How to take Hamas' latest hostage threat
Subscribe here | Email Eric
Hamas militants in Gaza are now using not just the fact that they are holding hostages but the well-being of those in custody as leverage against Israel. But that may be a sign of how weak Hamas' hand has gotten.
Two years of war have decimated the group's leadership. It lacks the firepower to strike Israeli cities or seriously repel Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Now Hamas is negotiating to just preserve its survival as a powerbroker in the territory — and trying a lot of approaches.
The militant group sees itself as having 'a weak hand, but lots of cards,' says JON ALTERMAN, who leads the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. That includes the hostages as well as the increased international concern over the humanitarian crisis in the territory and its ability to influence the future governance of the Gaza Strip.
This morning, Hamas said that it would allow aid to reach the 20-some hostages it still has in captivity if Israel halts airstrikes in the territory. The offer follows the release over the weekend of two undated videos that show hostages EVYATAR DAVID and ROM BRASLAVSKI in grim condition. In the video released by Hamas, an emaciated David tells the camera he's barely gotten food or drinking water and is depicted digging what he describes as his own grave.
'It's sadistic, it's ghoulish, but it is extremely instrumental,' said longtime Middle East peace negotiator AARON DAVID MILLER. He argued that Hamas leadership recognizes the political pressures Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU faces as Israelis sour on the war and call for a deal that secures the release of hostages.
The U.S. and Israel have vowed that Hamas will face severe consequences if any harm befalls the remaining living hostages. Yet Israel and the United States may also be revising their negotiating strategy. The New York Times reported late Sunday that U.S. and Israeli negotiators are preparing an 'all-or-nothing' deal to end the war in exchange for Hamas releasing the hostages and disarming.
Hamas officials the Times spoke to didn't outright reject the hypothetical deal, but disarmament has been a nonstarter in past efforts to end the conflict. Alterman warned the militant group ultimately 'may be more comfortable with nothing' if it calculates that continuing the war advances its main goal to live to fight another day against Israel.
Former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East DANA STROUL added that Israel may also not ultimately want such a deal in the long term anyway.
'It commits Israel to end the war for good and demands that Hamas disarm and end its governance stranglehold on Gaza,' said Stroul, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank in Washington. 'These end states are tantamount to failure for both sets of leaders.'
The Inbox
RUSSIAN LOVE LOST: Russia isn't happy about President DONALD TRUMP's decision to deploy nuclear submarines close to Russia, but is choosing its words carefully.
On Friday, the U.S. decided to deploy two submarines in response to threats from senior Russian official DMITRY MEDVEDEV that Moscow could use its nuclear arsenal against the United States.
Kremlin spokesperson DMITRY PESKOV told reporters today that 'we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way.' But he added that 'of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric.'
The ironic comments — after all, Russia has regularly threatened to nuke Ukraine throughout the course of its conflict with its neighbor — indicate a possible reticence from Moscow to further inflame tensions with the United States. Last week, Trump threatened tariffs against India for purchasing oil from Russia, and the president has pondered imposing secondary tariffs on countries that trade with Russia as soon as this week.
Those tensions are all cascading as special envoy STEVE WITKOFF heads to Moscow later this week. The special envoy will likely try to make some headway in securing a deal to end Russia's three-year invasion of Ukraine, but may face some challenges in the face of Russia's continued strikes against Ukrainian cities.
SPIES DOWN UNDER: A Chinese national has been charged in Australia with covertly collecting information about a Buddhist association in the country's capital of Canberra.
The woman, who is an Australian permanent resident, is the third person to be charged under foreign interference laws enacted in 2018, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation announced.
She is accused of covertly gathering information on a branch of Guan Yin Citta, a Buddhist association, in Canberra at the direction of the Public Security Bureau of China. Beijing has in the past looked to surveil religious minority groups around the world with ties to China to quell potential internal threats to the regime's stability.
FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — A TRUMP VOTER PULSE CHECK: The conservative Vandenberg Coalition think tank released its August poll checking in on Trump voters' foreign policy views. NatSec Daily got a first look at the crosstabs, and they aren't encouraging for the arm of MAGA that has been pushing Trump to pull back from foreign wars.
Per the poll, a majority of Trump voters said they see Russian leader VLADIMIR PUTIN as the main impediment to securing a ceasefire in Ukraine; only 18 percent of respondents blamed Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY. And 76 percent of Trump voters want tougher sanctions on Russia.
As for Israel, 83 percent of respondents said that they believe Israel has a right to defend itself and that the U.S. should support Israel's efforts to that end. That would contradict the complaints of some MAGA influencers that the Trump administration is embracing Israel at the peril of alienating the base.
The poll, conducted July 24-28 by research firm Tunnl, surveyed 1,225 people who voted for Trump in 2024. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
IT'S MONDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at ebazail@politico.com, and follow Eric on X @ebazaileimil.
While you're at it, follow the rest of POLITICO's global security team on social media at: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @nahaltoosi.bsky.social, @PhelimKine, @felschwartz, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130 and @delizanickel
Keystrokes
BLACK HAT'S SMALLER ADMIN CROWD: The cyber world is descending on the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas this week to talk about all things digital security. But the Trump administration isn't fielding as big a presence at the conference as it has in the past.
Only two Trump administration cybersecurity officials are currently slated to appear at the confab in Sin City. MADHU GOTTUMUKKALA, acting director at CISA, will give a keynote speech about the agency's work to combat threats to critical infrastructure Thursday. And BAILEY BICKLEY, chief of Defense Industrial Base Defense at the NSA's Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, is slated to give a presentation Wednesday on the agency's efforts to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base's cybersecurity.
Black Hat will be the second consecutive major cyber confab with a scant Trump administration presence. The Trump administration didn't send many officials to the RSA Conference in April in San Francisco — though Homeland Security Secretary KRISTI NOEM did give a much-anticipated keynote at the conference.
And the small showing is a sign that the Defense Department's eleventh-hour withdrawal from the Aspen Security Forum may not be limited to the Pentagon. It may indicate that other agencies in the second Trump administration aren't prioritizing the conference circuit in their efforts to build relationships with industry and talk to thought leaders outside of government who don't share their views.
Just so you know, POLITICO Pro subscribers had this reporting first in today's Morning Cybersecurity newsletter. Want to become a Pro subscriber yourself? Click here for more information.
The Complex
BOEING DEFENSE WORKERS STRIKE: Around 3,200 workers at Boeing's defense facilities in the St. Louis area went on strike today after union members overwhelmingly rejected a contract that aerospace giant says would raise wages by 40 percent on average over four years.
The workers — who are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 — build several key military aircraft, including the F-15EX, T-7A trainer, F/A-18 Super Hornet and MQ-25 refueling drone.
It's the second strike at Boeing facilities in less than a year. A nearly two-month strike of more than 30,000 at the company's West Coast facilities last year paused production of commercial and some military aircraft.
Boeing, in a statement Sunday following the rejection of its offer, said it was 'disappointed' and argued its offer resolved the union's top issue — alternative work schedules. 'We are prepared for a strike and have fully implemented our contingency plan to ensure our non-striking workforce can continue supporting our customers,' its statement said.
The union wrote on X shortly after the strike began: '3,200 highly-skilled IAM Union members at Boeing went on strike at midnight because enough is enough. This is about respect and dignity, not empty promises.'
SPACE MOVES: NASA is turbocharging plans to replace the International Space Station and build a lunar nuclear reactor to compete with China in space.
As our own Sam Skove reports (for POLITICO Pro subscribers), the agency is looking at two directives. One would aim to replace the aging, leaky International Space Station with commercially run alternatives and change how the agency awards contracts. The nuclear reactor order, meanwhile, directs the agency to start work on a means to power a lunar station.
The goal is simple. 'It is about winning the second space race,' said a NASA senior official.
On the Hill
JOHNSON IN ISRAEL: House Speaker MIKE JOHNSON is in Israel leading a delegation of Republican lawmakers. The high-level GOP visit comes amid growing international frustration with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and follows a failed Senate vote on offensive weapons sales to Israel that still saw most Democrats vote to block arms transfers.
The speaker and fellow lawmakers — a group that includes Reps. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), CLAUDIA TENNEY (R-N.Y.), MICHAEL CLOUD (R-Texas) and NATHANIEL MORAN (R-Texas) — met Sunday with Israeli Defense Minister ISRAEL KATZ and Foreign Affairs Minister GIDEON SA'AR.
Axios reports that Johnson also visited an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank and is expected to travel to Gaza and visit aid sites run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, along with meetings with Israel Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and President ISAAC HERZOG.
A previously planned visit by Johnson in June was postponed during the military conflict between Israel and Iran. At the time, Johnson was supposed to address the Knesset.
Transitions
NSA LAWYERS HEADING FOR THE DOORS: Three top National Security Agency lawyers who help oversee the agency's most sensitive surveillance activities retired in recent months, three people familiar with the moves told our own John Sakellariadis.
Among the three are the second- and third-highest ranking lawyers in the NSA's office of legal counsel, ARIANE CERLENKO and PAUL MORRIS, and another senior lawyer in the office whose role was classified, said the three people. NatSec Daily granted all of them anonymity due to the sensitivity of intelligence community personnel matters.
The departures of the three career civil servants predated the removal last Friday of the NSA's top lawyer, General Counsel APRIL DOSS, and it is unclear if politics played any role in the decisions. The moves nonetheless represent a significant blow to an office that works to ensure the agency's surveillance activities do not violate the constitution or federal law.
The NSA declined to comment.
— The Center for Strategic and International Studies is launching a new Cyber Taskforce to be led by JOSH STIEFEL, a former professional staff member with the House Armed Services Committee, and retired Lt. Gen. ED CARDON, former commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command.
— GREG HELLMAN is now senior director for government affairs and communications at Leidos. He was previously communications director for Leidos' national security sector and worked at POLITICO.
— SEAN CAIRNCROSS was confirmed to be White House national cyber director. He is a former RNC official and was chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation during Trump's first term.
— ADAM TELLE was confirmed by the Senate to be assistant secretary of the Army.
— The Senate confirmed a spate of ambassador nominees before adjourning over the weekend, including Trump's picks to be U.S. ambassadors to Portugal, Uruguay, the Vatican and the European Union.
What to Read
— Nancy A. Youssef, The Atlantic: Pete Hegseth's Pentagon Is Becoming a Bubble
— Gioconda Belli, The New York Times: I Was Banished by My Country's Dictator. What Happened to Me Is a Warning.
— Jordan McGillis, National Review: Make SoCal Fly Again
— Tyler Jost and Daniel C. Mattingly, Foreign Affairs: After Xi
Tomorrow Today
— Asia Society Policy Institute, 9 a.m.: Low Expectations Getting Lower: EU-China Relations After the EU-China Summit
— Atlantic Council, 3 p.m.: Examining Russia's assault on Ukraine's cultural heritage
— Aspen Institute, 8 p.m.: A book discussion on 'Citizenship, Democracy, and America's Role in the World.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
16 minutes ago
- The Hill
Zelensky warns Trump ‘Putin is bluffing' ahead of Alaska summit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday sent a warning to President Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin is 'bluffing' about being open to peace, ahead of a high-stakes summit between the U.S. and Russian leaders in Alaska set for Friday. Zelensky made his remarks alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in remarks following a video conference call with Trump and other European leaders. They said the call was aimed at setting 'the course for this meeting in the right way.' Trump has floated 'land swaps' between Russia and Ukraine as a path to peace, a possibility that Zelensky has resisted, drawing the U.S. president's ire. 'I stress that any questions concerning our country's territorial integrity cannot be discussed without regard for our people, for the will of our people and the Ukrainian constitution,' Zelensky said Wednesday. Merz said Ukraine is willing to discuss territorial questions, but only if a ceasefire is implemented on the current frontline, throwing cold water on reported Russian demands for Ukrainian withdrawals as a condition to halt the fighting. The two leaders spoke to reporters in Berlin. A translation of their remarks was provided by Sky News. Zelensky said he told Trump to expect Putin to downplay the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy and its military as a way to deter additional penalties. Trump has held off imposing additional sanctions on Russia and blew past a deadline last week to impose sanctions, instead announcing the face-to-face with Putin. 'In reality, the sanctions are very effective, and they're hurting the Russian military economy,' Zelensky said. Merz said that Zelensky and European leaders made 'clear' to Trump that a ceasefire along the current frontlines 'needs to be the starting point' for broader peace talks. Merz said there will be no discussion of legal recognition of Russian-occupied territory, rejecting another major pillar of Moscow's demands. Russia occupies an estimated 20 percent of Ukrainian territory but lays claim to four areas it only partially controls. Putin is reportedly calling for Ukraine to retreat from territory in the Donbas region that is not occupied by Russia. Zelensky said the leaders 'briefly talked about' security guarantees for Ukraine and emphasized that Russia should not be given a veto to block Ukraine from joining NATO, another red line for Moscow. Merz added that Trump 'largely' shares these positions. 'So if in Alaska there's no movement on the Russian side, then the US and the Europeans need to increase the pressure. President Trump knows this position. He shares them largely so I can say we've had a very good, constructive talk,' he said.
Atlantic
17 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Trump Has a New Definition of Human Rights
For nearly half a century, the State Department has reported annually on human-rights conditions in countries around the world. The purpose of this exercise is not to cast aspersions, but to collect and disseminate reliable information. Congress mandated the reports back in 1977, and since then, legislators and diplomats have used them to shape decisions about sanctions, foreign aid, immigration, and political asylum. Because the reports were perceived as relatively impartial, because they tried to reflect well-articulated standards—'internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights'—and because they were composed by professionals reporting from the ground, the annual documents became a gold standard, widely used by people around the world, cited in court cases and political campaigns. Year in and year out, one former official told me, they have been the most downloaded items on the State Department website. Quite a few people will also read the 2024 reports, published yesterday. But they will do so for very different reasons. The original drafts were ready in January, before the Biden administration left office, following the usual practice. In past years, the reports were published in March or April. But this year they were delayed for several months while President Donald Trump's political appointees, including Michael Anton, the MAGA intellectual who is now the State Department's director of policy planning, rewrote the drafts. Some of the changes affect the whole collection of documents, as entire categories of interest were removed. The Obama administration had previously put a strong focus on corruption, on the grounds that kleptocracy and autocracy are deeply linked, and it started collecting information on the persecution of sexual minorities. Over the past few weeks, as the new reports were being prepared, I spoke with former officials who had seen early versions, or who had worked on the reports in the past. As many of them expected, the latest reports do not address systemic discrimination against gay or trans people, and they remove observations about rape and violence against women. But the revisions also go much further than expected, dropping references to corruption, restrictions on free and fair elections, rights to a fair trial, and the harassment of human-rights organizations. Threats to freedom of assembly are no longer considered sufficiently important to mention. In a number of instances, criticism of Israel is classified, crudely, as 'antisemitism.' Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's use of the word genocide to describe the war in Gaza, for example, is listed as an act of 'antisemitism and antisemitic incitement,' even though that term, however disputable or controversial, has also been used by Israelis and in any case violates no international human-rights norms at all. Jonathan Chait: The pro-Israel right is shifting the definition of anti-Semitism Along with the category changes, entries for 20 countries were also flagged for special consideration. These were sent for review to Samuel Samson, a political appointee in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Dozens of professionals have been fired or removed from that office, widely known as DRL; Samson—who is, according to NPR, a recent college graduate and an alumnus of a program designed to put conservative activists into government jobs—remains. The end result of his and others' efforts are reports that contain harsh and surprising assessments of democratic U.S. allies, including the U.K., Romania, Germany, and Brazil, and softer depictions of some dictatorships and other countries favored by Trump or his entourage. El Salvador and Israel, I was told, required so much rewriting that these two entries help explain the long delay in the reports' publication. Reading the results, you can see why. The new Israel report is simply far shorter than the original draft, with no significant discussion of the humanitarian crisis or high death toll in Gaza. El Salvador is a blatant whitewash. 'There were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,' the latest report claims. By contrast, the previous report spoke of 'significant human rights issues' and specifically mentioned harsh, even lethal prison conditions. An Amnesty International report also covering 2024 speaks of 'arbitrary detentions and human rights violations' in El Salvador, as well as 'serious failings in the judicial system.' In overcrowded prisons, 'detention conditions were inhumane, with reports of torture and other ill-treatment.'Here, the State Department's motivation is not hard to guess. Because the Trump administration is sending prisoners to El Salvador, the department massaged the report to avoid the glaring truth: The U.S. is endangering people by sending them to Salvadorean prisons. The report on Germany, a highly functional democracy, is equally strange. The State report speaks of 'significant human rights issues,' including 'restrictions on freedom of expression.' One specific example: German law 'required internet companies, including U.S. internet platforms, to take down hate speech within 24 hours or face stiff fines.' Germans, in other words, are being called human-rights abusers because they continue to outlaw Nazi propaganda, as they have done since 1945. The Trump administration's motives are clear here too. The goal is to please U.S. tech companies, notably X, that find it convenient or profitable to spread Nazi propaganda, and perhaps to help the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party publicly praised and courted by J. D. Vance. But the details of the reports are less important than the overall impact. Several former officials pointed out that the U.S. has not only abandoned internationally accepted definitions of what is meant by rights, but also any objectivity or consistency. Original reporting from embassies has been removed, replaced with language clearly—and in a few cases ludicrously—manipulated by political appointees. This is very bad for human-rights defenders in places like Cuba or China, where activists in the past used U.S. language and reporting to make arguments to their own governments or to international institutions. From the May 2025 issue: America's future is Hungary None of them can now claim that the State Department Human Rights Report has any factual standing, or indeed that any U.S.-government document on human rights is an objective measure of anything. 'This essentially says the United States is no longer your ally, that the United States doesn't see clearly beyond the rhetoric of your regime,' one former official who still has relationships with DRL told me. 'And I think that's really, really tragic.' In truth, some of the changes seem designed not so much to shape U.S. foreign policy as to shape U.S. domestic policy. Christopher Le Mon, a former DRL official, told me he thinks that 'the domestic political agenda is really the organizing principle here.' He might be right. The administration is saying, after all, that it no longer finds electoral cheating or manipulation to be a problem; it doesn't think the harassment of civic groups is a bad thing; it doesn't object to discrimination against women or sexual minorities; and it will never demand transparency or accountability from the providers of internet algorithms, no matter what they choose to amplify or promote. The reports' authors, who include some of the most ideological people in the administration, are also telling Americans what they think of the standards that both Republicans and Democrats have held up for years. Now, says Le Mon, 'they're making it that much easier to just erase human rights from what has been a long-standing, relatively bipartisan history in U.S. foreign policy.' Ironically, this shift in American language puts the U.S. directly in alliance with China, whose diplomats have been campaigning for years to change the diplomatic discourse about human rights. Christopher Walker, a co-author of an influential paper on Chinese influence campaigns, which he calls 'sharp power,' told me that the Chinese Communist Party has been seeking to 'neuter or muddy the waters' around international discussions of fundamental human rights. 'From Beijing's point of view, the more such language is emasculated, the greater the CCP's competitive advantage,' he said. Russians, North Koreans, Iranians, Cubans, and others will also find this shift an immense relief. We knew this was coming. In a speech in Riyadh earlier this year, Trump flagged America's new indifference to human rights, promising the Saudis and other Middle Eastern monarchs that America would stop 'giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.' That made it sound like the administration would be somehow neutral. But as Walker pointed out, in a world of intense ideological competition, there is no such thing as neutrality. Debates about the definition of human rights will continue. The U.S. will simply play a different role in them. Tom Malinowski, a former congressman who once ran the DRL bureau, puts it best. The reports, he told me, show that the 'U.S. still has a values-based foreign policy, but with twisted values.' Americans are giving plenty of lectures to other people on how to live, but to different people and with a different result.
UPI
17 minutes ago
- UPI
Britain, Germany, France threat Iran sanctions over nuclear talks
Britain, Germany and France signalled in a letter to the United Nations that they were prepared to implement so-called 'snapback' sanctions against Iran if it failed to return to nuclear talks. File Photo by Vahid Reza Alaie/Fars News Agency | License Photo Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Britain, Germany and France told U.N. officials that snapback sanctions are on the table if Iran does not sit down to negotiate over its nuclear weaponry. The letter delivered to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, signed by the three foreign ministers, indicated the E3 was prepared to enforce severe sanctions if Iran did not agree to limit it's nuclear program and gave Iranian officials until the end of the month. "We have made it clear that if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic solution before the end of August 2025, or does not seize the opportunity of an extension, E3 are prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism," read a letter in part signed by Britain's David Lammy, Jean-Noel Barrot of France and Germany's Johann Wadephul. The sixth round of American-Iranian negotiations were abandoned in June after a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on known parts of Iran's nuclear facilities. The 12-day conflict escalated regional tension amid Israel's war in Gaza and spiked oil prices. The "snapback" guardrail built into Iran's 2015 nuclear deal, officially titled the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action," was set to trigger if an instance arose in which Iran committed an act of "significant non-performance." Signed by Tehran with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and United States it removed sanctions and curbed Iran's nuclear program. Initially the United States left the JCPOA in 2018 during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term in the White House. Iran, however, has periodically violated parts of the agreement for years and the snapback mechanism threatened more than once by Europe and the E3 as far back as 2019 nearly four years after the deal was inked. In addition to limiting Iranian nuclear activities, it thawed U.S. sanctions against Tehran that hampered its economy for years. On Wednesday, Germany's Wadephul said Iran "must never acquire a nuclear weapon" and reiterated that the E3 had "every right" to resort to snapback. "Iran has the opportunity to return to diplomacy and resume full cooperation with the IAEA," he wrote in an X post a little before 11 a.m. local time. "The ball is now in Iran's court," Germany added.
