Most Israelis believe that the Israel Defense Forces military response in Gaza has been appropriate and that the Jewish state will achieve its military aims, although Jewish and Arab Israelis are disagree on how the war is going, a new Pew Research Center poll suggests.
Nearly three-quarters of Israelis say that the Jewish state’s military operations against Hamas in Gaza have been appropriate, with 39% saying they have been “about right” and 34% saying that the IDF has not gone far enough. About one-fifth (19%) say that Israel has gone too far.

Large US banks may be more exposed to commercial property than regulators appreciate because of credit lines and term loans they provide to real estate investment trusts, according to a new study.
Big banks’ exposure to CRE lending grows by about 40% when that indirect lending to REITs is added, wrote researchers including Viral Acharya, a professor of economics at New York University. That’s largely been missed in the debate about the risks the troubled industry poses to lenders, they argue.
“Everyone is focusing on on-balance sheet loans by banks,” Acharya, a former deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India, said in an interview. “We should not get caught in a blind spot that large banks have relatively less exposure than smaller banks.”

Four years from the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom mishaps are still playing out in courtrooms: This time, a defendant virtually attended a hearing about his suspended license – from behind the wheel of a car.
The video begins with Judge Cedric Simpson waiting for Corey Harris, the defendant, to join the hearing in Ann Arbor, Mich. Moments later, Harris joins the call. “Hello,” he says, while apparently steering, wearing sunglasses and a seat belt.
“Mr. Harris, are you driving?” Simpson asked. “I’m pulling into my doctor’s office, actually,” Harris said. “So just give me one second, I’m parking right now.”
Harris did not say why he was visiting the doctor. The Washington Post was unable to contact Harris’s legal representative.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is behind a series of terrorist attacks carried out by criminal gangs targeting Israeli embassies throughout Europe since Oct. 7, the Mossad intelligence agency said on Thursday.
The Israeli intelligence agency opened up a probe alongside European counterparts after an object believed to be a hand grenade was thrown towards the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Jan. 31.
Following an investigation, detectives concluded that Sweden’s Foxtrot organized crime network carried out the attack on the compound at Tehran’s behest, the Mossad said on Thursday.
Dozens of Iran-backed terrorist plots against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe were uncovered in recent months, many of which used local criminal rings, the agency said.

The IDF’s 12th Brigade entered a UNWRA complex after receving antitank fire coming from the complex. The complex housed a school, mosque and medical clinic.
While searching the complex, an explosive device in a booby-trapped shaft inside the civilian medical clinic detonated next to the soldiers. As a result of the explosion, three soldiers from the 50th Nahal Battalion, Staff Sergeant Amir Galilove, Staff Sergeant Uri Bar-Or, and Staff Sergeant Ido Appel, were killed.
During the operation, the soldiers located many weapons, grenades, and enemy uniforms. Inside the school’s classrooms, the forces located shafts leading to a complex tunnel system. Every use of the complex by Hamas for it’s military purposes is a war crime.

Ninet and Moshe Levy, from Kiryat Motzkin, lost two grandchildren within two and a half weeks in fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Recently their grandson Sgt. Yedidya Azougi, 22, a platoon sergeant in the 101st Battalion of the Paratroopers from Revava in the Shomron, fell in battle.
Just two and a half weeks ago, they lost their grandson Sgt. Daniel Levy OBM, who also fell in combat in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mayor Tziki Avisar wrote after visited their home to offer condolences, saying: “I left the apartment of Ninet and Moshe. I felt the pain of their cries of breaking and had no words to comfort them for their heavy loss. I share the family’s grief.”

The U.S. mission to the United Nations is skipping a United Nations tribute on Thursday for Ebrahim Raisi, the late president of Iran who died in a helicopter crash on May 19.
“The UN should be standing with the people of Iran,” said Nate Evans, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, who noted that Washington wouldn’t participate “in any capacity.”
“Raisi was involved in numerous, horrific human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killings of thousands of political prisoners in 1988,” Evans said. “Some of the worst human rights abuses on record took place during his tenure.”
A U.S. envoy was one of many diplomats at the global body who stood during a moment of silence for Raisi, known as the “butcher of Tehran,” at the United Nations.

Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party submitted a bill on Thursday to dissolve the Knesset, in an attempt to topple the government led by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
The proposal to dissolve Israel’s parliament was submitted by National Unity lawmaker MK Pnina Tamano-Shata.
“October 7 is a disaster that obliges us to return and receive the trust of the nation; to establish a broad and stable unity government that can lead us with confidence in the face of major challenges in terms of security, the economy and especially in Israeli society,” said Tamano-Shata.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu hosted US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at the Prime Minister’s Office in Yerushalayim. Netanyahu expressed gratitude for Graham’s fifth visit to Israel since the war began, acknowledging him as a steadfast ally of Israel and the Jewish People.

The Jewish state lacks a plan for the day after the war in Gaza, so Israel faces either an “enduring insurgency on its hands” or a vacuum that “jihadis” who are worse than Hamas will fill, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
Speaking alongside Maia Sandu, the Moldovan president, at a press conference in the East European nation’s capital city Chișinău, Blinken fielded several questions about the Jewish state.
The U.S. secretary called recent civilians deaths in Rafah “horrific” and said that Washington awaits what he hopes will be a “deliberate but also fast investigation” by Israel. He noted that the Jewish state has said that it used targeted munitions as it sought to kill Hamas terrorists.