FirstFT: Israel pummels Gaza and prepares for ground invasion

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Good morning. Israel pounded the Gaza Strip and prepared for a ground invasion of the enclave, three days after an attack by Hamas triggered the bloodiest war on the country’s territory for decades.

The Israeli military said it had hit more than 1,300 targets in Gaza to date in response to Saturday’s deadly incursion by the militant group, while more than 4,500 rockets had been fired from the enclave.

As sirens warning of further rocket attacks sounded across Israel, the military said it had found the bodies of “dozens” of civilians, including infants and children, at a kibbutz near the Gaza border in the south of the country. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson described the Kfar Aza site as “a massacre: children, women and elderly . . . were butchered”.

The country has called up 60,000 reservists in addition to a record 300,000 already mobilised, and deployed 35 military battalions and four divisions as it builds up “an infrastructure for future operations” in apparent preparation for a widely expected land attack on Gaza.

More than 2mn people live in the Hamas-controlled enclave and at least 200,000 have already fled their homes to seek shelter from Israeli strikes, according to the UN. Read the full story.

And here’s more news and analysis on the war:

• ‘Emergency government’: Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said members of his governing coalition had authorised him to negotiate a unity government with the opposition in the wake of Hamas’s attack.

• Hostage dilemma: The abductions of dozens of civilians present Israel with risky options on Gaza retaliation or prisoner swaps.

• Opinion: Every attempt to wipe out Palestinian armed groups has only produced more extreme iterations and worse conundrums, writes Kim Ghattas.

• Go deeper: The FT’s specialists have compiled a list of the most insightful books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s history and its global consequences.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Meetings: Nato defence ministers will convene in Brussels, Vladimir Putin and Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani will participate in an energy forum in Moscow and a group of US lawmakers will meet South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul.

• US politics: Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to vote for their party’s nominee for speaker, following the unprecedented ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week.

Join us in Hong Kong on October 16 for an evening of lively debate, featuring leading FT journalists who will argue for and against the statement that “AI is the white-collar worker’s best friend”. Get your tickets here.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co are plotting an entry into Europe as the construction of the first advanced chip factories on the continent in decades reshapes its supply chains. “We are planning investments in Germany, and the European market is going to be ours,” said Vincent Liu, president and chief executive of LCY Group, a supplier of cleaning agents and solvents to TSMC. Read the full story.

2. Caroline Ellison has testified that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried had directed her and her ex-colleagues to steal roughly $10bn of customer deposits from the exchange. “He directed me to commit crimes,” the former head of FTX trading arm Alameda Research told the jury in the trial against Bankman-Fried. Here’s more from the star witness’s testimony.

3. Country Garden, China’s largest private developer, has warned of a potential default on its international debts. The company, which has about $200bn in liabilities and close to $10bn in dollar-denominated debt, said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange today that it expects it “will not be able to meet all of its offshore payment obligations” when they are due. Here’s more on the potential default.

• More China news: US lawmakers have asked Xi Jinping to pressure Iran not to inflame tensions in the Middle East in the first meeting between American congressional leaders and the Chinese president in eight years.

4. New Delhi’s financial enforcement agency has arrested an employee of Chinese mobile phone company vivo, reigniting fears of a renewed crackdown on Chinese companies operating in India. Indian state agencies have also targeted Chinese mobile phone companies Oppo and Xiaomi in the past 18 months. Here’s more on the overnight arrest.

5. Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has lifted her stake in Liontown Resources, as she seeks to muscle in on a proposed takeover of a lithium mine developer by Albemarle, the world’s largest producer of the battery metal. Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting raised its shareholding to 18.36 per cent in Liontown, up from 16.69 per cent, as the iron ore and agriculture magnate seeks to gain exposure to the commodity used in electric car batteries.

The Big Read

The World Bank and the IMF have been at the centre of the economic order spearheaded by America and its allies after the second world war. US president Joe Biden’s bet is that he can revitalise them in a way that expands his country’s economic offering to developing nations around the world while countering China’s mounting international influence. The plan for the two Washington-based institutions is a litmus test for the future of the US-led order.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Japan and Larry Fink: Tokyo played host to the BlackRock founder last week. Here’s what we learnt.

• Global economy: What the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook tells us is both encouraging and disturbing, writes Martin Wolf.

• ‘I don’t read the news — it’s depressing’: The number of people around the world who actively avoid the news has been broadly increasing. But data can help us.

Chart of the day

Domestic tourism numbers and revenue during China’s Golden Week holiday were slightly higher than 2019 levels before the pandemic, official figures showed. But analysts warned that signs of stabilisation remained fragile given the weakness of the property sector, which lies at the heart of China’s economic woes.

Take a break from the news

The real star of Succession, Homeland and The Menu is the Zalto Universal wine glass. With its wide bowl and aroma-focusing straight sides made from handblown glass of hair-raising fragility, the £50 glass allows oenophiles to get intimate with their wine like never before. Is this the finest wine glass ever made?

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Gordon Smith