Escalation in Gaza

The war between Israel and Hamas is only getting more intense: Israeli ground forces pushed further into Gaza on Thursday. An Israeli armored unit has pushed from the territory's northwest to the coast and is moving south, according to the Institute for the Study of War. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commander claims the country's troops are now "at the gates" of Gaza City.

Hamas' military wing is claiming to have destroyed four Israeli tanks and hit a gathering of IDF troops with a quadcopter drone.

On Wednesday, Israel also unleashed a number of air strikes against populated areas in Gaza. That includes a second strike in two days on the territory's Jabalia refugee camp targeting Hamas commanders. Israel's first bombing on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Biari, who played a major role in the October 7 massacre of 1,400 Israelis (most of whom were civilians) that started the war.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the high death toll from Tuesday's strike, which Gaza's Hamas-run health authority claims killed 50 people and injured 150 more, "could amount to war crimes."

Israel has argued its strikes are hitting legitimate military targets, which Hamas deliberately places in civilian areas.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Hezbollah conducted six strikes against Israeli military installations in the country's north. Israel has hit back with air and artillery strikes in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah targets.

The humanitarian toll of the continuing war is only increasing. Some 8,796 people, including 3,648 children, have died as a result of the fighting, claims Gaza's health authorities.

These reported deaths, which do not distinguish between civilians and militants, are not without controversy. Israel and the United States both claim that the Hamas-run health ministry is inflating the number of civilian deaths.

The United Nations (U.N.) has said that the ongoing violence in Gaza is preventing its personnel from providing an accurate, independent accounting of the number of people killed in the war thus far. At least 70 U.N. aid workers have been killed, and another 22 have been injured since the start of the war.

At least 800,000 people in Gaza have left their homes to try to avoid the fighting. Hundreds of foreign nationals and seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza and enter Egypt for the first time since the conflict began, according to Egyptian state-run media. Between 500 and 600 Americans are expected to be allowed to leave today, reports The New York Times.

The Egyptian government said it would assist in the evacuation of 7,000 foreigners and dual nationals from Gaza. U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday afternoon that there should be a pause in the fighting so that more people would be allowed to leave Gaza.

Santos triumphant: In some lighter news, alleged fraudster and known fabulist Rep. George Santos (R–N.Y.) survived an effort by his fellow legislators to expel him from the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.

The resolution to give the freshman lawmaker from New York the boot failed on a 179–213 vote. A two-thirds majority is required to expel a House member.

Santos has been accused of inventing almost every detail of his background, including where he went to high school and college, his employment history (or lack thereof) on Wall Street, and his religion (which has ping-ponged between Judaism and Catholicism). He's also falsely claimed his relatives died in the Holocaust and 9/11 and that he lost employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting. (New York magazine has a helpful list of all Santos' "embellishments.")

That all might be water under the bridge, but for the 23-count federal fraud indictment Santos is also facing.

For all those reasons, Santos' New York Republican colleagues introduced the now-failed resolution to expel him from Congress. Because nothing about Santos can be predictable, that GOP-led resolution was voted down by a surprise coalition of mostly Republican lawmakers and some Democrats who argued that the criminal charges against him should be allowed to play out before any expulsion vote.

Scenes from Washington, D.C. 

Some totally based gigachads caused a stir on Elon Musk's X (formerly the woke Twitter) with a candid group selfie in the Capitol South Metro station. These red-pilled conservative crusaders got a lot of flak for their photo. But correctly interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek effort, it's a pretty hilarious, self-aware joke.

QUICK HITS

• Thousands of Afghan refugees and their Pakistan-born children are being expelled from Pakistan back into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

• The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan series of spending bills funding housing, transportation, veterans affairs, and agriculture programs. These bills are far more generous than many of the House's pending appropriations bills.

• National Review's Rich Lowry argues in a new Politico essay that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley might become former President Donald Trump's "biggest rival" in the 2024 GOP presidential primary—which is a bit like being the world's fastest snail.

• Jerusalem Demsas has a good essay in The Atlantic on all the ways that New York City is actively making life difficult for tourists, from banning youth hostels and most short-term rentals, to essentially stopping new hotel construction. Given the continued post-COVID slump in workers returning to the office, tourism is the easiest way to revive downtowns. It looks like New York would rather self-sabotage its own recovery instead.

• I'm 20 years too late with this take, but still, I'm right.

• Countries in the Middle East and around the world are stepping up their diplomatic efforts to ease the fighting in Gaza, even as the conflict intensifies on the ground.

• In another surprising example of bipartisanship, 23 House Republicans crossed the aisle to vote against a resolution from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) censuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.) for her comments on the Israel-Hamas war.

• Wyoming lawmakers want to make it more difficult for private entities to use eminent domain for wind power projects.

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