Flagship

Israel readies likely Gaza operation

Israel appeared likely to begin a full-scale ground operation in Gaza in response to Hamas’s surprise weekend attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told U.S. President Joe Biden that Israel had “no choice” but to launch such an assault, Axios reported, as his country called up 300,000 reservists and massed troops at the Gaza border. As the war entered its fourth day, Israel said the frontier — which militants had overrun — was now secured, and its defense minister said a “complete siege” on Gaza’s 2 million Palestinian residents, “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas,” was in place. Hamas holds at least 100 Israeli hostages and said it would kill one every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home. More than 900 Israelis and 700 Palestinians have been killed so far.

Netanyahu and his critics seemed close to a deal for a unity government, though the main opposition has called for such a coalition to exclude the prime minister’s far-right governing partners. Netanyahu’s government faced criticism after an Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press that Cairo had earlier passed along warnings that Hamas was planning “something big.” Netanyahu called the claim “fake news,” but The Times of Israel said “Israel’s eyes appeared to have been closed,” with the country’s vaunted intelligence system failing to spot the attack in advance.

Assault spurs reassessment of Hamas

The scale and scope of Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel prompted a reassessment of the group’s capabilities. Gazans — who have been living under an Israeli blockade since 2007 — voiced support following the assault, despite the major response from Israel’s armed forces, Al-Monitor noted. Analysts, meanwhile, pointed to capabilities exhibited by the group such as its massive use of rockets — including some advanced projectiles, according to SpyTalk — as well as the sophisticated, coordinated nature of the weekend operation: “You have seen an evolution of Hamas into a kind of terrorist organization that really no one could have foreseen … and that really is something that is profoundly alarming,” Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said on the War on the Rocks podcast.

Social media struggles over Israel conflict

Researchers warned that fake media posts linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict are proliferating online, particularly on X. The platform formerly known as Twitter recently shut down an internal tool used to help identify disinformation, The Information reported. Experts said that move has contributed to what WIRED described as an “unprecedented” flow of old videos, game footage, and doctored photos all purporting to be contemporary accounts of the violence. The weekend attack was “the first real test of Elon Musk’s version of Twitter, and it failed spectacularly,” one researcher told Bloomberg. X’s struggles offer an opportunity for Meta’s recently launched rival platform, Threads, the tech journalist Casey Newton argued, but Mark Zuckerberg’s company appears reluctant to take advantage.

Country Garden signals default

The Chinese property giant Country Garden said it would likely default, spurring worry over the implications for the country’s real-estate sector and wider economy. The company missed a recent Hong Kong dollar-denominated bond payment, warned in a regulatory filing that it would not be able to fulfill a U.S. dollar payment this month, and announced it had hired financial advisers, a step that often presages a broader restructuring. China’s beleaguered property sector accounts by some measures for a quarter of its overall economy, and Country Garden is key, with around 3,000 projects — more than four times as many as Evergrande, which hit headlines in recent years for its own indebtedness.

Ukrainian war support still strong

Ukrainian support for the war against Russia remains strong, despite nearly two years of hardship. A Gallup poll revealed that 60% of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until the war was won, double the number who said they wanted negotiations to end the war as soon as possible. That support is slightly down from the 70% who wanted to keep fighting in September 2022, but still a comfortable majority. Ukrainians were also very clear about what it means to “win the war”: regaining all territory lost since 2014, including Crimea. The support is weakest in southern and eastern regions near the front. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s popularity is still sky high, with an 81% approval rate.

Republicans attack RFK over bid

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched an independent presidential campaign in the face of attacks from Republicans. Although the scion of a famous Democratic family, polls show that his support is stronger among Republicans, and Democratic strategists see him as little threat to President Joe Biden. The Republican National Committee called Kennedy “just another radical, far-left Democrat” who “cannot hide from his record … he is your typical elitist liberal and voters won’t be fooled.” Kennedy has espoused several conspiracy theories, saying that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, that antidepressants are behind school shootings, and that the C.I.A. killed his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. Independent candidates have affected presidential elections in recent memory: Think Ross Perot in 1992, and Ralph Nader in 2000.

Weah and Boakai face off in Liberia

Liberia votes today in a presidential election. The incumbent George Weah, a former soccer star, has been in office for six years, and faces a challenge from Joseph Boakai, the deputy to the previous president. It will be the first election in which citizens born after Liberia’s bitter civil war, which ended in 2003, can vote: One dividing line is Weah’s resistance to establishing a war-crimes court, saying it would not help heal wounds. Boakai has promised to set up a court. Weah, who was declared FIFA’s World Player of the Year in 1995, argues that he has kept Liberia stable — its economy grew 5% last year — although Boakai says the country is in decline.

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Peso drops as Milei leads in Argentina

Argentina’s currency plunged against the dollar as the likelihood of an election victory for the radical libertarian candidate Javier Milei grew. Milei, who wants to dollarize the economy if he wins on Oct. 22, is leading in the polls, and said in a Monday interview that “the peso is a currency emitted by Argentine politicians, so it can’t be worth excrement.” The official exchange rate has been fixed at 365 pesos to the dollar since August, but on the black market, traders were demanding 945, up 7.4% in three days. Inflation hit an annualized rate of 124% in August and the peso has lost 71% of its value against the dollar in 12 months, the Financial Times reported.

Gender pay gap research wins Nobel

The Nobel Prize in economics went to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economic historian, for work on the drivers of the gender pay gap. Goldin is the third woman to receive the prize, and the first to not share it with male colleagues. The Nobel committee said she had “advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes,” particularly showing how the modern earnings gap — women earn less on average and are less likely to reach senior roles — is largely driven by having children. By happy coincidence, the day her prize was announced, she had a study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled “Why Women Won.”

Airbnb ban leads to NYC rental chaos

The de facto Airbnb ban in New York City led to a boom in illegal lettings. Just 2% of the 22,000 short-term New York rentals listed on the site are now registered with the city since the new law came into force in September. A “black market” has emerged, according to one campaign group, with sites like Craigslist and Facebook filling up with unregulated listings. Some apartments are shown as legal long-term lettings on Airbnb but advertised as short-term on alternative sites, WIRED reported. Supporters of the ban say it will free up apartments for New Yorkers struggling with a housing shortage, but small-time landlords say they are being unfairly targeted and want to change the law.

• North Korea marks the 78th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
• The Japanese foreign minister visits her counterpart in Hanoi.
• The second season of Last One Standing, a reality TV show from Japan, is released on Netflix.

Years since cricket will have last been played at the Olympics by 2028, when the sport is set to return at the Los Angeles games. A lone cricket match between England and France was played at the 1900 Paris Olympics, but officials said cricket — along with squash, lacrosse, flag football, and baseball/softball — will be added to the Olympics schedule for the Los Angeles event. It is likely to be retained for the 2032 Olympics, which will be held in Brisbane, in the cricketing powerhouse of Australia, while officials in cricket-obsessed India are planning to bid for the 2036 games.

A new exhibition at a children’s museum will explore how Japanese stories have helped shape art, design, and technology. Japan: Myths to Manga, opening this weekend at London’s Young V&A, shows the ways in which artists have drawn inspiration from the sky, sea, forest, and cities to create “shapeshifting creatures and superheroes” from manga and anime to video games. “Japan’s striking landscape and wealth of myths have sparked imaginative and innovative responses from artists and designers for centuries and we can’t wait for it to inspire our young visitors and their grown-ups too,” said the show’s curator.

• Israel’s mounting war on Hamas poses risks for the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine.
• A new book examines the role of the CIA in the overthrow of Congo’s first prime minister and how that led to the last 60 years of instability.
• Trump’s team is quietly preparing to go on offense against RFK Jr. as internal campaign polling suggests an expected third party bid could hurt Trump more than Biden.