| | | | |  | | By Matt Berg and Eric Bazail-Eimil | |  Palestinians inspect a vehicle with the logo of the World Central Kitchen wrecked by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on April 2, 2024. | Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP | With help from Alex Ward, Paul McLeary, Lara Seligman and Phelim Kine Subscribe here | Email Matt| Email Eric The Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza is resonating especially in Washington national security circles for two reasons: An American was killed and the aid group is based in DC, run by the politically outspoken Spanish-American chef JOSÉ ANDRÉS. Israel said today that the strike unintentionally killed seven people working for World Central Kitchen — an aid organization that provides meals to civilians suffering from hunger due to conflicts and natural disasters. Those killed include a dual American-Canadian citizen. As of January, the State Department assessed that 23 Americans had been killed during the conflict with Hamas, including 21 who served in Israel’s military, one who served in the Israeli police force, and a teenager who was shot in the West Bank. That means this could be the first instance of an American killed by an Israeli strike during the conflict in Gaza. The State Department didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. “We were outraged” to learn of the strike, National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY told reporters today. He added that there’s “no evidence” yet that Israel deliberately killed aid workers, cautioning reporters to wait for the results of Israel’s investigation into the matter. Some Democrats on Capitol Hill have seized on the strike to further their criticism of how the Israeli government is handling the war and continue calls for conditions on Washington’s support for its Middle Eastern ally — especially if American lives are at risk. The White House has so far opposed such conditions, however. The fact that the workers came from Andrés’ charity also carries particular weight in Washington, where the chef holds a number of restaurants frequented by foreign policymakers, including Zaytinya, Jaleo and Minibar, said DAVE HARDEN, a former humanitarian assistance coordinator at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “José Andrés is also a local DC institution and hero,” Harden wrote in a thread on X. “This tragedy in Gaza could very well have an outsized impact on the policy environment, including amplifying calls for a cease-fire.” Andrés himself spoke with President JOE BIDEN today, and also urged Israel to stop what he called “indiscriminate killing.” World Central Kitchen CEO ERIN GORE piled on in a statement today, calling the strike an attack on all humanitarian organizations helping to alleviate the consequences of war. “This is unforgivable,” she added. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN told reporters today that Washington has already brought the matter up directly with the Israeli government and stressed “the imperative to do more to protect innocent civilian lives.” The backlash has been fierce, despite Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU saying the strike was unintentional. An administration official, who has worked with Andrés on international food and health security initiatives, called the strike “devastating” and said it compounds the human suffering that Andrés and his team were trying to relieve. The strike also “underscores Israeli carelessness toward Gaza civilians and international humanitarians alike,” the official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told NatSec Daily. During a meeting with Israeli officials today, Defense Minister YOAV GALLANT “referred to the tragic nature of the incident and emphasized the importance of conducting a thorough, professional investigation,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
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Today’s battlespace has no room for miscommunication. At Lockheed Martin, we’re building the strongest communication network possible, no matter where the battle lines are drawn. Defense tech you can count on when every second counts. Learn more. | | | | | ISRAEL’S FOLLOW-UP: Gallant confirmed today his country will investigate the strike that killed the aid workers and outlined other steps the government is taking to address concerns about aid distribution in Gaza. “The minister reflected on the complex environment in which IDF troops are required to operate on a daily basis,” the defense ministry said in a statement. After completing an assessment of the situation, Gallant called on his department to:
- Establish a team that will investigate the circumstances of the incident.
- Open a joint situation room, described as a platform that enables coordination between the IDF’s Southern Command and international organizations vis-à-vis the distribution of aid.
- Support distribution mechanisms by allocating appropriate resources.
- Brief international organizations and partners on the details of the incident and subsequent actions being taken, and maintain an open line of communication.
“There is accountability to be held here,” NSC spox Kirby said of the investigation.
THERE’S NO PLAN: During a private virtual meeting Monday, Israeli officials presented the U.S. with no plans for how to alleviate civilian suffering throughout a planned invasion of Rafah, two Biden administration officials told our own ALEX WARD. The U.S. officials, granted anonymity to detail a sensitive conversation, said Israeli national security adviser TZACHI HANEGBI and Minister RON DERMER came to the meeting with no concrete ideas on how to protect the roughly 1.4 million Palestinians in the southern Gaza city. That prompted members of Biden’s team to demand Israel come with more specifics for an in-person discussion that could take place as early as next week. “We need to see more,” said one of the U.S. officials. Israeli officials did present “some elements” of a timeline for moving civilians out of harm’s way, but not to the level of detail U.S. officials want, a third U.S. official told LARA SELIGMAN. The timelines “were not realistic,” the official said. The U.S. side stressed that Israel needs to “flood the zone” with humanitarian aid, including opening more land borders, as a “key element” of any Rafah operation. The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. and Israel share a goal of defeating Hamas militarily in Rafah, but they differ on how to do it. The Biden administration has asked the Israeli government for weeks to produce the civilian protection plan, leading Biden to ask Netanyahu during a March call to have their teams meet on the issue. Washington sees the Monday conversations as the start of a process on Rafah, even though the U.S. has urged Israeli cooperation ahead of the operation for a long time. HERE XI GO AGAIN: President JOE BIDEN had “a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues” with Chinese leader XI JINPING today — their first conversation since their summit in San Francisco last November. As our own PHELIM KINE reports, Biden also wanted to hammer home to Xi “our concern that any country interferes or influences our elections,” a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the call, which touched on artificial intelligence, Taiwan and other security issues. The Biden-Xi call comes amid a new period of high-level bilateral diplomatic engagement. Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN will make a second trip to Beijing on Thursday and Blinken — who last visited China in June — will make a return trip “in the coming weeks,” the official said. Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN will speak with his Chinese counterparts “soon,” according to the official, and the bilateral Maritime Military Consultative Agreement talks — suspended since 2022 — will resume in Honolulu this week. UKRAINE’S FAR REACH: Ukraine bombarded a drone-making facility deep inside Russian territory this morning, our own VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA reports. Drones attacked production facilities in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk in Russia's Tatarstan republic, some 932 miles from the border with Ukraine, local governor RUSTAM MINNIKHANOV said in a statement. Ukrainian media, citing sources in Kyiv's HUR military intelligence agency, reported that Ukraine attacked a Shahed-type drone production factory in Yelabuga. While the HUR was behind the attack on Yelabuga, the strike on the oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk was a joint operation of HUR and Ukraine’s security service, a Ukrainian law enforcement official familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to speak freely told Veronika. SYRIA STRIKE? A drone shot down by American forces near Al Tanf garrison, Syria, on Monday might not actually have been targeting the base, according to the latest U.S. assessments. “We don’t assess this was an attack on ATG and it’s unclear what the intended target of the drone was,” a Defense Department official told Lara today. Forces shot it down “out of an abundance of caution” because it was near the outpost, the official added. Another DOD official said that the Pentagon “took a look at the forensics” and concluded that the drone was more likely aiming at Israeli forces, in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike on Monday that killed several senior members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. IT’S TUESDAY. Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at mberg@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow us on X at @mattberg33 and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @alexbward, @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco, @reporterjoe, and @JGedeon1.
| | | | YOUR GUIDE TO EMPIRE STATE POLITICS: From the newsroom that doesn’t sleep, POLITICO's New York Playbook is the ultimate guide for power players navigating the intricate landscape of Empire State politics. Stay ahead of the curve with the latest and most important stories from Albany, New York City and around the state, with in-depth, original reporting to stay ahead of policy trends and political developments. Subscribe now to keep up with the daily hustle and bustle of NY politics. | | | | | | | | | TRUMP-PROOFING UKRAINE: The U.S. and its allies are considering transferring over to NATO a U.S.-led multinational group that coordinates the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, Lara and our own STUART LAU and PAUL McLEARY report. It’s a move that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a potential second DONALD TRUMP presidency. At a NATO foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, officials are expected to discuss gradually moving the Ukraine Defense Contact Group into the alliance’s control, according to three European officials and a U.S. official with knowledge of the internal deliberations. The move would institutionalize the group and allow other countries in NATO to have a bigger say over the process in case Trump returns to the White House in 2024, according to one of the European officials. The Ukraine group was launched in the early weeks of the war by DefSec Austin and then-Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. MARK MILLEY to coordinate Western support for Kyiv’s defenses. It’s credited with speeding tens of billions of dollars in equipment, weapons and other aid to Ukraine that have been critical in staving off Russian forces.
| | PENCE’S TIKTOK PUSH: Former Vice President MIKE PENCE will launch a $2 million ad campaign next week meant to prod senators in five states to support legislation that will force TikTok’s Chinese parent firm ByteDance to sell the social media app to a U.S. buyer, our own PHELIM KINE reports. The ad campaign, which Pence is rolling out through his conservative Advancing American Freedom think tank, will run for up to two weeks in Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Pence said Senate passage of the bill — which sailed through the House last month — is essential to address TikTok’s “national security threat to the United States in real time” that could disrupt the presidential election in November. “The potential for foreign interference in elections on a platform controlled by the Chinese Communist Party is self-evident,” Pence told reporters today.
| | KALLAS SUPPORT: Estonian Prime Minister KAJA KALLAS — herself an unofficial candidate for NATO’s top job — said today she backs her Dutch counterpart MARK RUTTE for the secretary-general post, our own LAURA KAYALI reports. “For a strong NATO, we need to be clear-eyed on Russia, boost deterrence and defence spending, back Ukraine’s membership, and geographic balance,” she said in a statement posted on social media. “I have discussed this in depth with Mark Rutte and he commits to these priorities. Estonia can back him for NATO’s Secretary General,” Kallas added. Her backing is a major win for Rutte, who has been struggling to get support beyond Western Europe and North America. UKRAINE’S INVESTMENTS: Ukraine is investing heavily in its arms industry as the country navigates dwindling support from its European and American allies. According to the New York Times’ LARA JAKES, Ukraine is planning on spending $1.3 billion on research and development for new weapons and $10 billion on procurement, significantly higher sums than what they spent before the war. Ukraine also has manufactured three times as many armored vehicles as they were making before the war and has quadrupled production of anti-tank missiles, according to documents reviewed by the Times. But questions remain about whether that scale-up in production will be enough to support Ukraine’s war effort and replenish its stocks in the immediate term as it works to repel an unrelenting Russian offensive.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, the newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world, including WEF in Davos, Milken Global in Beverly Hills, to UNGA in NYC and many more. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | SPEED IT UP, SPEAKER: The Aerospace Industries Association is urging Speaker MIKE JOHNSON to take up the Senate-passed national security supplemental as soon as possible. The supplemental offers funding for the defense industry and would replenish weapons used in Red Sea strikes while providing aid to Ukraine and Israel, AIA President and CEO ERIC FANNING outlined in a March 22 letter to Johnson, obtained by our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!). “Production is deterrence and the funding would replenish depleted American military stockpiles with new and modernized equipment, while also providing American-made equipment to our partners and allies fighting for freedom,” Fanning wrote. It remains unclear if Johnson will hold a vote on the $95 billion Senate aid bill when the House returns in mid-April. ICYMI — McConnell: I’ll stay in the Senate and fight the GOP ‘isolationist movement’ by our own BURGESS EVERETT
| | ‘WE OPERATE EVERYWHERE’: Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said Israel is targeting enemies across the Middle East who threaten the nation’s security, vowing to come down hard on those who take action against Israel, Reuters’ ARI RABINOVITCH reports. "We are currently in a multi-front war — we see evidence of this every day, including over the last few days," Gallant told a parliamentary committee, per a statement from his office. “We operate everywhere, every day, in order to prevent our enemies from gaining strength and in order to make it clear to anyone who threatens us — all over the Middle East — that the price for such action will be a big one." He did not draw an explicit connection to the deadly explosion at the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, which Tehran officials immediately blamed on Israel. Iranian President EBRAHIM RAISI today said his country will take revenge on Israel for the strike. The Israeli government has not claimed responsibility for the attack in Syria. The Pentagon said today, however, that it has assessed that Israel conducted the deadly airstrike that killed several senior members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, spokesperson SABRINA SINGH told reporters. CUBA CRITICIZES ‘HAVANA SYNDROME’ REPORTING: The Cuban government is slamming investigations into the origins of “Havana Syndrome,” including reporting from CBS and other outlets about Russia’s role in the unexplained neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats stationed in Cuba and other countries. In a Spanish-language video shared by Cuba’s embassy in Washington, JOHANA TABLADA, the Cuban foreign ministry’s top official in charge of U.S. policy, said “Havana Syndrome” doesn’t exist and claimed it’s “really been Washington syndrome from the outset.” She also blasted CBS’s reporting as a “political operation” and “propaganda operation” rather than a “journalistic investigation.” “60 Minutes” told NatSec Daily that it stands by its reporting.
| | | |   | | | | | — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: Scientific Systems, a company working on artificial intelligence for defense applications, tapped retired Navy Rear Adm. ANDY “BUCKET” LOISELLE as a strategic adviser. Loiselle served for 35 years in the Navy across five different command tours, and served as the director of air warfare in his final position. — KIERSTEN TODT is taking over as president of Wondros, an LA-based creative comms agency. She previously was chief of staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
| | — MARC POLYMEROPOULOS and COLIN CLARKE, POLITICO: The surprising intelligence community outreach to Russia — STEPHEN WALT, Foreign Policy: Nobody actually knows what Russia does next — The Editors, National Review: A Havana Syndrome cover up?
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