By Alexandra Sharp
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets, one year in a Russian jail for U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, and consequences of Hong Kong’s national security law.
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Airstrikes Against Hezbollah
An Israeli Air Force fighter jet flies over the southern Lebanon border on March 27.Jalaa Marey/AFP
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out its deadliest operation in Syria’s Aleppo province in years on Friday. IDF airstrikes killed more than 42 people, including Hezbollah members and Syrian soldiers, and injured dozens more, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A security official told Reuters that one of the Hezbollah fighters killed was believed to be a local field commander. A Hezbollah weapons depot was reportedly among the targets hit.
Israel did not comment on its alleged role in the attack. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani accused Israel of using attacks on Syria as part of a “blatant and desperate attempt” to expand the Israel-Hamas war. Iran is a major backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria since that country’s civil war began in 2011, striking key infrastructure, including international airports, in Damascus and Aleppo to try to disrupt weapons deliveries to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy groups active in the country that violently oppose Israel. In the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Hezbollah dramatically increased its rocket attacks from Lebanon over the border into northern Israel, killing around 12 Israeli troops and half a dozen civilians so far and prompting the evacuation of more than 60,000 Israelis.
In response, Israel’s strikes in both Lebanon and Syria have grown deadlier, even forcing Iran to withdraw some of its top officers from Syria. Earlier this month, Israeli officials said the IDF has hit more than 4,500 Hezbollah locations in Syria and Lebanon, killing over 300 militants, since Oct. 7. On Tuesday, alleged Israeli airstrikes in eastern Syria killed several people, including a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an engineer with the World Health Organization.
In a separate strike on Friday, Israeli forces said they killed Ali Abed Akhsan Naim, a deputy Hezbollah commander, near Bazouriye, Lebanon. Naim helped oversee the group’s rocket and missiles unit and was reportedly responsible for conducting and planning attacks against Israeli civilians.
Hezbollah officials have previously suggested that they would stop firing on Israel if a cease-fire in Gaza was reached. However, Israeli and U.S. officials have said a halt in fighting would not automatically extend to Lebanon.
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What We’re Following
365 days behind bars. Friday marked one year since Russian authorities detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Last year, he was accused of espionage while on a reporting trip in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, a claim that the Wall Street Journal and the United States government both deny. On Tuesday, a Russian court extended Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention for another three months. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
“Evan’s case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy said. “It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends.”
Also this week, Russian forces escalated attacks in Ukraine against Kyiv’s thermal power infrastructure. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power provider, said three of its energy stations were damaged in large-scale overnight attacks on Thursday that included dozens of Russian missiles and at least 60 explosive drones launched. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of targeting two dams on Thursday to repeat “the ecological disaster in the Kherson region,” referring to catastrophic flooding last year caused by the collapse of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam.
RFA leaves Hong Kong. Radio Free Asia (RFA), a U.S. government-funded but editorially independent news agency, announced on Friday that it will close its office in Hong Kong due to concerns over the region’s recently passed national security law. Hong Kong’s law raises “serious questions about our ability to operate in safety,” RFA President Bay Fang said, specifically after Hong Kong officials called the RFA a “foreign force.”
Hong Kong enacted its second national security law, known as Article 23, last Saturday to target alleged foreign interference. The law gives local officials more authority to investigate accusations of selling state secrets and “external interference.” Local officials accused the agency of scaremongering, but press freedom activists said the law increases the risks for journalists working there.
After China imposed a similar national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, several local pro-democracy news outlets, including Apple Daily and Stand News, shuttered operations. Apple Daily’s publisher, Jimmy Lai, is currently on trial on national security charges, and two former top Stand News editors are on trial on charges of sedition.
Choosing Istanbul’s next mayor. Turkey is set to hold local elections on Sunday that experts believe could foretell the nation’s presidential future. Among the races is a bid to determine Istanbul’s next mayor. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has endorsed former Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum for the role. Yet analysts predict that incumbent Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the center-left Republican People’s Party will win.
If Imamoglu is reelected, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party will not just lose a pivotal seat in government. An opposition victory would also pave the way for Imamoglu to run for president in 2028—signaling a major change for the right wing’s decadeslong hold on power.
Humanitarian aid to Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel on Thursday to take all necessary and effective action to enable the delivery of food supplies to Gaza. “The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine … but that famine is setting in,” the court’s justices said.
The new measures were part of a South Africa-filed case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel said it is working to expand humanitarian access into the region via land, sea, and air deliveries. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the ruling did not go far enough, calling for the court to order Israel to immediately end its operations in Gaza. The ICJ’s orders are legally binding, but the body lacks an enforcement mechanism.
What in the World?
Who won Sunday’s presidential election in Senegal?
A. PASTEF candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye
B. Former Prime Minister Amadou Ba
C. Opposition politician Ousmane Sonko
D. Incumbent President Macky Sall
Odds and Ends
With Easter on the horizon, Norwegians are scrambling to hoard eggs for the holiday. But with supermarkets in Norway running low on supplies, many people are crossing into neighboring Sweden to stock up. On Tuesday, Sweden’s Maxi-Mat food store ran out of eggs, and the nearby Nordby Supermarket limited purchases to three 20-packs per home. “It’s far cheaper than you get in Norway—if you can get eggs in Norway at all, that is,” said Stale Lovheim, the head of the Nordby shopping center. Despite the high demand, though, the Easter Bunny appears to be on schedule.
And the Answer Is…
A. PASTEF candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye
Faye was released from prison just 10 days before the election. At 44, he will become the youngest president in Senegal’s history, FP’s Nosmot Gbadamosi writes in Africa Brief.
To take the rest of FP’s weekly international news quiz, click here, or sign up to be alerted when a new one is published.
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