Andrew Tobin

TEL AVIV—Israel halted any entry of goods into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, signaling the start of a more aggressive phase of its war to destroy Hamas. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision was a response to Hamas’s rejection of a proposal by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to extended the phase one hostage-ceasefire deal that expired a day earlier. Israel had endorsed the proposal.

TEL AVIV—Israeli decision-makers plan to resume the Gaza war in four to six weeks with overwhelming force, sending in tens of thousands of troops to conquer the entire strip in a single coordinated offensive against Hamas. Incoming military chief of staff Eyal Zamir has, at the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz, started developing the plan, according to several current and former Israeli officials with knowledge of high-level discussions. Under the plan, Israel will deploy more troops to Gaza than it has to this point in the war—over 50,000—before relocating Gaza’s civilian population to humanitarian zones and waging a ruthless ground campaign against Palestinian terrorists across the rest of the strip. 

JERUSALEM—President Donald Trump declared on Saturday that he wants to resettle residents of the Gaza Strip in Arab countries, shaking up Middle East diplomacy in signature style.  The president told reporters on Air Force One that he had asked King Abdullah II of Jordan in a phone call earlier in the day to "take people" from war-torn Gaza and that he planned to make a similar request of Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a phone call on Sunday. Trump suggested that mass emigration from the strip, whether "temporarily" or "long term," could help resolve "centuries" of conflict. 

JERUSALEM–President Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday with a flurry of executive orders and statements in support of Israel.  Trump issued executive orders reversing the Biden administration’s sanctions on right-wing Israelis, suspending new aid for the Palestinians, and cracking down on immigrants who support terrorism or oppose American values. The president also spoke of confronting Iran and normalizing Israel-Saudi relations—and vowed to bring home the remaining hostages abducted in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

JERUSALEM—Two former Israeli military officials have proposed that Israel launch a major attack on Iran in the final days of Joe Biden's presidency. Kobi Michael and Gabi Siboni, both former senior Israeli military officials, argued in a policy paper published last month that only a series of airstrikes on Iran's nuclear, military, economic, and government infrastructure can prevent the regime from rebuilding its regional terrorist network, which Israel has degraded over 15 months of war. Israel should start the attack just ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, according to the analysts—thereby minimizing the risk of diplomatic retaliation by Biden and forcing the hand of the president-elect.

The White House on Friday welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian Authority government, suggesting the West Bank-based PA was on track to take over administration of Gaza from Hamas. The White House on Friday welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian Authority government, suggesting the West Bank-based PA was on track to take over administration of Gaza from Hamas. However, at least two of the newly installed PA ministers have advocated Palestinian terrorism against Jews.

As President Joe Biden pushes to empower the Palestinian Authority in the name of Middle East peace, the PA has committed tens of millions of dollars in reward money to terrorists who were killed or captured while carrying out the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel and the resulting war.Since Oct. 7, the PA has doubled down on its longstanding “pay for slay” policy, which gives salaries and benefits to Palestinians imprisoned for involvement in violence against Israel and to the families of those ki…

JERUSALEM—At least two teachers for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza separately held captive Israeli civilians abducted on Oct. 7. One of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency teachers smuggled a young Israeli boy between locations in Gaza, including a major U.N.-linked hospital. The other shut an elderly woman in his mouse-infested attic […]

TEL AVIV, Israel—Israeli women and children have in recent weeks begun speaking publicly about what they experienced during nearly two months in Hamas captivity late last year.

Ola Metzger, 45, had planned to send her daughter on a Holocaust education trip to Poland. But on Oct. 7, days before the trip was to depart, a holocaust came to them.