Axios

More than 15 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in clashes between protesters and Israeli security forces at the Gaza-Israel border, Reuters reports, citing the Palestinian health ministry. The fatality count has varied between publications, with the N.Y. Times citing 16 and others 17.

The backdrop: 17,000 Palestinians have kicked off a 6-week protest called the Great March of Return, demanding that refugees be allowed to return to homes on the Israeli side of the border. The Israeli Defense Forces say troops fired on "the main instigators" of riots that included "rolling burning tires and hurling stones."

The State Department has put $200 million in recovery effort funds to Syria on hold, after the White House directed it to do so, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Why it matters: Per the Journal, this signals that the administration is re-evaluating U.S. presence in the region. President Trump said on Thursday said that the U.S. would be "coming out of Syria...very soon," and that "other people" should take care of it.

Meituan-Dianping, which bills itself as China’s largest provider of on-demand online services like group buying, food ordering and ride hailing, has selected the investment banks to take it public in Hong Kong later this year, per DealStreetAsia.

Why it matters: Bloomberg believes the expected valuation could be as high as $60 billion. China may have the most competitive and well-funded internet market in the world, in spite of the increasing Communist Party controls.

Foreign Policy published Thursday an explosive story, "The Disappeared," examining the mysterious vanishing of Chinese citizens over the last several years. Some of the cases are well-known, like those of financier Xiao Jinhua and bookseller Gui Minhai, who were both taken from Hong Kong.

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un’s journey to Beijing this week appears to have come as a surprise to the Trump administration but the White House seems to be spinning it as a positive development.

What's happening: Per the Washington Post, administration officials, who were thrown off balance when China announced it had held its own summit with Kim, debated the implications of the meeting but ultimately decided to declare it a positive result of its “maximum pressure” campaign against North Korea.

Since the standoff over a nerve agent attack on British soil began, some two dozen countries have expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats, with Russia responding in kind. But despite the expulsions, Russia’s diplomatic cupboard is far from bare.

By the numbers: Russia has 242 diplomatic posts in 145 countries around the world, according to the Lowy institute. Only the U.S., China and France have more. While Russia doesn’t release comparable data, the U.S. has 9,400 diplomats posted to its 273 overseas posts, per the BBC.

"It seems to me that atmosphere in Washington is poisoned — it's a toxic atmosphere," he said. "It depends upon us to decide whether we are in Cold War or not. But ... I don't remember such [a] bad shape of our relations."

Here's a rare satellite view of North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center, where increased activity has renewed the concern of analysts ahead of a proposed summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. [Go deeper]

The Trump administration may be trying to exert “maximum pressure” on Kim Jong-un, but it doesn’t appear that North Korea’s young leader is feeling it.

Throughout 2018, Kim has been on the diplomatic offensive — reestablishing a high-level dialogue with South Korea, creating a shining moment at the Olympics, extending the invitation for an unprecedented meeting with President Trump and just this week meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, on his first foreign trip after six years in office.