As the quotes cited by Haaretz in recent months indicate, Hamas' murderous plan was known in the minutest detail 10 years ago. In the spring of 2014, then-Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen presented dramatic intelligence that relied on a number of sources: the organization was carrying out extensive training indicating its intention to break through the border and send thousands of fighters armed from head to toe to capture communities, massacre Israelis and kidnap soldiers and civilians."

For years, he had deliberately strengthened Hamas and even fattened it with suitcases of cash from Qatar in order to deepen the divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and to bury the two-state solution. Five months ago, it all exploded in Israelis' faces.

In a normal country, the Meron commission's piercing conclusions would have forced Netanyahu to hand over the keys, but there is no chance that he will do the right thing. All that can be hoped for is that when the state commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre submits its report, he will no longer be in power. The commission's conclusions will then be a bitter reminder of his destructive influence on Israel in the past 10 years.

It was a night of death and hunger. When it ended, at least 112 people had been killed and another 760 were injured. Israel tried to deny responsibility – the trucks hit them – but there is no denying its responsibility for what is happening now in the Gaza Strip: Israel is the occupying force there.
Not only that: Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Gaza City's Al-Awda Hospital, told The Associated Press that of the 176 wounded brought to the facility, 142 had gunshot wounds and the other 34 showed injuries from a stampede. A physician at the city's Shifa Hospital said that most of those treated there had gunshot wounds.

If the night of death and hunger, the night when body bags replaced the bags of food on the trucks and when blood mixed with flour, did not inspire resistance to the war in Israel, nothing will make Israel stop, if only to think about its actions and their cost: If not the horrific price that the nonhuman Gazans are paying, then at least the price that Israel will pay. From here on, we shall only whisper in vain: Enough.

The plan will cost a total of 70 million shekels (a little over $19 billion), and will provide 2,000 shekels (around $550) a month for two years for every immigrant who chooses to live in the geographic periphery or beyond the Green Line. Immigrants who rent apartments in the center of the country or in the Haifa area will receive assistance of several hundred shekels each month for two years.

Sofer and Smotrich also announced a second program , which would introduce "absorption centers in the community," in which groups of immigrants will reside in newly built, currently empty apartments in Israel in their first few years in the country.
According to the director-general of the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, Avichai Kahana, 80 million shekels (roughly $22 million) will be budgeted for this plan over the next two years.

"Now is not the time to be speaking about gifts for the Palestinian people," Avi Hyman, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister's Office, told CNN during a press briefing, in reference to talk of a Palestinian state.

CNN had asked Hyman about a report by The Washington Post that the Biden Administration and "a small group of Middle East partners" are working to formulate a comprehensive peace plan, which "could be announced as early as the next several weeks."

Hyman responded, "Here is Israel, we're still in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre."
"Now is the time for victory – total victory against Hamas. And we will continue on the path to victory. All discussions about the day after Hamas will be had the day after Hamas," said Hyman.

Late last night, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen gave a remarkable speech on the Senate floor, condemning the government of Benjamin Netanyahu for deliberately blocking aid to civilians in Gaza. Van Hollen said:

“Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals. … Every one of them [officials at humanitarian relief organizations] has stated that their organizations have never experienced a humanitarian disaster as dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.”

Let’s be clear. To take a clear moral stand against Netanyahu is not to be pro-Hamas or anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist or antisemitic.

It’s to be pro-human rights.

Tens of thousands have been killed, including thousands of children. Many more are starving. American tax payers’ money is partly responsible. Where is the moral clarity? Where is the moral authority? Why aren’t we doing everything possible to stop the deaths?

Ever since her voice fell silent, I am overwhelmed by pain. Standing before a mirror that measures 365 square kilometers, if you don't include the West Bank. As an individual, what is reflected back to me is pain and hopelessness. As a people, what is reflected to us are big ideas and empty phrases: "national goal," "they only understand force," "they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," "there's no one to talk to." It all comes back to us and repeats in an endless loop.

The Zionist project is an impressive enterprise that was intended to provide an answer to the genuinely existential Jewish question. At the same time, its aim has always been to turn an area inhabited by one ethnic group into the nation-state of another ethnic group.

People say that if Hamas would just lay down its weapons, the current war would end. That may be true, but what would the Palestinian Authority say, which put down it weapons long ago and has been left with occupation? If we want to prevent soldiers from falling in battle, to ensure that the communities near the borders rebuild and prosper, to ensure that Israelis in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv stop experiencing terror attacks, and that all the hostages return, the Palestinians need to have a horizon. They need to at least receive a signal that when they do lay down their arms, the blockade will end, and the checkpoints and bombardments will be replaced by dialogue.

Yitzhak Rabin was thought of by Palestinians as the "breaker of bones" and Yasser Arafat was known as the "arch-terrorist," and they were able to recognize each other's existence on the national level. This happened because they underwent a conceptual change. Menachem Begin told Anwar Sadat that "war is avoidable, peace is unavoidable." Where have all the good men (and women) gone, the leaders who will finally save us from the agonies of war?

Israeli security forces have rescued two hostages who were held captive by Hamas in Gaza overnight Sunday, a joint statement by the IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police said.

The two, Louis Norberto Har, 70, and Fernando Marman, 60, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on October 7 and were held in an apartment in Rafah. They are in good condition and have been taken for medical evaluation at Sheba Medical Center in central Israel.

Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old child in Gaza who pleaded on the phone to be rescued from a mangled car where she was surrounded by her dead relatives, was found dead alongside them nearly two weeks later, according to her family and the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Hind’s body was located in the Tel al-Hawa section of Gaza City on Saturday after Israeli forces retreated from the area. The bombed-out remains of an ambulance dispatched to rescue her were found close by.

Hind had stayed on the phone for around three hours with the Palestine Red Crescent Society on Jan. 29, desperately pleading for help, the agency said.

She was reportedly fleeing the city with her aunt, uncle and cousins when they were caught in gunfire. It was Layan Hamadeh, Hind’s 15-year-old cousin, who initially called the Red Crescent for help until falling silent.

Senior U.S. military intelligence officers told congress members in recent days that while Israel has degraded Hamas' military capabilities, it is not close to eliminating it, the New York Times reported.

The officers refrained from providing estimates of the number of Hamas fighters killed, but said in private conversations that it looks like only a third of the members of the organization's military wing have been killed, the report said.

The New York Times report also noted that the officers emphasized the lesson that the U.S. had learned from past wars – that there is no wisdom in counting the number of dead among enemy fighters.