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 7th, 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
Watch
StopAntisemetism writes: Students like Cecilia Culver of George Washington University are hijacking commencement speeches to spew propaganda, not reflect on their time in college.
The algemeiner reports: George Washington University (GW) has apologized to its campus community over an incident in which a student delivering a graduation speech attacked Israel. The student, an economics and statistics major, deceived administrators who selected her to address the Columbian College of the Arts and Sciences ceremony, the university said in a statement issued after the remark circulated on social media.
The student speaker chose to stray from their prepared remarks, which were materially different when previously reviewed by school leadership,” the university said in a statement. “We are also aware that some students unfurled signs brought under their graduation gowns, despite clear guidance to the contrary. The students’ remarks and signs do not reflect the views of the university.
Israel/Middle East Related Articles
Trump Brings Honesty to the U.S.-Israel Alliance by Aviva Klompas in the WSJ Opinion
The Trump administration has taken a series of foreign-policy steps in recent weeks that are quietly reshaping the U.S.-Israel relationship. The moves acknowledge that the two countries’ interests overlap in many ways but aren’t identical.
Taken together, these decisions suggest a shift: The U.S. is pursuing its regional interests independently.
For Israel, this new U.S. posture offers both opportunity and risk. It reinforces the country’s conviction that it must be able to defend itself by itself.
Some may worry this dynamic leaves Israel vulnerable, that it is being relegated to the margins while Washington cuts deals in the region. That concern is valid. But it’s also worth asking if Mr. Trump’s model is more honest than a relationship based on symbolic gestures and behind-the-scenes friction—a new model that lets both nations act on their interests without pretending perfect alignment.
Instability in the Middle East never stays in the Middle East. A stable region isn’t only in Israel’s interest—it’s in America’s, too.
We may be entering a new phase in the U.S.-Israel relationship. One with fewer promises, fewer pretexts, and fewer illusions. Real partnership isn’t built on being in perfect sync—it’s built on candor, and the confidence to stand side-by-side without always pretending to stand as one.
So Much for No Surprises by Michael Oren
Along with ‘no daylight,’ one of the longstanding principles of the U.S.-Israel alliance was ‘no surprises.’... It seems now that the principle has again been discarded.
Prime Minister Netanyahu was surprised by President Trump’s announcement of renewed talks between the United States and Iran... and the deal the administration made with Hamas for the release of the American-Israeli hostage, Edan Alexander.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the press, I do not believe that Trump is doing this to downgrade Israel...Surprises are his way of conducting policy, both domestic and foreign…We should be surprised if we’re not surprised.
Israel must prepare diplomatic contingency plans for any sudden shift in American policy... We must never be caught completely off-guard or unprepared to respond boldly to changes.
The principle of no surprises may be forgotten, but not our ability—and our right—to act as we must to ensure our security. We, too, can surprise.
Link: So Much for No Surprises
How Hamas used American Hostage Edan Alexander as a pawn by Dr. Dan Diker with The Jerusalem Post
Alexander’s release... is Hamas’ further weaponization and exploitation of hostages as acts of political and cognitive warfare against Israel.
Hamas’ ‘humanitarian’ move encourages American pressure on Israel to end its counterterrorism war… while it rearms, resupplies and reestablishes its military power and control.
Hamas-affiliated media… branding the release of Edan Alexander as the Edan deal, portraying Hamas as a rising international player… declaring this a ‘new phase in the conflict.’
Hamas’ weaponization of Alexander… is a classic example of political warfare that appears to align with US strategy to secure and stabilize a new Middle East with Saudi partnership.
Speculation about deepening ties between Trump and Israel’s adversaries… were unequivocally refuted… emphasizing that ‘the relationship between the US and Israel remains strong.’
Israel and the US are well aligned, particularly in preventing Iran from achieving nuclearized regional dominance.
Link: How Hamas used American Hostage Edan Alexander as a pawn
Illusions of “The Day After” by Professor Efraim Inbar with The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security
It would be wishful thinking to believe that the “day after” the war in Gaza will bring to the Strip a well-organized political entity capable of maintaining a monopoly on the use of military force that will prevent terrorism against Israeli targets.
The ability of Israel —or even global superpowers —to politically engineer states in the Middle East is extremely limited.
Israeli military power cannot temper the deep-rooted hostility of the Palestinian national movement toward Zionism—a hostility that lies at the core of Palestinian nationalism. The religious fervor of the Islamist Hamas has reinforced negative religious attitudes toward Jews, instilling in the hearts of young Gazans a desire to take revenge on their hated enemies.
In the PA, various armed groups pursue their own agenda. And even in Gaza, Islamic Jihad and armed clans exist alongside Hamas. There is no reason to assume that “the day after” in Gaza will be much different or that the territory will be demilitarized. Only sustained Israeli military activity can enforce demilitarization.
Israeli attempts to persuade Arab countries with different political cultures to send soldiers or police to establish proper governance in Gaza have so far failed. Their commitment to their Palestinian brothers is questionable, as is their determination to confront the remnants of Hamas.
Therefore, the option of an inter-Arab consortium taking charge of the Strip has little chance of materializing…
Emptying the Gaza Strip of its residents, as proposed in President Trump’s plan is a good starting point for a new future. However, Hamas would almost certainly mount armed resistance to prevent the transfer of Gazans to safer destinations.
Another possibility is to bring the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza — the preferred option for most of the international community. However, the PA is weak and encourages terrorist activity against Israel.
Perhaps Israel needs to get used to the idea that in the absence of an entity willing to take Gaza under its wing, chaos will prevail there. This is less terrible than people may think. Chaos would allow Israel to establish buffer zones along the Gaza border without interference. Any entity controlling Gaza would oppose such measures and would resist necessary Israeli measures to reduce terrorism. Chaos may also encourage emigration.
Israel is doomed to live with bad neighbors for the foreseeable future. There is no way to ensure zero terrorism. Israel should avoid adopting a policy of containment and should constantly “mow the grass” to minimize the chances of a major threat emerging across the border.
Antisemitism
[HIGHLY RECCOMMEND] Ask Your Doctor if Jihad Is Right for You: American medicine has an antisemitism problem, driven by foreign-trained doctors importing the Jew-hatred of their native countries by Jay P. Greene and Ian Kingsbury in Tablet
Medicine has a serious antisemitism problem. It especially has a problem among doctors, and a lot of that problem is concentrated among doctors educated overseas.
We found that health professionals were more than 2.5 times more likely to be found among antisemites than their share of the workforce. Doctors were almost 26 times overrepresented in the list of antisemites relative to their prevalence in the workforce.
Traditionally, the hypothesized link between education and antisemitism arises from the observation that individuals with lower levels of education are more likely to admit to harboring explicitly antisemitic attitudes. It was unclear, however, whether this meant that elites were in fact less antisemitic or whether they were more inclined to provide socially desirable responses.
While only 10.8% of American laborers are employed in health care, 190 of 702 (27%) individuals profiled by Stop Antisemitism work in health care.
Second, among health care workers, physicians are disproportionately represented, accounting for 91 of 190 (48%) health care workers and 13% of all profiled antisemites. Given that there are only 834,500 physicians and surgeons, doctors make up only 0.5% of the entire American workforce, so they are more than 26 times overrepresented among the antisemites identified by Stop Antisemitism.
When examining the 91 doctors who were profiled on Stop Antisemitism, four common themes emerge of the ways in which these doctors exhibit their antisemitism.
Holocaust inversion is particularly popular
Conspiracies about Jewish power and control are also common
Oct. 7 denialism is another popular theme, with 20 of the doctors invoking obvious falsehoods about the Hamas massacre, including denials of sexual violence and claims that the Bibas family was murdered by Israel.
17 of the doctors endorse Palestinian terrorism with slogans like “glory to all resistance fighters” and “we call it (Oct. 7) liberation. Decolonization. Resistance. Revolution.”
For all the physicians in the dataset we created, we were able to find internet records indicating where they received their medical training. Forty-seven of 91 (52%) physicians in the dataset obtained their medical degree in a country other than the United States compared to about 25% of the American physician workforce. Of those 47 who obtained their medical degrees abroad, 68% were trained in the Middle East (40%) or Pakistan (28%).
The challenge posed by foreign-trained doctors is that they arrive in the U.S. after having largely completed their moral formation, sometimes in political systems that explicitly promote antisemitism in their schools. The antisemitism they openly display in the U.S. may have been considered appropriate or even enlightened in their home countries.
Combine those attitudes with an American health care system that normalizes racial and ethnic tribalism with ideas like whiteness as a form of psychopathology, and the results are predictably disastrous.
Our reliance on foreign-trained physicians increases the risks of importing antisemitism into the medical profession. To be clear, the average foreign doctor is not an antisemite. The problem is that in such large numbers, extremists among foreign doctors become more common.
As in our universities, antisemitism in the American medical profession is perhaps overwhelmingly an import from third world countries where it is a normative if pathological part of the dominant political and religious cultures. The more medical school students and professionals we import from these dysfunctional countries, the more overtly antisemitic our hospitals and doctor’s offices become.
UN Relief Chief’s “14,000 Dying Babies” Lie Went Viral — But Just How Viral? in the Jewish Onliner
On May 20, 2025, UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher made a false claim on the BBC’s Today programme that “There are 14,000 babies that will die in Gaza in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.” This dramatic claim, made without direct sources or data, quickly spread online and generated countless headlines in the media.
What those headlines didn’t mention—and what the UN later clarified—is that the 14,000 figure wasn’t about deaths within 48 hours. This report projects 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition among children aged six to 59 months over roughly a year—not deaths in 48 hours.
An analysis of social media posts—excluding Facebook and Instagram—that contain both “14,000” and “babies” found the phrase was used over 133,000 times in one day. These posts generated 685,000 interactions and reached 4.5 billion potential views.
This figure likely underestimates the true spread, as many users shared the story by other means, such as posting screenshots without using those exact keywords. This viral spread highlights how disinformation can quickly take hold and dominate public discourse.
Fletcher’s false claim was widely and rapidly amplified by mainstream media in the US, UK, and Australia. While shocking headlines grab attention for days, the subsequent corrections or retractions rarely receive the same coverage or reach, leaving many unaware that the initial claim was debunked.
Link: UN Relief Chief’s “14,000 Dying Babies” Lie Went Viral — But Just How Viral?
Antisemitic claims ‘flourishing unchecked’ at universities by Fiona Hamilton, Nicola Woolcock: A report by Henry Jackson Society says increasing disinformation in lectures, seminars and class talks is a factor in hostility towards Jewish students with The Times
A rise in antisemitic disinformation — in lecture theatres and classrooms as well as online — is contributing to hostility towards Jews on university campuses.
More than half of the students could not reliably distinguish between factual and fabricated content, which… ‘underscores a profound deficiency in media literacy.’
In most students’ eyes, you are either a ‘Zionist coloniser,’ an ‘apartheid apologist,’ or a ‘supporter of Palestinian liberation.’ A vacuum of nuance and the normalisation of antisemitic beliefs are now intrinsic to campus life.
More than 80 incidents were recorded in October 2023 alone, including 11 threats to students.
The lecturers and their union… who should be supporting affected students, are themselves the aggressors.
The root of this behaviour is religious teaching that Jews are inferior… and the focus of antisemitism today, namely the state of Israel.
To address the problem the Henry Jackson Society recommends the immediate introduction of mandatory disinformation and media literacy training for students and academic staff. It said there must be firm and transparent disciplinary mechanisms for those found to be spreading harmful disinformation.
From the Report:
This report argues that one of the major underlying – and largely unaddressed – causes of the staggering levels of antisemitism is the proliferation of antisemitic disinformation. This disinformation, now widespread across social media platforms and public discourse, has increasingly found its way into university classrooms and other campus settings. It is precisely this disinformation that is fuelling anti-Jewish stereotypes and driving contemporary manifestations of antisemitism.
To illustrate, in three separate small-scale surveys we conducted across the UK, students consistently reported a marked increase in antisemitic disinformation following 7 October: 88% in the first survey, 84% in the second and 72% in the third. In all three groups, more than 70% of respondents stated that “antisemitic disinformation influenced people’s views on the Israel–Hamas War”. Social media platforms were identified as the primary source of such disinformation, with over 30% in each survey indicating that it is frequently disseminated via platforms commonly used by students.
Alarmingly, however, classrooms were also frequently cited as a space where antisemitic disinformation is propagated. More than 20% of respondents in each surveyed group reported that such disinformation is often spread through lectures, seminars and class discussions…
Policy Recommendations
Compulsory training and courses on recognising and combatting disinformation for both students and staff across campuses.
Clearer and more effective disciplinary procedures for those who disseminate disinformation on campuses.
Dynamic and feedback-driven review of all disinformation-related policies
Link: Antisemitic claims ‘flourishing unchecked’ at universities
Link to Full Report: Disinformation on Campus: The Rise of Antisemitism and the Failure to Respond
The Future of American Jewry After October 7 by Dan Senor in Commentary Magazine
**Watch Dan’s full speech: State of World Jewry Address (@92NY), which I posted on Sunday, via this link**
There was a crack in Jewish consciousness on October 8. This wasn’t a Jewish awakening—it was Jewish adrenaline. And as with adrenaline, we can all feel the moment fading.
Since October 7, I have heard the following two comments more than any other from American Jews.
First: Jews have played key leadership roles in so many pillars of society: finance and Hollywood, hospitals, the environment and civil rights, the arts, symphonies, museums and elite universities. How could they turn on us?
The second major question I hear is: Why can’t Israel just tell its story better to the world? If only we could get the facts out, right?
Historically speaking, none of our prominence has mattered in stemming antisemitism. In fact, our perceived power is deployed against us in these periods. We’ve been prominent but weak.
Now, the algorithm spreading the lie is a problem. But the bigger problem is the popularity of the lie itself. It’s a lie that has stood the test of time.
If Israel cannot win the information war, and we cannot make anti-Semites less anti-Semitic, and philanthropy will never buy us safety—what then? The answer is simple: We must lead Jewish lives.
Only about 5% of non-Orthodox Jewish children attend day school. But day schools are where Jewish confidence and Jewish pride are built. They’re not ‘nice-to-haves.’ In today’s world, they’re indispensable.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish philanthropic dollars go to non-Jewish causes. That must change. We need to strengthen the core so we can play our role beyond it.
We don’t need new slogans. We need a renaissance in Jewish education—day schools, camps, adult learning, gap years in Israel. That’s how we build a generation that isn’t prominent but Jewish and strong.
The question isn’t just how to protect Jews. It’s how to raise Jews. Not just with names like Hersh or Carmel—but with the courage and clarity those names represent.
What On Earth Were France, Canada, and the UK Thinking? by Seth Mandel with Commentary Magazine
Pressure on Israel appears to be increasing from all directions. Pressure to do what? That part isn’t clear.
If the UK, France, and Canada were expressing honest concerns, they would be demanding that the UN be excluded from the aid delivery.
These countries have not always supported Israel’s right to defend itself. What they have supported is the performance of support—followed immediately by condemnation.
As for the escalation being disproportionate: I do not expect everyone on social media to understand the concept of proportionality in war. But I do expect the leaders of Western governments to know the meaning of the words they use. This isn’t some pedantic debate over a term, either: The letter clearly associates the concept of disproportionality with what “Israel suffered” on Oct. 7.
To claim the war is 'disproportionate' is to misunderstand the term entirely. This isn’t retribution. Hamas started the war, holds hostages, and vows perpetual violence. Israel has no power to end the war alone.
The statement demands Israel lift military pressure and increase humanitarian aid to Hamas territory—while somehow also ending Hamas’s control. That’s not policy. That’s incoherence.
This is not a playground tit-for-tat. A ceasefire without surrender is just a reset button for terrorists.
When the leaders of France, the UK, and Canada imagine the implementation of the settlement they are advocating here, what specifically is envisioned for the part where they end Hamas’s control of Gaza? Who will be ending Hamas’s control of Gaza, and how will they be doing so?
A random assortment of words would make more sense than this statement. It is a mixture of falsehoods and contradictions.
Link: What On Earth Were France, Canada, and the UK Thinking?
Casualties (+2)
Sgt. Yosef Yehuda Chirak, 22 was killed as combat engineers operating in northern Gaza under the 401st Armored Brigade located a tunnel shaft and were working to map it out ahead of its demolition. During the operation, another company was securing the surrounding area. Chirak, who was next to the tunnel, was hit by fire from the company securing the area, the investigation found.
Staff Sgt. Danilo Mocanu, 20, was killed Tuesday amid fighting in Khan Younis when a booby-trapped building collapsed in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said Wednesday, marking the second combat fatality since the launch of a widened offensive in the enclave over the weekend.
1,875 Israelis have been killed including 858 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th
The South: 419 IDF soldiers (+2 since Sunday) 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):
5,894 (+3 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 880 (+2 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
2,668 (+1 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 515 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 53,486 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