A New Phase.

A new Iowa Poll.

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1. Israeli soldiers pushed at least 2 miles deep into the densely populated Gaza Strip Sunday in moves that analysts said seemed designed to trap Hamas in the enclave’s north, as the U.S. pressured Israel to restore communications in the territory. Soldiers and tanks appeared to be taking up positions deep inside Gaza on Sunday, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was entering a new phase of the war. Tanks fired from Gaza’s Mediterranean beaches, and soldiers moved across open and hilly ground, according to video the military released. The latest actions suggest a war that is likely to last a long time, as Israel prepares to move deliberately in stages into Gaza territory. At the same time, Israel faces pressure from the U.S. and other Western countries to minimize civilian casualties, which are mounting. (Source: wsj.com)

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2. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday issued a rare apology that inadvertently framed the political crisis that has engulfed him. A few hours earlier, facing mounting criticism for the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, he publicly blamed the security failures on Israel’s defense and intelligence services. He hadn’t been warned of Hamas’s intention to start a war, he wrote in a tweet on X, saying that defense and intelligence officials had “assessed that Hamas was deterred.” Soon after, he deleted the tweet and apologized. The unusual reversal illustrates Netanyahu’s increasingly fraught position. Over 35 years in politics, he has cultivated an image as a security hawk tough on Palestinian violence and ready to face down the threat of a nuclear Iran. That image shattered Oct. 7 when more than a thousand Hamas militants entered Israel in what many Israelis are calling the worst security and intelligence failure in its 75-year history. Even if Israel wins the war, it may not save his political career. (Source: wsj.com)