The Israeli Defense Forces are pushing deeper into the northern Gaza Strip on Monday and are mounting an attack on Gaza City from two directions in the largest ground assault of the 23-day war so far.

Summary

The Israeli Defense Forces are pushing deeper into the northern Gaza Strip on Monday and are mounting an attack on Gaza City from two directions in the largest ground assault of the 23-day war so far.

• The Israeli military is reportedly advancing on Gaza City from the north and the south in an apparent encircling maneuver. An IDF spokesperson confirmed Israeli forces are engaged in urban combat against Hamas terrorists barricaded inside buildings.
• The IDF said they had struck more than 600 targets over the weekend and killed four prominent Hamas terrorists.
• Already, the 2023 Israel-Hamas War is the deadliest of the five wars fought between Israel and Hamas since the terrorist organization seized control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup d’etat in 2007. 
• Approximately 1,400 Israelis – mostly civilians – have been killed, nearly all in the horrific surprise attack Hamas launched on Oct. 7. 
• According to Hamas, approximately 8,000 Palestinians have been killed. It’s impossible to know how many are terrorists and how many are civilians as the Hamas-controlled health ministry claims that all Palestinian dead are civilians.

• The New York Times chronicled “how years of Israeli failures on Hamas led to a devastating attack.” According to the Times, the IDF “had not only completely underestimated the magnitude of the attack, it had totally failed in its intelligence-gathering efforts, mostly due to hubris and the mistaken assumption that Hamas was a threat contained.”
• The Guardian reported on how some Wall Street firms are eyeing profit opportunities created by the Israel-Hamas War. Analysts from TD Bank and Morgan Stanley are both predicting a surge in demand for aerospace and weapons and have already seen a 7 percent value increase since the war began earlier this month.
• Politico Europe covered Netanyahu’s abortive attempt to blame the military and security chiefs for the Oct. 7 massacre rather than accept responsibility himself. The Prime Minister released a post on X bashing his top military leaders before deleting it and acknowledging “I was wrong.”

• The New York Post reported on the tragic news about Shani Louk, the German-Israeli tattoo artist who was kidnapped at the music festival, tortured, and paraded by Hamas terrorists. Louk has been found dead and her body was identified by Israeli authorities. Her mother now believes Louk was shot dead on the same day as the initial attack.
• The Wall Street Journal covered the growing fears among Western defense officials about the strain that the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Hamas War are putting on military supply chains. The surging demand for artillery shells and other military equipment could lead to shortages that affect NATO, even though neither Ukraine or Israel are members of the alliance.
• National Review’s Ari Blaff interviewed Corey Gil-Shuster, an Israeli academic who has extensively documented the views and perspectives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Gil-Shuster, a self-described “left-wing liberal,” now believes the possibility of peace is remote. “Palestinians don’t want peace with Israelis. They don’t even see Jews as being native to this land,” he said.

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© Dominic Moore, 2023