In a new phase of the war, Israeli ground forces entered Gaza City last night in what the Israeli Defense Forces are portraying as a ‘targeted operation’ aimed at destroying Hamas’ tunnels, eliminating ammo dumps, and killing its senior commanders.

There are signs the fighting is intense: Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that Israeli troops had advanced into “the heart” of the city where they believe Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is still located. The spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, Abu Ubaida, said that its forces had destroyed 15 Israeli military vehicles on the outskirts of the city, including at the Shati Camp where intense fighting has been taking place. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the IDF had killed “thousands of terrorists.” Neither of the sides’ claims have been verified and neither has disclosed casualty figures.

YESTERDAY IN NUMBERS-

  • 10,328: The number of Gazans who have been killed since 7 October. (Al Arabiya)
  • 4,237: The number of children who have died in Gaza over the past 32 days. (Al Arabiya)
  • 93: The number of trucks carrying aid crossed the border from Egypt into Gaza yesterday. (Palestinian Red Crescent)
  • 569: The number of trucks that have entered Gaza since 7 October. Gaza received 500 trucks every day prior to the war. (Palestinian Red Crescent)
  • 19: The number of Palestinians who entered Egypt yesterday to receive medical treatment. (Reuters)
  • 500+: The number of foreign nationals and dual citizens that were evacuated from Gaza yesterday into Egypt, including the first Canadians to cross. (Reuters | Globe and Mail)
  • 500k+: The number of Palestinians in north Gaza that are “on the brink of starvation” due to Israel’s siege. (ActionAid)

THE AID EFFORT- The UAE is setting up a field hospital in Gaza | France is in talks with Egyptian authorities to set up a military medical facility | Jordan airdropped medical aid to Gaza | Turkey has permission to sail two ships loaded with field hospitals and medical supplies into port in Egypt.

DIPLO-Washington is still pushing for a breakthrough on Israeli hostages: CIA Director William Burns has been in Israel and Egypt this week as part of a tour of regional capitals reportedly to secure the release of more of Hamas’ 240+ hostages. Burns was in Cairo yesterday for talks with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, a day after a visit to Tel Aviv. A readout from Ittihadiya gave little away, noting only that the two sides discussed the need for a humanitarian ceasefire.

El Sisi held a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron | Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry talked with his Irish, Norwegian and Cypriot counterparts | Shoukry met the UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk | G7 diplomats are meeting in Japan to discuss the conflict | Russia: Israel nuke comment raises “ huge number of questions.”

FRICTION IN THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP? Differences between the US and Israel about the prosecution of the war have been aired in public this week, with the two sides evidently not on the same page about the need for a pause in the fighting and Netanyahu’s proposal to reoccupy Gaza after the conflict.

  • Three-day pause vs one-hour pause: Axios reported yesterday that Biden had pressed Netanyahu to agree to a three-day pause to allow the release of hostages, a proposal that was publicly shot down by the Israeli PM in a televised interview just hours later.
  • Reoccupying Gaza: The Biden administration has also gone public with its opposition to Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel will “indefinitely” control Gaza’s security post-war. “The president still believes that a reoccupation of Gaza by Israeli forces is not good. It’s not good for Israel, not good for the Israeli people,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told CNN yesterday.

US: *shrugs shoulders*. The reaction to the disagreements from Biden administration officials and the US press has been to cast Washington as a powerless actor unable to influence Israeli decision-making. A number of articles, including in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters, have discussed the “limits of US leverage” and the “few options” available to effect the war. “They’re watching a train wreck, and they can’t do anything about it, and the trains are speeding up,” one source told the Post. “The train wreck is in Gaza, but the explosion is in the region.”

Limited leverage? The US curbing the huge arms transfers to Israel, withholding some of its USD 3.8 bn in annual military aid, and refusing to exercise its UN Security Council veto might focus some minds in Tel Aviv.

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