WSJ What’s News - Renewed Israeli Strikes Kill Hundreds in Gaza

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

A.M. Edition for Mar. 18. Israel has launched a series of attacks against Hamas targets across Gaza, after a breakdown in talks to release the remaining hostages. Plus, WSJ Ukraine bureau chief James Marson explains how talks between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin today are unlikely to end in a cease-fire agreement. And, after being stuck in space, two astronauts are heading home nine months later than originally planned. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Israel relaunches attacks in Gaza overnight, killing hundreds of people. Plus the Kremlin pours cold water on hopes for a Ukrainian ceasefire ahead of today's call between Presidents Trump and Putin. With Russia not showing any indication that it's ready to change, then this phone call will probably end with some diplomatic niceties and promises for more talks. And two astronauts stuck in space for nine months are finally coming home. It's Tuesday, March 18th. I'm Kate Bulevant for the Wall Street Journal filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

Israel has launched a series of attacks against Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip overnight and into the morning. The strikes have killed at least 300 people, according to the Gaza Health authorities, and follow a breakdown in talks to release the remaining hostages. The journal's Annette Pallad says the strikes are the most extensive since the ceasefire took effect in January. These strikes come at a critical moment for a fragile ceasefire that was reached in January between Israel and Hamas. Negotiators have been trying through mediation rounds in Doha and in Cairo to reach a continuation of the ceasefire, to continue releasing Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and preserve the calm in the Gaza Strip. That hasn't happened so far and issued deadline by Israel-PASSED,

which is what led it to resume the strikes. We know from Israeli officials that there is a plan to up the military pressure up until the level of a full-scale invasion if Hamas does not cooperate. According to an Israeli official, President Trump gave Israel the green light to restart attacks on Hamas after the group failed to give up any of the 59 hostages that remain in Gaza. In a statement shared on Telegram, Hamas blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for endangering the lives of remaining hostages by overturning the ceasefire. We're exclusively reporting that Trump administration officials are roiled in debate over how to

implement the President's pledge to equalise US tariffs with those charged by other nations. Trump's team have recently been weighing whether to simplify the complex task by sorting nations into one of three tariff tiers – low, medium and high rates. The proposal was later ruled out, however, according to an administration official close to the talks, adding that Trump's team is still trying to sort out how to implement an individualised rate for each nation. The debate comes as aides are scrambling to meet the president's deadline of April 2nd to debut a reciprocal tariff plan, along with additional 25% duties on a handful of industries

such as autos, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. President Donald Trump is due to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin today in the hopes he can secure a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia is widely expected to push for territorial and other concessions that would be unpalatable for Ukraine and its European allies. James Marson is our Ukraine bureau chief. James, what do we know about the Russian demands? Well, Vladimir Putin has been careful not to outright reject the idea of a ceasefire, but

instead he set out a series of demands that are in fact little changed since the beginning of the war. Moscow wants Ukraine to be neutral, not a member of NATO, with a weakened army that isn't supplied by the West. It wants no European peacekeepers on Ukrainian soil, which has been one idea of how to make this ceasefire work. And then Russian officials have also been calling for a deal that addresses what Moscow calls the root causes of the conflict. Part of this is that it wants to retain certain provinces in the east and south of Ukraine, which it's claimed as its own territory, and it wants to be able to exert political influence over the rest of the country.

So these demands that you've just outlined, how acceptable are they to Ukraine and Ukraine's allies? Well, these kind of demands are unacceptable, certainly to Ukraine and Ukraine's allies? Well these kind of demands are unacceptable certainly to Ukraine and to European allies who've been saying that a peace deal should only be struck in a way that's acceptable to Ukraine. President Zelensky has said that this series of demands from Russia just looks like a delaying tactic and that Putin doesn't want to irritate President Trump by rejecting the ceasefire proposal but instead wants to set

conditions that are unworkable. Zelensky has said several times in recent days that Ukraine is ready for an immediate ceasefire, just as President Trump has proposed, and that it's Russia that's dragging things out. So what does all of this tell us about the likely outcome of today's call? Well, you can't make a deal to end the fighting without both parties agreeing to it. Ukraine has already agreed to a ceasefire, as proposed by the US. So far, we haven't heard that from President Putin that he's ready to do it. Russia is pushing forward slowly on the battlefield. It's grinding down the Ukrainian army.

It is destroying the Ukrainian electricity grid, which is a key Russian tactic to degrade the ability of Ukraine as a country to resist. So President Putin feels like he's winning. And so for him to agree to a ceasefire, to a peace deal, he would be expecting his conditions to be met. So he is quite prepared to play the long game and to not agree to a ceasefire until he gets what he wants. So one possible outcome is that President Trump comes away with a clear understanding

of those conditions and then tries to take those to the Ukrainians. But Zelensky has said that Ukraine won't accept territorial losses, limits on its army, political influence, because these are in fact the very things that Ukraine has been fighting for three years. So this single phone call certainly will not bring peace because peace will only come when the Russians stop fighting. James, thanks so much for breaking this down for us. My pleasure.

Coming up, two stranded astronauts return to Earth following a nine-month stint in space. That story and more after the break. In market news today, Google parent Alphabet is once again trying to acquire cyber security startup Wiz, this time for around $30 billion. The deal would be Google's largest ever and, according to people familiar with the matter, could come together soon barring any last-minute snags. Alphabet had been close to a roughly $23 billion deal for Whiz last summer, but the talks fizzled in part over concerns from Whiz and investors about the time it would take

for a deal to clear regulatory hurdles. In Hong Kong, BYD's shares hit a record high today after the Chinese electric vehicle company unveiled a new fast charging technology. BYD said the new tech is capable of providing 400km of range in just five minutes of charging time and will be available on the company's new sedan and SUV models which go on sale next month. Meanwhile the so-called Woodstock of AI is underway in Santa Fe this week. Today we'll see Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang give a much anticipated keynote speech at the GTC AI conference and as journal finance editor Alex Frangos explains,

investors will be listening out for any news on next generation AI chips. With so much riding on Nvidia and their massive business selling AI chips, people are paying very close attention to the latest rounds of chips, what chips they're gonna have later this year and what chips they're gonna have next year

to see how much better they're gonna be,, how much more they're going to be able to charge for them. So much is riding on that given how valuable that company is, given huge spending by tech companies for these chips, but also worries about the AI models like Deep Seek that maybe don't need as many chips. And we had this huge wobble in January when Deep Seek came out and people worried well do we need Nvidia anymore? Turns out we still do for the time being. And astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are finally on their way home from the International Space Station more than nine months later than originally planned. Butch and Sunny, as they're known,

are on track to splash down near Florida just before 6 PM this evening. Astronaut Nick Hague joined Butch and Sunny's crew in September on the ISS and is today's commander of the SpaceX crew Dragoncraft carrying them home. Here's his message to the crew taking over the space station courtesy of NASA. We know the station's in great hands. We're excited to see what you guys are going to accomplish.

And we'll be waiting for you. Crew 9's going home. Butch and Sunny arrived at the ISS last June to test the capabilities of Starliner, a Boeing-developed spacecraft designed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. Starliner left without the pair in September after officials decided using the Boeing craft was too risky at the time. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach with supervising producer Sandra Kilhoff and I'm Kate Boulevant for the Wall Street Journal filling in for Luke Vargas. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.