Here’s the latest from our writer on the ground in Israel. For more updates from the war, please see below.

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‘You feel invisible’: Israeli Bedouins fear rockets and apathy. 

Adel abu Sbeich, 30, lost his mother and niece to a rocket attack from Gaza on Oct. 7. For abu Sbeich, a Bedouin who lives in a small town unrecognized by Israel’s government, that strike was the realization of a profound fear that many other Israelis, who are protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system, don’t have. Half of Israel’s 200,000 Bedouins live in communities that lack official recognition, with no official protection from that system, and no warning sirens before an impending strike. 

“Where’s the protection?”: Our opinion editor Laura E. Adkins, who is currently reporting from Israel, visited two unrecognized Bedouin communities in the Negev desert this week. An estimated 21 Bedouins have died in rocket strikes since the onset of war; some Bedouins she met wondered how many of their lives might have been saved if Israel, which routinely demolishes buildings in unrecognized communities, extended the same protections to semi-nomadic Bedouins that it does the rest of its citizens. 

“Meant to be a democratic state”: Among the protections Bedouins would like to see: The ability to build portable bomb shelters with the government’s blessing. While a government spokesperson told Laura there are efforts underway to help Bedouins build recognized homes with shelters, as war continues and rockets keep falling, that prospect is a distant comfort. “We don’t have the option of fantasizing,” abu Sbeich told Laura. “We’re just fixing our house that was destroyed and hoping the government doesn’t destroy it.”

Plus: 

• Your turn: American college students share how the Israel-Gaza war is affecting life on campus

• Hamas killed her mother and niece. Her children are hostages in Gaza.

• Jamaal Bowman’s Jewish allies counter efforts to unseat him over his stances on Israel

• New York woman punched in the face by attacker who said he did it because she was Jewish

LATEST FROM THE WAR

The IDF said its airstrikes hit more than 100 sites in Gaza overnight, with 17 reported dead at an Orthodox church. (BELAL ALSABBAGH/AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant gave some insight into plans for the next stages of the war, saying that Israeli campaigns in progress are intended to “assassinate operatives and damage infrastructure” as Israel seeks to root out Hamas from Gaza. The endgame, he suggested, involves both “the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip” and “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Strip.” Here’s everything else you need to know this morning.

• In an Oval Office address, President Joe Biden called for strong continuing American support for Ukraine and Israel, saying, “History has taught us when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror,” that “they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.” Biden is expected to call on Congress for $14 billion in additional U.S. support for Israel today.

• A convoy of trucks bearing humanitarian aid has lined up at Gaza’s Rafah crossing, which is controlled by Egypt, but ongoing disputes between Egypt and Israel over issues like checking the convoys for weapons had diplomats concerned that the crossing wouldn’t open today.   

• Sixteen people were reportedly killed in a Friday airstrike that struck an Orthodox church in Gaza where refugee families had taken shelter. Gaza’s health ministry said 4,137 people had been killed since the start of the war, with more than 13,000 wounded; 13 Palestinians were also reportedly killed in Thursday clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank.

• An unclassified U.S. intelligence report estimated that a Tuesday blast at a Gaza hospital, the source of which remains undetermined, killed 100 to 300 people, a more conservative estimate than that provided by Palestinian authorities.

• A document appearing to lay out Hamas’ hostage strategy, recovered by the IDF after the Oct. 7 attacks, suggested the terrorist group had planned to hold hostages in Israel, rather than taking them to Gaza. 

• A researcher at the Anti-Defamation League resigned, apparently over ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s criticism of U.S. Jews protesting Israel’s war with Gaza.

• About 50 Jewish protesters gathered outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Los Angeles home on Thursday to urge a ceasefire. They recited the Mourner’s Kaddish, with one organizer saying “we honor our tradition rooted in the belief that human life is sacred.”

• Barriers were set up around Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial amid rising concerns across the globe about antisemitic incidents related to the war.

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Demonstrators rallied in support of Palestinians at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

? The Council on American-Islamic Relations changed plans for an annual banquet after its original venue received threats apparently related to the group’s support for Palestinian human rights. (Associated Press) 

? A self-proclaimed Nazi pleaded guilty on weapons charges in Colorado. Chad Edward Keith, 41, had allegedly stockpiled weapons at two properties, and had plans to turn one of them into a school teaching an antisemitic curriculum. (Fox21)

⚖️ A Canadian man who projected a message on Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House suggesting Frank’s diary was a fraud was sentenced to two months in jail in the Netherlands. (CBC News) 

? A suburban Chicago man was charged with hate crimes after threatening to shoot two Muslim men after telling one he didn’t belong in the U.S. (Associated Press)

What else we’re reading ➤ “Why Gaza is home to so many Palestinian refugees” … “Marc Maron on why he won’t stop talking about antisemitism” … “I hosted a Jewish comedy show because of grief, not in spite of it.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY

In his Thursday address, Biden drew a connection between the wars being fought by Ukraine and Israel, saying “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it.”

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Thanks to Beth Harpaz for editing this newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].