👋 Haia!*
Welcome to Friday, where the U.S. approves a plan to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, student clashes rock Athens, and Formula One icon Lewis Hamilton makes a surprise switch to Ferrari. Meanwhile, the recent Israeli raid in a West Bank hospital has us look back at the history of the Mossad intelligence service’s decades-long history of covert assassinations.
[*Welsh]
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Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport devotes its front page to the shock move from seven-time world Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari for the 2025 season. The 39-year-old British driver had signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes, the team for which he was competing since 2013, but chose to activate a release option in his contract to join the Scuderia, alongside Monegasque Charles Leclerc. One of the most successful drivers in F1 history, Hamilton hasn’t won a race since December 2021 amid dominance by the Red Bull team.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• U.S. approves plan to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq: The U.S. has approved plans for a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq. The strikes will take place over a number of days, according to officials, and weather conditions will likely dictate when they are launched. This comes after a drone attack killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, close to the Syrian border, on Sunday.
• Israel turns focus of war on Gaza south as Hamas weighs ceasefire proposal: Israel is preparing to move its war on Gaza close to the Egyptian border after claiming to have dismantled Hamas in Khan Younis. As diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire accelerate, U.S. President Joe Biden has issued an executive order that includes financial sanctions and visa bans against Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians. Follow Worldcrunch’s international coverage of the Middle East situation here.
• Gas blast in Kenyan capital kills three: A major gas blast in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has killed at least three people and injured nearly 300. A lorry carrying gas exploded in Embakasi district “igniting a huge ball of fire,” a government spokesperson said. Housing, businesses and cars were damaged, with video showing a huge blaze raging close to blocks of flats.
• Missing China billionaire banker resigns from all roles: Chinese billionaire banker Bao Fan, who has been missing for almost a year, has resigned from all roles at his firm, China Renaissance Holdings. He stepped down “for health reasons and to spend more time on his family affairs,” the bank said in a statement. Bao's unexplained disappearance in February last year shocked China's business and investing community.
• Malaysia halves ex-Prime Minister’s jail term in corruption scandal: Malaysia has cut in half the sentence of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was convicted and sent to jail for 12 years for corruption in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal. Najib will now be released in 2028, and fines imposed were reduced to 50 million ringgit ($10.6 million) from 210 million ringgit ($44.5 million).
• Ex-CIA software engineer sentenced to 40 years: A former CIA software engineer has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for leaking classified information and possessing child sexual abuse material. Joshua Schulte, 35, was found guilty in 2022 of four counts each of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents after handing over classified materials to whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks.
• Groundhog day is actually a European tradition: Groundhog Day, the U.S. tradition where the end of winter is predicted by a groundhog, was made world famous by the Bill Murray film of the same name. But actually the tradition originates from Europe. According to the Germans, Candlemas Day is the day on which the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks' nap. Others say that the Dutch brought over the custom of weather-intuitive animals and used hedgehogs and badgers to predict the seasons.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$1.52 trillion
U.S. chipmaker Nvidia saw a record-breaking surge in market value last January, expanding by an unprecedented $296.52 billion to about $1.52 trillion — the largest monthly increase ever. The company is benefiting from heightened optimism around Artificial Intelligence, after it announced expanded AI offerings, as well as from positive analyst projections. For more on the topic, we offer this recent article from Honk Kong-based daily The Initium: Why The U.S. Trade Blockade Can't Stop China's Sprint For All-Powerful AI, translated from Chinese by Worldcrunch.
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📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Inside Israel's West Bank hospital raid — a textbook Mossad assassination
Israeli forces assassinated three Palestinian militants in a West Bank hospital. The operation, one of the boldest since Oct. 7, is part of Israel's long history of covert assassinations in decades of Arab-Israeli conflict.
🏥 It was a 15-minute covert operation that reminded intelligence experts that Israel is a global master in the field. Disguised as Arab medics and hijab-covered women, Israeli special forces sneaked into a hospital in the occupied West Bank and killed three Palestinian militants, including one considered a notable Hamas operative. Just as notable as the speedy execution of the raid was the ability of the Israeli spy agency Mossad to track the three militants while all gathered in one hospital room.
🇮🇱 Though carrying out a hit inside a hospital raised concerns about potential violation of international humanitarian law, the raid in the conflict-ridden city of Jenin was one of the boldest of the kind of manhunt operations that date back through virtually the entire history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Some Mossad-led operations failed and sparked diplomatic crises. However, the record of successful operations in the most difficult of circumstances have won the decades-old nation the admiration of the world intelligence community.
💥 The raid brought to mind several Israeli covert assassinations of Palestinian activists. At 1 a.m. April 10, 1973, Israeli naval units covertly came ashore across a beach in the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The hit squad of more than three dozen raiders were disguised in civilian clothing to kill three leaders with the Palestinian Liberation Organization allegedly involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. The attack, known in the Arab world as “Verdun Operation,” was part of the “Operation Spring of Youth,” which Israel launched to kill those involved in the Munich attack on Israeli athletes.
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📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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📣 VERBATIM
“There may be days to regret.”
— International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva asked European governments to resist calls for greater financial support from protesting farmers in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Greece, saying they would come to regret it. During a press briefing at the IMF’s office in Washington, Georgieva acknowledged that “on the human level” farmers “face more hardship” and have a difficult job, but warned against compromising the economic strength of nations.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
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• Why Biden May Be Just As Bad For U.S.-Mexico Trade As Trump — AMERICA ECONOMIA
• Algorethics Meets Theology: Father Paolo Benanti's Path For An AI We Can Live With — LA STAMPA
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Anne-Sophie Goninet
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