Trust Trump on Israel? Hypocritical Biden-Harris supporters say ‘no’

Jonathan S. Tobin

A sign congratulating U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on his victory in the election, in central Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Kingsley Wilson should never have gotten a job in the Trump administration. The heretofore obscure conservative activist provided plenty of fodder for President Donald Trump’s critics this week when it was discovered that she has a history of antisemitic social-media posts.

A deep dive into the X account of the woman who serves as deputy press secretary in the U.S. Department of Defense provoked outrage this week from groups like the American Jewish Committee, in addition to liberal media outlets and many Democrats. Even some Republicans chimed in to note that the administration’s vetting process clearly failed in this case. In the past, she worked for the Trump campaign in 2020 and since then ran digital media and communications with the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank, whose founder was Russel Vought, Trump’s influential director of the Office of Management and Budget. Apparently, no one in the Trump world had the good sense to realize that her record as an Internet troll was not only inappropriate but would also be held against the new administration.

Angry about Wilson’s appointment is entirely justified. Her post on X, in which she took the side of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1915 lynching of a Leo Frank—an Atlanta Jew who was framed for rape and murder—is evidence of staggering ignorance and anti-Jewish sentiment. That she said this in August 2024 and not sometime in the distant past when she was in high school or college makes it even worse. The fact that she wasn’t even forced to apologize is shocking. It also shows how many in the Trump administration, like the president himself, seem to believe that holding themselves accountable for even the most obvious mistakes is a sign of unforgivable weakness in the face of a hostile media.

Partisan spin

For the anti-Trump resistance, particularly those in the Jewish community, it was being treated as more than just a case of a bad apple amid a plethora of administration appointees at the highest levels who are both friends of the Jewish community and ardent supporters of Israel. It was, along with other exceptions to Trump’s pro-Israel rule—like Michael DiMino, the chief Middle East policy advisor at the Pentagon who has a history of hostility to Israel—treated by some as evidence that Trump can’t be trusted to stand against antisemitism or not to betray the Jewish state at some point in his second term.

The same people are jumping on the news that the administration is, in a first for the United States, negotiating directly with Hamas as part of the talks about a second phase for the ceasefire/hostage release deal. They say this is a reason to believe that Trump will stab Israel in the back.

The notion that Trump—by any reasonable measure the most pro-Israel president since the founding of the modern Jewish state—hasn’t earned more trust than that rings hollow. But in a bifurcated political culture in which politics plays the role that religion once played in most people’s lives, expecting Democrats to give Republicans, especially those who work with Trump, the benefit of the doubt, is probably too much to ask.

That they would say it the same week when he was once again demonstrating the sort of moral clarity on Hamas in a social-media post in which he threatened them and demanded the release of all the remaining Israeli hostages is not just partisan spin. It’s also absurd.

The Tucker Carlson factor

Trump has himself been guilty of associating with people that the Jewish community rightly views as beyond the pale. But when judging a president, it’s policy that matters. On that score, the president has been exemplary when it comes to Israel. And he has been just as good when it comes to fighting antisemitism, especially on U.S. college campuses.

To note that is not to deny that there is a small faction of the GOP that is clearly hostile to Israel and, at best, soft on antisemitism, and at worst, guilty of it. The most prominent example is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who remains in the president’s inner circle. Carlson seems to have no more impact on Mideast policy or on combating antisemitism at home in Trump 2.0 than in his first administration. Still, even if he is no more than a friend and/or unofficial court jester at Mar-a-Lago, his continued presence alongside the president and his family at events remains troubling.

All administrations and political parties are inevitably coalitions that are bound to include some people who have strayed into the mainstream from the political fever swamps of the far right or far left. That even in an administration headed by pro-Israel figures like Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee (the former Arkansas governor who has been tapped as the next ambassador to Israel) people like DeMino or Wilson have gotten jobs is deeply regrettable. But it also testifies to the fact that when it comes to filling the approximately 4,000 political appointments in the federal government, there are always going to be a few people with friends or patrons in high places who don’t share the views of those in charge on some issues or cause embarrassment in other ways.

Trump’s team and Hegseth deserve the criticism they’ve gotten for Wilson. But to claim, as some on the left are doing, that her crazy views about Israel or Leo Frank are reason to label the entire administration as unworthy of support is a bridge too far.

Democrats turn on Israel

More importantly, it is a diversion from the reality of American politics when it comes to attitudes toward Israel and the way that antisemitism has been mainstreamed since Oct. 7, 2023, because of hostility to the Jewish state. The two parties’ opinions about the Jewish state are now so diametrically opposed that any remaining hope about support for it being a matter of bipartisanship is a boat that sailed a long time ago.

Nor is it a matter of “whataboutism” to note the contrast between Trump’s policies and appointments, and those of the Biden-Harris administration.

Though some on the left are making a meal out of Wilson, they seemed to have no trouble with the fact that Biden had plenty of anti-Israel and even antisemitic appointees. One prominent example was Robert Malley, a longtime apologist for the Palestinians and a bitter critic of Israel who was Biden’s special envoy for Iran until he was forced out due to losing his security clearance. Another was Maher Bitar, who was Biden’s senior director for Intelligence on the National Security Council before being promoted to deputy assistant to the president, and coordinator for intelligence and defense policy. Bitar had previously been a leader of the antisemitic Students for Justice in Palestine and a veteran of UNRWA, the pro-Hamas agency that has helped perpetuate the conflict. Since January, he’s been working for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is Jewish.

With people like Malley and Bitar advising them, it’s no surprise that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Biden spent the 15 months after Oct. 7 talking out of both sides of their mouths when it came to the war on Israel, even praising pro-Hamas students and saying that they should be heard.

Just as indicative of the difference between the last administration and the present one was the fact that even Biden’s equivocal attitude toward Israel’s fight for survival against Hamas was too much for many who served him throughout the government. Throughout its last year and a half, there was a civil war going on in the Biden-Harris administration as its half-hearted backing for Israel was protested by hundreds of staffers who signed petitions against it and others who resigned in protest. The same was true for Democratic congressional staffers who were, in contrast to many of their bosses, overwhelmingly anti-Israel.

That was indicative of the sea change in American politics with respect to Israel that has been going on. It has long been apparent that the left wing of the Democratic Party has been influenced by woke ideology and the toxic myths of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism teachings, and thus, increasingly anti-Zionist and antisemitic. But a tipping point has been reached since Oct. 7.

That was made clear in the most recent Gallup poll of attitudes toward Israel broken down by party affiliation. In the recent past, there had been a growing split among Democrats on the issue. In the last two years, however, that has shifted into a stance in which the party’s members are now clearly against the Jewish state. The survey published last month showed that Democrats favored the Palestinians over Israel by a stunning 59% to 21% margin. By contrast, Republicans side with Israel by an even larger 75% to 10% margin with independents backing the Jewish state over the Palestinians by 42% to 34%.

So, it’s hardly surprising that Democratic officeholders are hostile to Israel or that they have opposed Trump’s efforts to crack down on colleges and universities that have enabled or appeased pro-Hamas mobs that targeted Jewish students. Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has always disingenuously claimed to be an ardent supporter of Israel and antisemitism, refused to allow a vote in the Senate last fall on the Antisemitism Awareness Act that codified the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of the term into federal law for fear of offending a major constituency of his party.

A state of denial

It’s a shame that Israel has become a partisan issue. The blame for that belongs to the Democrats, who have shifted to the left on that issue as they have on so many others in recent decades while the GOP, which a half-century ago was divided on the Jewish state, has now become almost a lockstep pro-Israel party.

That doesn’t excuse the hiring of Wilson and DeMino, or the way people like Carlson remain relevant on the right. Yet it’s long past time for Jewish Democrats to stop pretending that support for Israel is mainstream in their party, or that Trump and the GOP—whatever you might otherwise think about them—aren’t stalwart supporters of the Jewish state and the American Jewish community. Antisemitism still exists on the right, but the primary threat to Jews in the United States now comes from woke activists, academics and officeholders who have made opposition to Israel and the toleration of Jew-hatred the new orthodoxy on the left. To claim otherwise is not just hypocritical for those who were silent about what happened under Biden. It’s to be in a state of denial that is as tragic as it is wrongheaded.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Jewish Students Face Increasing Hostility as Antisemitism Surges in France, New Report Finds

Ailin Vilches Arguello

Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Antisemitism in France has increasingly targeted Jewish students, exposing them to more violent rhetoric and behavior since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war in October 2023, according to a new bombshell report.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, on Wednesday released a major study on the scale of hatred and violence specifically targeting Jewish students in the country due to their religion or origin. The report, compiled jointly with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and French media company IFOP, is based on testimonies and interviews with Jewish male and female students educated across the country.

The study comes amid a rise in antisemitism in France following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to CRIF, the study’s findings highlight how everyday antisemitism, through its presence in daily language, helps legitimize more violent rhetoric and behavior.

During the 2023-2024 school year, the Ministry of National Education recorded 1,670 antisemitic incidents, accounting for nearly half of the total 3,630 racist and antisemitic acts reported.

This shows a 300 percent increase in antisemitic incidents from the 2022-2023 school year, with 400 antisemitic acts out of 1,270 total racist and antisemitic incidents reported. The proportion of antisemitic acts has also grown from less than a third to nearly half of all recorded incidents.

The study explains that the antisemitism emerging in schools stigmatizes and isolates students, particularly due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making it difficult for them to “report on the hostility they experience.”

Based on the testimonies and interviews conducted, researchers found that the school experience of Jewish students is predominantly similar, chiefly marked by an “invasive anti-Jewish hostility.”

“Faced with this hostility and in order to protect themselves, students try to remain in the background: hiding their Jewish identity or their connection to Israel, and being careful not to respond to the challenges and accusations from their peers, which are often directed at them through the figure of Israel,” the report says.

In the testimonies of Jewish students, it’s not only the Gaza war that dominates everyday conversations but also a particular anti-Israel perspective. The study found that a “demonized image of Israel” is brought into schools, and “this image is expressed through a division between two sides, one of good and one of evil.”

In response, the interviewed students said they developed a sense of distrust and feel the need to conceal their Jewish identity to avoid the antisemitic hostility they believe is directed at them.

According to a CRIF report from January, antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded.

The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.

Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.

The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.

One such incident occurred in late June, when an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”

CRIF’s data also showed that 192 antisemitic acts were committed in schools, which accounted for 12.2 percent of all such incidents recorded last year.

Ryszard Gontarz „dziennikarz”- komunistyczny propagandysta zmarły w 2017 roku, usprawiedliwiający w wywiadzie udzielonym już pod koniec życia swoje głębokie przekonanie, że syjonizm to rasizm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h34zPwl1Y9U

Zdumiewający powrót radzieckiej antysemickiej propagandy

Andrzej Koraszewski

Mariusz Zawadzki. (Zdjęcie z portfolio kadry “GW”)

Rebuilding Gaza is Pointless Unless Hamas is Eradicated

Khaled Abu Toameh

• The establishment of a new government in the Gaza Strip while Hamas maintains its military capabilities there unfortunately will not work. Hamas’s presence during reconstruction will only result in the emergence of the Lebanon model: Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy terror group, simply created a terrorist state-within-a-state.
• Worse, having a new government that would oversee reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip while Hamas is still there would exempt the Palestinian terrorist group from its responsibilities towards Gaza’s residents. The new government would not be able to stop Hamas from rearming, regrouping, and preparing more attacks against Israel — as Hamas has unremittingly vowed to do.
• The new government would be busy rebuilding homes and skyscrapers and delivering humanitarian aid, while Hamas and the other terror groups would have all the time in the world to rebuild tunnels and manufacture weapons.
• Hamas never cared about the well-being of the Palestinians under its rule in the Gaza Strip. The terrorist group could have built schools, universities, and hospitals. Instead, it chose to invest millions of dollars in building a vast network of tunnels to attack Israel, smuggle and hide weapons, and torture Israeli hostages.
• The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the resumption of humanitarian aid should be conditioned on the removal of Hamas from power and disarming of all of Gaza’s terror groups.
• Hamas should be completely excluded from any plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip because all it cares about is pursuing its Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel and murder as many Jews as possible.
  

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As Arab and Western leaders continue to discuss plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has again rejected laying down its weapons. It is clear that the terrorist group is determined to hold on to its weapons and its power, even if that entails depriving Gazans of reconstruction and further humanitarian aid. Hamas must not only be removed from power; it must disappear altogether. Pictured: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on March 4, 2025, photographed from a large screen at the Arab League summit. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)

As Arab and Western leaders continue to discuss plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has again rejected laying down its weapons.

For Hamas, preserving its weapons and military wing, Izz a-Din al-Qassam, is apparently more important than the reconstruction of thousands of homes and buildings destroyed during the Hamas-Israel war, which erupted after the terrorist group’s October 7, 2023, bloodthirsty attack on Israel.

“Disarming Hamas is a red line,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted as saying on March 4. He added that his group will not accept exchanging its weapons for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the resumption of humanitarian aid.

Abu Zuhri described the talk about Hamas’s disarmament as “nonsense” and stressed that weapons are a red line for Hamas and all terror factions in the Gaza Strip. “The weapons are not subject to bargaining and are not up for discussion or negotiation,” he said.

His remarks have been echoed by several other Hamas officials who emphasized in recent statements their total rejection to disarm.

The officials also stressed that Hamas is opposed to the deportation of its members from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that Israel’s demand that his group be evacuated from the Gaza Strip is “ridiculous psychological warfare.” He added: “[Hamas’s] withdrawal [from Gaza] or disarming is unacceptable.”

Hamas’s statements are directed not only towards Israel and the US, which support the idea of disarming the terror group and removing it from power, but also to the Arab countries that are talking about reconstructing the Gaza Strip and establishing a new governing body there.

The heads of several Arab states met in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on March 4, at an Arab League summit, to discuss plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip. According to Reuters, the Arab leaders were to discuss an Egyptian plan that would see the creation of a “Governance Assistance Mission” that would replace Hamas in the Gaza Strip for an unspecified interim period, and would be responsible for humanitarian aid and for starting reconstruction of the coastal enclave.

The establishment of a new government in the Gaza Strip while Hamas maintains its military capabilities there unfortunately will not work. Hamas’s presence during reconstruction will only result in the emergence of the Lebanon model: Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy terror group, simply created a terrorist state-within-a-state.

If the alleged Egyptian plan materializes, it will allow Hamas to function as a parallel political and military power alongside the proposed Governance Assistance Mission in the Gaza Strip.

Worse, having a new government that would oversee reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip while Hamas is still there would exempt the Palestinian terrorist group from its responsibilities towards Gaza’s residents. The new government would not be able to stop Hamas from rearming, regrouping, and preparing more attacks against Israel — as Hamas has unremittingly vowed to do.

The new government would be busy rebuilding homes and skyscrapers and delivering humanitarian aid, while Hamas and the other terror groups would have all the time in the world to rebuild tunnels and manufacture weapons.

If the Arabs are genuinely eager to help the residents of the Gaza Strip, they need to insist on disarming Hamas and removing it from power. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which has expressed readiness to return to the Gaza Strip, must also make the same demand.

Bringing the PA back to the Gaza Strip is also not a great idea. The PA ruled the Gaza Strip between 1994 and 2007, but failed to rein in Hamas and other terror groups, including the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). As a result, Hamas became so strong that it managed to seize full control of the Gaza Strip, and violently overthrow the PA in the summer of 2007.

Anyone who believes that PA President Mahmoud Abbas will order his security forces to crack down on the terror groups should he return to the Gaza Strip is living on a different planet. The PA security forces have failed to prevent the emergence of dozens of Iran-backed terror groups in the northern West Bank over the past few years. Late last year, an attempt by the PA security forces to disarm dozens of Hamas and PIJ gunmen in Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank was unsuccessful, prompting the Israel Defense Forces to launch a major counterterrorism operation there and in two other camps.

Hamas never cared about the well-being of the Palestinians under its rule in the Gaza Strip. The terrorist group could have built schools, universities, and hospitals. Instead, it chose to invest millions of dollars in building a vast network of tunnels to attack Israel, smuggle and hide weapons, and torture Israeli hostages.

Moreover, Hamas chose to invest many millions of dollars in manufacturing and smuggling weapons, including rockets, missiles, and explosive devices that were used to attack Israel — before and after the October 7 massacre.

Hamas and its patrons in Iran have brought nothing but death and destruction on the Palestinians, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the resumption of humanitarian aid should be conditioned on the removal of Hamas from power and disarming of all of Gaza’s terror groups.

Hamas should be completely excluded from any plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip because all it cares about is pursuing its Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel and murder as many Jews as possible. Under Hamas, the Gaza Strip has been transformed into one of the largest and most dangerous bases for Jihad in the Middle East, posing a threat not only to Israel, but also to neighboring Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan.

In light of the latest statements by senior Hamas officials, it is clear that the terrorist group is determined to hold on to its weapons and its power, even if that entails depriving the Gaza Strip’s residents of reconstruction and further humanitarian aid. Hamas must not only be removed from power; it must disappear altogether.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

UK Muslim Groups Reject Interfaith Pact With Jewish Leaders Because Chief Rabbi Is a ‘Zionist’

Ailin Vilches Arguello

The signing of the Drumlanrig Accords at Buckingham Palace. Photo: Screenshot

A coalition of Muslim organizations in the United Kingdom has rejected a recently announced Muslim-Jewish reconciliation agreement aimed at improving relations between the two communities, condemning the landmark pact over the involvement of British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who they denounced as a “staunch Zionist.”

In a joint statement, more than 25 Muslim groups, including Friends of Al Aqsa and The Cordoba Foundation, expressed strong opposition to the Drumlanrig Accords over Mirvis’s support for Israel. They also argued that the agreement, which was drafted in January and signed last month, lacked legitimate representation as it was backed by “self-appointed” Muslim leaders who do not represent the will of the Muslim community.

The signatories “failed to consult widely with grassroots organizations supported by the Muslim community before they signed these accords with the chief rabbi, who is a staunch Zionist,” the statement said.

“Rabbi Mirvis has supported Israel’s war on the Palestinians in Gaza,” the coalition continued, before citing debunked casualty figures supplied by Hamas-controlled authorities. “We cannot in good faith acknowledge these accords when the chief rabbi has made public statements supporting Israel despite the horrific actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”

In January, representatives of 11 denominations from Judaism and Islam met at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland to agree to a pact aimed at improving relations between the two faiths. The signatories said the accords were designed to unite the Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain to “help tackle both antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as poverty and isolation,” while promoting mutual respect and solidarity.

Jewish and Muslim leaders formally signed the agreement last month and presented it to Britain’s King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in London.

“The Drumlanrig Accords represent a bold first step toward rebuilding a meaningful trust between Muslim and Jewish communities over the long term,” Mirvis said in a statement following the signing of the accords. “They do not gloss over our differences; they acknowledge them.”

“They also send out a powerful message that in times of division, when it is far easier to retreat into fear and suspicion, we are prepared to take the more challenging path to reconciliation,” he continued. “We do so not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.”

In their statement released earlier this week, Muslim leaders explained they would only accept and support the accords if the UK’s chief rabbi condemns the “genocide and apartheid being enacted against the Palestinian people,” welcoming a collective multi-faith movement against oppression.

“Until then, we wholly reject these accords made purportedly on behalf of the Muslim community,” the coalition said. “A central facet of Islam is the complete rejection of oppression. As a community, we do not shy away from rejecting oppression in all its forms against anyone.”

The statement did not acknowledge Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

In Monday’s statement, the groups also argued that the Muslim leaders who signed the accords were “self-appointed” and do not represent the wider British Muslim community, but rather they only speak for a small minority.

“These self-appointed Muslims were fully aware that they only represent a small minority of the overall British Muslim population,” the statement read. “The majority of the British Muslim community do not even know who these individual Muslim ‘leaders’ are. Their actions and decisions were made independently without consulting the wider Muslim community.”

According to their statement, these Muslim groups would be “wholly supportive” of interfaith relations if carried out in good faith.

“We note the significant rise in anti-Muslim hatred within the Jewish community and support engagement on challenging hatred in all its forms,” the signatories said.

The signing of the accords came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic crimes across the UK since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

Last month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing the UK experienced its second worst year ever for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high.

In one of the latest incidents, a visibly Jewish man in England was brutally attacked after a prayer service, leaving him fearing for his eyesight, with local police investigating the assault as a hate crime.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

In January, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar with the support of the United States.