Gaza’s Health Care System Is Under ‘Severe Threat’

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the World Health Organization’s condemnation of an Israeli raid on a Gaza hospital, South Korean officials seeking an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol, and Georgia inaugurating a new leader.

 Gaza’s Health System Under Severe Threat

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), condemned Israel’s use of force against hospitals in Gaza on Monday, days after the Israeli military raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza and detained more than 240 Palestinians.

“Hospitals in #Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat,” Tedros wrote in a social media post. “We repeat: stop attacks on hospitals. People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!”

Among those detained last Friday was Hussam Abu Safyia, the director of the hospital, who remains in Israeli custody. Israeli forces said the hospital was being used as a Hamas “command and control center” and that Safyia is “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative” but have not provided evidence to support the claims. Meanwhile, hospital officials have denied the accusations.

In a statement released by the United Nations on Monday, a group of independent human rights experts slammed Israel for defying international humanitarian law and “inflicting maximum suffering on civilians.” According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 45,000 people have been killed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, following Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

“We feel as if the rest of the world is wrapped up in a different world from the one we are in,” Safyia wrote in a recent op-ed for the New York Times. “We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Today’s Most Read

• China and North Korea Throw U.S. War Plans Out the Window by Raphael S. Cohen
• FP’s Holiday Book List by FP Staff and FP Contributors
• Jimmy Carter Was the True Change Agent of the Cold War by Michael Hirsh

The World This Week

Wednesday, Jan. 1:  Brazil takes over the presidency of the BRICS grouping.

Poland assumes the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Canada assumes the G-7 presidency.

Friday, Jan. 3: The new French cabinet meets for the first time.

Monday, Jan. 6: The U.S. Congress convenes to formally count the Electoral College votes.

What We’re Following

Upheaval in Seoul. On Monday, South Korean investigators sought a court warrant to arrest President Yoon Suk-yeol, after the impeached leader refused to cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.

Yoon was quickly impeached and is under investigation by South Korea’s anti-corruption agency for abusing his authority and orchestrating an insurrection. However, the president has refused to cooperate with authorities by failing to appear for questioning and blocking the search of his offices. It remains unclear whether the Seoul court that received the request will grant the warrant.

In addition to its political woes, South Korea is now reeling from its deadliest plane crash in decades. On Sunday, a Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people from Bangkok crash-landed at Muan International Airport in the country’s southwest. Two crew members were rescued alive, but the remaining 179 people onboard were confirmed dead.

South Korea has vowed to investigate the deadly accident and has ordered an inspection of all Boeing 737-800 planes operated by the country’s airlines. The United States is also sending a team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Boeing to help investigate the air crash.

Georgia’s new leader. Mikheil Kavelashvili, a critic of the West, was sworn in as the new president of Georgia on Sunday, amid ongoing protests following the Georgian Dream-led government’s decision to freeze the country’s European Union accession process. Outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili, who is pro-EU, has refused to formally step down, saying that she is the “only legitimate president.”

Georgian Dream won the country’s Oct. 26 parliamentary elections, which were mired in allegations of fraud and denounced by international observers. The EU has blamed the ruling party for the country’s “continued democratic backsliding.” The recent unrest continues a yearlong wave of protests that have rocked the former Soviet republic.

In May, Georgian Dream adopted a controversial Kremlin-inspired “foreign agents” law, which targets humanitarian organizations and independent media. On Friday, the U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili for “undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”

Jimmy Carter’s foreign-policy legacy. Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, died on Sunday at age 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia, according to a statement released by the Carter Center.

“His achievements are little remembered but consequential,” Jonathan Alter writes in Foreign Policy, highlighting Carter’s diplomatic wins—from engineering the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt to normalizing relations with China. “Even his signature failure—the aborted mission to rescue 52 U.S. Embassy staff members held hostage in Iran—was not the complete fiasco depicted at the time.”

Despite being remembered as a soft commander in chief, Carter’s presidency “dramatically changed the nature of the Cold War, setting the stage for the Soviet Union’s ultimate collapse,” FP’s Michael Hirsh writes. However, his legacy was “hamstrung by history” as he took over the White House during a period of stagflation and on the heels of the U.S. retreat from Vietnam.

Odds and Ends

2025 will usher in a new chapter for Popeye and Tintin. On Jan. 1, the iconic cartoon characters will join the ranks of Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh and officially enter the U.S. public domain, making them available for people to share and repurpose without additional permission.

The copyrights of thousands of other films, songs, and books, including Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, will expire in 2025. From high school plays to Hollywood adaptations, the possibilities of spinoffs and adaptations are endless.