Efforts to help Palestinians move south in Gaza floundered, as an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said Israel has evidence “that Hamas is actively trying to prevent the population from moving south” and a border crossing into Egypt that a U.S. official said would open for U.S. citizens in Gaza stayed closed. 

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis of the crisis in the Middle East each day.

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Here’s what you need to know this morning:

• International pressure on Israel mounted over the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. A top European Union official speaking with Palestinian Authority leadership “condemned indiscriminate attacks against civilians,” while the head of the United Nations’ humanitarian aid efforts said that between mass displacement and extreme shortages of water, food, power and fuel, the situation is “fast becoming untenable.”

• Israeli military officials revealed some details of a planned ground invasion of Gaza City involving tens of thousands of soldiers, with the goal of destroying the top ranks of Hamas. Tens of thousands of Hamas fighters are thought to have established anticipatory positions in the extensive tunnel system underneath the city; officials have warned that Hamas may kill Israeli hostages and use Palestinian civilians as human shields. 

• Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel, killing at least one Israeli and wounding three. Separately, the IDF conducted airstrikes on airports in Aleppo and Damascus in Syria after an Israeli official alleged on social media that Iran has been channeling weapons to Syria in an attempt to open another war front.

• Some 12,000 people have evacuated Sderot, a southern Israeli city near Gaza, its mayor said. The unprecedented relocation follows the killing of 20 Israelis there last weekend.

• The IDF has confirmed that 126 Israeli hostages are being held in Gaza, and said that 279 Israeli soldiers had been killed since war broke out.

ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Lucy Sparrow, the fabric artist behind Feltz Bagels. (Courtesy of @sewyoursoul)

More journalism about the war is below. For those who need a small respite from that story, we offer two others this morning:

The most beautiful new bagel shop in New York doesn’t have any bagels in it. In Manhattan, artist Lucy Sparrow has produced a bagel shop that offers a feast — for the eyes. With every item in the store made of felt and paint, down to the last poppy seed, the display is “a tribute to bagel culture in the Lower East Side, and everything connected to it,” Sparrow told one customer. Read the story ➤

How curiosity, intelligence and a supportive mom prepared a Bronx-born Jewish girl to win the Nobel Prize. Claudia Goldin, 77, won this year’s Nobel honors in economics for her work examining gender issues in the labor market. In an interview with our contributor Andrew Silverstein, the Harvard professor, who recently threw a “Bark Mitzvah” for her 13-year-old dog, Pika, credited lessons from her mother with sparking her interest in women in the workplace. “She was the equal — or more — than my father,” she said. Read the story ➤

OUR ISRAEL-GAZA COVERAGE

A convoy of ambulances moves along the border fence between Israel and Gaza, January, 2023. (Getty Images)

You can read all our stories from the war here, and  follow the latest news from our partners at Haaretz here.

I volunteered, transporting sick Palestinian children to hospitals — it hardly seems possible anymore. Joanna Chen has long volunteered with an Israeli non-governmental organization that helps organize care for sick children in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank — a way of trying to make a palpable difference in her adopted country. But as a devastating war unfolds, she writes, “Returning to anything remotely resembling hope suddenly seems impossible.” Read her essay ➤

Plus:

• Pete Davidson reflects on Israel-Hamas war in somber opening of ‘Saturday Night Live’

• How relatives of Israel’s missing are making sure their loved ones aren’t forgotten

Prosecutors charge teen accused of attacking Israeli Columbia University student with hate crimes. A 19-year-old who allegedly hit a 24-year-old Israeli student with a stick, leaving him with lacerations and a fractured finger, faces hate crime charges from Manhattan prosecutors. The suspect allegedly asked to help a campus group hang posters of Israelis being held hostage in Gaza before attacking one of the group’s members. Read the story ➤

What does Jewish law say about the war between Israel and Hamas? Depends where you look. Jewish law is “self-contradictory”: Biblical texts are highly militaristic, a quality that troubled Talmudic rabbis. “While these textual contradictions will disappoint anyone looking for a single Jewish answer regarding the rules of war, they may also point to a deeper truth,” writes Rabbi Jay Michaelson: “That there is much in the Jewish tradition that is profoundly troubling, and those who work with that tradition must often struggle mightily with it.” Read his essay ➤

Plus:

• At New Hampshire event, Republican presidential candidates point to Iran and Biden in aftermath of Hamas attack

• Israeli minister: Gaza ‘must be smaller at the end of the war’

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for editing today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].