The President's Daily Brief - July 2nd, 2024: Hamas's Resurgence, Israel's Hospital Release, & Nigerian Bombings

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: As Israel’s focus shifts north toward Lebanon, there are growing signs that Hamas is regrouping in Gaza, with militants launching their largest rocket barrage into Israel in months. We’ll have that story in today’s spotlight. A major scandal is growing after the Israeli government released a notorious hospital director who allowed Hamas to use Gaza City facilities as a center of operations during the October 7th attacks. A crisis was averted in Kyiv after Ukrainian officials detained a group of people suspected of planning a coup against Zelensky’s government. And in today’s Back of the Brief, terror strikes Africa, where at least 30 people are dead and more than 100 injured after multiple suicide bombings were carried out at various locations in Nigeria. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] 🏅 Patriot Gold: https://www.patriotgoldgroup.com Say Mike Baker sent you Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the President's Daily Briefs. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. As Israel's focus, shift. north toward Lebanon, there are growing signs that Hamas is regrouping in Gaza, with militants launching their largest rocket barrage into Israel in months. We'll have that story in today's spotlight. Later, a major scandal is growing after the Israeli government released a notorious

hospital director who allowed Hamas to use Gaza City facilities as a center of operations during the 7 October attacks. Plus, a crisis was averted in Kiev after Ukrainian officials detained a group suspected of planning a coup against President Zelensky's government. And in today's back of the brief, the latest terror strike is in Africa where at least 30 people are dead and more than 100 injured after multiple suicide bombings were carried out at various locations in Nigeria over the weekend. But first, today's PDB spotlight. We'll start today with the latest from the Middle East, where militants in Gaza are regrouping and launching renewed rocket attacks into Israel, fueling concerns, of course, that the Israeli objective of fully eliminating Hamas, well, may not be possible. The latest attack came courtesy

of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a key ally of Hamas in Gaza. The group fired almost two dozen rockets into southern Israel on Monday, in one of the largest rocket barrages to come out of the enclave in months, and that's according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. While most of the missiles were intercepted and the attack caused no damage, it underscored that even after nine months of Israeli operations in the area, Khamas and other militant groups in Gaza still possess operational capabilities and military infrastructure. Elsewhere in Gaza on Monday, Israeli forces is squared off against Hamas fighters in a Gaza city neighborhood previously cleared of militants by the IDF back in April.

IDF troops reportedly found weapons storage and manufacturing facilities in the neighborhood and managed to destroy a one-kilometer long tunnel being used by the militants. The IDF is increasingly running into this problem as reconstituted Hamas battalions continue to try to retake areas of northern Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who promised that operations in Gaza will not end until Israel achieves total victory over Hamas, appeared to acknowledge these challenges and remarks on Monday, even as he painted a somewhat rosy picture of the progress that Israel has made against the terror outfit. Nanjahu said, quote, We are nearing the end of the stage of the destruction of Hamas's terror army, and will have to target its remnants going forward, end quote.

Netanyahu has recently said that Israel would be winding down operations in Gaza to focus on the Hezbollah threat to the north, but fighting the remnants of Hamas, as the Prime Minister put it, may leave Israel mired in conflict inside Gaza, well, for the long term. As the report from the Wall Street Journal notes, IDF troops have been forced to redeployed to a number of areas throughout Gaza to prevent Hamas from regaining a foothole, Notably, these include the area around Jabaliyah in the north of the enclave, as well as Al-Sheifa, which houses the largest hospital in Gaza that Hamas had previously used as a weapon store and a command and control center. Use Tiltraman, a regional expert with the International Crisis Group, told the journal, quote, It's a quagmire. It's going to be a low-intensity conflict for a long time.

You can use military operations to push Hamas into various pockets of Gaza, but eventually they filter back through the tunnel system or overland. They are gaining new recruits every day, young people who have lost their families, they're going to sign up, end quote. As mentioned, much of the problem lies in Hamas' strategy of irregular warfare, which leverages tunnel networks and guerrilla tactics to evade the Israeli military. Intelligence indicates the leader of Hamas's ground forces is still hiding within these tunnel networks. Now the tunnel system also obscures Fomassas' true numbers, though if U.S. intelligence is anything to go by, they still have ample membership. A U.S. intelligence assessment from May estimated that only 30 to 35 percent of

Hamas's fighters have been killed since the 7 October attacks, and about 65 percent of its tunnels, they estimate, are still intact. Now, it should be noted that any assessment or statistics should be considered approximations at best, given the limited intelligence available. For some context, prior to the 7 October attacks, Hamas' military brigades were estimated to have somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 fighters. If U.S. assessments are somewhat accurate, that would mean close to 20,000 Hamas terrorists still remain active in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, the U.S. intelligence has also estimated that the terror group has been able to recruit thousands of new fighters over the past several months, leveraging the war to radicalize new members.

A separate assessment by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence released back in February predicted that Israel would likely face, quote, lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come. Well, all right, that's not exactly going out on a limb with that prediction. All right, coming up after the break, Israeli government officials. are trading accusations today, after the release of a Palestinian hospital director implicated in the 7 October attacks. And, turning to Ukraine, we'll have details on an alleged coup attempt thwarted in Kiev. I'll have those stories when we come back. This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new elixir collection, featuring three perfume intense scents,

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You value. The can be a hotels got it all. A rooftop bar. ball cocktails up here feel just right is cambria homebe bring a date your teen or even your mom book direct at choiceotails dot com see you on the roof welcome back to the bdb staying with israel for the moment jerusalem's leadership was up in arms on monday following the controversial release of the former director of the Al-Shefa Hospital in Gaza. Mohamed Abou Salmiah, who oversaw operations at the hospital before being detained by IDF forces in November, was released on Monday back into Gaza, along with 54 other Palestinian detainees,

apparently, in order to free up space in their overcrowded detention centers, that's according to a report from Fox News. The decision, however, drew swift backlash from leaders across Israel's political spectrum on Monday, who said he should have remained behind bars, given his ties to Hamas. In the hours after his release, various ministers and senior security officials traded blame over who was responsible for the controversial move, and now Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered an investigation into the ordeal. As a reminder, IDF forces raided the Al-Shefa hospital back in November, alleging that the facility had long been used as a weapon store and command and control center by Hamas militants. At the time, IDF forces found weapons being stored inside various rooms within the facility,

along with a tunnel beneath it. Israel suspects Abu Samhiyah, as director of the hospital, had freely allowed Hamas to use a facility for their operations, and that, of course, would be standard operating methodology for Hamas, which for years has embedded their operations. within civilian infrastructure, essentially using the Palestinian civilians as human shields. On Monday, Netanyahu's office released a statement calling the release a, quote, severe mistake and an ethical failure. He added, quote,

this man under whose responsibility our hostages were held and murdered belongs in prison. As I mentioned, the breakdown in the decision-making hierarchy caused long-simmering internal discord within Israel's government to explode into public view. National security minister Idemar Ben-Gvur, a member of Israel's far right, called for the resignation of Shinbet director Ronan Barr over the move, while also calling out Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, suggesting he was making decisions that contradicted the positions of the cabinet. Officials with Shinbet shifted the blame back toward Ben-Givir and other ministers,

saying that they had been warning of overcrowding in Israeli prisons for nearly a year and that Bangor and others had ignored them. Meanwhile, National Unity Chairman Betty Gantz, who resigned from Netanyahu's war cabinet last month before it was dissolved, said the failure laid bare of the shortcomings of the current government and called for firings as well as for Netanyahu to make major structural changes. Gantz said, quote, a government that frees those who sheltered the murderers of October 7th

and helped to hide our hostages made a moral and ethical operational error and thus are not fit to lead our existential war, and they need to go home. He called on Netanyahu to fire the official responsible, eliminate some government ministries to make room in the budgets for prisons, and set in the agreed-upon election date to get a new government to power. Netanyahu, for his part, said that while Israel's high court was at least partially to blame, senior political leaders and the heads of the security agencies were not involved in the decision. Okay, turning to Kiev, where Ukraine's domestic security service, the SBU, is claiming that they thwarted a Russian-back coup attempt, aimed at toppling President Zelensky's government and installing a pro-Kremlin puppet regime.

Now, the SPU hasn't offered too many details about this plot, but apparently the conspirators planned on destabilizing Ukraine in several stages. The coup reportedly was set to begin with instigating a riot stemming from a peaceful gathering in Kiev, with most participants unaware of the larger scheme. From there, the organizers intended to leverage this unrest, spreading news through domestic and foreign media to undermine Ukraine's social political stability. The final stage involved seizing Ukrainian parliament with the radicalized crowd, replacing Ukraine's military and civilian leadership on its Constitution Day, which would have been June 30th.

Photos released by the SBU showed Balaklav-a-clad officers arresting the alleged plotters on Sunday. The arrested individuals were known pro-Russia agitators who had stocked-out weapons, ammunition, laptops, and hand-drawn

coup instructions. Now, here's a pro-tip. When plotting a coup, well, you should avoid writing all your coup plans down on paper. Andre Kostin, the Ukraine's chief prosecutor, reports that four men, members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is said to have had links to Moscow since since 2015, while they were charged with treason. The prosecutor's office stated that the organizer

was, quote, the head of a public union who had already had experience of participating in unsuccessful, provocative events, end quote. The SBU also released an alleged voice recording of a conversation between two coup leaders. In the recording, one of the coup leaders claims to have the support of not hundreds, but thousands of people. If the alleged plotters are found guilt, they could be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. Ukraine's government has faced numerous threats and assassination attempts against President Zelensky, many of which we've covered here on the PDB. This incident underscores the Kremlin's relentless efforts to destabilize Ukraine two years into Putin's invasion.

Now Zelensky has faced more than 10 assassination attempts since Russia's invasion, according to the SBU. This latest foiled plot is just another in a series of escalating threats, including a November 2021 coup attempt thwarted by Ukrainian security services and a January 2022 British government warning about Moscow's plans to install a pro-Russian leader. All right, next up, at least 30 people are dead and more than 100 injured after multiple suicide bombings were carried out across Nigeria. We'll have the details in today's back of the brief. I'll be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just

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If you're a QuickBooks customer looking to grow your business without the growing pains, you need the Intuit ERP. Upgrade to Intuit Enterprise Suite in a matter of hours. It's the AI Native ERP from the makers of QuickBooks. Learn more at Intuit.com slash ERP. In today's back of the brief, terror in Africa as Nigeria was the target of a coordinated attack, leaving at least 30 dead and over 100 injured for multiple suicide bombings. The first attack occurred on Saturday and was carried out by a woman who infiltrained a wedding reception in Guoza, Borno State. The Emir of Guoza detailed the incident, explaining that the woman had two children with her and detonated her improvised explosive devices or IEDs causing multiple fatalities.

The emir stated, quote, a few minutes after another suicide bomber snuck into a burial ceremony nearby and detonated IEDs. and as I'm talking to you now, the third explosion just occurred a few minutes ago with more casualties, end quote. In response, Nigerian president, Bola Tenubu, condemned the attacks, describing them as desperate acts of terror. He said that these incidents underscore the success of the country has been having, incurbing terrorist's capabilities and the ongoing pressure on these groups. Tanubu, assured citizens that his administration is taking all necessary measures to ensure their safety and he vowed to bring those responsible to justice. As of now, no group has claimed responsibility for the bombings,

but the attacks do bear the hallmarks of Boko Haran and also the Islamic State West Africa province or Iswal due to their activity in the area. The attack over the weekend is a stark reminder of the ongoing jihadist conflict in Nigeria, which has been raging since 2009. Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa province are active around World.

and have committed numerous terrorist acts. Now, the conflict has resulted in over 40,000 deaths and displaced more than 2 million people. While suicide bombings in towns have become less common, since militants were driven back from their peak territorial control in 2014, insurgents continue to target civilians, religious institutions, and government facilities. And that, my friends, is the president's daily brief for Tuesday to July.

Remember, to listen to the show ad-free, well, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com. It couldn't be separate. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe. Stay cool. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.

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