This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/briefing/jerusalem-chief-gaza-ukraine-strike.html
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 3 | Version 4 |
|---|---|
| Thursday Briefing | Thursday Briefing |
| (about 13 hours later) | |
| Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said yesterday that Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority once the war ends, the strongest signal yet of the Biden administration’s hopes for the future of the conflict. But what Israel will do in Gaza is largely unclear. | Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said yesterday that Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority once the war ends, the strongest signal yet of the Biden administration’s hopes for the future of the conflict. But what Israel will do in Gaza is largely unclear. |
| Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, who covers Israel and the occupied territories, explains what may lie ahead. | Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, who covers Israel and the occupied territories, explains what may lie ahead. |
| What are you expecting? | What are you expecting? |
| If Israel continues as planned, the next few weeks could be the bloodiest of the war so far. Already, roughly 1,400 Israelis and over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza. | If Israel continues as planned, the next few weeks could be the bloodiest of the war so far. Already, roughly 1,400 Israelis and over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza. |
| That death toll could rise once Israel starts fighting in earnest within the urban warren that is Gaza City, which is Hamas’s stronghold and the primary target of Israel’s invasion. Once Israeli forces enter en masse, we will see very intense urban warfare, in part because this is Hamas’s home turf. It’s where they’ve built and dug hundreds of miles of subterranean tunnels from which they can emerge and launch ambushes that will stymie the Israeli army’s progress. | That death toll could rise once Israel starts fighting in earnest within the urban warren that is Gaza City, which is Hamas’s stronghold and the primary target of Israel’s invasion. Once Israeli forces enter en masse, we will see very intense urban warfare, in part because this is Hamas’s home turf. It’s where they’ve built and dug hundreds of miles of subterranean tunnels from which they can emerge and launch ambushes that will stymie the Israeli army’s progress. |
| The biggest question is what Israel’s army will do once they reach the hospitals in central Gaza City, which they claim are the headquarters of Hamas’s military command. While they haven’t clearly said this, the implication is that they are going to have to take over these hospitals in order to complete their goal of removing Hamas from the Gaza Strip. | |
| Doing so would see fierce fighting inside a location that is supposed to be off limits during a war. And we could be about to witness some very troubling scenes of violence inside places that are supposed to be sanctuaries. |