Israel, Palestine: West Bank story

Also: the UK, Serbia, Haiti, and mpox.

Untitled, Sophie Halaby, 1954, watercolour and pencil on paper, Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut.

In today’s dispatch:

• ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Security raids and settler violence unnerve the region.

• BRITAIN. Downing Street seeks Europe’s help on migration.

• SERBIA. A French defence sale won't shift Belgrade from Moscow.

• HAITI. The stabilisation mission is going worse than claimed.

• MPOX. Insufficient aid is reaching the source of the outbreak.

Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily intelligence and risk briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, an advisory firm specialising exclusively in geopolitical risk.

ISRAEL. PALESTINE. West Bank story

Security raids and settler violence unnerve the region.

Israel killed five militants Thursday, in the biggest West Bank raid since the start of the Gaza war. The US sanctioned Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli-funded settler NGO. Israel and Hamas agreed to three pauses to allow for polio vaccinations.

INTELLIGENCE. The raids saw relatively few civilian casualties but have damaged the Palestinian Authority’s standing in the West Bank at a time when Israel needs to cultivate Arab leadership for any future Gazan government. They have also worried the region as criticism of settler violence grows and far-right supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition allies increasingly break norms on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, with Jewish prayer now routine.

FOR BUSINESS. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was a tinderbox before October and tension grows by the day. The territory’s wartime death toll, at 660 versus 40,000 in Gaza, seems small, but it’s a post-Intifada record. With at least 3 million, it’s at least 50% more populous than Gaza and houses Palestine’s major institutions. Beyond anticipation of an Iranian reprisal and headaches on the Lebanon border, another crisis is the last thing Israel needs.

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BRITAIN. Starmer’s trek

Downing Street seeks Europe’s help on migration.

Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron pledged to deepen cooperation on migration and defence Thursday, a day after Britain's prime minister made a similar pledge with Olaf Scholz. Starmer said the UK was not seeking to rejoin the EU.

INTELLIGENCE. Starmer’s trip received a predictable response from Brussels, which was not on the itinerary, insofar as