[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Six hostages taken during Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel were found dead in Gaza on Saturday, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli American whose parents have been outspoken advocates for bringing Hamas captives home.

The Israel Defense Forces identified the other hostages as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt. Ori Danino.

The hostages' bodies were found during combat in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, and were killed shortly before soldiers reached them, the IDF said. They had not previously known the location of the hostages.

"I am devastated and outraged," President Joe Biden said. "Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages."

The leading group of hostage family members expressed outrage at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he "abandoned the abductees!" The group has called for a cease-fire so hostages can be released.

The group, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, has called for major protests in Israel today

24 killed in West Bank as assault on Jenin continues
24 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Israel began its assault on the city of Jenin, according to Palestinian health officials.

The IDF launched a sweeping military operation Wednesday, carrying out airstrikes and deadly raids and sealing off the city of Jenin.

Of the Palestinians reported dead since Wednesday, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have said at least 14 were members of their armed wings.

Three Israeli police officers were also killed in a shooting at a checkpoint in Hebron on Sunday.

Doctors without Borders calls on Israel and Hamas to protect 'last remaining hospitals' in Gaza
Doctors without Borders says only 16 out of 36 hospitals are still functioning in Gaza.

It said Al-Aqsa hospital was under threat of attack, and called on "all parties to protect the last remaining hospitals."

Netanyahu apologizes to family of killed hostage
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to the family of Alexander Lobanov for not bringing him and the other five hostages back alive, according to a statement from the prime minister's office.

Lobanov, 32, will be buried in Ashkelon this afternoon. He is survived by his parents, wife and two children, one of whom was born while he was in captivity. Lobanov was working as a bar manager at the Supernova music festival, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. He had helped evacuate people and ran with five others to the Be’eri forest, where he was captured.

According to the prime minister's office Netanyahu will speak with the families of other hostages today.

Examination of bodies confirms 6 hostages were shot to death, Israeli source says
A forensic examination of the six hostages’ bodies indicates they were shot by their Hamas captors, an Israeli official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on a sensitive matter.

Hamas has claimed the hostages were killed by IDF fire as soldiers stormed into the tunnel in Rafah on Saturday.

The IDF says that is not accurate and that there was no exchange of fire between Hamas and IDF troops in the tunnel.

Israeli Minister Ben-Gvir calls for terrorist death penalty and return of checkpoints in the West Bank
Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has submitted a proposal calling for the death penalty for terrorists.

In a post on X, he said: "We submitted a death penalty law for terrorists, and the Prime Minister is delaying it. I intend to fight for it — it’s time to pass the law."

In another post, he also called for the return of checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.

Civilians are stuck 'in a war between two psychopaths,' cousin of killed hostage says
The grieving cousin of slain hostage Carmel Gat told NBC News he wants her to know that their family was sorry that they weren't able to bring her home, offering harsh criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gil Dickmann said the blood of the hostages is on Netanyahu and the government's hands, accusing the prime minister of caring more about politics than the lives of hostages. He believes it's the mission of "horrible people from both sides" to make it impossible for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace together.

"I know we are now in a war between two psychopaths because Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu, both of them are just having their own war between each other," Dickmann said, referring to Hamas' leader Yahya Sinwar. "We're dying in the midst of it."

Gat was Dickmann's oldest cousin, a woman he described as "peace loving" who did not see borders between people and nations. She would have been released in the early wave of a potential cease-fire deal, which has a framework but has not been agreed upon.

Dickmann said that he would continue to fight for the release of the remaining hostages in Gat's honor, and that he hopes one day to see her again to hear her story.

"These leaders are to blame, and the terror organization is to blame, and the government that decided to sacrifice the lives of the hostages, they're all to blame," Dickmann said. "But people, innocent people, on either side should not pay the price of this horrible war between these two organizations."

This nightmare needs to end' - Families of American hostages in Gaza demand hostage deal
The Families of American Hostages in Gaza group has said "enough is enough," following the death of American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was among the six hostages executed by Hamas and recovered by Israeli forces.

"We demand Prime Minister Netanyahu close the deal with Hamas and bring the hostages home to their loved ones," read a statement from the group.

"It’s well past time to bring all the hostages home. Sagui, Omer, Edan, and Keith need to come home now. We need to bring Judy, Gadi, and Itay home and lay them to rest.

"For the 101 remaining hostages and their families, this nightmare needs to end.”

Israeli trade union announces one-day strike on Monday
The head of Israel’s Histadrut labour union called for a general strike beginning at 6 a.m. local time on Monday to pressure the government into reaching a deal to return Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

Arnon Bar-David, whose union represents hundreds of thousands of workers, called on all civilian workers to join the strike and said Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main air transport hub, would be closed from 8 a.m.

Bar-David said that for now, the strike would just be for Monday but he sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for failing to bring hostages back alive.

“The neglect of the economy must be stopped,” Bar-David said at a news conference. “Israel must be returned to a reasonable routine... We must reach a deal. A deal is more important than anything else.

“We are getting body bags instead of a deal.”

New assessments indicate twice as many Gazans breached the border into Israel on October 7 than previously believed, Channel 12 reported Saturday, citing data compiled by the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division.

Some 3,800 terrorists from the Hamas terror group’s elite Nukhba forces smashed through the border fence, the report said, among a total of 6,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel that day.

Hitherto, figures made public indicated that some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists participated in the invasion, massacre and hostage-taking that day. That number did not take into account Gazans who crossed the fence and participated in the atrocities but were not Hamas members, nor did it differentiate between Nukhba terrorists and other Hamas terrorists.

It was unclear from the report what the status was of the 2,200 other Gazans who infiltrated Israel on October 7. Presumably, many were civilians, as extensive footage of the onslaught showed many enter to loot and take part in the assault, while others were likely members of other Hamas units or other terrorist organizations such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The TV report also said that the border was breached in 119 spots — again, about double the previously widely cited figure of 60 breaches in the Gaza-Israel fence.

Additionally, 1,000 terrorists inside Gaza were involved in firing rockets at Israel that day, the report said, meaning that a total of some 7,000 Gazans took part in the onslaught.

Some 5,000 rockets were fired at Israel on October 7, with 3,000 of them in the first four hours of the onslaught, according to the IDF.

Channel 12 said the data was submitted to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.

“No one can leave their homes. The shepherds cannot get to their fields, the farmers cannot get to their crops,” said Awdah al-Hathalean, a local English teacher and community leader in the West Bank Bedouin village of Umm al-Khair.

I first visited the village, which is renowned for its commitment to nonviolence, in 2017. At their community center, a modest building with whitewashed walls, filled with paintings and drawings by the local children, we were served cardamom-infused coffee and Middle Eastern sweet tea. The village has long held a commitment to nonviolent activism; in those days, it also had a rich, warm, peaceful communal life.

Now, that existence has been fractured, as Israel’s military and civilian infringements in the West Bank have escalated in context of Israel’s war with Hamas. The whole West Bank is suffering increasing violence, most recently in a Thursday attack by settlers on a Palestinian village, so shocking that even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt obliged to register an objection. But that a nonviolent community like Umm al-Khair is being targeted shows just how hollow the Israeli government’s excuses are when it comes to the dire situation in the West Bank. Netanyahu’s government would have us believe that only those Palestinians who threaten Israeli settlers and soldiers are at risk; the changes in Umm al-Khair tell a much different story.

“Even when armed settlers are not present, the army blocks roads that the villagers depend on,” al-Hathalean said when I spoke to him recently by video on WhatsApp. “They cannot graze their sheep, so they are forced to drive miles of back roads to get to cities where they can buy food for their animals — and for themselves. Increasingly, they have less money with which to buy.”

“These are really tough days,” he said. “Financial support for the people has collapsed. It has never been so tough.”

Historically, the residents of Umm al-Khair have lived sustainably off the land. The village in the south Hebron hills lies in Area C, the part of the occupied West Bank that is completely under Israeli military control.

Its founders were displaced from the Negev in 1948, after the establishment of the State of Israel, so they bought land in a place where they could continue their traditional way of life by herding goats and sheep and coaxing crops to grow in the arid desert soil. Ten years ago, over 600 people lived in Umm al-Khair. Today, it has a population of 250 people — a decline attributable in part to the increasingly painful conditions of life there.

Like most Palestinian villages in Area C, Umm al-Khair has not been granted what is known as a Master Plan by the military government. Without one, all developments in the community — new buildings, new solar panels, even paved roads — are subject to summary demolition at any time.

Many of the villagers’ homes are built of nothing more than siding, often covered with a tarp or woven cloth. Inside, the homes are as nice as people with little money can make them. Pillows on couches are covered with the characteristic vibrant embroidery of the women of Umm al-Khair. Walls are bright with mirrors and salvaged tile. The provisional look of the homes is a kind of camouflage against the authorities. If they don’t look too nice or permanent, perhaps they won’t be bulldozed.

But the threat of demolition is a constant presence. Even outhouses have been torn down. The ruins of a demolished mosque remain, a testament to the price of hope.

Life in Carmel, an Israeli settlement established next to Umm al-Khair in 1980 through a military seizure order and transformed into a civilian moshav in 1981, looks very different. The settlement is hooked up to the water and power grid; its houses have lawns; there are cell phone towers and a poultry farm, run-off from which pollutes the land of Umm al-Khair.

Despite these daily glaring inequities and the incessant fear of destruction, the people of Umm al-Khair have created a culture of mutual aid, self-respect and joy. But since the onset of Israel’s war with Hamas, which corresponded to an escalation of incursions in the West Bank, that joy has been harder and harder to find.

Young engineers, graduates of Hebron University, used to dream of the day when they could transform their homes, marrying sustainable agriculture with energy self-sufficiency. Villagers constructed a library and playground for their children, and a brightly painted soccer pitch. They wanted only basic freedoms: access to the water and power systems that illegal settlements enjoy; real showers, flush toilets and reliable internet. Today, such dreams feel very far away.

“Everything went crazy after 7th of October,” said al-Hathalean, “More attacks, raids, demolition and confiscation.”

Soldiers walk through and set off tear gas at will. Armed settlers have come into the village, shot pepper spray into villagers’ faces, and beaten them with sticks, al-Hathalean said. They have cut the village’s water lines twice.

One fourth of the housing stock in the village has been destroyed. They have been cut off from their fields, which settlers now roam freely, injuring, stealing and even killing sheep and goats. In June, Umm al-Khair was invaded by armed settlers who told the villagers that, if they did not abandon their homes, they would be murdered.

“I don’t know what to tell my son,” al-Hathalean said. His 4-year-old, Watan, has developed a stutter in recent months, in what al-Hathalean is sure is a trauma response. The culture of determined hope and resilience of Umm al-Khair is under great strain.

Having seen that culture firsthand, I — like others I know who have put their hearts into maintaining ties with our Palestinian partners in peace — am enraged by Israel’s baseless efforts to destroy it.

I visited at a time when the lovingly constructed village school had just been demolished. The children of Umm al-Khair had to walk on dirt roads over hills to get to the next village in order to learn. I asked a teenage girl about her favorite subjects. She said science and math. And Arabic. And English. And all Israel had done for this bright, eager, peaceful young woman was make it close to impossible for her to thrive in a way that would allow true peaceful coexistence to flourish.

And, still, al-Hathalean said, “The people here are against any violence. They just want to live with safety.”

I have often been asked, by those without direct experience in peace efforts: “Well, where are the nonviolent non-terrorist Palestinians?” They are easy to find — and being terrorized under a far-right government that transparently aims to make Israeli control over the West Bank permanent. A cynic could be forgiven for thinking that the Israeli government actually wants to provoke a violent response, because the visibility of nonviolent Palestinian activists make it harder for them to justify seizing more power.

“We still believe in nonviolent resistance,” al-Hathalean reiterates. “But everyone is really stressed. Our future is dark. We don’t know what will happen.”

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening, with tens of thousands more demonstrating across the country in the largest protests since October 7, expressing pain and anger and demanding a hostage-ceasefire deal after the army recovered six bodies of hostages executed by the Hamas terror group.

Organizers estimated that 300,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv and an additional 200,000 took part in protests across the country. The Crowd Solutions firm estimated that some 280,000 people participated in the Tel Aviv demonstration, in what would be the largest rally in almost 18 months. There were no official numbers from police.

The Tel Aviv protest began with a march from Dizengoff Street to the Begin Gate of the IDF headquarters, carrying six “symbolic coffins” to symbolize the six bodies that were recovered on Saturday night.

The news of their murders after nearly 11 months of captivity sparked an outpouring of national grief and anger, much of it directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been accused of holding up a hostage deal for political reasons.

Demonstrators chanted “Now! Now!” as they demanded Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home. Others chanted: “We want them back alive.”

Protesters carried Israeli flags, yellow ribbons in honor of the hostages, and signs apologizing to the six dead hostages.

“We really think that the government is making these decisions for its own conservation and not for the lives of the hostages, and we need to tell them, ‘Stop!’” said Shlomit Hacohen, a Tel Aviv resident.

Speakers at the Tel Aviv protest included relatives of hostages still in Gaza, as well as Bar-David and Lior Simcha, the secretary general of the Kibbutz Movement.

Lior Rudaeff‘s son, Nadav, spoke at the Tel Aviv protest where he said the government had violated its contract with the people of Israel. Rudaeff was killed on October 7 and his body was taken to Gaza.

“If you hadn’t sabotaged a deal again and again, 26 hostages who were murdered in captivity would be here today with us, alive. Six of them survived until last week in a hell that most of you MKs wouldn’t have survived for one day,” he charged.

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, said: “Matan is alive. My son is still alive. But every day is a Russian roulette.” Netanyahu, she said, will play it “until they’re all dead, [but] we won’t let him.” She said the six murdered hostages died “on the altar of the Philadelphi [Corridor] spin,” referring to the Gaza-Egypt border, where the premier has insisted Israel must retain control.

The six could have been saved, and the rest of the hostages can still be saved, she argued.

To the newly bereaved families, Zangauker said: “You are not alone. The people of Israel embrace you. The blood of your loved ones won’t be in vain. We’ll do everything to get all the hostages home.”

The history books will not have sufficient space to record the magnitude” of the disaster Netanyahu has wrought, she asserted. “Your time is up,” she said. “I, Einav Zangauker, a Likudnik from Ofakim, tell you it’s over.”

She concluded: “This is the time to act. To shake the nation until there is a deal. Go to the streets, people of Israel. Go to the streets!”

Matan Zangauker’s girlfriend, Ilana Gritzewsky, who was also taken hostage and released in November as part of a deal, said she knew what the hell of captivity looked like.

Netanyahu “doesn’t know what it’s like to have death hovering over you all day, he doesn’t know what it’s like to be in captivity and hear the prime minister say that the war is going to be long,” she said.

Union chief Bar-David vowed that “the entire country will stand still tomorrow” and accused the government of forsaking the whole country.

Bar-David said he had promised hostage families to use his power to shut down the economy “when the time comes.”

“That time is now,” he said.

Following the Tel Aviv protest, thousands descended to the Ayalon Highway where they blocked traffic for three hours, with some setting off fireworks, lighting fires on the road, and placing rocks, fences, nails and metal objects on the road. Some chanted, “Bibi is murdering the hostages,” using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Police said in a statement that they were “forced” to declare the protest on the Ayalon illegal and then “used crowd control measures to disperse the rioters.”

Around 30 protesters were arrested in Tel Aviv, in addition to five in Jerusalem and others elsewhere around the country.

Police clashed with some of the thousands of protesters on the Ayalon Highway as they attempted to clear the road, including by using water cannons. At least four stun grenades were thrown by cops, lightly hurting several people including Labor MK Naama Lazimi and her adviser, and knocking them down on the road.

“There was then another blast that was close and almost hit us directly,” Lazimi recounted later on X, adding that a police officer had then noticed what was happening and pulled them away, and that “miraculously, nothing happened beyond a few superficial bruises.” She argued that no friction had been going on when the grenades were hurled “completely by surprise and without any warning.”

Police said an officer lost her consciousness during a “riot” and was hospitalized, without detailing what had happened.

A 51-year-old demonstrator was moderately injured and hospitalized after falling from a height of 2.5 meters, the Ynet news site reported.

The protests, which took place across the country, kicked off with thousands gathering to protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office near the Knesset in Jerusalem during an emergency meeting of the security cabinet.

Many of the protesters blew whistles and trumpets to disrupt the meeting, causing deafening noise. Half an hour into the rally, the crowd observed a minute of silence to honor the hostages. After the minute passed, the crowd erupted again into loud whistles and shouts.

“This was the last minute of silence you will have,” shouted one of the organizers in a bullhorn, as he proceeded to read out the names of ministers. “We will not give this security cabinet a moment of quiet until all the hostages are released!”

In Jerusalem, demonstrators also later blocked a key entrance to the city where they clashed with police trying to clear the roads.

Thousands also demonstrated at dozens of bridges, highways and cities around the country in what were likely the largest protests since October 7.

Hostage Naama Levy‘s grandfather, Shaul Levy, participated in a protest in Beersheba and said that the current social and political situation made the hostages’ families feel hopeless.

“When Netanyahu says he wants to destroy Hamas, it won’t happen. What is really happening is that he’s destroying us,” he said.

Opposition politicians had also urged the public to take to the streets and took part in the demonstrations.

A nationwide strike that began this morning in Israel must end, a court has ruled, after the country's biggest union vowed to shut down the economy in a furious push for the government to agree to a cease-fire deal after the deaths of six hostages taken during Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack.

A funeral will be held today for Goldberg-Polin and fellow hostage Carmel Gat. The others found dead in a tunnel under Rafah were Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt. Ori Danino.

In Gaza, tens of thousands of children have already been vaccinated as part of a mass polio vaccination campaign.
Health authorities are scrambling to avoid a widespread outbreak in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave after the first case in 25 years.

Israel will respond 'with full force' to hostage deaths, foreign minister says
Foreign Minister Israel Katz has vowed that Israel will respond "with full force" after the Israeli army recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza last week.

"The Hamas terror organization brutally executed six hostages to instill fear and attempt to fracture Israeli society," Katz wrote in a post on X this morning. "Israel will respond with full force to this heinous crime. Hamas is responsible and will pay the full price."

The Israeli Health Ministry said yesterday that the six hostages were killed by Hamas "in a number of short-range shots" just days before their bodies were found. Hamas has blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. for the hostages' deaths, alleging without evidence that the hostages were killed by the Israeli army’s bullets.

I don't know anything about Israel's constitution beyond that the MPs are all at-large, but I seriously doubt that Netanyahu can legally prevent Histadrut from calling a strike. He may think he can because he has the power to override the constitution by decree, but we'll see how it goes.

President Joe Biden on Monday said he did not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done enough to secure a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, a comment that comes amid massive protests in Israel.

Two people briefed on discussions to secure a deal told NBC News that Biden may offer a final “take it or leave it” deal to Israel and Hamas as soon as this week in hopes of reaching a ceasefire agreement. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested the move as an option during a virtual meeting with U.S. hostage families on Sunday, these people said.

Reporters asked Biden if he thought Netanyahu had done enough to secure an agreement, and the president answered: “No.”

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team in the White House Situation Room on Monday morning.

CIA Director Bill Burns, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk all attended the Situation Room meeting and may be deployed back to the region for another round of talks, a U.S. official said. All have traveled repeatedly in recent months to take part in various negotiations.

According to a readout of the meeting from the White House, the president "expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable. "

They also discussed next steps in securing the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, including consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Israel has no constitution.

They were going to stop the strike at 6:00 PM anyway so stopping at 2:30 PM as per court order was not an issue.

I had the impression they have a supreme court. This is why I thought they must have a constitution, as the whole concept of a supreme court would seem to be bound up with having a constitution. Be that as it may, it would seem there must be some kind of document that delineates the power of the Knesset, the Prime Minister, and President, and so forth. In addition it would need to specify the conditions under which elections are held. Also what ministries exist and the extent of their powers. Otherwise the PM would effectively be a dictator. I would call that a constitution even if they don't.

Whatever.

Israel has always had a figure it out as you go along culture. Obviously they borrowed from European Parliamentary systems. Before the war there was huge controversy about Judicial Reform over fears the right wing Knesset would strip the courts of too much power leaving Netanyahu as dictator.

Six senior leaders of Hamas, including the militant group's political head Yahya Sinwar, were charged with terrorism and other crimes in connection with the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Other members of the group charged in the indictment include Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammad al-Masri, Marwan Issa, Khaled Meshaal and Ali Baraka. They were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and other alleged crimes.

In a news release, the Department of Justice identified the defendants as senior leaders of Hamas who have played a key role in overseeing a decadeslong campaign of terrorism, including on Oct. 7.

"Hamas, led by these defendants, committed its most violent, large-scale attack to date" on that day, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement.

Sinwar, who has led Hamas in Gaza since roughly 2017, became the group's political leader earlier this month after Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran.

The complaint points to public statements from the defendants supporting Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, including a speech from Haniyeh announcing the attack and an Oct. 8 media interview with Baraka in which he described Hamas' social and civic activities as a ruse aimed at making it appear as though they were focused on governing in Gaza.

“All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack,” the complaint quotes him as telling a Russian TV outlet.

It’s a small sliver of land, but it’s become a major sticking point in talks between Israel and Hamas.

The so-called Philadelphi corridor has emerged as a critical factor holding up a cease-fire deal that would end the monthslong war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of hostages still held in the enclave.

Outcry over the killing of six hostages has intensified pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with President Joe Biden saying Monday that he was not doing enough to secure a deal. But Netanyahu signaled he had no plans to soften his stance on keeping troops in the area despite mass protests and internal disagreements.

The Philadelphi corridor, also known as the Salah al-Din axis, refers to a narrow strip of land just under 9 miles in length and around 100 yards wide that runs along the Gaza side of the coastal enclave's border with Egypt.

It includes the key Rafah border crossing, long considered a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza — allowing crucial supplies of food, medicine and other aid to get into the strip and enabling the movement of Palestinians in and out of the enclave under a 17-year blockade imposed by Israel.

The corridor was set up as a buffer zone in accordance with the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, with the aim of controlling movement in and out of Gaza and preventing arms smuggling between the Egyptian Sinai and the Palestinian enclave.

The area was under Israeli control until Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, prior to which Israel and Egypt signed the Philadelphi Accord, which allowed Egypt to send hundreds of border guards to patrol the corridor's borders. In May, the Israeli military announced it had established “tactical control” over the corridor after launching a widely condemned offensive on the crowded city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

Israeli officials said troops had discovered some 150 tunnels along the corridor believed to have been used by Hamas to smuggle weapons and supplies into the enclave, though they said it wasn't clear if the tunnels had been used since Oct. 7.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel must maintain a military presence in the southern Gaza border area as part of any truce deal, in order to prevent Hamas from using the corridor.

But Hamas has rejected any continued Israeli presence in the corridor, with key negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya saying in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday that unless Israeli forces withdraw from the area, "there is no agreement."

It's only recently that the Philadelphi corridor has emerged as a central issue in cease-fire negotiations, which have stalled despite a renewed push from the United States.

Washington has publicly blamed Hamas, but U.S. and foreign officials told NBC News that new conditions introduced by Netanyahu have also held up progress, including the insistence on control of Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

Two people briefed on the negotiations told NBC News that Biden may offer a final “take it or leave it” deal to Israel and Hamas as soon as this week.

Still, despite mounting diplomatic pressure and domestic unrest, Netanyahu has remained defiant.

Calling the Philadelphi corridor a Hamas' "lifeline," the Israeli leader said during a news conference in Jerusalem on Monday that the strip was "central and determines our entire future."

"The axis of evil needs the Philadelphi corridor — we need to hold it," he said, at one point pointing to a map that appeared to erase the existence of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu argued that if Israel were to pull troops out of the corridor, international pressure would make it difficult to return.

Egypt, a key mediator in talks, issued a blanket rejection of Netanyahu's comments Monday, dismissing his speech as an attempt at distracting "the attention of Israeli public opinion" and obstructing a deal.

Netanyahu's insistence on maintaining control over the Philadelphi corridor at the expense of a cease-fire deal to free the hostages has also put him at odds with senior members of his own government.

Defense Minister Yoav called Sunday for Israel’s security Cabinet to convene and reverse the decision to stick to the demand.

“It’s too late for the abductees who were murdered in cold blood,” Gallant said in a post on X. “The abductees who remain in the captivity of Hamas must be returned home.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid also rejected Netanyahu's stance, labeling it "baseless political spin" that was "disconnected from reality."

"Israel evacuated the Philadelphi Route 19 years ago," he said Monday. "Netanyahu voted in favor of it both in the government and in the Knesset. For 15 of those years, Netanyahu was the Prime Minister and never thought of reoccupying the Philadelphi Route."

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, disagreed. He told NBC News that control of the corridor was essential to ensuring Israel’s future security.

“We cannot allow ourselves to return to the reality that we met on Oct. 7,” he said.

Still, Michael, who is also a member of the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, said he believed any continued military presence in the Philadelphi corridor had to come with a clear timeline for troops to eventually withdraw.

He said he believed this could be accomplished within the span of a year.

“We are very experienced in building the barriers," Michael said. "It’s not so complicated.”

Lapid said he believed Netanyahu was appealing to the interests of right-wing members of the fragile coalition that has kept him in power.

Gershon Baskin, an Israeli hostage negotiator, offered a similar assessment. Netanyahu was “sacrificing the hostages on an altar of his own personal political survival,” Baskin said.

A senior Biden administration official says the remaining two obstacles to a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas pertain to the list of Palestinian security prisoners Hamas is seeking to free and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.

“What Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can,” the senior Biden official says in a briefing with reporters, adding that the terror group has made this part of negotiations “a pretty frustrating process.”

“Until that is worked out, you’re not going to have a deal,” he says.

Further harming the process was Hamas’s execution of six Israeli hostages last week, the official says, explaining that they had been negotiating based on a list of hostages that subsequently shrunk.

The killings are “coloring the discussions and has brought a sense of urgency to the process, but it has also called into question Hamas’s is readiness to do a deal of any kind,” he adds.

Also part of this section of the deal is the exit of both wounded Gazan civilians along with Hamas fighters for treatment abroad, per the terror group’s demands, the official says.

The other part that remains under dispute is regarding the IDF’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor, the senior US official explains, adding that the nine-mile border stretch is not mentioned in the text of the proposal.

“A dispute emerged whether the Philadelphia Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely populated area,” the senior administration official says.

In recent weeks, Israel produced a proposal under which it would significantly reduce its military presence along the Philadelphi, which the US official says “is technically consistent with the deal.”

But Hamas has rejected the new demand regarding the Philadelphi Corridor, which indeed had not been part of Israel’s original May proposal, even in map form.

“It’s become a bit of a political debate in Israel,” the official laments in a reference to how Netanyahu has aggressively campaigned on the need for Israel to remain in the corridor in recent days and weeks

The Biden administration says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated declarations that Israel plans to indefinitely remain in the Philadelphi Corridor have complicated the ongoing hostage negotiations.

“I’ve never been involved in a negotiation where every day there’s a public statement about the details of negotiation. It makes it difficult. The less that is said about particular issues, the better,” says a senior administration official in a briefing with reporters.

“Staking out concrete positions in the middle of negotiations isn’t always particularly helpful,” the top US official says in what appears to be one of the first criticisms of Netanyahu’s comments regarding the Philadelphi Corridor. To date, US officials had avoided commenting more directly on the prime minister’s comments.

The senior US official goes on to criticize certain Israeli ministers who have claimed that the “deal being negotiated somehow sacrifices Israel’s security.”

“That is just fundamentally, totally untrue. We have taken account of Israel’s security concerns in this negotiation, and if anything, not getting into this deal is more of a threat to Israel’s long-term security than actually concluding the deal and that includes the issue of the Philadelphi corridor,” the senior administration official asserts.

Jewish Israelis are pessimistic about the chance of a ceasefire deal that would lead to the release of the hostages being reached soon, with 78.5% reporting this pessimism in the Israel Democracy Institute’s August Israeli Voice Index.

Some 15.5% of Jews expressed optimism about such a deal occurring soon. Israeli Arabs, on the other hand, are split, with 48% expressing optimism over such a deal and 49% saying they are pessimistic.

Looking at the total sample, 73.5% are pessimistic and 22% are optimistic.

It is important to note that the survey was conducted between August 26 and 28, meaning that the impact of the news on the retrieval of the bodies of six slain hostages from Gaza, reported early this week, and the ensuing mass protests was not measured in the survey.

The poll also examined from where Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand to remain in the Philadephi Corridor stems, with respondents asked to say whether the motivation was based largely on military and strategic concerns or on Netanyahu’s political reasons.

Some 51% said that they believed that this demand is largely based on military and strategic considerations, while 39% of respondents reported that they believe that Netanyahu’s demand is intended to prevent a hostage deal for Netanyahu’s own political reasons.

Jewish respondents were more likely to believe that the demand is based on military motivations, with 58.5% choosing this option and 33% saying it is based on an attempt to prevent a deal for political motivations.

A majority of Arab Israelis believe that the demand is based on preventing a deal for political reasons (66.5%).

The poll also examined whether Israelis agreed with the assertion that this is the last chance for a hostage deal, made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others.

Respondents were evenly split, with 44.5% believing that it is the last chance and 44.5% believing that it is not.Looking at the impact of the threat of an Iranian attack on Israel on Israelis moods and daily lives, 67% said that the looming threat of an attack is only impacting their daily behavior a little or not at all. Some 55% said it impacts their mood only a little or not at all.

The northern border
On the topic of Israel’s northern front, 67% of Israelis support intensifying fighting against Hezbollah, while 77% of Arab Israelis support a diplomatic agreement.

Some 47% of left-wing Jewish Israelis support pursuing “a diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah despite the chance of an additional conflict with Hezbollah in the future.” Some 21.5% of centrist Israelis supported this diplomacy, while 10% supported continuing the fighting in its current form without increased aggression. Some 7% of right-wing Israelis supported diplomacy, and 8% supported continuing the current strategy; 61% supported launching “a deep offensive, including targeting Lebanese infrastructure.”

When asked if Israel has achieved all it can militarily in Gaza, 64% of Jewish Israelis and 52% of Arab Israelis disagreed with this claim.

Some 66% of respondents said that tensions between Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are harming the management of the war.

Ninety percent of the Gaza deal has been completed but wide gaps remain on two key sticking points – the hostage-prisoner swap and the Philadelphi Corridor, US National Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters during a virtual briefing on Thursday.

“Much of the text has been agreed to, but the exchange of prisoners has not been agreed to, and that’s the heart of this deal, the exchange,” Kirby said.

He stood by an assessment from a senior Biden administration official the night before, who told reporters that “basically, 90% of this deal has been agreed on.”

Kirby confirmed that statement publicly, noting, “That’s how close we believe we are.”

However, he pushed back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of that characterization during an interview on Fox & Friends, when they asked him about the US claim, citing The Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu said, “There is a narrative out there that there is a deal out there. In fact, while we agreed in May and July and in August to an American proposal, Hamas has consistently said no to every one of them.

“Hamas just wants us out of Gaza so they can retake Gaza and do what they vowed to do,” carry out another October 7-style attack against Israel, Netanyahu said.

In Israel, the debate on the hostage deal has focused on Netanyahu’s insistence that Israel would not meet Hamas’s demand that the IDF withdraw its forces from the critical buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Netanyahu himself has given two press conferences on consecutive nights in Hebrew and English to underscore the importance of this buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza. He also stressed that point in his Fox interview.

For years, Hamas has smuggled weapons into Gaza through tunnels it had dug under that corridor. Netanyahu has insisted that the IDF must retain that area to prevent the terrorist group from resuming its smuggling operations there.

Nature of a prisoner exchange
Kirby told reporters Thursday that Hamas has also put new terms on the table for the hostage-prisoner exchange, but did not specify what they were.

The senior Biden administration official said there were some 800 Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists, including those serving life sentences for killing civilians, who would be free during the first phase of the three-part deal that US President Joe Biden unveiled on May 31.

It was expected that some 18-32 hostages would be freed in the first phase. Out of the six killed, at least three and possibly four were expected to be part of that first release.

The official said that most of the talk in Doha earlier this week was on the issue of the exchange.

The deal has 18 total paragraphs, of which 14 have been completed, with three of those paragraphs dealing with the hostage-prisoner issue, the official said. And it can not move forward until the issue has been worked out, he explained.

Issues around Philadelpi
The official also spoke about the Philadelphi Corridor. He stressed that the original May 31 agreement did not mention the corridor. The deal stipulates that the IDF withdraw from all densely populated areas.

“And a dispute emerged,” the official said, over “whether the Philadelphi Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely populated area.

“Israelis over the course of the last couple weeks, produced a proposal by which they would significantly reduce their presence on the corridor,” the official said, describing it as a “fairly significant reduction.”

The US official stressed that there were options to secure the border that did not involve an IDF presence along the Philadelphi.

“We are going to make certain that Israel’s security is of the primary interest in this deal. I have seen some Israeli ministers say this deal somehow would sacrifice Israel’s security. That is just fundamentally, totally untrue,” the official said.

“If anything, I would argue that not getting into this deal is more of a threat to Israel’s long-term security than actually concluding the deal,” the official stated.

“Ultimately, the final decision maker is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar,” he said.

Kirby echoed that sentiment on Thursday stating, “Number one, the biggest obstacle to getting a ceasefire deal is Hamas.”

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew pushed back at reports that the United States was considering scrapping the existing Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal and putting a new one on the table or that it would conspire some sort of a Plan B.

“We can’t begin working on a Plan B, because the minute you say that there’s going to be focus on a Plan B, Plan A becomes impossible,” he said during a public appearance at the International Institute for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

“I think this Plan A still has a very feasible path towards being accomplished,” he stated.

Washington “can’t skip over this plan quite that quickly, because we’re devoting most of our energy... from the president of the United States down through the entire foreign policy team, including myself,” to finalizing this deal, he said.•

Shlomo Aviner has clarified the ethical considerations surrounding whether IDF soldiers are permitted to take spoils during military operations, including in Gaza, emphasizing that individual soldiers should not engage in such actions.

According to Aviner, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) may, in principle, decide to take spoils based on its discretion, this must be done within the framework of international agreements and broader moral considerations.

This request was an answer to a written question by a young Israeli, through his weekly Q&A column in the Olam Katan magazine, geared at the Religious Zionist community.

Citing biblical precedents, Aviner referenced the Book of Esther (9:10, 15, 16), highlighting that after their victory, the Jews refrained from taking spoils from their enemies: "But on the spoil they laid not their hand." This restraint demonstrated that the Jews were primarily motivated by the need to defend themselves rather than by any desire for material gain.

Aviner also drew on Abraham's example from Genesis 14:23, where the patriarch refused to take any spoils after his military success: "I will not take from a thread even to a shoelace, and I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’" This act of integrity showed that Abraham did not want his actions to be seen as motivated by financial gain but rather as stemming from divine support.

Additionally, Aviner discussed the war against Amalek as analyzed in rabbinic sources, including Beit HaLevi in Exodus 17:8-16. While technically permissible to take spoils in certain circumstances, the focus should be on ethical principles and ensuring that military actions are not seen as driven by greed.

Moral clarity for the Israeli military
Shlomo Goren, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel and an influential voice on military ethics, similarly explained that during the first battle of Jericho, the Israelites did not take spoils to ensure the war was not perceived as being motivated by a desire for wealth. This perspective, shared by Aviner, highlights the moral clarity that must guide military conduct.

Aviner is a prominent Israeli rabbi, head of the Ateret Yerushalayim Yeshiva, and a leading figure in the Religious Zionist movement. Known for his extensive writings and rulings on Jewish law, he often addresses ethical and moral issues related to Israeli society and military conduct.

A young Turkish-American woman, Aysenur Eygi, was shot and killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, according to US and Palestinian officials, while she was taking part in a protest near Nablus.

Eygi was shot in the head by Israeli forces responding to the gathering, according to two eyewitnesses who spoke to CNN. The 26-year-old had been participating in a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian village of Beita, they also said.

The Israeli military has admitted to firing at the demonstrators and has not said if any other gunmen were present. In a statement, the IDF added that its forces “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”

The IDF is “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area,” it also said.

Eygi had been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the same pro-Palestinian activist group as Rachel Corrie, a US citizen who was killed in 2003 while trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza.

She was a University of Washington graduate, according to ISM, and graduated from the Seattle-based institution this spring.

Protests at Beita are common. The Palestinian town is next to a ramshackle Israeli settler outpost known as Evyatar. The settlement was unauthorized by the Israeli state until it was legalized earlier this year. All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.

Eygi held both US and Turkish citizenship. US officials are looking into the deadly incident, and the Turkish government has said it holds Israel responsible for her death.

‘As people were running away, live fire was shot’
Eyewitnesses described the moments leading up to her killing on Friday.

Eygi was crouched near a dumpster at the bottom of a hill when gunfire began, Vivi Chen, who volunteers for Faza’a – another pro-Palestinian group which works in partnership with ISM – said. Chen confirmed Eygi was there with ISM.

“We were all at the bottom of the hill and the Israeli army was at the top,” Chen said. “There were two volunteers sitting behind a dumpster and they fired one shot at the dumpster. It hit a metal plane. And then there was another shot and they shot – they shot her in the head.”

Video shared with CNN by Chen shows paramedics wrestling her body onto a stretcher. Blood pours from a hole in her forehead. Eygi was brought to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where she was pronounced dead.

Chen said she believed Eygi was targeted. “They have weapons from America. It is not an accident that they hit her in the head. That was on purpose. It’s not that they shot a hundred shots at the same time, and she was hit with one. We were all standing still, not moving. Just standing there, and they shot her through the head.”

Dr. Hisham Dweikat, a resident of Beita who took part in the demonstration, told CNN that as the protest was wrapping up, the Israeli military started firing tear gas towards the crowd.

“As people were running away, live fire was shot and a soldier fired directly at the protesters, hitting the American activist in the head from behind and falling to the ground,” he also said.

A fellow ISM volunteer, who declined to be named due to security concerns, said the protest was peaceful, and they were “demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the colonization of their land and the illegal settlement of Evyatar.”

The volunteer said the “situation escalated when the Israeli army began to fire tear gas and live ammunition.”

ISM describes itself as a Palestinian-led movement founded in 2001, saying on its website that it uses non-violent, direct-action methods to resist the “oppression and dispossession of Palestinians.” The group supports Palestinians by standing alongside them during demonstrations and in areas facing attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Global response
The governor of Nablus, Ghassan Daghlas, decried Eygi’s death during a visit to Rafidia hospital.

“We say to the international community, this woman held American citizenship,” he told journalists. “But the bullets did not differentiate between a Palestinian, a child, an old man, or a woman, and between one nationality and another.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was working to “gather the facts” of Eygi’s killing and offered condolences to her family – but did not suggest any immediate policy changes related to her death.

Even when there have been determinations that Israeli forces were responsible for the killings of Americans in the West Bank – like Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – the US has not altered its policies and has continued to provide significant military support to those forces.

National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said earlier the US was “deeply disturbed” by Eygi’s killing. “We have reached out to the Government of Israel to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident,” he added.

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew confirmed that Eygi, who was born in Turkey, was the victim and said the embassy was “urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death.”

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned Eygi’s death, saying it held the Israeli government responsible and confirming she was also a Turkish citizen. “We will follow up on bringing those who killed our citizens to justice,” spokesperson Oncu Keceli said.

Raids and airstrikes in the West Bank
The activist’s death comes nine days after Israel’s military launched one of its most expansive operations in the West Bank in years, carrying out raids, bulldozing highways, and launching airstrikes in multiple parts of the occupied territory.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the operation aimed to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel to work alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, described scenes of devastation by the Israeli military. Several Palestinians warned of destruction to critical infrastructure – including health care services, water and electricity supplies.

“It felt like Gaza,” 36-year-old Lina Al Amouri said by telephone from Jenin. She and her husband fled several days into the IDF incursion, but went back when they heard rumors that the operation had quieted.

The military withdrew from Jenin and Tulkarem on Friday, according to residents. But an Israeli security source said that “the overall operation in Jenin is not over, it is only a pause.”

Israeli troops and settlers have killed nearly 700 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

A previously unseen document found on Yahya Sinwar's computer reportedly sheds light on the organization's negotiation strategy, including psychological torture of hostage families, the German newspaper BILD reported in an exclusive on Friday.

The document, obtained by BILD, reportedly dates to spring 2024 and was said to have been approved by Yahya Sinwar personally. While BILD told The Post that they cannot give details of the source, they said the contents of the file were verified by two independent sources. BILD also said that, since October 7, they have almost always had reporters on the ground, some giving high-ranking interviews and with access to high-level sources.

According to BILD, the document lists several factors that Hamas wanted to consider when negotiating a hostage-ceasefire deal.

These include "exhausting" Israel's military apparatus, increasing international pressure on Israel, and maintaining its armed capacity.

Psychological terror with hostages
The document apparently states that Hamas intentionally abuses hostages to leverage its negotiating position.

It instructs, "Continue to exert psychological pressure on the families of the [hostages], both now and during the first phase [of the ceasefire] so that public pressure on the enemy government increases."

In recent days, following the IDF's discovery of six bodies of Israeli hostages in a tunnel below Rafah, Hamas has released several videos featuring statements from the hostages before their deaths. These videos contain mentions of the failure of the Israeli government, pleas to be brought home, and details of the hostages' horrifying living conditions.

According to BILD's reading of the document, psychological tactics against the hostages' families is a strategy developed to increase pressure on Israel's government to agree to the terms of the deal.

Hamas also, according to the document, wants to use the hostages to put pressure on Israel. "During the negotiations for the second phase (of the ceasefire, ed.), Hamas will allow the Red Cross to visit some of the prisoners as a gesture of goodwill and to convey messages to their relatives."

The stated aim of this is to increase pressure on Israel to extend the ceasefire to Hamas's benefit.

Hamas doesn't care for a quick end to the war
According to BILD, the document showed that Hamas is not seeking a quick end to the war that would benefit Gazan civilians. Rather, the document states, "Important clauses in the deal should be improved upon, even if negotiations continue over a longer period of time."

In the document, Hamas admits that its “military capacity has been weakened,” but does not see the need for a quick end to fighting, BILD revealed.

The document makes no reference to Palestinian casualties and civilian deaths, which BILD told The Post was unusual given the reportedly high death toll.

Terrorists want to rebuild power
Hamas also lists important demands on Israel, such as the release of 100 prisoners and terrorists serving life sentences in Israeli prisons, according to BILD.

BILD added that many of the document's key points are centered on the question of how to manipulate the international community and promote the reconstruction of Hamas' military power.

Israel should be the scapegoat
In the document, Hamas is allegedly adamant that Israel should be held solely responsible for the unsuccessful negotiations.

They state that if Israel rejects a deal brought by the US, "the media must be made aware that Hamas agreed, but that the deal failed due to "Israel's stubbornness."

BILD adds that the document makes no reference to the Philadelphi Corridor, despite it being a key sticking point in ongoing negotiations.

"If it's so crucial, it's very strange it wasn't include in the document," BILD told The Post.

The majority of the Israeli public prefers giving up control of the Philadelphi Corridor in exchange for a prisoner-hostage deal (48%), over maintaining control of the corridor at the cost of forgoing the deal (37%), according to a Maariv poll published Friday.

The poll was conducted by Lazar Research, led by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in collaboration with Panel4All.

The breakdown showed that among Jewish-Israeli respondents, there was a much smaller margin between those who preferred to relinquish control of the corridor to make a deal - 44% - and those who wished to maintain control of the corridor even at the cost of not reaching an agreement (42%).

This contradicted a KAN poll on Monday, which showed a slight majority of Jewish Israelis were against giving up the Philadelphi corridor in order to secure a hostage deal (49%).

The breakdown of this vote in terms of political affiliation, based on who they intended to vote for in future elections, showed increased polarization and a deep divide. Among opposition party voters, 75% supported giving up control of the Philadelphi Corridor for the deal, whereas 74% of coalition party voters opposed it, even if it meant no hostage-prisoner exchange deal.

Likud party gains popularity following Philadelphi speech
Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "Philadelphi Speech," the Likud party has gained two additional seats this week, meaning Netanyahu has regained the lead over Benny Gantz in terms of who is more suitable for the premiership.

Netanyahu surpassed Gantz (42% vs. 40%, respectively). This has switched from last week's Maariv poll, where Gantz led Netanyahu by 1%.

According to the poll, Netanyahu also surpasses Yair Lapid (45% vs. 36%) and Avigdor Lieberman (43% vs. 35%).

Only Naftali Bennett surpasses Netanyahu in the 'suitability for Prime Minister question', with 49% viewing him as the strongest candidate, compared to 34% for Netanyahu.