Jared Kushner

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Hamas attack on Israel

We did a lot of this conversation before the Hamas attack on Israel, and we decided to sit down again and finish the discussion to address the current situation which is still developing. If I may allow me to summarize the situation as it stands today, it's morning Monday, October 9th. On Saturday, October 7th at 6:30 AM Israel time, Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Southern Israel. The rocket attacks served as cover for a multi-pronged infiltration of Israel territory by over 1000 Hamas militants. This is shortly after at 7:40 AM. The Hamas militants went door to door in border towns killing civilians and taking captives, including women and children. In response to this, Israeli Air Force began carrying out strikes in Gaza, also fighting on the ground in Israel to clear out Hamas militants from Israel territory and preparing to mobilize Israeli troops for potential ground attack on Hamas and Gaza. Now, of course, this is what it appears to be right now, and this along with other things might change because the situation is still developing. The IDF is ordering civilian residents of Gaza to evacuate their homes for their safety. Benjamin Netanyahu declared war in several statements and warned Israelis to brace themselves for a long and difficult war. Just today, Israeli ministers ordered a "complete siege of Gaza interrupting supplies of electricity, food, water, and fuel from Israel to Gaza." As of now, October 9th, the death toll is over 1200 people and over 130 hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas. As I said, the events are rapidly unfolding, so these numbers will sadly increase, but hopefully our words here can at least in part, speak to the timeless underlying currents of the history and as you write about the power dynamics of the region. For people who don't know, Gaza is a 25 miles long, six miles wide strip of territory along the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Israel on the east and north and Egypt on the southwest. It's densely populated, about 2.3 million people, and there's been a blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt since 2007 when Hamas took power. I could just summarize that Hamas is a Palestinian militant group which rules the Gaza Strip. It originated in 1988, and it came to power in Gaza in 2006. As part of its charter, it's sworn to the destruction of Israel, and it is designated by the United States, European Union, UK, and of course Israel as a terrorist group.