Situational Update
According to Israeli media outlet YNet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening contradicted Israel’s hostage envoy, Gal Hirsch, who had stated that 24 of the 59 hostages held in Gaza are presumed alive. In a video message, Netanyahu clarified that Israel has confirmed 21 hostages are alive—matching a figure cited a day earlier by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Per FDD: The Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved expanded military operations in the Gaza Strip on May 4 with the reported aim of controlling the territory and maintaining a military presence in the coastal enclave. In preparation, the IDF is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of reservists in the coming days for the campaign, reportedly named “Gideon’s Chariots.” The IDF’s new Spokesman, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said:
We have a clear plan. We are advancing and moving to a new, more intensified phase: Operation Gideon’s Chariots. The objective of the operation is the return of our hostages, the collapse and defeat of Hamas rule. These two goals are interlinked. The operation will include a broad offensive, which involves relocating most of the Gaza population to protect them in a Hamas-free zone. It will also include continued airstrikes, elimination of terrorists, and dismantling of infrastructure.
A Houthi rebel walks next to a destroyed plane at Sanaa International Airport on May 7, 2025, a day after Israeli warplanes struck Yemen's terror group-held capital Sanaa. (Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP) The Times of Israel reports: On Tuesday, the IDF in a statement confirms launching a wave of airstrikes in Yemen, saying it destroyed the Houthi-controlled Sanaa International Airport. The airport in the Houthi capital is now “completely disabled” following the strikes carried out by Israeli Air Force fighter jets, the military says. Ahead of the strike on the airport, the IDF issued a warning to civilians.
On Tuesday the US announced it would end its bombing campaign against the Houthis who, it said, had agreed to stop attacking ships in vital Middle East maritime routes.
The agreement did not cover the Houthis’ attacks on Israel, and already on Wednesday, a drone launched apparently from Yemen was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force.
Watch
Earlier today, masked Hamas supporting protesters trespassed, vandalized, and harassed students as they took over Columbia’s Butler library in the middle of finals studying week.
Columbia called NYPD to help secure Butler Library after large numbers of outside protesters on campus and injuries to two Public Safety officers. At least 21 arrests were made. The situation is still ongoing as of this evening.
Israel/Middle East Related Articles
Operation Gideon’s Chariots: Israel’s Next Phase in Gaza by John Spencer. Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the War Institute
Israel’s war aims have not changed since October 7:
Secure the release of all hostages
Dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capabilities
Ensure no threat can reemerge from Gaza to endanger Israel again
The operation appears structured into three distinct and deliberate phases:
Phase 1: Prepare – IDF forces shape the battlespace, isolate Hamas, allow time for hostage negotiations, and pre-position for sustained operations.
Phase 2: Clear and Hold – Methodical clearing of Hamas presence and capabilities, area by area, with Israeli forces maintaining control and preventing re-infiltration.
Phase 3: Build – Governance, stabilization, and the cultivation of local alternatives to Hamas to begin laying the foundation for post-conflict order.
As part of this effort, civilians will be temporarily evacuated from combat zones in northern and central Gaza to humanitarian safe zones in the south recently cleared by the IDF. This aims to separate the civilian population from Hamas militants and allow for the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.
Variations of this approach include:
Ink-blot strategy – This approach focuses on securing small, stable zones and then gradually expanding outward—like ink spreading on paper.
Safe neighborhoods strategy – This method involves establishing secure, walled zones—often using concrete barriers—that are physically separated from surrounding conflict areas.
Islands strategy – A central feature of Israel’s evolving campaign is what can be called the “Islands Concept”—the deliberate segmentation of Gaza into distinct operational zones. The IDF has already enacted this by cutting off northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip via the Netzarim Corridor, isolating Khan Yunis from Rafah, and establishing similar separations in central areas.
Urban warfare isn’t won by firepower alone. It’s won when the population believes that something better is possible. That’s why the IDF’s plan doesn’t stop at clearing—it is finally designed to hold territory and build a new reality in Gaza, one free from Hamas domination.
A critical component of the plan: humanitarian aid will be delivered directly to Gazans, bypassing Hamas entirely. This move seeks to remove one of Hamas’s key sources of power—its control over the distribution of food, fuel, and medicine.
This moment is an inflection point. If no hostage deal is reached by the time President Trump visits the region, Israeli officials have indicated that the full campaign will begin.
President Trump has proposed letting civilians who want to leave Gaza do so—but Egypt continues to block such movement, refusing to assist or open the Rafah crossing.
Beyond that, it is still unclear what political or administrative powers will emerge to govern Gaza after Hamas.
Ultimately, Israel is preparing to clear and hold territory—but it also intends to build. Security, aid, governance, and hope. The goal is twofold: to shatter Hamas’s belief that Israel lacks the will to dismantle its grip, and to offer civilians in Gaza hope that something better can come after Hamas.
Link: Operation Gideon’s Chariots: Israel’s Next Phase in Gaza
Is the Houthi Missile Strike on an Israeli Airport a Sign of Success? By Noah Rothman in the National Review
Among progressives who mistake ghoulish morbidity for cleverness, it was once uncontroversial to insist that there was something unfair about the extent to which Israelis were not being killed by Palestinian missile barrages in satisfying numbers.
It does, in fact, matter which party fires the opening salvos in a war. Regardless, pro-Palestinian activists should be enjoying the perverse satisfaction they appear to derive from the indications that Israel’s missile-defense arrays are not infallible.
The incident and those that preceded it raise more conclusions than questions. Foremost among them should be the determination that missile shields are just one aspect of a comprehensive defensive posture, but those batteries alone do not provide peace.
That’s why, despite its setbacks and unsatisfying results (which Jim itemized in all their disturbing detail), the Iran-backed Houthis’ attacks on Israel may be a sign that the Trump administration’s campaign against the terrorist outfit is bearing fruit.
In the estimation of Y Net’s Ron Ben-Yishai, the increasing tempo of Houthi attacks on Israel is a sign that the outfit is losing confidence in its ability to withstand the U.S.-led assault on its fighters and missile sites.
Western audiences that only hear about America’s failures in the Middle East may know only that the U.S.-led mission in the Red Sea has cost America at least seven multi-million-dollar MQ-9 Reaper Drones and one F/A-18 Super Hornet. If Ben-Yishai’s analysis is correct, however, the campaign in Yemen is achieving its primary aim: degrading the Houthis’s capacity to target our allies and attack U.S. Navy and merchant marine vessels.
And yet, that objective will never be decisively secured from the air. Aggression is stopped at its source.
us, nearly 19 months into the longest war in Israel’s history and with the prospects for durable cease-fires and meaningful hostage swaps all but exhausted, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reluctantly committing itself to expanding operations inside Gaza with an eye toward the long-term “holding of territories” inside parts of the Strip. In the absence of a dramatic intervention like that, it seems impossible now to avoid the conclusion that Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli population centers and military targets alike will persist.
Missile defenses are an invaluable component of a “multilayered” air defense posture. But as an instrument of deterrence, interceptor batteries are inadequate.
Link: Israel's Missile Defense Challenges: Houthi Attacks and the Limits of Iron Dome
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) released a new survey. The organization, which is based in Ramallah and funded by Western donors, was based on polling of people across the Gaza Strip and West Bank on May 1-4.
The survey found that 49 percent of respondents would be willing to apply to Israel to help them emigrate via Israeli ports and airports, versus 50% who said they would not be willing to do so.
The overwhelming majority of respondents, 87%, denied that Hamas had committed “the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media,” such as murdering women and children in their home
Support for the October 7th attack currently stands at 50%. This marks a significant decline from the 72% support recorded in December 2023.
43% of Palestinians believe Hamas will emerge victorious from the war—though starkly divided: only 23% in Gaza agree, while 56% in the West Bank hold that belief.
The majority of Palestinians remain opposed to dismantling Hamas.
Disarmament: 64% in Gaza and 85% in the West Bank oppose disarming Hamas.
Expulsion of Military Leaders: 51% in Gaza and 74% in the West Bank oppose expelling Hamas’s military leadership.
Support for Hamas stands at 37% in Gaza and 29% in the West Bank
48% of Palestinians in Gaza supported the series of anti-Hamas demonstrations that began in various places around the enclave in March.
Link to Full Results: Poll 95 Press Release
Link: Almost half of Gaza Palestinians willing to ask Israel to help them leave
Antisemitism
[HIGLHLY RECCOMMMEND] The Top 7 Lies About Israel and IDF Operations in Gaza and the Truth They Obscure: A report by the Urban Warfare Institute and The International Legal Forum by John Spencer and Arsen Ostrovsky
Lie 1: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
Israel's conduct is the very opposite of genocide: it is a defensive war waged under the binding requirements of international law.
Israel targets Hamas — an armed terrorist entity that initiated the war with mass atrocities on October 7, not civilians. The IDF issues evacuation warnings, facilitates humanitarian aid, and restricts military operations to lawful targets. There is no Israeli policy, order, or pattern of action that suggests an attempt to destroy the Palestinian people.
Lie 2: Israel intentionally targets civilians in Gaza
The IDF is one of the only militaries in history to systematically exceed the legal obligations to protect civilians
As documented in multiple cases during the current conflict, Israeli forces have walked away from critical high-value targets — senior Hamas commanders — simply because women and children were nearby. No army in the world holds fire to the degree Israel does in the face of an enemy that embeds itself inside a civilian population.
Lie 3: The civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza proves Israel is committing war crimes
Under the law of armed conflict, the legality of an attack is not judged by its outcome — such as the number of civilians killed — but by what commanders knew or reasonably could have known at the time of the attack. The legal test is proportionality
War crimes are not assessed by after-the-fact body counts. They are judged by intent, the information available at the time, and whether all feasible precautions were taken to minimize civilian harm. Armchair statistics about civilian deaths, especially in an urban warzone, tell us nothing about the real time decisions, legal standards, and battlefield conditions that define lawful conduct
…the civilian casualty figures cited in the media are deeply unreliable. The so-called “Gaza Health Ministry,” run by Hamas, has a long track record of publishing inflated and unverifiable numbers.
Lie 4: Israel is starving Gaza’s population
The accusation that Israel uses starvation as a weapon is flatly contradicted by facts on the ground — and by the sheer scale of humanitarian aid Israel facilitates even during wartime.
The real cause of humanitarian suffering in Gaza is Hamas, which systematically hijacks and weaponizes aid for its fighters, attacks crossing points, and manipulates civilians as human shields.
Israel’s commitment to facilitating aid, even while its soldiers are under fire, is unparalleled in the history of warfare.
Lie 5: Israel indiscriminately attacks hospitals and schools
Hamas has repeatedly, and systematically, turned Gaza’s hospitals into fortified military compounds and terrorist staging grounds, a grave violation of international humanitarian law
If these facilities are used for military purposes — such as storing weapons, housing fighters, or command operations — they lose protected status.
Lie 6: Israel is illegally occupying Gaza
The characterization of Israel as an occupying power in Gaza is inconsistent with the facts on the ground and the legal definitions under international law
In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, evacuating all Israeli civilians and military personnel, and dismantling its settlements. Since then, Hamas has maintained de facto control over Gaza, exercising both political and military authority
Israel's military operations in Gaza are responses to ongoing security threats, including rocket attacks and tunnel infiltrations, and are conducted with the aim of neutralizing these threats while minimizing harm to civilians
Lie 7: Israel violates Hamas prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Conventions
While Hamas fighters are not entitled to POW protections under the 3rd Geneva Convention, they are still protected under Common Article 3, which Israel upholds by treating detainees humanely.
Hamas, by contrast, continues to violate every basic principle of humanitarian law, including holding Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage under brutal conditions
Concluding Points
From false claims of genocide, to manipulated casualty statistics, and the cynical misuse of humanitarian law, nearly every accusation leveled against Israel and the IDF distorts reality, ignores law, and inverts morality.
…despite these impossible conditions, Israel has conducted its campaign with a level of restraint, precision, and adherence to law that is virtually unmatched in modern warfare.
The IDF's conduct is not a violation of international law; it is a defense of it. It is not a stain on the laws of war; it is a case study in how democratic nations must fight even when facing enemies who recognize no law, no morality, and no distinction between civilians and soldiers
Link to Full Report: Top 7 lies about IDF in Gaza report
Harvard Is Spraying Perfume on a Sewer by David Wolpe in The Free Press
This was not, in other words, a sudden outbreak of antisemitism.
I attended my first Jewish event at the Divinity School on the holiday of Sukkot in the fall of 2023. The ceremony began with a speaker reassuring us, “This is a safe space for anti-Zionists, non-Zionists and those struggling with their Zionism.” In other words: not for me. That happened one week before the attacks of October 7, 2023.
Students were insulted, shunned, harassed, and hounded in a hundred ways. An Israeli student was mobbed and assaulted at a “die-in” protest days after October 7. “Privilege trainings” for Jewish students were run by the university. Another student, a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, told me she was afraid to walk alone to her dorm room. Students were ghosted by longtime friends for expressing sympathy with Israel; one was told by friends it would hurt their careers to “associate with a Zionist.”
It is to the great credit of the report that it does not minimize or elide the ugly face of Jew-hatred that I saw repeatedly in my year at Harvard.
Critically, the report also explains the ideological roots of the abuse. It explains that anti-colonialism has become the ideological battering ram to mobilize a diverse cult of anti-Western sentiments
But what no report can capture is the feeling that Jewishness was something to hide, and the stigma of being a Jew-hater was fading.
What the report does not note is the September 2024 introductory address of the new dean of the Divinity School, Marla Frederick. This is after all the so-called reckoning—after the congressional hearings, after Claudine Gay resigned as Harvard’s president in January 2024.
Here is a paragraph from Frederick’s address: “These are just a few, brief, incomplete examples of monumental historical events that have shaped the lives of so many. The Maafa, the Trail of Tears, the Holocaust, the Nakba. It is impossible to compare the real human toll of devastation. And my point is not to engage in endless comparisons,” said Frederick.
Zionist students did not camp out in Harvard Yard; they did not break into classrooms; they did not come with bullhorns (as I myself witnessed) into local restaurants and chant in Arabic, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab.” Their teaching assistants did not offer passes on exams to attend rallies, or attend rallies with them. They did not insist on wearing masks outdoors, so they could yell slogans with impunity. They did not continually yell slogans in the yard after they were understood to be eliminationist.
But what the report offers no solution for is that there is a deep ideological commitment among much of the faculty—particularly in the humanities and social sciences—that is anti-Western, anti-Israel, and often antisemitic.
Without a vast unlearning—among the faculty, not just the students—all the reports in the world will not change the atmosphere on campus. We will only be spraying perfume on a sewer.
Link: Harvard Isn’t Just Playing Host to Some Antisemites. It Is Breeding Them.
A cold wind blows through Canada’s Jewish communities by Vivian Bercovici in The Jewish Chronicle
Many Canadian Jews are so concerned about their future that they are planning to leave – for good.
Canadians are much more like Europeans than their U.S. neighbours. We are, by and large, more conservative in lifestyle. We tend to go to university close to home and often return to raise our families near the childhood nest. We just don’t move around a lot.
Canada is home to the fourth-largest Jewish community in the world, after Israel, the US, and France. The majority of Canada’s 375,000 Jews live in Greater Toronto, with a sizeable population in Montreal.
While the 7 October slaughter in Israel was still unfolding, mass street celebrations of Hamas’ “resistance” erupted across Canadian cities.
Law enforcement did nothing. As in many Western cities, the protests only grew in scale and violence. Trudeau piously lectured Canadians, calling them “peaceful protests” and invoking the constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and expression.
These weren’t peaceful protests, nor were the participants exercising protected rights. They were textbook cases of incitement to hate and violence, clearly targeting an identifiable religious/ethnic group. These acts easily met the Criminal Code’s thresholds for prosecution.
Mark Carney’s leadership means Canadian Jews are unlikely to be able to count on the police to enforce criminal, civil, or constitutional law in ways that protect their rights, freedoms, or safety.
A significant number of Liberal MPs endorsed the so-called “Palestine Platform” before the election – an agenda openly hostile to Israel. Now in power, many more are likely to follow suit.
Carney had accused Israel of genocide during the campaign, for which Netanyahu publicly rebuked him.
In Canada, many Jews fear Carney more than Trudeau. He’s far more intelligent, professional and very ideologically driven. With the strong Liberal minority in Parliament, there is already talk of Carney recruiting several MPs from the weakened, socialist New Democratic Party to secure a functioning majority. Should that transpire, one of the NDP’s top agenda items is a policy approach that would make Ireland look soft on Israel.
What does it mean for the Jews? For Israel? It’s bad. Very bad.
University of Washington Protesters Celebrate Hamas & Occupy Campus Building in The Jewish Onliner
News and social media reports have emerged showing anti-Israel protesters at the University of Washington in Seattle who took over the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, barricaded entrances, renamed it “Shaban al-Dalou” and declared the action part of a wider “student Intifada.”
The incident began on the evening of May 5, organized by a group calling itself Super UW, and follows months of escalating rhetoric on campus that includes chants in support of Hamas, distribution of flyers created by Hamas’s media office, and sales of shirts glorifying the October 7 massacre in Israel.
In their manifesto, the group behind the building takeover celebrates the October 7 attack as a “heroic victory,” accuses the university of being complicit in genocide through its partnership with Boeing, and demands that all ties with the company be severed.
The document calls for transforming the engineering building into a community-run educational space and insists on full amnesty for all protesters, including those not affiliated with UW.
Link: UW Protesters Celebrate Hamas & Occupy Campus Building
**Update
According to Seattle’s Channel 5: The university gave KING 5 an up-close look at the damage. The protesters vandalized walls, glued doors shut, shattered glass, and destroyed lab equipment, some of which had never been used and was still wrapped in bubble wrap. UW estimates the damage to the equipment could exceed $1 million.
A total of 24 classes were relocated to other areas on campus, and it remains unclear when students will be allowed back into the building.
25 students have since been arrested
Casualties (no change)
1,868 Israelis have been killed including 854 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th
The South: 413 IDF soldiers (no change 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):
5,851 (+5 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 865 (+5 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
2,643 (+2 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 508 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 52,495 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 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.
Hostage Update (no change)
There are now currently 58 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 59 hostages remaining in total)
38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
24 hostages will remain in captivity after Phase I and have not been declared dead.
5 hostages are Americans: Meet the Five American Hostages Still Held By Hamas: Edan Alexander is assumed to be alive, 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.
4 are soldiers
7 are residents of the Gaza border communities
11 were abducted from the Nova music festival
2 are foreign workers: Bipin Joshi from Nepal and Pinta Nattapong from Thailand
On October 7th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
193 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
Of the 59 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
35 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
Thus, at most, 24 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
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)
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