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Premature newborns receive treatment after being transferred from Al-Shifa Hospital to Al-Emarati Hospital in Rafah.
Hard Numbers: Gaza newborns evacuated, Old Joe keeps a low pro, Shakira shakes tax rap, Bolsonaro’s whale of a harassment charge, a long overdue story from Minnesota
81: President Joe Biden kept the celebrations extra low-key as he turned 81 on Monday, and small wonder why. Recent polls show that a majority of Americans, including two-thirds of Democrats, are worried that he’s too old to be commander in chief. So far, that’s not stopping him from running for reelection next year.
8 million: Así es perfecto, indeed – Colombian pop megastar Shakira reached a settlement on Monday with Spanish prosecutors on day one of her tax evasion trial in Barcelona. She will pay $8 million to avoid further prosecution on charges that she failed to pay nearly $16 million worth of taxes to the Spanish government between 2012 and 2014. She must also pay the owed taxes and interest.
15: Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro is being investigated for reportedly “harassing” a humpback whale off the coast of Brazil. The right-wing populist – who’s banned from seeking reelection until 2030 following his attempts to sow doubt about the reelection bid he lost in 2022 – reportedly rode his Jet Ski within 15 meters of the surfacing cetacean. Bolsonaro, known to some as “Captain Chainsaw,” has a rocky relationship with the natural world: As president, he oversaw a massive uptick in Amazon deforestation, and who could forget the ornery emu that bit him on the hand while he was suffering from COVID-19?
103: This story is long overdue. A book checked out from a Minnesota public library 103 years ago has finally been returned after a local person found it in a family member’s belongings. If you’re thinking you’d probably need Shakira’s lawyers to get you out of the late fees on that, you’d be right – except that the library stopped charging late fees altogether in 2019.US soldier calls in information during operation in western Iraq
Fight between US and Iran’s proxies reaches boiling point
The United States and Iran’s proxy militias are locked in an escalating feud that’s raising fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East amid an already devastating war in Gaza. The situation is precarious, with the potential to spiral out of control.
On Wednesday, the US conducted an airstrike on a weapons storage facility in Syria used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated groups. The strike was in response to a string of attacks against US personnel in the region by Iranian proxies and came the same day a US drone was downed by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. It was the second time the US launched such a strike in a matter of weeks.
The backdrop: The longstanding tensions between the US and Iran have reached historic heights in recent years, and the Israel-Hamas war is pouring fuel on the fire. The US has offered full-throated support to Israel in its battle against Hamas, a militant group that’s had Iran in its corner for years. The US has reinforced its military presence in the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas fight began in early October — a sign that Washington feared the war could spill out across the region.
The signal: The US is using these recent strikes in Syria to send a clear message to Iran and its affiliates: Back off. Whether this will be a sufficient form of deterrence remains to be seen.
Iran-backed groups have launched just over 40 attacks against US troops in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, according to the Pentagon. Dozens of US troops have been injured in the process, some suffering traumatic brain injuries, though no fatalities have been reported. Should a US service member be killed in a future attack, the White House may feel pressured to respond far more aggressively.
Israeli soldiers walk through rubble, amid the ongoing ground invasion against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, November 8, 2023.
No one knows who will govern Gaza when the dust finally settles
Waging war without a plan for what comes after the fighting stops is a lot like jumping into an empty pool — it's a good way to get hurt, and yet it's exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza. The Jewish state's endgame is looking increasingly murky as the war against Hamas escalates and Israeli troops push farther into the territory.
The Biden administration this week scrambled to warn its top Middle Eastern ally against reoccupying the Gaza Strip. This came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised concerns with an announcement that Israel intended to take indefinite control over security in Gaza.
Echoing recent statements from the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday underscored that it’s clear Israel “cannot occupy Gaza.” Blinken also said that Hamas, which currently governs Gaza, can’t be in charge. The top US diplomat said the reality is there will likely need to be a transitional period once the conflict ceases.
Blinken’s British counterpart, James Cleverly, on Wednesday, said “a move toward a peace-loving Palestinian leadership is the most desired outcome” — as soon as it’s “practicable.”
In short, no one knows who will govern Gaza once the dust settles. Meanwhile, experts are concerned that a protracted Israeli military presence in Gaza will ultimately benefit Hamas.
No postwar plan: The Israeli government, which maintains that Hamas cannot continue to rule over Gaza, also says it doesn’t intend to govern the territory or engage in a long-term occupation. But it’s hard to see how Israel will avoid assuming at least some responsibility for Gaza’s governance as it moves to assert security control over the coastal enclave and expresses a desire for a buffer zone.
Indeed, the Israelis don't have a clear road map for what happens if they succeed in destroying Hamas — and there is no guarantee Israel will achieve this goal.
“The Israeli military operation will succeed in weakening Hamas military infrastructure,” says Ayham Kamel, head of Eurasia Group’s Middle East and North Africa research team. “Hamas remnants will probably still exist but the same level of political control before October 7th is highly unlikely,” he added.
Blinken has emphasized that the Palestinian Authority, which has limited control over parts of the occupied West Bank, should be at the heart of any discussions on Gaza’s postwar future. But there are open questions about whether the PA, which is not particularly popular with Palestinians, is a viable option for effective leadership.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said that the PA does not want to govern in Gaza without a political solution to the situation in the West Bank, where expanding Israeli settlements — illegal under international law — continue to be a major source of tension.
The bottom line: The region could be consumed by even more violence and chaos for years to come without a cogent postwar plan for Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with soldiers as he visits an Israeli army base in Tze'elim, Israel November 7, 2023.
Netanyahu flirts with a lengthy stay in Gaza
Less than two weeks since Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza, it appears that Israeli troops won’t be leaving the coastal enclave anytime soon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday told ABC News that Israel will take “overall security responsibility” for Gaza for an “indefinite period” to prevent further Hamas attacks.
This raises a slew of questions and concerns about Israel’s goal of rooting out Hamas and the potential for sparking even more violence from Hamas and other Iranian proxies. Will this mean a purely military presence, or is it a slippery slope to the return of Israeli settlements in Gaza?
Bibi’s announcement “raised red flags in Arab capitals,” and especially in Cairo, says Randa Slim, senior fellow and director of conflict resolution at the Middle East Institute.
Israel’s goal: Bibi says the aim is to eradicate Hamas and rescue the roughly 240 people taken hostage by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack. But completely destroying Hamas could prove extremely difficult, as the violence is likely to inspire the next generation of anti-Israel fighters. Meanwhile, Israeli troops will face intense urban fighting and contend with the militants’ use of an intricate system of tunnels.
How Hamas allies might respond: An indefinite Israeli presence in Gaza will “definitely catalyze” a Hamas and Islamic Jihad-led insurgency and lead “to a years-long bloody and sustained conflict,” Slim warns.
In this way, Netanyahu may be falling into a trap. He’s poised to give Hamas exactly what it wants, says Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, which is “a long-term ground presence that can serve as the target of a sustained insurgency.”
Hamas hopes to “start picking off Israeli soldiers individually and in small groups, killing and capturing them, and bleeding Israel horrendously,” he adds, noting how this will help the militant group portray itself as the rightful leader of the Palestinian national movement — as opposed to Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank “who sit at the table listening to crickets and waiting for negotiations that never take place.”
The bottom line: Bibi may just have opened the door for a renewed Israeli military occupation of Gaza, sinking the prospect of a two-state solution.What should Israel do next?
An Israeli ground incursion into Gaza has been inevitable from the moment Hamas launched its shocking Oct. 7 surprise attack into southern Israel, where it brutally massacred more than 1,400 Israeli citizens and took over 200 to Gaza as hostages. Israel’s objective: to destroy Hamas once and for all, ensuring it can never pose a threat to Israeli security again.
This long-anticipated offensive has thus far been delayed by international efforts to reduce the humanitarian impact, ongoing negotiations to release hostages, divisions within Israel’s unity government about what to do next, and pressure from Washington to wait until both Israel and the US are prepared to handle any resulting escalation. But the invasion will take place in short order.
This will be a terrible mistake for Israel, graver even than the one the US committed in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to 9/11. To be clear, I fully understand and share Israel’s desire to destroy the terrorist organization that is Hamas. Israel has every right to defend itself and retaliate against attacks on its citizens. But just because this objective is understandable, legitimate, and desirable, it does not mean it is feasible or strategically wise.
A large-scale invasion of Gaza would be counterproductive
There is no military way for Israel to fully destroy Hamas without killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and radicalizing even more. An invasion of Gaza would be a humanitarian, moral, and strategic catastrophe, not only inflicting unfathomable human costs but also badly undermining Israel’s long-term security. Nothing it can hope to achieve – beyond satisfying Israeli demands for revenge – can outweigh the harm it is certain to do even in the best of scenarios.
Because Hamas’ military infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas and its 30,000-40,000 fighters hide among noncombatants, any attempt to destroy Hamas in Gaza would have to be conducted block by block, building by building, and door by door in one of the most densely populated and urbanized environments in the world, amid a uniquely hostile population and against a highly motivated enemy that has been preparing for this fight on their home turf for a long time. This slow and grinding urban battle would be tactically harder to prosecute and costlier in terms of Israeli military casualties than Fallujah was for the US. Even if Israel takes every precaution to protect civilian lives, many innocent people will inevitably be killed, injured, and displaced. Before Oct. 7, 50% of Palestinians in Gaza faced chronic hunger and 90% didn’t have access to clean water; under siege and without a way out of the territory, this will only get worse for them.
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The death and suffering of innocent civilians will in turn radicalize many more Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere, increasing support for Hamas and multiplying the threat to Israel. At a minimum, widespread anti-Israel demonstrations will occur across the region, with terrorist attacks more likely. More social unrest will also emerge in the West Bank, Egypt, and Jordan, potentially destabilizing the broader region and sparking wider conflict beyond Gaza, with retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon or even Iran.
At the same time, the more damage Israel’s offensive inflicts, the more its own moral legitimacy and international standing will suffer. Western support for Israel will be tested, and Israel’s relations with Arab states and much of the Global South will become untenable, as will normalization with Saudi Arabia. Popular anger toward Israel among Arab populations could cause trouble for even the most repressive Arab regimes, lead them to distance themselves from the US and Israel, and drive a surge in extremist violence in the US and Europe.
Perhaps the biggest problem with a ground invasion is that even if Israel succeeded in eliminating Hamas, it has no plan for what to do with Gaza the “day after.” This is the same problem that befell the US after toppling the ruling regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can’t install the Palestinian Authority, which is too weak and unpopular to take Hamas’s place. And it’s hard to imagine Egypt or the Gulf states would step up to administer Gaza after decades of washing their hands of the Palestinian problem. Yet if Israel simply pulls out, a reconstituted Hamas or another militant group like it would no doubt fill the power vacuum. Which means that once started, an invasion would lead to an indefinite occupation and an unwinnable counterinsurgency.
What’s the alternative?
Ultimately, there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas is as much an idea as it is an organization made up of specific people: Israel can kill its entire leadership and destroy its infrastructure, but the movement and ideology will survive in one form or another so long as the political conditions that underpin its support continue to fester. The only way Israelis can achieve lasting security is by offering Palestinians a credible pathway to realize their legitimate aspirations for self-determination by peaceful means.
That's not to say Israel shouldn’t retaliate militarily against Hamas for the horrific Oct. 7 attacks. In fact, it must: Israel has a right to self-defense, and its government has an obligation to protect citizens from harm. Insofar as Hamas continues to pose a threat to Israelis, a (non-temporary) ceasefire and de-escalation is both politically impossible and morally unacceptable. In addition to physically preventing Hamas from attacking Israel in the near future, Israel must also reestablish deterrence both to prevent a bloodier assault down the line and to make diplomacy conceivable in the distant future. If its enemies believe Israel is weak, they will have no incentive to eventually work toward a peaceful solution.
So how can Israel achieve these aims without worsening the growing humanitarian crisis and causing more problems for itself? In other words, how can Israel fight a monster without becoming a monster? Instead of a full ground invasion that would inflict collective punishment on innocent Gazans and inevitably lead to a forever occupation, Israel should employ targeted strikes against Hamas leaders, fighters, and infrastructure to degrade the terrorist organization’s capabilities while minimizing Israeli military and Palestinian civilian casualties.
This counterterrorism campaign (as opposed to the regime change and counterinsurgency campaign that’s about to begin) should be paired with more pressure on Qatar to end its hosting of Hamas’s political leaders, negotiations and special forces operations to rescue hostages, and immediate (and sufficient) humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians. And it should only start once far more civilians have been able to get to safety. After all, Hamas is not going anywhere; no one in Gaza is. There’s no real reason not to take the time to set up the requisite safe zones and refugee camps, deploy humanitarian aid, evacuate greater numbers of northern Gazans, and negotiate the release of more hostages.
The heart wants what the heart wants
Alas, all signs point to Israel still going ahead with the ground incursion – and soon. This retribution campaign, which the White House has characterized to me as “emotional rather than strategic,” is supported not just by Netanyahu but by his entire war cabinet and most Israelis across the political spectrum. The military and intelligence services understand the difficulty and danger of a long-term occupation, but the leadership and citizenry are intent on going in hard and going in now, consequences be damned.
Despite the enormous leverage the US has on Israel, the Biden administration doesn’t believe it can forestall the invasion for much longer and is instead focused on limiting the consequent damage. They have accordingly privately advised the Israeli government to “go in quick, get out quick,” minimize areas of operation, and create safe zones inside northern Gaza where civilians can take shelter and access water, food, medicine, and fuel. Several relief trucks did finally get to civilians in southern Gaza over the weekend, but not nearly enough to meet Gaza’s minimum humanitarian needs. And there’s little hope Israel will agree to the ”humanitarian pause” the White House has been advocating.
To reiterate, Israel has a sovereign, inalienable right to security. But a ground invasion into Gaza does not accomplish that; it does the opposite, playing straight into the hands of Israel’s enemies and undermining regional stability without fundamentally solving any of Israel’s strategic dilemmas.
I truly hope cooler heads prevail to save Israel from itself, but absent a miracle, it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
Israeli soldiers carry the body of a victim of an attack by militants from Gaza at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel.
Biden on Hamas attacks: “This was an act of sheer evil”
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not mince his words when he gave his second address about the Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
“The brutality of Hamas’ bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS,” he said, adding that he told Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu that “if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming.”
The aim was to show Israel’s enemies that there is little daylight between the US and Israel, and, crucially, to warn those who might be seeking to join the conflict – like Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon – not to dare. This comes after a barrage of rockets was fired at Israel from Lebanon on Tuesday, while Hamas rockets continued to rain down on southern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv, the most populous city.
After emphasizing that Hamas’ actions are a threat to the free world – and reminding viewers that the US has deployed its USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier – the largest warship in the world – to the Eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent, Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen vowed to hit Israel with missiles if the US gets involved.
What’s more, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who flanked Biden during Tuesday’s address along with Vice President Kamala Harris, will head to Israel on Wednesday to meet with Israeli leadership.
Biden also confirmed that Americans are among those taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza and said Washington would ramp up aid to the Jewish State, including the delivery of Iron Dome missile interceptors, which are used to destroy incoming rockets.
The latest from the ground. The death toll in Israel has surpassed 1,200 since Hamas launched a series of massacres against southern Israeli towns on Saturday. As the Israeli military and ZAKA – Israel’s identification, extraction, and rescue squads – comb through kibbutzim and communities, they announced on Tuesday that 40 infants had been murdered on one kibbutz alone – including some gruesome beheadings.
Israel says that 156 soldiers were slain in the rampage, while the rest of the victims are civilians.
As Israel recovers bodies from the south, sporadic fighting with Hamas militants who remain in Israel has also broken out.
Meanwhile, the Israeli air campaign in Gaza continues, with Israel targeting Hamas facilities and personnel. In the densely populated Gaza Strip, Hamas fighters have been killed along with many civilians. The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 2,500, including 1,500 Hamas militants killed inside Israel after they waged Saturday’s attacks. The death toll inside Gaza is 1,055, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, and about two-thirds of these deaths are thought to be Hamas militants, according to David Makovsky of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy.
Israel has also placed the coastal enclave under a blockade, cutting off water, food and fuel shipments, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation.
Israel, for its part, will soon launch a ground offensive that could drag on for months. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said to Israeli troops on Tuesday: “I have released all the restraints, we have [regained] control of the area, and we are moving to a full offense.”
“Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors — we will eliminate him with all our might, and without compromise.”
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Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from the city of Ashkelon, Israel.
After the Hamas massacre, Israel pounds Gaza
Days after Hamas’ deadly terror attacks across southern Israel – in which militants murdered residents of border towns and music festival attendees, resulting in more than 900 deaths – Israel has launched a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
So far, the Israeli Air Force has begun intense bombardments from the air, but a ground operation is expected. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly told President Joe Biden that his government has no choice but to conduct a ground invasion to reinstate Israel’s deterrence capabilities, mobilizing 300,000 reservists.
What are the options facing Israel in the Strip as the war evolves? And what is currently the situation for Palestinians in the coastal enclave?
A different kind of operation. From Israel's perspective, there are no good options as it seeks retaliation for what Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, called the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Hamas, in an unprecedented move, has reportedly taken up to 100 Israelis hostage, including octogenarians, babies, and scores of women.
Some questions to consider: How does Israel make sure the hostages aren’t killed by its air raids? And how does the military reconcile two seemingly conflicting objectives – waging a full-blown assault that’ll wipe out Hamas for good and safeguarding the lives of dozens of civilian abductees stashed across Gaza? Is Israel willing to engage in an extensive operation even at the risk of harming Israeli hostages?
A Hamas spokesperson threatened on Monday to start executing the hostages if Israel’s bombardment of civilian homes continues.
One of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has already said that hostages should not be considered when executing a response, a view wholly out of step with the vast majority of Israelis.
What’s more, while Israel says it has secured border communities from Hamas terrorists, it remains a challenge to keep the region free of infiltrators given that the barrier has been breached in many places.
Meanwhile, Gaza is home to more than 2 million Palestinians. Since Hamas, which is deemed a terror organization by the US and EU, violently seized power of the enclave in 2007, Gaza has been subject to blockades at the Kerem Shalom Border Crossing with Israel. Critics say this is a human rights violation while supporters say it aims to protect Israelis against the sort of terror attacks seen over the weekend.
Still, more than 80% of the Strip’s spotty electricity supply comes from Israel, along with much of its food supplies.
Crucially, Gaza has for the past decade also been subject to a full blockade on the Rafah Border Crossing, which connects the Strip to the Sinai Peninsula. Under the leadership of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a national security absolutist who abhors the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ sister organization, Egypt has curbed imports through its crossing in response to Hamas building a network of tunnels used to coordinate jihadist training camps and attacks in the Sinai.
Israel, which on Monday said it would halt all food, fuel, and water shipments to the enclave, has said that no stone will be left unturned in cracking down on Hamas leadership and its military infrastructure.
But in the densely populated Strip, roughly the size of Washington, DC, there’s little protection for civilians, and Hamas embeds itself in civilian areas to complicate reprisal efforts. As of this writing, the death toll in Gaza has passed 500, and around 70,000 Palestinians fled to shelters.
What happens now? “For the first time since Hamas’ takeover, the possibility of Israel going in and cleaning out Gaza [of Hamas] and potentially reoccupying the strip is on the table in a real way,” Neri Zilber, a policy advisor at the Israel Policy Forum, said at a briefing on Monday. “This won't be like previous rounds with Hamas in Gaza. There’s no going back.”
At the same briefing, Dr. Nimrod Novak, a former advisor to President Shimon Peres, said that Israel’s objective now “is to change the equation in Gaza for a very long time to come.” Given the scale of atrocities in recent days, he said, “what's happening now from the air is far less restricted in considering the humanitarian situation” than during previous escalations.
“The fact that Hamas has chosen to place itself amid civilian population will no longer serve as a deterrent,” he said.
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Palestinian rescue workers inspect a house after an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip.
The latest from Israel and Gaza
After three days of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip, there are no signs that the crisis is abating.
After Israeli forces took out a number of high-profile PIJ commanders in recent days, the group responded by firing more than 800 rockets at southern and central Israel. Many of those rockets have either been intercepted by missile defense systems, landed inside Gaza, or fallen in vacant areas inside Israel.
But at least one Israeli was killed when a rocket hit a residential building in a Tel Aviv suburb on Thursday, while dozens of Palestinians have been killed, including civilians and children, as Israel pummels PIJ strongholds in the Strip.
It’s notable that Hamas, which governs Gaza, does not appear to have joined PIJ in firing rockets at Israel, but it’s hard to imagine PIJ launching a barrage like this without at least tacit approval from Hamas leadership.
So far, ceasefire efforts mediated by Egypt have proved fruitless: PIJ wants Israel to stop the targeted killing of its commanders, which Jerusalem won’t agree to. Meanwhile, Israel wants the group to stop firing rockets without preconditions.