 It's been over 100 days since Israel's brutal war on Gaza began. What is the situation in the besieged territory and the region? William Lye of the DPP has won Taiwan's presidential election. What lies ahead? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. It's been 100 days of brutal bombings and numerous human rights violations and genocidal acts by Israel and Gaza. Despite a global outpouring of anger against Israel, close to a million people hit the streets calling for a ceasefire this weekend. It has continued its offensive unabated with the approval of the US and its allies. Children have been killed in the thousands, health workers and journalists targeted, and the people of Gaza have been left struggling even for food. The offensive has also had regional implications with the face of already taking place in the Red Sea. We go to Abdul to discuss this and more. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. 100 days since the war on Gaza has begun, the brutality has continued unabated over these past three months and 10 days. Could you maybe first take us through what really is the situation right now in Gaza with the offensive and also the humanitarian crisis? Well, the 100 days of Gaza war has basically created a massive destruction in the occupied Palestinian territory. And that we all know about in the last 100 days, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed. And in last 24 hours itself, around 150 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli bombardment. Apart from there are reports coming at this moment that the Khan Yunus is specifically at the target of the Israeli army. They are not only conducting ground offensive, but also bombing that enclave. And one should remember that this is part of that territory where majority of the people who moved out from the northern Gaza, because of the bombings and ground offensive had now taken shelter in and around it. It means this highly doubly, you can say the area which saw the rise in population has also basically become the target of increased Israeli attacks. So that ground offensive continues, bombings continue, more than 60,000 Palestinians are now wounded. Humanitarian situation is bad. We all know that we have repeated that several times on this show. The point is, despite the claims that the US has made that Israel is basically looking to minimize the civilian casualties in its operations inside Gaza, that basically has remained a false promise. In fact, the civilian casualty has not gone down in any substantial way. There are more displacements, more targeting of civilian infrastructure and as in comparison to what was there before, the UN Security Council adopted a ceasefire in December. Since there is also an important point to remember is that the increased in the last 100 days, the Israeli offensive is basically has targeted as South Africa has brought the case in the International Court of Justice, targeted deliberately the health system in Gaza. And that basically, basically it can say doubles the suffering of the common Palestinians who are wounded, who are trapped inside the debris created to the bombing Israeli bombings. And even if they're taken out, there is not enough medical facilities available for them to be taken care of. And that basically prolongs the pain and suffering. There are of course talks of on and off, there are talks of some kind of truth, some kind of break in exchange of hostages. For example, Hamas issued a statement on Sunday evening talking about basically releasing a video of three hostages saying that it is ready to release them in exchange of Israeli stopping the bombings. But Israel has refused, constantly refused in last 100 days of all such proposals to stop or even halt the bombings in exchange of the release of the hostages or on any other condition. And it seems that the primary goal remains to be as the claim to basically elimination of Hamas, which of course sounds very rhetoric because even after 100 days, Hamas has retained its capability to fight and basically inflict severe losses on the Israeli side. Right, Abdul, now moving on to the regional dimension, we know that tensions have been spiking, especially in the Red Sea region, in the Southern Red Sea region with the Houthis taking a very powerful position in the United States and the UK responding with strikes across Yemen. So what is the latest on that front? Well, according to the latest statement issued by CENTCOM on Sunday, US Central Command on Sunday, there was a kind of anti-tank missile file, sorry, fired from Yemen, which was intercepted by an Israeli aircraft. Sorry, an US aircraft. This is the latest statement. And if one should note that this is the first time since the US and UK coordinated attacks inside Yemen on Friday and repeated or follow-on attacks on Saturday, targeting allegedly only the Houthi radar system or their capabilities to fire missiles or drones and so on and so forth. This was on Sunday, Sunday's missile was the first time since those attacks where Houthis have responded. Houthis have claimed that they will not let the attacks on its territory by UK and US on Friday and Saturday go without any response. And one is waiting when this response will come because there is no immediate response as of now. So there is no room for complacency because Houthis retain the capability of attacking any US forces in the Red Sea. And since they're operating quite near to Yemeni border, Yemeni coastline, it is much easier for the Houthis to take aim at their ships. But we do not know yet when and how these retaliation responses will come. Apart from the attack on the Houthis on Friday, of course, was a provocation made by the US and its European allies against the Houthis. So it was an attempt to basically save face in the context when they have not been able to basically pressurize Houthis to stop their attacks on the ships heading to Israel, which they have declared as a policy in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. And it seems that provocation may lead to further escalation. And if there is really an attack on a US ship which is successful, one does not know where that will lead to. Thank you so much, Abdul Farad Abdul. William Lai Ching The of the Democratic Progressive Party has been elected the president of Taiwan. He will succeed sowing way of the same party after his victory in a closely contested election. However, it won't be a bed of roses for Lai's party has lost its majority in parliament. Now, it won't be wrong to say that Taiwan's relationship with China was one of the most important issues in this election. And there definitely was some harsh rhetoric around it. But what happens after the dust settles? Will Tai pursue a confrontationalist attitude with China? We go to Anish for the details. Anish, thanks so much for joining us. Very crucial elections and watched across the world with buried breath almost because it signifies a lot. So could you maybe first take us to what the results say because it's not only the presidential election that took place. Yes, so even if let's begin with the presidential election results, because that is also quite important. We have to live Ching the one the election and but he won with a very divided mandate. Now, what we're looking at is about 40% of the votes that have been called to have gone to life. And that is the only reason it's pretty much the first pass. Of course, system when it comes to presidential elections in Taiwan. So you don't have to get the majority. And he would be the second such president to actually win without actually getting 50% or more votes in Taiwan's history or electoral history at the very least. And this is probably this clearly shows how things have changed when it comes to how people view intra-China relations or cross-strait relations. And primarily because lies only platform that existed was his opposition to to the mainland to the government in Beijing. His anti-communist tirade that he used against his opposition contenders. And all of that did not really give him the kind of leverage that he expected. He probably expected a redo of 2020 when I cited the same thing and virtually she gained an unprecedented number of votes, even though her party was expected to lose very badly. And so this pretty much is a situation right now. And we see the two opposition candidates who and who both of them being combined together, they actually gained a lot of votes. But we are also seeing that people are kind of tired with the Kuomintang being the lead opposition as well. So you see the rise of Kuomintje and his Taiwan People's Party as a very significant third party in Taiwanese politics. And similarly, the same thing has happened in the legislative election as well. Obviously, the DPP lost its majority that it held for about eight years. That was the first time that in 2016 was the first time they actually held a majority in the parliament and it lost it up to side. So this is going to be a significant, you know, it clearly gives a message to the to the new government that even though alive one primarily because of the divided opposition, the parliament, which is now going to be dominated by opposition parties are going to be a significant roadblock to whatever confrontational policy that life would want to have when it comes to the mainland. Or for that matter, a very pro US policy that actually comes at the expense of the interests of Taiwanese people as well. So a lot of things have happened. But what we are looking at is a very divided mandate and it clearly shows that the old politics of, you know, whether or not your pro Chinese or anti Chinese is going is not going to work as well. There is a significant level of disenchantment with the traditional kind of politics and that is clearly shown in this current set of results. And Anish, I also wanted to quickly go through what the responses globally have been from some of the key players to this election, especially since like you said this likely to be a continuation in terms of policy. Yes, so one of the things that is quite evident is that there is now some level of softening, even though you are already seeing congratulatory messages from pro West governments in the region and also from the West as well. And but interestingly, the most cautious tone was struck by Joe Biden, who said, who actually made it clear that the US does not support Taiwanese independence, which was pretty much this kind of ambiguity has existed for a while now, at least under Trump. And it was continued under Joe Biden. It is now with the results that they're saying that they cannot possibly support some kind of Taiwanese nation or a secessionist tendency because the Taiwanese, the pro, so the so-called pro independence parties have lost very badly. Their coalition partners lost and DPP, which entertain that kind of tendency also lost very badly in terms of force and seats. So definitely the Taiwanese people are clearly showing that they are not interested in an independent Taiwan. They are probably looking at, you know, a more peaceful plan where they can actually at least, at the very least peacefully coexist with the mainland or maybe, you know, seek for reunification in, if not the near future, but at least at the distant future. So this is the kind of message that has been given and the US is receiving that very well. And that's pretty much also how China is responding. It is also cautious, but it is clearly stating that the results are not going to stop the eventual reunification, which is obviously the goal of, you know, the constitutional goal of what exists of the Republic of China in Taiwan, but also of the People's Republic of China. So in all of these cases, what we're looking at is some mellowing of rhetoric, at least from foreign players, but at the same time, there are pro-US governments in the region who are trying to provoke more tensions, but we'll have to wait and see how things go until May when Li is going to be inaugurated as the president. We might see a lot more back and forth now. There is going to be, you know, at the very least some attempt by the Sai government, the outgoing government to release some kind of report about Chinese intervention, whatever that be. But in all of these cases, we are going to see more rhetoric, but we need to wait and see how far they are going to go, because obviously domestic politics, in the case of Taiwan, domestic politics and foreign relations are quite interconnected and it is very difficult at times to segregate them when it comes to a lot of issues at the very least. So we'll have to wait and see how things go, but at the moment, things have mellowed down. If not, it's not going to provoke more tensions in the coming days at the very least. Anish, I think we can all hope for fewer tensions in that region, very important region, both economically and geopolitically. Thank you so much for those updates. That's all we have in today's daily debrief. We'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button.