Today we mark 600 days since the tragic atrocities of October 7th, a day that will remain etched in our hearts and minds forever. We remember the families that were torn apart, the communities that were forever changed, and the lives that were tragically and horrifically taken from us. 600 days is a somber milestone – a reminder of the enduring pain that so many have experienced. It is also a reminder of the resiliency of those who continue to grieve, those who are bravely defending Israel, those who have stood up and fought against the surge of antisemitism around the world, and the 58 souls who remain in captivity. May the memory of all of those we have lost in these past 600 days be for a blessing. Am Israel Chai. The people of Israel live.

Humanitarian Aid

• Times of Israel military correspondent Mannie Fabian reports: The IDF opened two of four recently established aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip today, delivering food packages to thousands of Palestinian families. The aid sites are being operated by a private American security company, while the IDF secures the surrounding area. Three of the distribution sites are located in the Tel Sultan area of southern Gaza’s Rafah, while the fourth is in the Netzarim Corridor area, south of Gaza City. The two sites that began operations today are in Rafah.
• According to FDD: First revealed in February, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) stated goal is to bypass the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs by distributing aid at fixed locations with enhanced security to prevent looting and theft by Hamas and allied organizations.
  • The GHF and its private security partners have established four designated “Safe Distribution Sites” across southern Gaza where civilians will be able to receive aid packages. According to an IDF statement on May 27, “The establishment of the distribution centers took place over the last few months, facilitated by the Israeli political echelon and in coordination with the US government.”
• On the first day of operations, hundreds of Palestinians approached a distribution site in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah to receive food parcels from Palestinian workers. One recipient quoted by the BBC noted, “We stood in a long queue. We did not deal with the Israeli army or any American staff.”

• [EXCLUSIVE]: Kassy Avkiva with the Daily Wire: Video of Gazans shouting “Thank you, America!” at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution center today. My source tells me some Gazans said this was the first time they’ve received humanitarian aid without having to pay for it.
• The GHF — whose board members and advisors include Nate Mook, the former CEO of World Central Kitchen, and Lt. Gen. Mark Schwartz, the former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority — has pledged that the flow of aid will be “increasing each day,” with plans to distribute food to more than 1 million residents of Gaza by the beginning of June.

• Israeli journalist Amit Segal writes: The line to collect aid in Gaza is 2km long. You are now witnessing the most important development in Gaza in a long time: Despite Hamas threats, a mass influx of aid is coming into Gaza that Hamas does not benefit from. If this continues—and if the level of such aid increases—Hamas’ rule will be in danger.

Situational Update

Below is a map from Israel Defense Forces’ control in the Gaza Strip as of May 25th created by Ben Tzion Macales

• Approximately 42% of the total area of ​​the Gaza Strip is held by IDF forces.
• The yellow represents areas under Israeli control
• The green dots represent border crossings

• According to the WSJ: The Israeli military on Sunday said that it plans to capture 75% of the Gaza Strip within two months and push Palestinian civilians into just a quarter of the Strip’s territory as part of a new effort to rid Gaza of Hamas.
• When Israel seizes new territory, it will also demolish whatever it considers to be infrastructure used by Hamas, the military said.
• It isn’t clear when or how Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to areas taken by Israel’s military. Israel hopes that over time it can create areas in Gaza that are free of Hamas operatives and infrastructure.

Watch

The War Against the Jews Comes to Washington: Douglas Murray & Ruth Wisse Reflect on the DC Attack from The Tikvah Fund

• To reflect on how this latest salvo in the war on Jewish civilization turned deadly on American soil, we were joined by writer and journalist Douglas Murray and Professor Wisse for a special Tikvah briefing.

Israel/Middle East Related Articles

Disarming Palestinian Factions in Lebanon Means Disarming Hezbollah by Hanin Ghaddar Ehud Yaari with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

• The Supreme Defense Council in Beirut warned Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions against conducting any activities in Lebanon that might jeopardize the country’s security.
• The two leaders issued a joint statement declaring an end to “weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state” and pledging that local Palestinian camps would no longer be “safe havens for extremist groups.”
• Despite the firm tone of the new warnings from Beirut, however, they are just that—warnings.
• Hamas handed over two members wanted by the authorities for last month’s rocket attack but gave no indication it would surrender any of its weapons.
• Disarming the different factions in Lebanon’s sixteen Palestinian refugee camps is a complicated task for the limited forces currently at the government’s disposal.
• Lebanese forces have not ventured into the camps since 1969.
• Hamas is particularly prominent in the camps, with 1,500 armed fighters who closely cooperate with members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the local Muslim Brotherhood branch al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah.
• Taken together, these armed units represent the remainder of the strong PLO presence established in Lebanon between 1972 and 1982.
• Lebanese authorities now face a deep-rooted tradition of armed groups controlling Palestinian camps for two generations.
• President Aoun and Gen. Rudolph Haykal seem intent on negotiating an orderly handover of weapons and avoiding government raids that could easily devolve into extended armed conflict.
• The prospects of reaching a settlement with Palestinian groups greatly depend on decisions taken by Hezbollah’s new military chiefs Abu Ali Haidar and Haitham al-Tabatabai.
• They likely share Iran’s view that disarming Palestinians would embolden Beirut to push for Hezbollah’s complete disarmament as well.
• Hamas remains the more dangerous faction and certainly will not follow Abbas’s orders.
• If Fatah factions actually turn over their arms without Hamas following suit, they would only give more power to their rivals.
• The goal of disarming these groups should also be assessed as part of the wider effort to dismantle the historical “Palestinian rejection front” in the Levant.
• Nowhere is this task more ambitious and complex than in Lebanon.
• Given the deep historical and present-day ties between local Palestinian factions and Hezbollah, Lebanon likely cannot disarm one without disarming the other.
• The LAF prefers to avoid head-on confrontations for fear of stoking civil conflict with Lebanon’s Palestinian and Shia communities.
• Beirut needs to change its mindset of treating these files separately.
• The Trump administration should ask Beirut to follow up its latest warnings with a timetable for disarmament, setting clear deadlines for Palestinian groups and Hezbollah to lay down their weapons.
• They can then move on to larger camps in the south like Rashidiya and Ain al-Hilweh.
• If Hezbollah still refuses to disarm after receiving these strong messages, then wider confrontation may be necessary.
• The price of failing to disarm them would be even higher—namely, another full-fledged war with Israel and perpetual Hezbollah dominance over the country’s coffers and foreign policy.
• The LAF is now militarily capable of completing this mission, it just needs sufficient political authorization.
• Beirut needs to understand that it must either fully implement the ceasefire agreement or face total diplomatic and financial isolation.
• The ticking clock in this case is the next parliamentary election scheduled for May 2026.
• If militias are not disarmed well before then, voters might lose faith in the new state and go back to the devils they know—Hezbollah and its allies.
• Link: Disarming Palestinian Factions in Lebanon Means Disarming Hezbollah

Antisemitism

On the very day she was supposed to be celebrating her engagement in Jerusalem, Sarah Milgrim was laid to rest today in Overland Park, Kansas, surrounded by family, friends, and community members who knew her for her compassion and deep commitment to building a better world. According to the Times of Israel, Rabbi Doug Alpert said at her funeral:

What a horrible disservice to not see her for who she was and all she had done to further peace with courage and dignity.

“Because if you really wanted to know how to give Palestinians a better life, a life of humanity and dignity, you could have asked Sarah,” he said, adding, “If you’re really interested in doing something for Gaza to end the blockade and get needed aid into Gaza, you could have asked Sarah. … And if you were really interested in creating solutions to the seemingly endless conflict that separates Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, you could have asked Sarah.”

[OPINION] You’re Not Freeing Palestine, You’re a Dupe for the Islamist Cause by Rena Cohen and Ariel Cohen with Newsweek

• On Wednesday evening, a terrorist from Chicago named Elias Rodriguez, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, shot and killed a young couple outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
• Rodriguez was filmed yelling “Free, free Palestine!” as he was finally taken into custody.
• He also told the shocked and confused people inside the museum before being arrested, “I did this for Gaza. Free Palestine. There’s only one solution. Intifada revolution.”
• Let us take a few moments to mourn the deaths of the young Israeli Christian Yaron Lischinsky, and the young American Jew, Sarah Lynn Milgrim. This beautiful couple were about to be engaged.
• Milgrim was a peace activist and had visited Israel in 2023, promoting improved relations between Israelis and Palestinians. The event they were killed for attending was hosted by the American Jewish Committee to bring humanitarian aid to the Middle East and North Africa together with members of the D.C. diplomatic community.
• The First and Second Intifadas were extremely violent and involved a tangle of groups, including the PLO, Hamas, and others. Tactics included bombings, shootings, and attacks on civilians.
• This is what Hamas-supporting protesters on U.S. campuses, in city squares, on social media feeds, and just last night in Washington, D.C., are calling for when they use their now-fashionable kaffiyehs, don surgical masks, or sunglasses to hide their faces and scream for intifada.
• When glorifying murder becomes fashionable enough, the masks will be off.
• It is obvious that there are many Americans who think this is only an Israeli problem or only a Jewish problem. It isn’t.
• Before 9/11, it was tough trying to explain to Americans that the real targets of terrorists attacking Israel were the United States and the West.
• Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which recent reports show to be involved in an influence campaign aimed at European Union institutions, with Qatari and Kuwaiti backing.
• Qatar is also reportedly giving billions of dollars in often undisclosed funding to U.S. universities, where money clearly talks.
• Hamas is also supported and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in service of the Shi’ite Iranian theocratic dictatorship, the slogan of which is “Death to Israel! Death to America!”
• Attacking the Israelis, or the Jews, or the Zionists is just the opening act. It is never, ever the endgame.
• “Globalize the intifada” means the violent destabilization of the U.S. and the West before their aspired conquest and destruction.
• The Party for Socialism and Liberation, to which the assassin is reported to belong, and groups like it, are truly useful idiots or fellow travelers serving the mullahs of Tehran and the proxies they sponsor, like Hamas.
• This is what the Red-Green alliance is all about. It’s a fusion of political Islam with the radical left.
• They believe that U.S., Australia, Canada, etc., are all “settler colonialists,” and they hate capitalism.
• For now, the Red-Green Alliance is on the same page. They want America and the West brought down. Be forewarned.
• Link: You’re Not Freeing Palestine, You’re a Dupe for the Islamist Cause

The BBC’s Blood Libel by Inside_Israel_Intel

• In a glaring example of irresponsible journalism and reckless misinformation, the BBC and United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher have come under fire for propagating a wildly inaccurate claim that 14,000 Gazan babies would perish within 48 hours unless aid was immediately delivered. Fletcher’s assertion—swiftly retracted by his own organization—highlights the dangerous power of unchecked narratives, particularly when leveraged against Israel.
• The statement, as sensational as it was unfounded, rapidly captured international headlines, fueling further anti-Israel sentiment and compounding the distressing atmosphere of misinformation surrounding the ongoing conflict.
• …in a rare and candid moment of clarity, UNOCHA distanced itself from Fletcher’s remarks, clarifying that the estimate of 14,000 babies suffering from acute malnutrition referred to projected cases over a full year—not a two-day window.
• Their lack of skepticism and failure to promptly validate such an alarming figure illustrate a worrying trend: the readiness of major news organizations to broadcast narratives without rigorous vetting, particularly when those narratives portray Israel negatively.
• This incident is more than a journalistic blunder. It represents a contemporary manifestation of an age-old phenomenon: the blood libel.
• Those who shape global opinion have an obligation to truth, accuracy, and responsibility. By failing in this duty, they perpetuate harmful lies, endanger innocent lives, and distort public perceptions in ways that echo historical injustices suffered by the Jewish people.
• Link: The BBC’s Blood Libel

What happened to Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens? by Emily Austin and Karys Rhea with Washington Examiner

• We used to love Tucker Carlson.
• During the pandemic, we’d tune in every night to hear his heterodox monologues on issues vital to the public and ignored by corporate media.
• Today, we are witnessing a very different Carlson and Owens — an identitarian version of themselves that employs the same tactics of postmodernism, historical revisionism, and moral relativism essential to the progressive Left.
• Carlson, Owens, and the influencers they have elevated to social media stardom regularly shill for America’s self-declared enemies, whether the Islamic Republic of Iran or Communist China.
• The more extreme the Right becomes, the more it parallels the philosophy of the Left.
• Alas, Carlson and Owens have become woke.
• Once they left Fox and the Daily Wire, respectively, becoming directly beholden to an online audience, the nature of the game changed.
• Carlson and Owens were now rewarded not for their faithful reporting but for whatever entertaining, fearmongering clickbait they could provide.
• The Hamas massacre in Israel was the catalyst for a zealous new Jew hatred within the MAGA camp that has become pervasive on X and TikTok.
• Carlson and Owens are key propagators of it, resurrecting virtually every tired, medieval, antisemitic trope, presenting as if they are the first to have conceived of each one.
• This is not even the full list of what we’ve heard from Carlson, Owens, or the guests they repeatedly endorse on their shows.
• Carlson has resurrected the 1,600-year-old theological canard of supersessionism, asserting that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people.
• Many who claim to be pro-Trump, “America First” conservatives are actually falling for this fringe, primeval balderdash.
• It is easy, when such sinister government schemes and private-public collusion appear all around you, to fall into the rabbit hole of seeing conspiracies everywhere.
• But that hole eventually leads to the Holocaust, and evidently, we have arrived there — with full-blown deniers and distortionists now celebrated by the world’s leading political podcasters.
• Antisemitism has united the left-wing and the right-wing for generations and is the most glaring example of the horseshoe effect.
• If we do not excise the poison from our own camp, there is no reason why this won’t happen to us.
• Link: What happened to Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens?

From Million-Dollar Homes to Radical Activism—These Posh Private School Alumni Were Among the Arrested Columbia and Barnard Students by Jessica Schwalb, Jon Levine and Jessica Costescu with The Washington Free Beacon

• Emma Biswas grew up in a life of luxury. While there, she interned with a biotech company that boasts, “Prospective Nobel Prize Winners Work Here.” Then she was arrested for storming a Columbia University library, along with 80 other radicals. The May 7 mob injured two security officials, damaged bookshelves, distributed pamphlets praising Hamas, and renamed the library after a terrorist. They were led by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a notorious anti-Semitic group that wants the Ivy League school to cut all ties with Israel, and chanted, “We want divestment now.”
• By joining in those demands, Biswas was essentially taking aim at a source of her family’s wealth. Her father, Baribrata Biswas, has been a senior vice president with Synopsys for over 20 years, according to his LinkedIn page. The multibillion-dollar tech company has offices in Israel, which it calls a “hub for innovation,” and has supplied components to Elbit Systems, an Israel Defense Forces weapons maker that anti-Israel radicals have targeted.
• Cuming Shaw attended the Putney School in Vermont, which charges day students $50,100 and boarding students $80,200. It sports two committees dedicated to the cause, allowing it to remain “in the forefront of the drive for social justice.”
• Before Marisol Rojas-Cheatham was arrested, the Columbia pre-law student grew up in a Berkeley, Calif., home valued at $1.8 million by Redfin and attended the Bentley School, where tuition can reach nearly $60,000 per year. According to her LinkedIn page, Rojas-Cheatham was the captain of the varsity women’s soccer team, played varsity lacrosse, and was president of the student government.
• Columbia graduate student Ava Ambrose Tomasula y Garcia also found herself in cuffs following her posh upbringing. Before earning her undergraduate degree from Yale University, Tomasula y Garcia attended Interlochen Center for the Arts, a private Michigan high school. She was likely a boarding school student—with tuition costing over $78,000—given that her home was about four hours away.
• Sophie Elizabeth Jones, meanwhile, spent 11 years living overseas at the American Community School, an Abu Dhabi school, where tuition can run as high as $27,000. Then Jones, who identifies as American with Indonesian and Canadian roots, joined Barnard’s class of 2027. She began frequently writing about Palestinian issues for Bwog, a Columbia student news website, and was ultimately arrested with the rest of the Butler Library mob.
• The Free Beacon also reported that Barnard student Dima Aboukasm was an honored guest at Mayor Eric Adams’s “Abate Hate Summit” last July with Columbia student Eliana Goldin. Aboukasm, a graduate of the prestigious MacDuffie School in Massachusetts—where annual boarding tuition exceeds $75,000—resides in a six-bedroom, five-bathroom home valued at approximately $1.1 million, per public records.
• Link: From Million-Dollar Homes to Radical Activism—These Posh Private School Alumni Were Among the Arrested Columbia and Barnard Students

Hostage Update (no change)

There are now currently 57 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 58 hostages remaining in total)

• Of the 58 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 35 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
  • Thus, at most, 23 living hostages could still be in Gaza. It has been reported that only 20 are actually alive.
  • Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
• 20 hostages remain in captivity and have not been declared dead.
  • 4 hostages are Americans: Meet the Four American Hostages Still Held By Hamas: Itay Chen is assumed to have been killed on 10/7, and Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Omer Neutra have been confirmed to have been killed.

• On October 7^th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
• 38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
• 194 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
  • 8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive

Casualties (no change)

1,875 Israelis have been killed including 858 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th

• The South: 419 IDF soldiers (+2 since Wednesday) during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed. The toll includes three police officers (two of which were killed in a hostage rescue mission) and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
• The North: 132 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
• The West Bank: 63 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 5,906 (+8 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 881 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • 2,678 (+6 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 516 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.

• The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 54,056 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
  • [MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
  • On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
  • Read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March of 2024: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, algemeimer, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, Commentary, The Free Press, The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security, and the Times of Israel