Israel's Ground Invasion Moves South With Warning From U.S.
How the truce ended and what's next inside Gaza
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Good morning,
Queen Bey is on top of the charts— and we’re not talking Billboard charts. This weekend her concert movie, “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” opened in first place with $21 million in North American ticket sales.
Post-Thanksgiving weekend is normally a slow time for the box office, but Bey’s success marks the first time in 20 years that a film has opened at over $20 million on this weekend.
Maybe going to the movies is having a Renaissance 💫
Have a good one!
Mosheh, Jill, & Lauren
🗞 ISRAELI GROUND INVASION OF GAZA MOVES SOUTH
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed on Friday following a week-long truce. And on Sunday, Israel expanded ground operations into southern Gaza, saying Hamas leaders are in their crosshairs, and ordered civilians to evacuate, again, to new safe zones. Already about 1.8 million people, or nearly 80% of Gaza’s population, have been displaced because of fighting—mainly to the south, according to the UN.
It comes as 137 Israeli and foreign hostages remain inside Gaza and 13 have allegedly died in captivity, with Hamas still holding their bodies inside the strip.
END OF TRUCE
A week-long ceasefire that saw the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, and the entrance of additional aid in Gaza ended Friday.
Hamas broke the truce by failing to provide Israel a list of hostages it intended to release, launching rockets into Israel Friday and organizing a terror attack on a Jerusalem bus stop. The US made a point of calling out the terror group for causing the renewed fighting.
ISRAEL: 1/3 OF WAY TO DESTROYING HAMAS
Israel says at least 5,000 Hamas fighters are dead and about 500 underground tunnel shafts have been destroyed. They say the goal is to destroy Hamas, but top officials have claimed they are only about 30% of the way there.
❝
“We still have a long way to go to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas, but sometimes there is a breaking point for the enemy, where the stopwatch starts to advance at a faster pace.”
Amos Yadlin, retired general and former director of military intelligence
Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, said they plan to operate in southern Gaza in the same way that it had done so in the north — including a massive ground incursion—with an emphasis on killing Hamas’s senior militant commanders.
Israel has come under international pressure to reduce civilian casualties, and issued a new grid system over the weekend (see pic at top of newsletter) that breaks down the Gaza Strip into more than 600 numbered blocks. They say it allows them to issue more precise warnings to residents about where it plans to strike next. The maps can be accessed through a QR code on leaflets.
Palestinians said the maps are not clear enough, and are difficult to access them due to lackluster communication and electricity. Others say they are done evacuating repeatedly to areas that have not been proven to be safe from Israeli fire.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Sunday that Israel has taken steps to prevent civilian casualties.
WARNING FROM U.S.
While Kirby also said “neither side is willing to come back to the table,” U.S. officials are making efforts to resume negotiations in order to once again pause hostilities and release more hostages from Gaza. Eight Americans remain in captivity.
Multiple top U.S. officials also warned Israel in recent days about doing more to prevent civilian casualties in this next stage of the war.
Vice President Kamala Harris said Israel had a right to defend itself, but international and humanitarian law must be respected. She says "too many innocent Palestinians have been killed."
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called Gaza’s civilians the center of gravity in Israel's war with Hamas and warned that there are risks of their radicalization. He said the U.S. will remain Israel’s closest friend, but that Israel needs to protect civilians as a "moral responsibility."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Hamas would not engage in future hostage negotiations if Israel does not follow through on commitments to protect civilians.
Inside Gaza, there continues to be inadequate resources and few safe spaces.
More than 15,000 people have been killed, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled health ministry. The number doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, though they say a majority of those killed are women and children. Large sections of Gaza City have been reduced to rubble and 80% of Gaza residents are currently displaced—many with no home to return to. Below is an X post from the World Health Organization about the situation at a major southern Gaza hospital.
WHO WILL LEAD GAZA WHEN THE FIGHTING IT DONE?
The White House said the Palestinian Authority (PA) in control of the West Bank should also govern Gaza.
Harris said it will be up to the region’s key nations to “dedicate significant resources” to rebuilding hospitals and housing. Electricity and clean water must be available, she said.
Israel says the PA is “irredeemable” and doesn’t want it to govern Gaza. Some Arab governments are not keen on it either. Many Palestinians and Israelis don’t support the existing PA leadership as the right fit, seeing them as corrupt and inept. That said, it is not clear there is a viable non-Hamas alternative to the Palestinian Authority at present.
Protesters outside the UN. Via: Haaretz
UN LOOKS INTO RAPE OF ISRAELI WOMEN
Eight weeks after the October 7 attack, UN Women finally condemned the ‘brutal attacks by Hamas.’ It followed an outcry from many women, particularly in the Jewish community, that the group had yet to acknowledge the rape and other sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists as part of the attack on October 7th.
Sheryl Sandberg, founder of the nonprofit LeanIn.Org, wrote an oped for CNN, in which she noted: “… no matter which marches you are attending —or if you are attending none at all; no matter which flag you are flying — or if you are flying none at all; no matter what religion you practice — or if you practice none at all, there is one opinion that everyone can agree on: Rape should never be used as an act of war.”
Today at 11:30 AM, the UN is having a special session on the sexual-based war crimes from October 7th by Hamas in Israel. You can watch here.
It follows work done by the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, an NGO established by Israeli international law and women’s rights experts, to document the acts of rape and assault Hamas committed. It has collected testimony and materials related to the events, with the aim of putting together a database of the crimes committed against women and children.
⏳ SPEED READ
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🗓 ON THIS DAY: DECEMBER 4
1793: The British Observer becomes the first newspaper to create a Sunday edition.
1954: First U.S. Burger King opens at a location in Miami, FL.
1969: ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown’ premiered in theaters.
1980: Rock band Led Zeppelin announced that it was officially disbanding, several months after the death of drummer John Bonham; the group later came back together for short one-off performances on several occasions.