For the past few years, China has made clear that it favors the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. And since October 7, its conduct has become more overtly hostile. Assaf Orion, Roy Ben Tzur, and Ofir Dayan explain:

Not only have President Xi and other official spokespersons defined Israeli policy as “collective punishment,” but China has not even officially condemned the murder and wounding of Chinese citizens by Hamas terrorists. Instead, China maintains direct contacts with Hamas, which it does not see as a terrorist organization.

In contrast to China’s blatant avoidance of addressing Hamas’s terrorist atrocities and its victims in Israel, Taiwan has clearly and openly supported Israel since the start of the war, by expressing solidarity and by offering concrete assistance. Even on the day of the massacre, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry was among the first in the world to condemn Hamas.

Taiwan’s determined stance is in keeping with its wider strategic interests and with its democratic values, and it strives to reinforce alliances with like-minded countries—liberal democracies.

At the same time, the war has shown historically pro-Western Arab states, which have been building stronger ties with China over the past several years, that Beijing can do little to allay their immediate security concerns—while Israel and the U.S. can do much more.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”