Situational Update

• The Times of Israel reports: The Israeli Air Force struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday, as Israeli officials threatened to hunt down the leaders of the Iran-backed group unless they stopped their drone and missile attacks. Israel’s airstrikes came shortly after a US-led coalition reportedly hit Houthi sites in the Harf Sufyan District, north of Sanaa. Israeli officials said the strikes were coordinated with the US, but were not a joint operation. The Israel Defense Forces said over 20 IAF aircraft — including fighter jets, refuelers and spy planes — participated in the Israeli strikes, dropping some 50 munitions on three main targets: the Hodeidah and Ras Isa ports on Yemen’s western coast, and the Hezyaz power plant near the capital Sanaa.
• FDD reports: Israel is creating an additional domestic production capacity for air-launched munitions and an associated raw materials plant after the Biden administration delayed the delivery of some munitions following the October 7 terror attack. On January 7, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced two arms deals, valued at $275 million, with Israeli defense company Elbit – the most recent in a series of domestic purchases that Jerusalem has made to backfill tens of thousands of munitions expended in Israel’s war against Iran’s regional terror axis.
  • The Jewish Insider adds: The Israeli Defense Ministry moved to bolster domestic arms manufacturing this week, the day after a committee tasked with creating an overarching defense plan for Israel in the coming decade recommended that Israel attain “armament independence.”

Hostages (two bodies recovered)

• The IDF located the remains of Hamza Ziyadne, 22, and his father, Youssef Ziyadne, 53, on Tuesday night in a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah. Hamza was kidnapped along with his father Youssef and siblings Bilal, 18, and Aisha, 17. Bilal and Aisha were released on November 30, 2023, during a weeklong truce, after surviving more than 50 days in Hamas captivity.
• According to the Times of Israel, it is unclear when Youssef and Hamza died. The Walla news site, citing experts with knowledge of the matter, said it is believed the two were killed around a year ago.
• The tunnel in Rafah was located in an area where the military had operated before, according to IDF sources. The IDF returned to the area following new intelligence, to recover the bodies. It was not in the same area where the bodies of six hostages were found in late August.
• The cause of death of the father and son was still under investigation by the IDF, it said Wednesday, though it noted that according to initial assessments, it did not occur recently.

• There are now currently 94 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
• 7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
• On October 7^th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
• 147 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 rescued by troops alive
• Of the 94 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • At least 34 confirmed bodies are currently being held in Gaza
  • 28-46 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
  • Thus, at most, 48-66 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
  • Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Casualties

• 1,833 Israelis have been killed including 835 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+7 since Wednesday)

• Sgt. Maj. (res.) Alexander Fedorenko, 37; Staff Sgt. Danila Diakov, 21; Sgt. Yahav Maayan, 19; and Sgt. Eliav Astuker, 19 were killed when, according to an initial IDF probe, the soldiers in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun were hit by an explosive device set off by gunmen, who also opened fire at them.

• First Sergeant Kenew Kasa (22), First Sergeant Matityahu Ya’akov Perel (22), and First Sergeant Nevo Fisher (20) were killed when a land mine exploded in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza.
• The South: 400 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed (+7 since Wednesday)
• The North: 131 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Wednesday)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,550 (+16 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 487 (+3 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
  • 5,606 (+22 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 825 (+1 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.

• The Gaza Casualty Count:
  • According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 45,885 (+31 since Wednesday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 109,196 (+57 since Wednesday) have been injured during the war.
  • [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: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Listen

Antisemitism

[REPORT] The Unholy Alliance: UNRWA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad: An investigation into the secret ties between terrorist organizations and the UN’s largest aid agency by UN Watch

• This report reveals how UNRWA (a UN agency with 30,000 employees, and a $1.5 billion annual budget that is funded primarily by Western states) despite its claims to be a humanitarian agency, has forged an unholy alliance with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations. This secret relationship allows the terrorist organizations to significantly influence the policies and practices of a UN agency with 30,000 employees, and a $1.5 billion annual budget that is funded primarily by Western states.
• The terrorist groups frequently make demands of UNRWA and influence its decisions. Moreover, when the terrorists oppose specific actions by UNRWA—such as the introduction of biometric IDs for beneficiaries of UNRWA financial assistance, an ethics code affirming LGBT rights, or suspension of employees for promoting terrorism—the terrorist groups are often able to foil implementation, including by issuing threats.
• UNRWA is an anomaly. While it was created by the United Nations and has “UN” initials in its title, it is essentially a Palestinian-run organization whose purpose is to perpetuate Palestinians as refugees with the aim to one day dismantle Israel. For Palestinians young and old, UNRWA is about enshrining the “right of return,” which is to be achieved by “resistance.” Leaders of Palestinian factions, as well as students of UNRWA schools, openly point to the October 7th Hamas invasion and massacre of Israelis as an example of what they mean.
• All of UNRWA operations on the ground are run by the agency’s local Palestinian staff. The regional directors, school principals, teachers, administrators, social workers, health care providers, and union heads are all local Palestinians. The role of the 120 inter national staff, including Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who is the public face of the agency, is to fundraise for UNRWA and to preserve its public image. They have little influence over UNRWA’s day-to-day activities on the ground.
• When UNRWA’s most senior educators—like Fathi Al-Sharif in Lebanon and Suhail Al-Hindi in Gaza—are simultaneously UNRWA school principals, heads of the UNRWA Teachers Union, as well as Hamas leaders, it is clear who is truly in control. These are people who publicly proclaim their support for “the resistance,” organize school activities that incite children to violence, and obstruct whatever minimal efforts are made by UNRWA international staff to discipline employees for promoting terrorism, downplayed as mere “neutrality violations.” According to Israeli intelligence, more than 10 percent of UNRWA’s senior educators in Gaza are members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.
• UNRWA’s international staff, led by Lazzarini, spend much of their time trying to appease the local terror groups who are on the ground at UNRWA facilities. The end result is that Lazzarini and his colleagues knowingly allow Hamas and other terrorist groups to infiltrate UNRWA’s employee base, indoctrinate impressionable Palestinian children to pursue a path of Jihadi terrorism against Israelis and Jews, and install military infrastructure under neath or next to UNRWA facilities.
• The fact that Lazzarini has spent the last 14 months since October 7, 2023, shirking any responsibility by UNRWA for the atrocities perpetrated against Israelis by Hamas terrorists, including the involvement of UNRWA employees in those atrocities and in the ongoing hostilities in Gaza, shows that he is more focused on preserving UNRWA’s image than on ensuring its neutrality and independence.
• UNRWA’s failure to maintain neutrality, combined with its susceptibility to influence from terrorist groups, undermines its credibility as a humanitarian agency and perpetuates conflict in the region.
• Link to Executive Summary: New Investigation Exposes UN Agency’s Shocking Ties to Terror Groups
• Link to Full Report: UNW 129 Report _ v6.indd

Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) Report: Ivy League Propaganda – How Brown University Radicalized Students After October 7, by David Litman with Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis

• A new CAMERA study helps answer this question. Using Brown University as a case study, it documents how radical members of faculty turned a prestigious institution of higher learning into a center for ideological indoctrination under the nose of acquiescent administrators.
• Just days after Hamas’s October 7 atrocities, Brown University leadership promised “to provide [its] community a chance to learn about and discuss current events in Israel and Gaza.” The statement appeared promising, suggesting the university was committed to maintaining its educational mission by providing students further opportunities to learn from credible experts. Unfortunately, it was a lie. What the university provided instead was anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda.
• Consider just one fact: throughout the dozens of hours of recordings of these events, CAMERA could not find a single mention of the Israeli civilians, including children, taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023. Given that the plight of the hostages is the single most important factor preventing an end to the current war, it defies any reasonable, non-ideological explanation for that aspect of the conflict to be outright omitted from the conversations.
  • But speakers did not simply ignore such atrocities; they worked to make the very mention of Palestinian wrongdoing a taboo. One speaker proclaimed that it is a “dehumanizing, crude, very racist talking point that this is about Hamas.”
  • Many of Brown University’s speakers even glorified the atrocities carried out by Palestinian terrorists. One, a Palestinian academic from Birzeit University, spoke of the actions of October 7 as an exercise in “our right to resist” which, she declared, is “a way of being and survival for Palestinians.”
  • Speaker after speaker described the murder, rape, torture, mutilation, and kidnapping of Israeli men, women, and children in heroic terms, such as “anti-colonial action” or “anti-colonial liberation struggle.”
  • As CAMERA pointed out in 2023, a university journal had revised its “anti-oppression platform” to remove a reference to antisemitism and replace it with a declaration that it “stand[s] against the perpetuation of…Zionism.” That platform remains in place a year later.
• Key Conclusions
  • Instead of using the events during and after October 7, 2023 as an opportunity for students to discuss and deepen understanding of the region and the conflict, Brown University officials and faculty cynically exploited them for ideological ends.
  • During university-sponsored events, and in CMES courses, students were inundated with overwhelmingly anti-Israel and often antisemitic messaging. Key aspects of the conflict, such as Palestinian terrorism, were downplayed. The fact that Hamas still holds Israeli civilians, including children, hostage – one of the main sticking points preventing the end of the current war – was entirely ignored.
  • Finally, Brown University leaders cannot claim to have been caught by surprise or to have been unaware of the extent of the problem. CAMERA’s 2023 reports detailed many of these issues. The administration’s subsequent inaction, even as the situation continues to deteriorate, demonstrates negligence, at best.
• Link: Ivy League Propaganda – How Brown University Radicalized Students After October 7
• Link to the Full Report

Why I Am Resigning as a Brown Trustee by Joseph Edelman in the WSJ

• I find it morally reprehensible that holding a divestment vote was even considered, much less that it will be held—especially in the wake of the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust
• Israel, like all nations, has a moral duty to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks, and that is exactly what it has been doing. It is revealing that of all the countries in the world, only Israel is expected to restrain itself because of the civilian lives that will tragically be lost in war.
• The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules, and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.
• Brown’s leadership admits the looming divestment vote is designed to buy good behavior from pro-Hamas activists, many of whom are adherents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through political and economic warfare. BDS is an attempt to normalize antisemitism in mainstream American institutions.
• Brown’s policy of appeasement won’t work. It’s a capitulation to the very hatred that led to the Holocaust and the unspeakable horrors of Oct. 7.
• How can Brown lend credence to these antisemitic voices, who notably began protesting in support of violence against Jews before Israel had even responded to the Oct. 7 attack? It’s as if the Brown board has agreed to vote on whether Israel has a right to defend itself, whether Israel has a right to exist, and even whether Jews have a right to exist.
• I consider the willingness to hold this vote a stunning failure of moral leadership at Brown University.
• Link: Why I Am Resigning as a Brown Trustee

Israel/Middle East Related Articles

Peace in Israel isn’t possible until Palestinians stop paying terrorists to kill by John Spencer in USA Today

• An 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, Ludmila Lipovsky, was brutally murdered last month in Israel while waiting for her daughter to take her to a doctor’s appointment. A 28-year-old Palestinian man from the West Bank is accused of stabbing her to death.
• This horrific act is yet another example of the violence incentivized by a multimillion dollar program known as “pay to slay,” which is written into Palestinian law and governed by the Palestinian Authority.
• …it is a deeply ingrained economic structure and societal program in the West Bank and Gaza that incentivizes violence, thus undermining any chance of a sustainable peace deal.
• The program provides monthly payments to Palestinians convicted of violent acts against Israelis and imprisoned for their crimes. Crucially, these payments are not extended to those convicted of non-terror-related crimes. The payments increase with the length of the prison sentence, which perversely rewards perpetrators of the worse crimes.
• Upon release, the benefits continue. Released prisoners receive a lump-sum grant ranging from $1,500 to $25,000, depending on the duration of their imprisonment. Employment in government institutions is guaranteed, with job placements prioritized based on years spent in prison. Those who cannot secure jobs receive unemployment stipends − provided they served at least five years for men or two years for women.
• Moreover, released prisoners enjoy free college education and lifelong health care.
• If a terrorist is killed during an attack or by Israeli forces, their family is supported through the “martyrs” fund.
• The United States responded in 2018 by enacting the Taylor Force Act, which conditions certain economic aid to the Palestinian Authority on the cessation of payments to terrorists and their families. Despite this, the PA allocated more than $300 million for these payments in the same year
• …the PA increased annual payouts by $16.2 million monthly, adding new beneficiaries − 900 prisoners from Gaza and tens of thousands additional “martyrs,” including those involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel.
• For many Palestinians, the “pay to slay” program represents more than an incentive for terrorism; it is a pathway to social mobility.
• For Israel and the international community, the “pay to slay” program is a clear obstacle to peace. It is not merely an economic subsidy but a societal institution designed to sustain violence.
• The “pay to slay” program must be dismantled, like the terrorist organizations that fund it, piece by piece.
• Link: Peace in Israel and Gaza depends on ending ‘pay to slay’

Don’t blame Israel — it’s Hamas that has put every Gaza hospital in danger by Arsen Ostrovsky, John Spencer and Brian L. Cox in The Hill

• Under International Humanitarian Law, it is a foundational principle that hospitals receive special protected status. However, this protection ceases if they are “used to commit hostile acts.”
• Fifteen months into the war initiated by Hamas, there is hardly a hospital or medical facility in Gaza the terror group has not turned into a military command center, including the Kamal Adwan Hospital. There, Israel has detained over 240 Hamas terrorists, including some disguised as patients, and found caches of weapons, including guns and explosives. Each of these acts is an undisputed violation of the law of armed conflict.
• Israel’s military objective is clear and defined: to eliminate the military capabilities of Hamas, which continues to use hospitals and other civilian areas in Gaza to plan and execute acts of terror against Israel, as well as the rescue of the remaining 100 hostages that the terror group is holding captive.
• However, merely because Hamas has seized hospitals as its own personal launching pads and terrorist command centers does not provide carte blanche to conduct military operations. Nor does it mean that patients and staff inside the hospital immediately lose their civilian status. Under humanitarian law, Israel must still abide by fundamental rules such as distinction, proportionality and precaution. In each case, it has acted in accordance with its obligation.
• Israel targeted a military objective used by Hamas terrorists, as evinced by the approximately 240 operatives arrested. There were hardly any civilian injuries in the operation
• Israel also took ample precaution, including providing advanced warning, evacuating civilians and providing additional medical supplies to the hospital. Prior to the beginning of the targeted operation, as well as the process during, some 450 patients, as well as caregivers and medical personnel, were evacuated, while tens of thousands of liters of fuel, food and medical supplies for the essential functioning of the hospital were also delivered to Kamal Adwan during this period.
• Quite simply, Israel has gone to unprecedented lengths to comply with its obligations pursuant to the law of armed conflict, whereas Hamas is doing everything possible in order to maximize casualties.
• To date, the World Health Organization has not condemned Hamas for the systematic use of hospitals in Gaza for military purposes.
• The World Health Organization also fails to acknowledge that Israel is trying to bolster the health system in Gaza, working with many groups to supply the five active hospitals in Northern Gaza and almost 20 field hospitals.
• Link: Hamas has put every hospital in Gaza in danger — why is Israel taking the blame?

Why Did Hamas Resume Firing Rockets from Gaza at Israel? By Yoni Ben Menachem with Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

• According to Israeli security sources, Hamas’s military wing has recovered to some extent, producing hundreds of new rockets using lathes smuggled into tunnels that remain operational in Gaza.
• This resurgence in production comes as IDF forces have redeployed from Gaza to the northern front to confront Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.
• The reduced pressure on Hamas’ infrastructure has facilitated this recovery.
• Hamas’ decision to resume rocket attacks is driven by both operational and political considerations. By firing rockets, Hamas seeks to demonstrate its resilience and operational capability despite the IDF’s prolonged offensive. This message is aimed at both Gaza’s residents and the Israeli public, underscoring that Hamas remains a significant force even after enduring heavy losses.
• Hamas aims to exact a cost on Israeli communities near Gaza as retribution for IDF actions in northern Gaza. This serves as part of its broader strategy of attrition, countering Israeli military advances with continued resistance.
• The resumed rocket fire is a tactical move in Hamas’s broader strategy of waging a war of attrition while influencing ongoing negotiations in Doha over a potential hostage deal and ceasefire agreement. By maintaining pressure on Israel, Hamas aims to extract concessions and shape the terms of any eventual settlement. Additionally, the rocket attacks serve to damage Israeli public morale while uplifting Palestinian resistance sentiments.
• The organization’s actions reflect a combination of operational recovery, strategic resistance, and political signaling. As the conflict continues, these rocket attacks serve as a reminder of the ongoing complexities and challenges in achieving a lasting resolution in the region.
• Link: Why Did Hamas Resume Firing Rockets from Gaza at Israel?

Hamas sells aid to Gazans, uses profits to pay operatives by Ariel Kahana in Jewish National Syndicate

• Hamas continues to pay its operatives regular salaries 15 months into its war with Israel, despite Israeli Cabinet efforts to dismantle its governing infrastructure, Israeli security sources confirmed this week.
• The organization has established a systematic operation for intercepting humanitarian aid shipments destined for Gaza residents. Armed operatives commandeer supply trucks carrying internationally funded cargo transported by the Israel Defense Forces, then resell essential supplies at premium prices to the local population.
• “The resale of international aid has become their dominant revenue stream,” a senior security official told Israel Hayom. These proceeds finance both current salaries and new recruitment efforts targeting Gaza youth.
• While the closure of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border and suspension of private commerce has eliminated major funding channels, the official noted that “Hamas maintains its recruitment capabilities through aid-generated revenue.”
• However, the blockade strategy collapsed under pressure by the Biden administration and concerns over potential disruption to American ammunition supplies. Israel’s leadership now anticipates that Trump—who recently warned that unless the hostages were released before he is sworn in, “there will be all hell to pay in the Middle East”—may be more receptive to significant reductions in aid supplied to Gaza.
• Link: Hamas sells aid to Gazans, uses profits to pay operatives

In 2025, Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Not Over, by Seth J. Frantzman in The National Interest

• The conflict in Gaza is challenging because there is evidence Hamas continues to recruit and also controls a large swath of the area. “We are not yet at the point of defeating Hamas entirely,” Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser told ILTV in December 2024. A separate report at The Jerusalem Post noted that Hamas is recruiting more members.
• Taken together, these assessments point to a recurring trend. The IDF has operated in Gaza primarily by going into areas, clearing them of Hamas and other terrorist groups, and then leaving the area. In some cases, the IDF has stayed for the long term, such as in the border area in southern Gaza called the Philadelphi Route along the border with Egypt. The IDF has also carved out another corridor south of Gaza City. However, in many urban areas, the IDF withdraws after weeks or months of combat.
• The hostage deal appears to have been stuck for a year with little progress. It requires a rethink in terms of a strategy. Leaving living and dead hostages in Gaza for a long period of time would appear to be a macabre end to the October 7 attack and send a message that Hamas can get away with its crimes. On the other hand, the Israeli political leadership appears wary of a deal similar to the one in 2011 when one Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza for five years was released in exchange for 1,000 Palestinians, many of them convicted terrorists. Some, like Yayha Sinwar, were even involved in the October 7 attack.
• Israel could choose to renew pressure on Hamas and try to remove the group from areas it controls in Gaza, such as the central Gaza Strip. The IDF has never entered central Gaza in force, despite the long war, leaving Hamas in charge of key urban areas such as Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat.
• The hostage deal and military pressure are not the only challenges in Gaza. A related challenge is the question of whether Hamas will be replaced as the governing authority in Gaza.
• After fifteen months of war, there is no alternative being put forward for controlling Gaza. Hamas continues to control all the areas where civilians are present in Gaza. What this means is that, unlike the war on ISIS, where civilians were able to leave areas such as Mosul and move to IDP camps under the control of the Iraqi government or the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, civilians in Gaza have not been provided a non-Hamas option for civilian rule. This is why Hamas is able to continue recruiting and also able to continue to control areas where humanitarian aid is supplied. In essence, this puts Hamas astride the supply lines and in possession of many key urban areas in Gaza.
• When the October 7 War began, Hamas was able to call on support from other Iranian-backed groups in the region. Hezbollah began attacks on Israel from Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen began attacks on Israel and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq began attacks on U.S. forces and also prepared to target Israel. This multi-front war made it difficult for Israel to vanquish all these enemies. However, fifteen months later, things have changed in Israel’s favor. Hezbollah is greatly weakened. The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq appear to have stopped their drone attacks on Israel. The Assad regime, which was a conduit for Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah, fell on December 8. This leaves Hamas and the Houthis still standing, although Hamas has been greatly weakened since 2023. Israel also faces increasing attacks from the West Bank by groups linked to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other armed factions.
• The overall challenge for Israel in 2025 now returns to Gaza. Although the Iranian nuclear program and other fronts remain, Gaza is where the war began and where it will have to end. A long war in Gaza fighting Hamas for years does not appear to be in Israel’s interest. However, leaving Hamas in control would inevitably enable the group to reconstitute its threat to Israel.
• Link: In 2025, Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Not Over

Don’t lose hope: Many Palestinians do want peace, by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib with The Jewish Chronicle

• Since the October 7 attack and the horrendous discourse that the massacre has unleashed, it has been difficult for many in the Jewish and pro-Israel communities to remain hopeful about the prospect of peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. An avalanche of hateful rhetoric, coupled with intense protests, has seemingly ignored the plight of hostages still in Hamas’s captivity, and a host of academic and media-based justifications for violence as a form of “resistance” have caused many to give up hope.
• Such schools of thought are ubiquitous among Jewish authors and writers, academics and activists who have grown disillusioned with the possibility that a free and independent Palestinian state could ever live next to a safe and secure Jewish Israel. We saw this, I think, in Melanie Phillips’ column last week. But such thoughts create a vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies that ignore rays of hope and empathetic opportunities for common ground.
• Jewish and pro-Israel advocates need to acknowledge that the Palestinians are not monolithic: the cause has been hijacked by extremists.
• Since the October 7 massacre and the war of annihilation against Gaza, I have been sustained by different threads of hope from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voices and activists who are not party to the divisive and hateful “pro-Palestine” discourse. I am in regular contact with many Palestinians, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, who vehemently oppose Hamas and the armed resistance narrative. I have spoken to Palestinian groups and Muslim mosques and associations who acknowledge the criminality of what took place on October 7. I speak to activists and academics who want to see a prosperous Palestinian cause that leads to the emancipation from Israel’s occupation and domination while also refusing Islamist ideology and political nihilism.
• Many of these voices, which are plentiful and exist all over, are smothered, intimidated and forced into silence by the loudmouths who promulgate unhelpful entrenched narratives and demand obedience to a singular anti-Israel worldview, lest one be called “a Zionist sell-out” or traitor. The number of people who privately and regularly share with me how much they appreciate my voice and thank me for saying what they know is true but can’t say so publicly has been one of the few causes of hope to sustain my advocacy and public engagement efforts since October 7.
• I urge the Jewish diaspora to guard against overly simplistic views that demonise all Palestinians or dismiss the entirety of the Palestinian cause as a vehicle for hatred. The Palestinian people, like any other, deserve to live in freedom and independence, just as Jewish-Israelis deserve to live in safety and security, and just as the Jewish community in the diaspora deserve to live free of hatred and intimidation from hatred.
• There must be hope for a new and rejuvenated Palestinian cause: Jewish and pro-Israel allies will be vital in making this a reality.
• Link: Don’t lose hope: Many Palestinians do want peace

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, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, The Free Press, and the Times of Israel