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☆ Israel Presses Assault on Hamas’s Last Major Gaza Bastion
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( Dov Lieber | Margherita Stancati | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TEL AVIV—Israeli forces closed in on the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, engaging in close combat with Hamas fighters in what could be the decisive battle of the two-month-old war, while residents fled from the fighting amid a worsening humanitarian plight. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, is defending its last major bastion in Gaza, where Israel believes the group’s leaders are hiding and holding hostages, after Israeli forces drove the militants and much of the population out of Gaza City in the enclave’s north.

Persons: Khan Younis Organizations: Hamas Locations: TEL AVIV, Khan, Gaza, U.S, Israel, Gaza City

☆ Israel, Hamas Engage in Some of Fiercest Fighting of War
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TEL AVIV—Israeli troops and Hamas fighters were engaged Monday in some of the toughest fighting of the two-month-old war, as Israel looks to decisively finish its operations in and around Gaza City and prepare to move its offensive south. The Israeli military has essentially cornered Hamas fighters in two of their last strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip—the Shajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City and the city of Jabalia, immediately to the north.

Locations: TEL AVIV, Israel, Gaza City, Gaza, Jabalia

☆ Elon Musk, on Visit to Israel, Says Those Intent on Murder Must Be ‘Neutralized’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Max Colchester | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured Kfar Aza, one of the Israeli communities attacked by Hamas last month. The visit came amid criticism over alleged antisemitic posts on social-media network X. Photo: Israel Government Press Office/ReutersElon Musk said that those “intent on murder must be neutralized” after touring an Israeli community recently attacked by Hamas, just weeks after the billionaire described an antisemitic social-media post on X as “the actual truth.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday took Musk on a tour through Kfar Aza, a kibbutz attacked on Oct. 7. Netanyahu later showed Musk a video of the attacks on Israeli civilians, and the two men then livestreamed a conversation on X.

Persons: Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu, Kfar Aza, Reuters Elon Musk, Netanyahu Organizations: Israel Government Press Office, Reuters, Monday Locations: Kfar Aza

☆ Israel, Hamas Agree to Extend Truce by Two Days
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Summer Said | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel and Hamas agreed on Monday to a two-day extension of their truce in Gaza to allow for the release of more Israeli hostages as part of a fragile agreement that has brought respite from seven weeks of war, according to Egyptian, Qatari and Hamas negotiators. Hamas released another 11 Israeli hostages Monday night as part of the initial deal. The latest group, which included no Americans, were in Israel, Egyptian officials said. The 11 included six citizens of Argentina, three French citizens and two German citizens, according to Qatari officials.

Organizations: Qatari Locations: Israel, Gaza, Argentina

TEL AVIV—Hamas leaders are heading into a temporary cease-fire with a singular mission: survival. Israel has defined its war aims as toppling Hamas from power, killing its leadership, freeing the more than 200 hostages in Gaza and ending any security threat from the strip. The four-day pause gives Hamas time to prepare a new phase of the war that could last months, with the aim of sapping the momentum of Israel’s offensive and creating international pressure to end the conflict without achieving its goals, military analysts said.

Locations: TEL AVIV, Israel, Gaza

Weeks of secret hostage negotiations with Hamas were hanging by a thread when President Biden phoned the emir of Qatar, a key emissary to the militant group, to deliver an urgent message. Yahya Sinwar , the Hamas leader in Gaza, had gone dark after the Israeli military seized control of Al-Shifa hospital, a facility Israel said Hamas used as a command-and-control center. Now that the fighting at the hospital was over, Sinwar had re-emerged from the shadows, and he was ready to negotiate.

Persons: Biden, Yahya Sinwar, Sinwar Locations: Qatar, Gaza, Israel

☆ Israel, Hamas Exchange Fire Ahead of Release of Hostages, Pause in Fighting
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel carried out targeted raids in the Gaza Strip and Hamas fired rockets at Israel ahead of implementing an agreed pause in fighting and the release of hostages held by the militant group in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Early Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to free 50 civilian hostages held by militants in Gaza in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and a four-day pause in fighting.

Persons: Israel Locations: Gaza, Israel

The Israeli military has stepped up its efforts to produce evidence that Gaza’s largest hospital was a Hamas command center, as the humanitarian fallout from war and seizure of Al-Shifa Hospital has heaped pressure on Israel. In recent days, the Israeli military has released a series of videos and photos from the hospital that show further details of a tunnel uncovered at the site and security-camera footage of two hostages who were brought there on Oct. 7, the day Israel says Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages back to Gaza.

Organizations: Shifa Locations: Israel, Gaza

Israel and Hamas agreed to free 50 civilian hostages held by militants in Gaza in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and a series of pauses in fighting. The Israeli cabinet approved the deal after a long deliberation that started Tuesday and went into the early morning hours of Wednesday in Jerusalem. It capped weeks of painstaking negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., marking the first major diplomatic breakthrough since the war began on Oct. 7. Hamas confirmed the deal in a statement.

Organizations: Hamas Locations: Israel, Gaza, Jerusalem, Qatar, Egypt, U.S

☆ Gaza Hospital Is Now a ‘Death Zone,’ U.N. Says After Visit
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Saeed Shah | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Hundreds of patients and medical staff evacuated Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital on Saturday under orders from Israel’s armed forces, hospital officials and Palestinian health authorities said. Israel’s military denied issuing an evacuation order. Photo: Naaman Omar/Zuma PressTEL AVIV—The United Nations said Sunday that it had sent an inspection mission to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, a focal point of Israel’s military campaign in the strip, and warned that lack of fuel, clean water and other essentials had turned the facility into a “death zone.”The U.N.’s report on conditions in the Gaza City hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, came as fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas militants intensified in northern parts of the city for a second day. Israeli troops are seeking to extend their control of what they say is a key urban stronghold of Hamas’s military wing from the coastline toward the east.

Persons: Gaza’s, Naaman Omar Organizations: Gaza’s Al, Zuma Press TEL, The United Nations, Shifa Locations: Zuma Press TEL AVIV, Al, Gaza

Qatar has become a key negotiator for the release of hostages held by Hamas. In recent years, the tiny Emirate has led mediation efforts in Afghanistan, Iran and Ukraine. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains how Qatar became a diplomatic power broker. Photo illustration: Marina CostaIsrael and Hamas are closing in on an internationally brokered deal to pause fighting and free some of the roughly 240 hostages taken by the militant group, officials close to the talks said, amid heightened scrutiny of the civilian toll of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The hostage talks—brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the U.S.—have moved in fits and starts for weeks and could break down again.

Persons: WSJ’s Shelby Holliday, Marina, Marina Costa Israel, — Organizations: Marina Costa, U.S Locations: Qatar, Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Egypt

☆ Israel Releases Footage of Tunnel at Gaza’s Largest Hospital
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Sune Engel Rasmussen | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Israeli military released footage of a tunnel opening from within the largest hospital in Gaza on Thursday, the first evidence to support its claims that Hamas’s vast tunnel network runs underneath the medical facility. With pressure mounting on Israel to show proof to justify sending troops into the Al-Shifa Hospital, Israel said it was still in the process of combing through the complex. Hamas has denied the claims that it has used the medical facility as a command center and has requested that the hospital be reviewed by international organizations.

Persons: Israel Organizations: Al, Shifa, Hamas Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ Israel Releases Footage of Tunnels at Gaza’s Largest Hospital
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Sune Engel Rasmussen | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Israel Organizations: Al, Shifa, Hamas Locations: Gaza, Israel

The Israeli military Wednesday said its troops came under fire outside Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, as they entered part of the medical complex Israel says Hamas militants are operating from. A senior Israeli military official said Israeli soldiers killed four militants during the firefight on their way into the hospital and had found weapons inside, adding that they saw “concrete evidence” that Hamas militants were operating there.

Organizations: Shifa Locations: Al, Gaza’s, Israel

☆ Israel Says It Found Evidence of Hamas Activity at Gaza Hospital
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Dov Lieber | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel released footage from Gaza’s largest hospital on Wednesday that it said proved the site was being used by Hamas militants, after searching buildings in an operation that carries high stakes for both sides of the war. The footage showed the MRI wing of the sprawling Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Israel said it found AK-47s, grenades, military uniforms and a battle vest with the insignia of Hamas’s military wing. In a video, an Israeli military spokesman pointed to a laptop, a hand-held tactical radio and a set of discs as evidence of a Hamas command center in the hospital, although the laptop screen was blurred and he didn’t specify what was found on it.

Organizations: Hamas, Shifa, AK Locations: Israel, Gaza City

Israeli soldiers moved into Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, on Wednesday, searching buildings and questioning Palestinians sheltering there in an operation that carries high stakes for both sides of the war. The Israeli offensive has faced international criticism for the killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Israel contends the hospital compound sits atop underground complexes and a command center used by militants, a claim endorsed by the U.S. Hamas denies those claims.

Organizations: U.S Locations: Gaza’s, Al, Gaza, Israel

☆ Israel Dominates Battlefield With Technological Advantage Over Hamas
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

NEGEV DESERT, Israel—In a cluster of single-story buildings the size of small classrooms, commanders from the Givati Brigade, the main Israeli infantry force in Gaza, watch a bank of screens showing the real-time location of all Israeli and Palestinian forces inside Gaza—information they use to move around troops and weapons and surveillance aircraft like pawns on a chessboard. This site, near the Gaza border, is a key node of a sprawling technological nerve center, receiving thousands of battlefield data points from drones, jet fighters, naval ships, tanks and soldiers, that has enabled the Israeli military to carry out a sweeping takeover of a swath of Hamas’s stronghold in Gaza City in less than three weeks with fewer than 50 troop deaths.

Persons: Israel — Organizations: Givati Brigade Locations: Israel, Gaza, Gaza City

☆ Israel Warns of Wider War as It Presses On in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The chance of a full-scale war breaking out between Israel and forces in Lebanon increased in recent days, Israeli officials said, even as fighting continued around the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, crippling the facility where doctors said hundreds of civilians were sheltering and more patients were dying. On Sunday, at least 10 Israeli civilians and seven soldiers were wounded by a combination of mortar, rocket and antitank missiles fired on northern Israel from Lebanon, according to Israeli military and medical authorities. The assault was the most serious incident involving civilians along the Lebanon-Israel border since an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Nov. 5 killed a woman and three children.

Locations: Israel, Lebanon, Gaza

☆ Israeli Forces Reach Gate of Gaza’s Largest Hospital
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Dov Lieber | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TEL AVIV—Israeli troops reached at least one of the gates of Gaza’s largest hospital where Israel says Hamas conceals a major center of operations, while medical staff reported deteriorating conditions inside because of a lack of supplies and electricity. The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli military vehicles were at the southeast gate of Al-Shifa Hospital, and an Israeli military spokesman confirmed that troops had reached one of the gates. Israel alleges that Hamas runs four underground complexes and a command-and-control center at the hospital, a claim Hamas denies.

Organizations: Health Ministry, Hamas, Shifa Locations: TEL AVIV, Gaza’s, Israel, Gaza, Al

☆ Israel, U.S. Warn of Wider War as Clashes Escalate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel and the U.S. have warned about the prospects for a wider war in the Middle East, as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Israeli military step up cross-border attacks against each other and other Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq strike American troops. The warnings came as Israeli forces continued their assault Monday on Gaza, where Palestinian doctors at besieged hospitals say they are watching patients die from a lack of supplies and electricity.

Organizations: U.S, Hezbollah Locations: Israel, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Gaza

Israeli troops and Hamas militants fought intense street battles Sunday around the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, leaving the medical facility with dwindling supplies for thousands sheltering there while a power outage led to the death of two newborns, according to doctors there. Doctors described an increasingly desperate situation at hospitals in northern Gaza, including the biggest one, Al-Shifa Hospital, where they said dozens of dead bodies have been left in the open and decomposing and nearly 40 prematurely born babies are without the incubators they need.

Organizations: Shifa Locations: Gaza

☆ Israel Races to Root Out Hamas as Calls for Gaza Cease-Fire Mount
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( David S. Cloud | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In a little over a week, Israeli ground forces have fought their way into northern Gaza’s urban areas with a speed that has surprised even their own commanders. But the most complex stages of the war might still lie ahead. As they move closer to the center of Gaza City, Israeli troops are encountering dug-in Hamas fighters in larger numbers who attack and then pull back or disappear underground, slowing the Israeli advance, soldiers and current and former officials say.

Locations: Gaza City

☆ Israel Plans Security Role in Gaza After War With Hamas
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Dov Lieber | David S. Cloud | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Top Israeli officials said they intend to retain security control of Gaza for an indefinite period to prevent new militant groups forming once Israel finishes its war with Hamas, but said they have little interest in administering Gaza the way the U.S. sought to govern Iraq two decades ago. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, in his first interview with a foreign media outlet since the start of the war on Oct. 7, said Israel has no desire to impose a civilian administration on Gaza. Once Hamas is toppled, Israel is looking at turning over responsibility for governing the territory to an international coalition, including the U.S., the European Union and Muslim majority countries, or to local political leaders in Gaza, he said.

Persons: Eli Cohen, Israel Organizations: European Union Locations: Gaza, Israel, Iraq, U.S

☆ U.S. Pushes Back on Israel’s Security Plan in Gaza After War
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Dov Lieber | David S. Cloud | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel said it intends to retain security control of Gaza for an indefinite period once its war with Hamas ends, prompting U.S. officials to stress their opposition to a reoccupation of the enclave. Senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , said Israel will likely keep military control of Gaza, and it has no intention of creating an interim government to run civilian life. The plan, which was suggested for the first time since the start of the Oct. 7 war, raised concerns from the Biden administration.

Persons: Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden Organizations: U.S, Senior Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ For Israelis Living at Gaza’s Edge, Fear Pervades Daily Life
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Dov Lieber | Photographs Tanya Habjouqa Noor Images For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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Persons: Dow Jones, f6c69a75

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