Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

 Israel is still holding off on that Gaza ground offensive after intense pressure from the US and EU.

The US and several European governments are quietly pushing Israel to hold off on launching a ground invasion of Gaza following Hamas’s release of two hostages, fearing that the incursion will all but scuttle efforts to secure additional releases for the foreseeable future, a senior diplomatic official told The Times of Israel.

The Western governments currently pressuring Israel each have citizens among those unaccounted for and believe that the more time that passes, the harder it will be to secure the hostages’ release, the official said.

The senior diplomatic official said that the governments recognize that a ground invasion is very likely and are not telling Israel not to launch one at all, but rather hold off to try and see if additional diplomatic efforts can succeed.

Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group that rules the Strip and carried out the deadly onslaught on October 7 in which 1,400 were killed in southern Israel, about 1,000 of them civilians.

Israel says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, the White House walked back US President Joe Biden’s apparent comment that Israel should delay its expected offensive in Gaza until more hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups are released.

While boarding Air Force One earlier, Biden was asked by a reporter whether Israel should push off a military operation in Gaza, to which he responded, “yes.”

“The president was far away. He didn’t hear the full question. The question sounded like ‘Would you like to see more hostages released?’ He wasn’t commenting on anything else,” White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Hamas on Friday night released two hostages — US-Israeli dual citizens Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie — who were vacationing in Israel from the US when they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the terror group’s assault.

It was the first release out of at least 203 hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s infiltration and massacre in Israeli southern communities that started the ongoing war.

 

How much time Hamas can buy with international hostages, we'll see. Israel of course is not sparing the bombing campaign, with another evacuation order of Gaza City and norther environs issued Sunday, including two dozen hospitals.

Demands by Israel for the evacuation of Gaza hospitals amount to “a death penalty for patients,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent

 

The organization said the Israeli military issued three evacuation orders for the Al-Quds hospital on Friday. Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told CNN Sunday: “We do not have the means to evacuate them safely. Most of the patients are with critical injuries.”

A total of 24 hospitals, including Al-Quds, are under the threat of “being bombed at any second due to Israeli evacuation orders,” Farsakh said.

CNN has not independently verified this number. The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas frequently uses civilian facilities as cover for its military operations. The IDF told CNN Friday: "Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”

The World Health Organization has condemned “Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2,000 inpatients in Northern Gaza.”

Farsakh said her team is counting on the international community to take action ahead and “stand for humanity.

 

Aid trucks continue to trickle in from the Egypt side of the Gaza strip, but the UN says Gaza will run out of fuel and water later this week.

Meanwhile here in the US, we're seeing rabbis murdered.

Investigators are searching for a motive in the death of a Detroit synagogue leader found stabbed over the weekend, the city’s police chief said.

The body of Samantha Woll, president of the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was discovered with multiple stab wounds at her home on Saturday morning, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Responding officers had followed “a trail of blood leading officers to the victim’s residence,” where it is believed the crime happened, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement.

Police have not identified a suspect in the case, and it’s still unclear what led up to the killing.

“Understandably, this crime leaves many unanswered questions,” Detroit Police Chief James E. White said in a statement on social media site X. “This matter is under investigation, and I am asking that everyone remain patient while investigators carefully examine every aspect of the available evidence.”

“It is important that no conclusions be drawn until all of the available facts are reviewed,” White added.

 

No suspects, no motive, but the Detroit PD, Michigan State Police, and the FBI are on it. The police continue to say it's not related to antisemitism, but a stabbed Rabbi is still a tragedy. Some 4,500 Gazans have been killed over the last two weeks. Those all are tragedies as well.

A ground offensive in Gaza will be a slaughterhouse akin to ethnic cleansing. The people loudly pushing for that are the people we should trust the least. And President Biden and the Pentagon are likewise sending another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, while Israeli Defense Forces are now attacking the West Bank and Syria.

The odds of a catastrophic misstep that leads to a massive regional conflict are ludicrously high at this point, and things are only going to get worse.