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Beyond the Headlines: What Is Actually Happening in Gaza Right Now
A Red Cross vehicle, escorted by a van driven by a Hamas terrorist, moves in an area within the so-called “yellow line” to which Israeli troops withdrew under the ceasefire, as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in Gaza City, Nov. 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alk
After Israel recovered the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza, the Gaza-Egypt border crossing at Rafah has been re-opened.
Gvili’s body was found by Israeli forces buried in a Palestinian cemetery. Though Hamas claims its assistance was critical to finding the body, it in fact did nothing whatsoever to assist. The body’s location was discovered by Israeli intelligence after it was determined that several members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad knew where it was, one of whom was captured in a special operation.
The cemetery was adjacent to the Yellow Line in Gaza, separating Israeli-controlled territory and Hamas-controlled territory. Operating there required the Israelis to cross the Yellow Line, and it took approximately one month to reach an agreement with Hamas to allow this to happen without fighting. Approximately 250 bodies were collected and checked before Israeli troops found the body of Gvili, an Israeli policeman. He was killed on October 7, 2023, while fighting to protect the Israeli community of Alumim near the Gaza border. He lived in a village in the central Negev, heard about the Hamas attack, and on his own initiative rushed to the nearby police station, armed himself, and drove to Alumim, where, despite being wounded shortly after his arrival, he fought the terrorists until he ran out of ammunition. He was captured and died of his wounds some days later in captivity.
Militarily speaking, skirmishes along the Yellow Line have continued daily.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad personnel constantly attempt to infiltrate into the Israeli-controlled area to scout, salvage weapons, or attack Israeli positions and patrols. A few Israeli soldiers have been wounded in the last month, and one who was severely wounded during such an incident a few months ago died from his wounds.
A few dozen Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad personnel have been killed or wounded. Most incidents are brief exchanges of stand-off fire across the Yellow Line. In one case, six Hamas personnel dug a shaft from an undiscovered tunnel adjacent to an Israeli position and wounded two Israeli soldiers before being killed by Israeli return of fire. Given the soft soil composition in the area, digging new tunnels or new shafts from existing tunnels is a fairly quick process. In another case, a rocket was launched from Hamas-controlled territory, but it failed and fell inside Gaza. Israeli troops respond to stand-off fire in kind and shoot at infiltrators. After major incidents, Israel retaliates by striking specific Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders in Hamas-controlled territory.
Israeli forces continue to scour the territory in Israeli hands, and almost every day find new caches of weapons hidden in buildings or other sites, as well as new tunnel entrance shafts and tunnels. The weapons are collected, and the buildings and tunnels demolished.
Meanwhile, the flow of trucks carrying supplies into Gaza continues at approximately 800 per day, though a quarter of that is sufficient to meet the needs of the population. A large portion of these supplies continues to flow to Hamas itself. A video report by an anti-Hamas Palestinian showed a store of baby food that has been held back by Hamas rather than supplying it to the population. He claims the film was made during the period when Israel was falsely accused of deliberately starving Gaza’s population.
A report published by the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria did not go so far as that, but did state that Hamas controlled both the import and the dissemination of humanitarian assistance and used that control to fund itself at the population’s expense.
The wealth of supplies entering Gaza is enabling Hamas to continue to solidify its control over the population, enlist new troops, and build up its arsenal of weapons. Currently, this arsenal consists primarily of light weapons and explosives salvaged from destroyed storage sites and unexploded aerial bombs dropped by the Israelis during the war.
The number of small explosive devices that can be created from a salvaged bomb depends on its size, ranging from a dozen to several dozen. There are probably a few hundred such unexploded aerial bombs scattered throughout the area controlled by Hamas. In addition, the Israelis have intercepted quadcopters carrying weapons from Egypt into Gaza. How many of these have already managed to get through is not known. In the past, Hamas has also smuggled in weapons by sea, exploiting the natural current directions to float waterproof barrels from Egyptian Sinai to Gaza. Israeli naval patrols have intercepted some but not all of these barrels. Since the beginning of the war and the increased presence of Israeli naval patrols, naval smuggling has been more difficult for Hamas to accomplish, but it might still be happening.
In Phase 2 of the Ceasefire, Hamas is supposed to disarm, a technocratic government is to be established in Gaza, and an international force is meant to take over “peacekeeping,” enabling Israel to withdraw its forces closer to the border. Hamas continues to declare it will not disarm, and some of the mediators (Egypt, Qatar, and, according to a recent unverified report, the British government) are attempting to change this requirement. In theory, the technocratic government has been set up and is ready to begin work, but as long as Hamas remains armed, this government will be only a façade behind which Hamas will continue to control Gaza. This is especially true in view of the fact that most of the administrative personnel in this government previously worked for Hamas. This includes a 10,000-man armed police force that is meant to enforce the policies of the new government but that is actually manned almost entirely by Hamas personnel.
Furthermore, there is still no international force willing to replace the IDF in compelling Hamas’ disarmament. This could lead to a swift reigniting of the fighting.
Meanwhile, the IDF has completed preparations for at least one site on which to build a new tent/hut city for Gazans who will be transferred to live there, via security checkpoints to filter out Hamas personnel, and receive humanitarian support. More such sites are under discussion. If this works, it will reduce, possibly dramatically, the number of civilians living under Hamas authority. This would give the IDF a freer hand for operations against Hamas and the other organizations.
On the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, the rebuilding and return of the population forced to evacuate because of the October 2023 attack and subsequent war has continued, with most of the Israeli refugees now returned to their homes. In the town of Sderot, seven kilometers from the border, there has been a large-scale operation to build new neighborhoods. In addition to nearly all the original residents having returned, at least 3,000 new residents have moved to Sderot from other parts of Israel.
Dr. Eado Hecht, a senior research fellow at the BESA Center, is a military analyst focusing mainly on the relationship between military theory, military doctrine, and military practice. He teaches courses on military theory and military history at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, and Reichman University and in a variety of courses in the Israel Defense Forces. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Rashida Tlaib Introduces Resolution ‘Recognizing Ongoing Nakba’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday reintroduced a congressional resolution recognizing the 78th anniversary of what she described as the “ongoing nakba,” using the Arabic term for “catastrophe” deployed by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
The resolution, introduced on the anniversary of Israel’s independence, accuses the Jewish state of carrying out “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” and “genocide” against Palestinians, language that many pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and advocacy groups strongly reject as inflammatory and inaccurate. The measure also calls for renewed US support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an agency that has faced mounting scrutiny from Israel and several Western governments over allegations that employees participated in or supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
In a statement announcing the resolution, Tlaib argued that the so-called nakba “did not end” with the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and continues today through Israeli military operations and settlement expansion.
“War criminal Netanyahu and his cabinet have repeatedly threatened to ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, annex the land, and permanently occupy it. Today, they are extending these same threats towards southern Lebanon,” she said, referring to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military operations against US-designated terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. “As we mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, we honor all of those killed since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began and all those who have been forced from their homes and violently displaced from their land.”
Activists often invoke the term “nakba” when discussing the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs following Israel’s War of Independence, many of whom left the nascent state for varied reasons, including that they were encouraged by Arab leaders to flee their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. At the same time, about 850,000 Jews were forced to flee or expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century, primarily in the aftermath of Israel’s declaring independence.
Tlaib’s resolution is co-sponsored by several prominent progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Summer Lee (PA).
The move is likely to draw fierce criticism from pro-Israel lawmakers and Jewish organizations, many of whom argue the resolution ignores the historical context surrounding Israel’s founding and the 1948 war. Israel accepted the United Nations partition plan in 1947 to create two states, one Jewish and one Arab, while neighboring Arab states rejected it and launched a military invasion after Israel declared independence.
The resolution also calls for a so-called Palestinian “right of return,” a demand insisting that potentially millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the land of Israel, a step that, according to proponents, would result in the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state.
“This immense trauma, including the loss of their loved ones and connections to the communities they grew up in, needs to be repaired. True peace must be built on justice and the inalienable right of return for Palestinian refugees,” Tlaib said in her statement.
While refugees are generally defined as those who flee a country out of credible fear of persecution, UNRWA uniquely defines Palestinian refugees to include all descendants of those who left the land, regardless of where they were born.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of the US Congress, has emerged as one of Israel’s loudest critics on Capitol Hill, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of genocide and drawing rebuke from fellow lawmakers.
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Toronto Sees 50% Drop in 2025 Hate Crimes, Yet 82% of Religiously Motivated Attacks Target Jews
A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Even as Toronto recorded an overall decline in reported hate crimes last year, newly released data shows the city’s Jewish community continued to face disproportionately high levels of targeted antisemitism and violence amid an increasingly concerning social climate.
On Thursday, Toronto Police released its annual hate crime statistical report, showing that Jews accounted for 82 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2025, compared to 14 percent targeting Muslims.
Even though the Jewish community makes up less than 3 percent of Toronto’s population, officials now warn that Jewish residents are 14 times more likely than other residents to be targeted in a hate incident.
With 81 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded, Jews and Israelis were the targets of 35 percent of all reported hate incidents in the city.
Despite a 50 percent overall decline in reported hate crimes, from 443 in 2024 to 231 in 2025, Toronto has seen a 40 percent increase in such incidents so far this year compared with the same period last year.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw noted that, even with the overall decline, the Jewish community continued to be the primary target of hate-motivated offenses.
“We are steadfast in our commitment to confronting hate in all its forms and making it easier for people to come forward and report incidents of hate,” Demkiw said in a press release.
Because police-reported hate crime data only includes incidents that come to the attention of authorities and are later confirmed or suspected to be hate-driven, official figures likely underestimate the true scale of such incidents.
Over the past two years, Toronto authorities have expanded law enforcement capacity and resources to investigate hate crimes by establishing a Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and increasing specialized training for officers, while also strengthening Holocaust education initiatives and introducing digital literacy programs for youth aimed at countering online radicalization.
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice President Michelle Stock called the latest statistics “deeply alarming,” warning of a broader reality of hostility that Jewish families across the city are confronting on a daily basis.
“Toronto prides itself on being a city where people of all backgrounds can live openly, safely and without fear. Those values are undermined when any community no longer feels secure expressing its identity in public,” Stock said in a statement.
“From synagogues to schools to public displays of Jewish identity, blatant attacks against the Jewish community are becoming more frequent and more brazen,” she continued. “Jewish Canadians are being targeted simply for who they are. No one should have to think twice about wearing a kippah, attending synagogue, sending their children to Jewish schools or participating openly in Jewish life.”
The city’s figures reflect a broader nationwide rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility, with the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada reporting a record high in anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2025 for the second consecutive year, documenting 6,800 such cases across the country.
According to the latest report, antisemitic incidents nationwide increased by 9.3 percent last year, surpassing the previous record total of 6,219 set in 2024.
With an average of 18.6 incidents per day, this figure represents a 145.6 percent increase from 2022, before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Early 2026 data already indicate the country is now on track to see its most violent year against the Jewish community in recent memory, with more violent antisemitic attacks recorded so far this year than during all of 2025, B’nai Brith Canada reported.
In total, 11 violent antisemitic incidents have already been recorded across the country since January, surpassing the 10 violent cases documented during all of last year
“These brazen attacks on Jewish Canadians are a sign of a crisis of antisemitism that has spiraled out of control,” Simon Wolle, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, said in a statement.
“Violence such as this, which has escalated from targeting synagogues to targeting Jewish people directly, does not occur in a vacuum. It is what happens when governments fail to act despite mounting evidence that antisemitism is becoming more normalized and dangerous,” Wolle continued.
Last week, a group of Jewish worshippers standing outside the Congregation Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Montreal was targeted in a drive-by shooting, leaving one person with minor injuries.
A week earlier, three visibly Jewish residents were targeted in a separate antisemitic attack when suspects opened fire with a gel-pellet gun, causing minor injuries.
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Israel, Lebanon Extend Ceasefire by 45 Days as Washington Talks Conclude
Smoke rises following explosions in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, April 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as two days of talks facilitated by Washington concluded on Friday with an agreement to hold further meetings in the coming weeks.
“The April 16 cessation of hostilities will be extended by 45 days to enable further progress,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X, adding that the talks aimed at settling decades of conflict between the two countries were “highly productive.” The ceasefire was set to expire on Sunday.
The Lebanese and Israeli delegations issued positive statements about the talks, their third meeting since Israel intensified air attacks on Lebanon after Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on March 2, three days into the US-Israeli war with Iran. Israel‘s bombing campaign and ground invasion into Lebanon’s south displaced some 1.2 million people, before US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire last month following initial talks between the two countries’ ambassadors in Washington.
Hezbollah and Israel have continued to trade blows, with hostilities focused in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces are occupying a self-declared security zone.
LEBANON WANTS HOSTILITIES TO CEASE
The US-led mediation between Lebanon and Israel has emerged in parallel to diplomacy aimed at ending the US-Iran conflict. Iran has said ending Israel‘s war in Lebanon is one of its demands for a deal over the wider conflict.
Lebanon’s delegation, which is attending despite objections from Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah, has prioritized a cessation in hostilities in the talks. Israel says Hezbollah, which openly seeks the Jewish state’s destruction, must be disarmed as part of any broader peace agreement with Lebanon.
The Washington meetings, the highest-level contact between Lebanon and Israel in decades, have evolved to include security and military officials. Pigott said on X that a new “security track” of the negotiations would be launched at the Pentagon on May 29, while the State Department will convene the two sides again June 2-3 for a political track of negotiations.
“We hope these discussions will advance lasting peace between the two countries, full recognition of each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and establishing genuine security along their shared border,” Pigott said.
Lebanon’s delegation said in a statement that it wanted to turn the momentum from the ceasefire into a lasting peace agreement. “The extension of the ceasefire and the establishment of a US-facilitated security track provide critical breathing space for our citizens, reinforce state institutions, and advance a political pathway toward lasting stability,” the delegation said.
Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said the talks were “frank and constructive.”
“There will be ups and downs, but the potential for success is great. What will be paramount throughout negotiations is the security of our citizens and our soldiers,” Leiter said on X.