This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. Israel has retaken the towns near Gaza where fighting had continued since Saturday, it announced this morning, as the IDF said an airstrike campaign against Gaza would be “bigger than before and more severe.” Meanwhile, the military revealed more about the scale of the incursion, saying it had killed some 1,500 assailants so far; the U.S. Senate sped up efforts to confirm Jack Lew as the new ambassador to Israel; and Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, celebrated the attacks, but claimed that the Iranian government had not been involved in their planning.
• The Israeli death toll from Saturday’s attack has climbed to more than 900 people. • President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on the war at 1 p.m. ET today, after issuing a Monday statement declaring that the U.S. and several European allies “will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people.” • A Hamas spokesperson threatened to kill Israeli hostages if Israeli airstrikes hit civilian homes in Gaza without warning. Latest estimates suggest there are some 150 Israelis being held hostage in the strip; Qatari mediators said they were working to negotiate a hostage return in exchange for 36 Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons. • The United Nations said close to 200,000 Palestinians have so far been displaced in Gaza in anticipation of an Israeli military reaction. The U.N.’s human rights chief warned that Israel’s plans for “a complete siege” of Gaza would cause a humanitarian crisis, as the World Health Organization said Israeli strikes had hit 13 health facilities in the strip over the weekend, and that its stores of medical supplies there had been exhausted. • Colombia’s president compared the IDF to Nazis. Separately, some participants at an Australian pro-Palestinian rally appeared to chant “gas the Jews.” Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, was on CNN this morning, talking about how everything we thought we knew about Israel and Gaza was wrong — and what might happen next. Watch the video and read her latest column. |
Demonstrators gather during an Emergency Rally for Gaza at the Consulate General of Israel Monday in New York City. Several Jewish organizations co-sponsored the event. (Getty Images) |
Meet the Jews defending Hamas: Norman Finkelstein, 69, is an expert in the politics of the Holocaust and a child of two Holocaust survivors — and is cheering on Hamas after its devastating attack on Israel. “They were born in that concentration camp and they were never able to leave,” he told our Arno Rosenfeld in an interview, referring to Israel’s two-decade-long blockade of Gaza. “What are you supposed to do?” “No peace on stolen land”: Finkelstein, who compared the attack to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is among a tiny handful of Jews openly supporting Hamas after this weekend’s terror rampage. But a larger swath of leftist Jews are condemning Hamas’ violence against civilians while arguing that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians created the conditions for it to occur. IfNotNow, which advocates against the Israeli occupation, for example, condemned “the killing of innocent life” — and said their deaths were a result of “decades of Palestinian oppression.” “War crimes”: None of the Jews Arno spoke with expressed complete support for Hamas’ actions. Some who initially celebrated the attacks walked back their statements after more details emerged. “I’m celebrating Palestinian armed resistance,” tweeted Rivkah Brown, a British Jew. “I don’t condone every act taken by that resistance.” |
Israelis donate blood at a hospital in Tel Aviv on Saturday. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images) |
Opinion | As a new immigrant to Israel, all I can give is my blood. Sruli Fruchter, who made aliyah two months ago, joined scores of Israelis who lined up to donate blood after Saturday’s attack. In a new essay, he found himself dwelling on the desperation that comes with trying to help when you know the worst has already been wrought. “I wish my blood could be enough to save Israel, to revive those murdered,” he writes. “But nothing I do can bring those innocent souls back.” Read the essay ➤ At JFK, well-wishers bid Israeli soldiers farewell: Most airlines have paused service to Israel. But El Al, Israel’s state carrier, is adding extra flights, as Israeli soldiers and reservists outside the country race to join their units. At New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, volunteers had set up tables with snacks and supplies for the travelers. “I have friends who were injured in the Hamas attacks,” one 25-year-old reservist told our editorial intern, Camillo Barone. “I knew from the beginning I had to go back.” Read the story ➤ Plus: • ‘My heart is shattered’: Natalie Portman, Sarah Silverman and other celebs react to the Israel-Gaza War • How Jewish day schools are talking about the horrors in Israel with their students • U.S. rabbinical students, in Israel for the year, weigh whether to stay and how to help Stay informed: You can follow our partners at Haaretz for live updates throughout the day. Reuters is fact-checking disinformation about the war, which has rapidly proliferated. And we’ve taken down our paywall for coverage of Israel’s war with Gaza. Read all of our stories here. |
Join the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies & The Naomi Foundation for the 2023 Naomi Prawer Kadar Annual Memorial Lecture with academic and cultural critic Dr. Ilan Stavans, a virtual talk titled “Yiddish and Ladino: Forking Paths.” This event will take place at noon on Wednesday, October 25 on ZOOM. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Jedidiah Murphy with Rabbi Dovid Goldstein, who instructed him on using tefillin in 2016. (Courtesy of Chabad) |
⚖️ Jedidiah Murphy, a Jewish death row inmate in Texas whose execution was planned for today, received a stay of execution after an appeals court upheld a stay issued by a district court last week. (JTA) ? In Canada, a group of students at the University of Calgary appeared to perform a Nazi march through a dormitory. Video shows the students performing Nazi salutes and yelling “Heil Hitler.” (globalnews.ca) ?? The European Union backtracked after an official said the union would withdraw all aid to Palestinians. Several countries raised alarms, and suggested the call had been the decision of a single minister. (Reuters) ? A Vatican official defended World War II-era Pope Pius XII as a friend of the Jews while opening a conference on Pius’ silence during the Holocaust. Internal Vatican historians have said that a prejudice against Jews informed the Pope’s attitude during the war. (Associated Press) What else we’re reading ➤ “American Jews feel solidarity about Israel — for the moment” … New French laws about Nazi-looted art uncover the country’s complicated cultural past … The influence of neo-Nazi views on Germany’s far-right. |
On this day in history (1963): From Russia With Love, the second movie in the James Bond franchise, premiered in London. The film was penned by the Jewish screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who wrote or contributed to the scripts for a number of the early Bond films. But Maibaum’s career began on Broadway, where he was the youngest actor to ever play the villain, Iago, in Shakespeare’s Othello, and where his second play, Birthright, made waves for critiquing the Nazi regime — in only 1933. |
The White House draped in white and blue in honor of Israel on Monday. (Courtesy of Jill Biden/Twitter) |
The White House was illuminated in the colors of the Israeli flag on Monday night, as President Biden said in a statement that Hamas’ Saturday attack on Israel “is not some distant tragedy.” — Thanks to Benyamin Cohen and Jodi Rudoren for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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