants in a wider conflict, notably Iran and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, have held back. Very wise in my view. Instead, we have had a few fairly meaningless stroppy strikes from these regional actors just to remind the US that they are around. So, some rockets from Hezbollah aimed at Israel, a handful of cruise missiles and drones from the Houthis in Yemen, and nearly six dozen drone, mortar and short-range ballistic missile Iran-backed Islamic militia attacks targeting American troops in Iraq and Syria. It sounds a lot but compared to what is happening between Hamas and Israel, it's small-fry stuff, all adequately dealt with by the US. So, so far, the big power game being played by the US in the Middle East is doing the trick.

What does Hamas want in return for releasing hostages?

What is Hamas's game plan? They seized, violently and brutally, about 240 hostages on October 7, most of them Israeli civilians, but also some soldiers and people of other nationalities living at the kibbutz which Hamas invaded. They took them into Gaza and hurried them underground into the maze of tunnels built everywhere. They did it for a malign purpose, to put leverage on Israel either to restrict or stop retaliatory strikes or as a bargaining chip to get the Israelis to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in jail. So far ony four hostages have been freed but now Hamas is ready to release a lot more. But what do they want in return and will Israel play ball? Obviously Binyamin Netanyahu is under huge pressure from the families of the hostages to agree a release deal. But agreeing anything with Hamas will be difficult for a leader who has vowed to kill every Hamas fighter in Gaza. The Israeli military will be itching to get on with the mission given them by Israel's war cabinet but they will be expected to call a halt to all bombardments while some of the hostages are released. The deal, whatever it is, was inevitable when it became very clear to the military that they simply didn't have enough precise intelligence to know where each hostage was being held. Apart from one female soldier hostage rescued in the early stages of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the details of which remain fuzzy, no military action has been taken to find and free the other hostages because, presumably, it was decided such a mission was too risky. So Netanyahu had no choice but to do a deal with Hamas. I'm sure Hamas has other plans for the hostages not released in this initial deal. One thing for sure, Hamas will exploit the hostages they keep. That's why they seized them in the first place.

The hunt for Hamas command HQ

For six weeks Israel defence forces (IDF)have been engaged in the toughest urban warfare operation in modern times, confronting an enemy concealed underground in a population-dense environment. Now, with an expected five-day pause in the fighting to allow for the release of women and children held hostage since October 7, Israeli commanders still have to resolve one of the biggest challenges, finding and destroying the main underground bunkers from where Hamas leaders have been orchestrating their war with Israel. Once northern Gaza was under their control, much of the IDF focus has been aimed at proving to the world that the headquarters of Hamas was buried under the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Initially, apart from an abandoned-looking entrance to a possible tunnel near the hospital and an array of Kalashnikovs and other fighting material laid out for visiting world media, there was little evidence that the IDF had uncovered the beating heart of Hamas’s military stronghold. However, in new evidence last night, the IDF revealed it had found a deep tunnel structure beneath the hospital, complete with reinforced doors to protect Hamas commanders and fighters. Israel will see this discovery as a breakthrough in convincing doubters that Hamas has been using bunkers beneath civilian buildings to prosecute its terror campaign. The IDF has a special unit called Yahalom (diamond in Hebrew) which is armed with precision explosives and other high-tech weapons to destroy tunnels. But the uncertain whereabouts of the 240 hostages as well as questions raised about the Hamas headquarters under the hospital stalled the plans. Will the IDF special unit now set about destroying the tunnel complex under the al-Shifa hospital or will attention shift to southern Gaza and, in particular, to the city of Khan Yunis where “the real” Hamas headquarters is based underground, according to Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister? The IDF will still be faced with the same dual challenge it found in northern Gaza, eliminating Hamas structures without causing catastrophic collateral damage. It failed in the northern phase because thousands of civilians died and apartment blocks were reduced to rubble. The southern phase will have to be more focused, especially as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians moved there from the north, as advised by the IDF.

From now on Israel will have to temper its attacks on Gaza

After six weeks of Israel's retaliatory strikes against Hamas in which thousands of civilians have been killed and injured and homes destroyed, the next phases of the war with Hamas will have to be moderated to account for the increasing opposition expressed around the world. No war can be fought in isolation, especially in the Middle East. Washington is getting worried about the civilian deaths which have been far higher than could ever be described as acceptable or unavoidable in a place as small as Gaza. No civilian deaths are acceptable but it is an unfortunate reality that in a war which involves thousands of airstrikes and artillery bombardments, the dreaded phrase collateral damage will happen. But the scale of the collateral damage in Gaza in the last six weeks has been devastating. Israel knows it cannot prosecute this war in the same way over the next few months or the whole world will turn against them. This mean that Israeli commanders will have to take a much more limited and refined approach to eliminating Hamas, still the main objective of the war from Israel's point of view. But restraint in war is far more difficult than all-out war. The next few weeks are going to be crucial if Israel has a hope of achieving what it wants to achieve without losing the support of its principal allies.

Is Israel beating Hamas?

It's six weeks since hundreds of Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza poured over the border and slaughtered more than 1,200 mainly Israeli civilians and took 240 hostages. In that time the Israeli defence forces have launched an aerial bombardment of Gaza, destroying hundreds of buildings, inclding apartment blocks, and sent thousandws of soldiers into the Strip with tanks and armoured vehicles, all with the specific aim of eliminating every member of Hamas. In other words, an annihilation of the whole organisation. How successful have they been? How many Hamas fighters are left? There is no doubt that hundreds of Hamas gunmen have been killed, including several leading figures. But have the Israelis got close to eliminating Hamas? I think not. There were perhaps anything between 30,000 and 40,000 Hamas fighters before the retaliatory Israeli action began. That may have ben reduced by 1,000-1,500 although there are no official figures from either side. That means the vast majority of Hamas members are still alive and fighting. Many of them will have transferred to southern Gaza to allow them to hide amongst the one million or so Palestinians who fled to the south. So, after six weeks, Israel has killed a small proportion of Hamas fighters but in the process has laid waste much of the most-densely populated parts of Gaza and have effectively bulldozed or bomb-strucked tens of thousands of Palestinian homes. So, Gaza destroyed, but not Hamas.

Where is the Hamas command and control bunker?

With the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza surrounded and occupied by Israeli troops, Israel now really does need to prove to the world its accusation that directly under the hospital is the Hamas command and control bunker. This accusation has been around for years but so far the Israeli defence forces have only allowed reporters to see very limited evidence - a bunch of AK-47s lined up on a floor and what looks like an abandoned entry underground. I guess what the world was expecting was a large operations centre, with laptops and computers and screens showing targets in Israel and Hamas fighters with headphones. But nothing like that has been uncovered. So where are all these tunnels and bunkers and what are the Israeli troops going to do about them? We know they exist because a released hostage described how she was forced to walk along a spider's web of tunnels. To bring this war to an end these tunnels and bunkers need to be closed up for ever. But somewhere down there are the 240 hostages still being detained. Fighting their way to get to them isn't going to free them and it will lead to countless casualties. But unless these hostages, most of them Israeli, are freed soon, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is going to be confronted by an angry and rebellious nation.

Xi Zinping is a dictator, says Biden. Again

Joe Biden just can't hold himself back. After a four-hour session with the Chinese president in San Francisco in which at least some attempt was made to warm relations after a very cold spell, Biden got chatting to reporters and in off-the-cuff remarks said Xi was a dictator. He had used that term before, way back. Now most historians would probably agree with him. Technically, the way Communism works in China, the Communist party appoints its leader and he is the Boss from then on. He doesn't have to worry about being thrown out by the people in a democratic vote. So, the word dictator is sort of ok. But is it ok for Biden to call him a dictator which is a pejorative word in western thinking? Well, surely not after the first session together for a year. He must have known it would irritate Xi and why call him that when they had been getting on slightly better than before? In the world of diplomacy it was the wrong thing to say at the wrong moment but it did show that Biden likes to be honest about his feelings. He thinks Xi is a dictator and when asked it just slips out. Perhaps his honesty will win him votes in the US but I doubt it will win him friends in Beijing. So after the four hours together in San Francisco it's three steps forward in terms of Washington/Beijing relations and two steps back.

The Rwanda plan for deporting illegal immigrants is dead

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that sending immigrants to Rwanda is unlawful. Yet Rishi Sunak still wants to hang on to the idea and find another way round the judges' decision. But the whole idea of sending immigrants to Rwanda was always a totally daft and uncharitable way of dealing with the so-called boat problem - the thousands of people who come to the UK in boats across the Channel. It was an idea espoused with great vigour by Suella Braverman, the now deposed Home Secretary. You would have thought that Sunak who has a reputation for being a decent human being, would have finally got the message that sending people to Rwanda should be abandoned. But ths government is so desperate to find a solution to the boat problem that it will grab on to anything that offers even a remote chance of succeeding. It wasn't that long ago that they wanted to send immigrants to Albania. That came to nothing. Sunak should now show a bit of common and humane sense and announce that Rwanda is no longer an option. Going against the judges of the Supreme Court would be a grave error.

Will David Cameron back in government make a difference?

Government reshuffles in the UK don't normally include bombshells and usually ministerial changes are well leaked in the weeks or days prior to the Number 10 announcement. This time there was a bombshell appointment and absolutely no leak beforehand. Quite an achievement by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The bombshell of course was the announcement that David Cameron, ex prime minister, was to be foreign secretary. Bizarre! Very very unusual for a former prime minister to be asked to come back into government, but Cameron looked and sounded chuffed. He'll probably make a perfectly satisfactory foreign secretary because most of the leaders around the globe will know him or at least know of him. He also knows how government works and the civil service is accustomed to his ways. But for many people in this country he is always remembered as the prime minister who risked the future of this country by agreeing to hold a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union in the belief that voters would want to stay. He was wrong and had to resign as a consequence, and since then the UK's economy has been struggling to adapt to the new so-called independence, free of EU bureaucracy. None of the promises made by the Leavers campaigners have been met and I bet a lot of the Leavers now wish they had been Remainers. So Cameron has a lot to answer for. But now he is foreign secretary, so let's see what he can do to make up for the biggest political mistake of his career.

The war between Israel and Hamas is now about babies

It has become the babies war. It began with the most terrifying and inhuman reports of Hamas fighters killing Israeli babies and children on that terrible October 7 assault, including graphic accounts of how they disembowelled a pregnant woman and tore the foetus from her womb, and now it's all about saving Palestinian babies from Israeli bombs. President Macron has appealed to Israel to take every precaution to avoid killing babies who are with their mothers in hospital in Gaza. I'm sure the Israeli defence forces are doing everything they can to do just that but the fact is that hospitals in the heart of Gaza City have suffered from the constant assaults by bombs and artillery shells, and babies are dying. This is the tragedy of war. It makes it imperative for Israel to bring this war to an end as rapidly as possible. But it's in Hamas's interest to prolong the war because they know that the longer it goes on, the more civilians will die and the more criticism Israel will face from around the world. The hostages are key. If Israel can release them all, the troops can then focus on destroying the tunnels and underground bunkers. But Hamas will hang on to them as bargaining chips. So until the hostage crisis is resolved there will be a total impasse, and that means more babies will die.

Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinians on the streets

The Home Secretary of the UK, Suella Braverman, has described the pro-Palestinian protesters on the streets of London as being engaged in a "hate march". But hate of what: hate of the Israelis/Jews, hate of war (we all agree with that), just plain hate? I think she is wrong and disrepectful to accuse all those protesters as hate marchers because it simply isn't true. I suspect the vast majority of the 300,000 who protested today in London were there because they can't stand the terrible images of women and children being killed and want it to stop. But because it has been called a pro-Palestinian march, a lot of commentators and critics, including Ms Braverman, seem to have concluded they are either anti-Semitic because they are not protesting against the appalling atrocities committed by Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, of they are just there to cause violence and mayhem. I agree it's strange and unsettling that thousands didn't protest on the streets about the suffering of those poor Israeli families butchered by Hamas gunmen. But the problem for Israel is that that terrible day was one day whereas the retaliatory Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling have been going on for more than three weeks and ten times as many people have been killed in the process. The butchery of October 7, the horror of which will never be forgotten or forgiven by Israel, has been shoved to one side by the marchers who are focusing all their energy and banner-waving on behalf of the Palestinians who are now going through the terrible trauma of war every day and night. I have total sympathy for the Palestinians because I know how frightening war is. But the pro-Palestinian protesters should all have in their minds what happened on October 7. If they don't, then people like Ms Braverman with her hate-march accusation, will win the day.

William "Bill" Burns, the diplomatic CIA chief

William "Bill" Burns had 33 years' experiene as a diplomat before he was appointed CIA director and is widely acknowledged to have a unique and invaluable background for acting as a special envoy in world crises. All the leaders in the Middle East, as well as their intelligence chiefs, know him personally.So great expectations were weighing on his shoulders when he arrived in Qatar on Thursday as part of a mission to contain the war between Israel and Hamas and to free the hostages still being held in underground bunkers and tunnels in Gaza. His trip to Qatar which is in the forefront of negotiations with Hamas over the hostages follows visits to Israel to speak to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his intelligence counterpart, the head of Mossad, and also to Egypt to confer with President Sisi. The first career diplomat to serve as the director of the CIA, Burns came to the job on March 19, 2021, with a determination, as he put it, to provide intelligence “with honesty and integrity”, an indirect finger-pointing at the outgoing president, Donald Trump, who notoriously lambasted the American intelligence agencies for what he described as their “naive” assessments of global challenges. The 67-year-old spy chief, with his full head of white hair and dapper grey moustache, was described by the New York Times as someone you could imagine “in a John Le Carre novel whispering into a dignitary’s ear at an embassy party that the city is falling to the rebels and a boat would be waiting in the harbour at midnight”. Burns, married with two daughters, is a Le Carre fan and was amused when he read the description. A former British spy chief once said that the head of an intelligence service needed to know what it was like to stand on a street corner at night waiting to meet with an agent. But Burns’ greatest attribute comes from his years in diplomacy, getting to know and decode the minds of world leaders. President Biden has used him as his secret back channel to warn President Putin against invading Ukraine, sent him to Beijing to consult with Chinese spy chiefs when other communications were cut off, and to Kabul for a face-to-face encounter with the leader of the Taliban after the militants seized the Afghan capital. He regularly travels to Ukraine, normally on secret missions, unlike the trips made by Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, who has a more public role to play. As ambassador to Moscow from 2005 to 2008, Burns became one of America’s most experienced Kremlinologists. But his career also embraced the Middle East. His first posting as ambassador was to Jordan in 1998 and a later appointment at the state department put him charge of the Middle East region. Burns wrote in a memoir appropriately called The Back Channel that diplomacy “is by nature an unheroic, quiet endeavour, less swaggering than unrelenting, often unfolding in back channels out of sight and out of mind”. His style of quiet diplomacy as spy chief is in stark contrast to some of his more politically-animated predecessors such as Mike Pompeo under the Trump administration and John Brennan in President Obama’s first term. It’s why Biden is trusting him to use his decades of experience and knowledge to help get the hostages released and prepare for a future in the region after the war between Israel and Hamas has ended.

Huge pressure on Israel brings daily operational pauses in war

Benjamin Netanyahu has been under the most extraordinary diplomatic pressure to allow for humanitarian pauses in the war in Gaza to enable Palestinian families to seek safety and get the food and water and medicine they desperately need. At the same time he has been under pressure from the Israeli military to give them the freedom to pursue the battle with Hamas relentlessly and without pauses of any kind. All army generals want that, to prosecute a war without political interference. But the US has been instrumental in persuading Netanyahu to offer a compromise, a four-hour operational pause each day. It's a good outcome for the sake of the Palestinian people, but it's also a reflection of the intense focus around the world on the bitterness and anger that has once again erupted in this part of the planet. It is a terrible conclusion to have to make but I cannot see Israel living in harmony alongside an independent Palestinian state in the near or even far future. Not for decades, especially after the slaughter committed by Hamas on October 7th that set this war off.

Has Biden any chance of beating Trump?

Will Joe Biden's handling of the Middle East crisis help or harm his chances of being reelected in November next year? Right now I would say his strong support for Israel but his constant appeal for a softly softly approach, so no civilians are killed, won't necessarily boost his fan club. But it's difficult to see what else he could have done. Trump probably believes that if he was president the war would be over by now or would never have happened but I doubt anyone would go along with that. So maybe Biden will get some kudos from the way he has handled the Israel/Gaza war, provided it doesn't go on for months. But the way it's going at the moment there must be a risk of a protracted war or at the very least a long presence of Israeli troops in Gaza which would cause outrage among Arab nations. A bitter occupation of Gaza throughout 2024 could be disastrous for Biden and for his prospects of a second term. There's a year to go. Biden is going to need a lot of luck and some political or foreign policy successes if he has a chance of overcoming the Trump bandwagon.

The Pentagon ups deterrence in Middle East

The Pentagon has boosted its deterrence presence in the Middle East with the openly-declared arrival of a nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine. The unidentified submarine is an Ohio-class boat, the largest in the US Navy. Originally exclusively armed with strategic nuclear ballistic missiles, four of the 18 in the class have been converted to carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Although US Central Command tweeted the arrival of the Ohio submarine in the region, it did not specify which version of the boat had been sent. However, the submarine seen passing through the Suez Canal would appear to be the guided-missile conversion model . The four converted Ohio-class submarines are the USS Ohio, USS Florida, USS Michigan and USS Georgia. In the latest show of deterrence, the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine, probably with a full complement of 154 1,000-mile-range, land-attack Tomahawk, has joined two US Navy aircraft carrier strike groups: the USS Gerald R Ford with five escort warships in the eastern Mediterranean off Israel, and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower with three ships in the Red Sea. The 26th US Marine Expeditionary Force on three amphibious warships, with 2,400 marines, is also in the eastern Mediterranean, along with USS Mount Whitney, a command ship sent from Italy which has on board Vice Admiral Thomas Ishee, commander of the 6th Fleet. The Pentagon normally makes no comment about the location of any of its nuclear-powered submarines, either the ballistic-missile class or the converted guided-missile version or the smaller hunter-killer class. However, in recent years, occasional announcements have been made to underscore America’s deterrence capabilities. In October last year, General Michael Kurilla, commander of Central Command, was officially photographed boarding the USS West Virginia, a strategic-missile deterrent Ohio-class submarine, at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea. This version of the submarine can carry up to 20 ballistic missiles with a range of 4,000 miles. In July, the USS Kentucky, also a ballistic-missile version of the Ohio-class submarine, made a port call in South Korea, the first publicly-declared visit of a US Navy boomer in 42 years.

Trump rants in court as Gaza burns

There are three wars going on at the moment: Israel v Hamas, Russia v Ukraine and Trump v America's courts. I don't mean that to sound trite as far as the Trump war is concerned but it strikes me as extraordinary that at a time when appalling images of death and slaughter are being sent around the world every day, the former president spends his time boiling with rage at judges who are trying to do what they are paid to do which is to conduct trials in which he is the defendant without bias or prejudice. In the UK, a defendant simply wouldn't be allowed to get away with this behaviour. In fact he would be accused of contempt of court and be sent smartly down to the cells. But Trump continues using the courts and his appearances at them as opportunities to berate the federal justice system and to promote his a-million-times-repeated allegation that he is the victim of a Biden-orchestrated witchhunt. And while he does this, the latest polls are saying Trump is miles ahead of Biden in America's key states. If he becomes president again does he have a master plan to bring peace and stability to the Middle East and to resolve the Israel/Palestine issue once and for all? Who knows? He's too busy shouting at judges.

Balancing act between Israel and the US over Gaza war

Increasingly as the Israeli airstrikes and artillery attacks into Gaza continue, Washington is getting cold feet about backing the full-scale assault which has killed so many civilians. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has been back in Jerusalem yet again to plead for more restraint and to guarantee a humanitarian corridor. The trouble is, war is never about restraint. The US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 didn't tiptoe in and shoot dead only the bad guys. In total war, innocent people die. In Gaza, more than two million civilians are packed into the tiny territory, so calling on Israel to use restraint is like asking armed police trying to find a shooter with an assault rifle to use water pistols. The war in Gaza has provided terrible and heart-wrenching photographs of maimed children in hospitals amd women screaming with fear and panic. Washington wants Israel to go in softer while supporting Jerusalem's desire to eliminate Hamas once and for ever. The twin approaches are contradictory. I assume Washington realises this but then the US has to try and maintain a balancing act between supporting Israel as a rock-solid ally and keeping the Arab world on side at the same time to prevent a wider war. It's a contradiction that's going to end up in catastrophe if the war goes on and on.

How long will Hezbollah wait?

Even though the leader of Hamas indicated Hezbollah would remain on the sdelines at the moment and that Hamas was on its own in its war with Israel, there will be serious concerns in Tel Aviv and Washington that the terrorist-designated group in Lebanon could change its mind and eventually join forces. Hezbollah has already launched rocket attacks across the border but the Iran-backed terror organisation has hundreds of thousands of rockets which if launched in a massive barrage would present Israel's Iron Dome defence system with its greatest challenge. The danger is that if Hezbollah did launch an attack on a large scale, the US might be forced to enter the war, using its carrier-borne fighter jets to attack targets in southern Lebanon. This could potentially be a disastrous move because other potential players in this Middle East crisis, especially Iran, could then join in too. At this stage in the war my instinctive feeling is that neither Hezbollah nor Iran want to choose this moment in history to go all out against Israel. The US has assembled a huge naval force in the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gulf, so both Hezbollah and Iran know what will happen if they join Hamas. I doubt Iran will risk it and Tehran effectively runs Hezbollah. So, at least for the next few weeks, it's Israel versus Hamas and the other Islamic groups in Gaza. For this reason it is imperative that Israel completes its objective - the elimination of Hamas - as quickly as possible.

Hamas asymmetric warfare versus Israeli modern firepower

Hamas is demonstrating every day that it has learned a crucial warfighting lesson from other terror groups such as the Islamic State (Isis) which is that superior military might can be countered by deadly asymmetric tactics. In Iraq and Syria Isis launched hundreds of commercially-acquired standard drones and quadcopters which had been adapted to drop grenades and other explosive munitions. Hamas will also have taken into account the successful use of drones by the Russians and Ukrainians in the last 20 months. Hamas is using similar modified drones to target Israeli soldiers and tanks. A video released by Hamas showed how one drone dropped a home-made winged grenade with an impact plunger on a group of Israeli troops, scattering them in all directions as it exploded on the ground close to them. With Iranian technological assistance, Hamas has developed a sophisticated indigenous drone programme in Gaza, according to the Royal United Services Institute. A weapons development division within the Izz al-Din Qassim Brigades has built kamikaze drones that blow up on impact, as revealed in the Hamas video. One kamikaze drone called Zouari, named after a dead Hamas engineer, Mohammed Zouari, has a loitering capability, enabling Hamas operators to wait for the optimum moment to launch a munition. Hamas also have unarmed surveillance drones which are being used to track Israeli troop and tank movements. The use of quadcopters by Hamas was first revealed on October 7, during the day of killings and hostage-taking. A video showed a quadcopter dropping a munition onto an Israeli Merkava tank. Drones were also used on that day to destroy Israeli observation towers, border cameras and communications which successfully thwarted Israeli defence systems. There is another key aspect of Hamas's use of drones. Every day they are providing images of the battles going on in Gaza, giving Hamas a propaganda tool against an enemy which is attempting to prosecute a war in carefully-orchestrated secrecy. Hamas's greatest tactical asset is surprise. Emerging from their "Gaza Metro" tunnels, they can launch attacks with armed drones, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and anti-tank missiles and then vanish back underground. Several videos released have shown how the rabbit warren of tunnels has given Hamas an exploitable advantage against a force equipped with far superior weapons.

Rising cost of two wars for Pentagon

The Pentagon is seeking an extra $55 billion from Congress as the US faces the prospect of backing two long-running wars. Two supplementary requests of nearly $44 billion for arming Ukraine and more than $10 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, both sent to Congress this week, have underscored two growing challenges for the Pentagon: *The increasing cost of providing arms for two countries at war simultaneously. *The need to preserve sufficient stockpiles back home in the event of a third conflict where the US would be expected to intervene militarily. Mark Cancian, an American weapons expert and former Pentagon official, said much would depend on how long the war in Gaza continued. “If the war goes on for a long time, Israel will use up more and more of its own stockpiles and will rely on the US,” he said. Were China to attempt an invasion of Taiwan while the US was focused on Israel and Ukraine, the Pentagon might be forced to assess its priorities, Cancian, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said. “I think it would be Israel first, then Ukraine and Taiwan third,” he said. The Pentagon insists it can cope with the demands of both Israel and Ukraine at the same time, and has taken huge strides in expanding America’s defence industrial base. More than $50 billion has been requested for this weapons-building expansion. Pentagon officials also point out that the weapons requirements from Ukraine and from Israel don’t always overlap, although both countries have appealed for large stocks of 155mm artillery shells. To meet that demand, the US had more than doubled production of 155mm shells in the last year and a half and was planning a six-fold increase by late 2024, Brigadier-General Pat Ryder, chief Pentagon spokesman, said. “For Israel and the Indo-Pacific, while there is certainly overlap in some equipment and munitions, there are significant operational differences in these theatres that drive our requirements,” Ryder said. “In Israel, we’re providing precision-guided and Iron Dome munitions which are not used in Ukraine. In the Indo-Pacific, we anticipate longer-range fires and systems which will be key to addressing the challenges we potentially could confront there,” he said. Meanwhile, there are daily shipments of arms arriving in Israel from the US. “We’re looking at every possible way to get Israel what it needs as fast as we can get it to them,” a senior US defence official said. Israel’s needs would be significantly smaller than Ukraine’s, Mark Cancian said. But if the war in Gaza continued for an extended period, some key systems might have to be diverted from Ukraine to Israel, he said. Realistic funding by Congress for the Pentagon to continue backing Ukraine and Israel could be the one obstacle in the US ability to support both countries at war. After weeks of wrangling within the Republican party over the choice of Speaker of the House of Representatives, the war-funding issues have been held in abeyance. The speaker crisis has been resolved with the appointment of Mike Johnson. But there are concerns in the Pentagon that some Republicans, already cautious about the rising cost of the war in Ukraine, might begin to focus their support more for Israel than for the Kyiv government. “One thing that is really important in terms of our ability to support both the Israelis and the Ukrainians simultaneously is additional funding from Congress,” Christine Wormuth, US army secretary, said recently.

The fate of hundreds of thousands of Afghans in Pakistan

Just another example of the cruelty of this world: hundreds of thousands of Afghans who had fled Afghanistan to Pakistan for safety, some of them decades ago, are being forced to leave their homes and return to the country they fear. They have no documents and the Pakstan government set a deadline of today for them to get out of the country. There are potentially more than a million of them but so far about 200,000 have left for an uncertain future. How will the Taliban treat them when they cross the border? Afghanistan's economy is staggering under debt and lack of funds, so the sudden arrival of so many Afghans seeking jobs and homes is going to put an unbelievable strain on the country's fragile economic state. So much slaughter and cruelty is going on around the world that the fate of these poor Afghan families is largely being ignored. Shame on Pakistan.

A war with no accredited war correspondents

We have become so used to having wars via CNN, BBC, The Times, the New York Times and the myriads of other media outlets sending reporters to be attached to military units to inform the world of what is happening. But this latest war, Israel's offensive in Gaza, is effectivey being carried out in a news blackout. Most of the time reporters are having to make intelligent assumptions about what the Israeli Defence Forces are doing. Apart from the briefest of updates from IDF spokesmen and the occasional thundering speech by Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, the most detail is coming from Hamas and that, for obvious reasons, cannot be relied on. We know there are now scores of Israeli tanks inside Gaza, aiming to encircle Gaza City where Hamas has its command headquarters buried under a hospital but very little else has been revealed apart from the relentless daily and nightly airstrikes. Now we are told there have been exchanges of gunfire between IDF troops and Hamas in the tunnels, the so-called Gaza Metro. But are these just minor skirmishes or is the IDF really going to go full ahead with flooding the tunnels with special forces and combat engineering units? Some of the tunnels have low ceilings and are narrow, making it difficult to pass through quickly, let alone safely. If this was in the Iraq War there would by now have been breathless reports from TV, radio and newspaper war correspondents about the underground firefights. But this is a war carried out in secrecy.

Should tunnel warfare in Gaza be avoided?

Operation Swords of Iron, Israel’s codename for the retaliatory military strikes against Hamas in Gaza, underscores the tactics used so far to meet the stated objective which is the total elimination of the terrorist-designated organisation. This is not a shock-and-awe, full-scale invasion ending in regime-change, like the US-led coalition high-intensity offensive against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003. It’s a phased, focused, tactical battle to remove an enemy skilled, experienced and armed for urban warfare. The current night raids by infantry and special forces units, backed by land, sea and air bombardment, described as the second phase of the operation, is likely to be followed by the deployment of a significantly larger number of troops and tanks to try and seal off northern Gaza. The element of surprise, normally crucial for successful warfare, was not available for the Israeli defence forces at the start of the operation, because Hamas expected and had planned for retaliation. So, the key to success for Israel’s military commanders will be to adopt tactics which Hamas is not anticipating. This might rule out sending thousands of Israeli soldiers down the 300-mile stretch of layered tunnels to seek and destroy the Hamas strongholds which are buried up to 80 metres deep beneath the concrete foundations of many of Gaza’s largest buildings, including hospitals, schools and mosques. Hamas will have planned for tunnel warfare and will have built up the capabilities to counter an infusion of Israeli troops armed with all the latest weaponry and special forces combat skills. Israel in recent days has received advice from some of the most experienced urban warfare specialists in the world, one of whom, Lieutenant-General James “Jim” Glynn of the US Marine Corps, spent four days providing unique insights into the challenges of finding and killing the enemy in a packed urban environment, below and above ground. Before the Israeli action began, there were 9,000 Palestinian residents n Gaza City for every square kilometre, similar in density to places such as Fallujah in Iraq where Glynn fought as a combat commander in 2004. Glynn has now returned to the US, but the lessons he learned in Fallujah will have been invaluable to the Israelis. This is not a war where bunker-busting bombs dropped by Israeli aircraft will clear Gaza of its tunnel complex. Israel claims to have destroyed 150 tunnels with such bombs but most of the underground “Gaza Metro” is not reachable or targetable from the air because of where they are concealed. The Hamas tunnels also house the 200 or so hostages, so Israeli special forces will be inhibited from using explosive devices to clear tunnels unless they have specific intelligence of the location of the kidnapped civilians. “Hamas is counting on us entering every bunker and every tunnel with tweezers in order to exact a heavy bloody price from us,” Naphtali Bennett, former Israeli prime minister, has said. He has proposed imposing a siege on northern Gaza, “to dry up and suffocate the Hamas terrorists in the tunnels until they are forced out”. While this might make practical, casualty-avoiding sense, it’s likely that Hamas will have taken this possibility into account and may have moved some of their leadership and weaponry to southern Gaza, to hide beneath the more than one million Palestinians urged by Israel to evacuate from the north.