The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | November 16th, 2023: Al-Shifa Hospital Captured & The Xi-Biden Summit

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:     An update on the situation at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which was captured by Israeli troops in an operation Wednesday morning. We’ll discuss what the IDF found inside and the international response to these developments.    A look at yesterday's meeting between CCP leader Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden at the APEC summit in San Francisco.     Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.     Email: [e-mail].  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a rees. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a reeses. It's Thursday, November 16th. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. We're going to begin this afternoon by returning to our ongoing coverage of the situation at El Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which was captured by Israeli troops in an operation Wednesday morning. During the targeted operation inside the medical complex,

Israel said IDF forces uncovered stockpiles of weapons, including AK-47s, ammunition, and grenades, as well as military uniforms carrying the insignia of Hamas. Israel said they also discovered a military command center set up within the hospital's MRI unit, where they found weapons hidden inside the imaging machines. Now, members of the international press have said that they cannot yet verify the validity of the evidence presented by Israel, which IDF officials said prove the hospital was being used by Hamas.

While there were no reports of fighting inside Al-Shefa during the operation, a senior military official with the IDF did disclose that a brief firefight occurred with four Hamas gunmen stationed outside the hospital. Israel has not yet presented evidence of the suspected underground facilities at Al-Shefa, but stressed that they were still in the process of searching the hospital and assessing the situation within. Observers say that continued international support for Israel's response to the 7 October attacks now largely hinges on what is uncovered within the Al-Shefa medical complex. Really? Because that's what international support hinges on, so apparently murdered babies, beheaded women, 1,200 civilians brutally killed,

hundreds of hostages seized, that wasn't sufficient to garner persistent international support. Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN on Wednesday that they will release more evidence regarding the underground facilities in the coming days. Now, Hamas terrorists and hospital staff, whose relationship with Hamas is rather difficult to quantify, have of course denied these allegations. Frankly, regarding the hospital staff claiming the allegations are wrong, well, they're either compromised because they support Hamas or they're dealing with the reality that they had no choice. Look if Hamas wanted something in Gaza, they got it.

The hospital staff was in no position to tell Hamas leaders what they could and couldn't do. The hospital has become a focal point of the war between Israel and Hamas, attracting international attention due to the suffering of the patients inside and suspicions over Hamas' activities underneath the facility. Israel has also said that they feared hostages taken on 7 October were being held inside. Now, Hamas was clearly using the thousands of displaced civilians and patients trapped inside as human shields, leveraging their plight to paint Israel as inhumane. President Biden denounced those actions in remarks Wednesday evening as, a war crime. Now Israel reportedly brought incubators and baby food to the hospital for the

newborns that have been trapped inside, along with other medical supplies after they captured the facility. Despite the complexity of the situation, Israel is, unsurprisingly, facing intense international criticism over the operation, including from some UN officials. Qatar, who plays host to the leaders of Hamas, was the latest to join in the denunciations on Wednesday, calling Israel real's actions a, quote, war crime. Now, perhaps Cutter's comments would have more credibility if they had bothered to condemn the slaughter committed by Hamas. But when you play host to Hamas leaders, I suppose they're calling them out for the 7 October brutality. Well, that would just make you a rude host. We learned Wednesday that Signals Intelligence gathered in recent

weeks, including intercepted communications of terrorists operating within the hospital, factored into the conclusions reached by Israel and also by U.S. intelligence agencies regarding Hamas's use of the hospital. In his remarks Wednesday evening, President Biden reiterated his confidence in both Israeli and U.S. intelligence that Hamas was operating underground facilities and working through tunnels at al-Shefa, and they were using those to carry out operations. We know that the use of al-Sheifa by Hamas in the past has been well documented. In yesterday's PDB, we reviewed an Amnesty International report from 2014 that cited evidence of Hamas torturing and killing prisoners inside al-Shefa and numerous reports past and present

of Hamas militants firing from inside the hospital. With the capture of al-Shefa completed, Israeli officials have signaled their intent to turn their attention towards southern Gaza in an effort to eliminate Hamas' leadership and recover the estimated 240 hostages still being held by the terrorists. In a signal of impending Israeli action, officials with the UN said Thursday that IDF forces had dropped leaflets into areas along the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip, advising residents to leave. All right, coming up after the break, I'll bring you the key takeaways from yesterday's summit between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. I'll be right back.

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Those 10 blocks, they could be the best part of your day. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Welcome back. I want to return to yesterday's much-anticipated meeting, President Biden's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Earlier today, we talked about the climate agreement that they shook hands on, and we explained the irony of Xi talking about concern for the climate, while his regime is busy building coal plants to the tune of two per week. Now, we're getting more information about some of the other big-ticket items of the two leaders discussed. The top of the list is the big issue of communication, or, well, the lack of thereof between the U.S. and China.

And now, if you recall, China cut off military-to-military communication with the U.S. after Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan visit last year. That's not exactly what you want when you're talking about the two biggest military forces on the globe and the potential for miscommunication or getting sideways with each other on a particular issue or encounter. Think back to the whole balloon ordeal. earlier this year. While that was happening, China wouldn't even take a call from the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. But it seems Biden and Xi made some progress on that front, and the White House announced that military-to-military communications are back.

President Biden said that the two countries have agreed to direct, open, clear communications. Now, that's a very good thing, possibly the most important development out of this summit. Okay, let's switch gears to the issue of Taiwan, which, which is what caused the communication rift in the first place. It's the most sensitive issue between the U.S. and China, but it appears that President Biden, well, he simply reiterated the long-time U.S. stance on the matter, which frankly, nobody outside of diplomatic circles really understands. It's the one-China policy, meaning we recognize China's insistence on there being one China,

of which they believe Taiwan is a part, while the U.S. and allies still believe Taiwan should hold on to its independence. So it's the same old dance of strategic ambiguity that the U.S. and our allies have been doing for decades. Apparently, not much of substance was discussed regarding Taiwan and China's increasingly aggressive behavior towards the island nation. Finally, there was much made by the White House yesterday following the summit about counter-narcotics. President Biden led off his press conference with announcing an agreement with China related to fentanyl and joint counter-narcotics cooperation. As you may know, fentanyl's journey to American streets begins in China with the manufacturing of its precursor chemicals. It then hops over to countries like

Mexico, and finally, it's smuggled right into our backyard by the cartels. The good news touted by the president, well, the White House says we've got a new deal with China. Apparently, China's going to start cracking down on the companies that are cooking up these fentanyl ingredients. Apparently, Xi remarked that China will agree to substantially reduce the production of precursors and pill presses in China. No real specifics discussed, just a promise to work on it. But the reality is, if Xi was sincere, the CCP's Ministry of Public Security could, in relatively short order, shut down every fentanyl-related operation in China. Biden mentioned during his press conference the toll that fentanyl has taken on American lives, particularly young American lives. Given that, you would have to be a lot of

assume that this summit will be followed up with very specific and detailed meetings between the DEA and other enforcement agencies and their Chinese counterparts to share information, work up specific operations, and carry out joint investigations in order to actually make a difference. By the way, while we can only hope that China does follow up in a meaningful way, one thing that the Biden administration could do independently without asking for another country's assistance is to take border security seriously, creating a more secure border and giving our enforcement agencies the resources they need would have a significant impact on the amount of fentanyl hitting American cities and towns. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Thursday, 16 November.

If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th. The powerful vocals of Demi Levato on May 17th and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Casino celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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