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I hope you are doing well.
I’m writing to you as a J Street advocacy leader to share important updates from the region as well as J Street’s statements and resources from this past week. As a reminder, you can always find our most recent statements here, and I invite you to reach out to your J Street Public Affairs staff with any questions.
I also want to make sure you receive an invite to our webinar next Tuesday, March 4 at 2pm ET, on the state of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations and escalations on Israel’s northern and eastern fronts. J Street’s Vice President and Chief of Staff Adina Vogel-Ayalon will be joined by renowned Haaretz journalist Amos Harel and J Street Policy Fellow Yael Patir. You can register here. I hope you’ll be able to join us.
All the best,
Lily
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Lily Adelstein
She/Her
Deputy Director of Government Affairs, J Street
Cell: 202-699-2701
J Street’s Congressional Resource Page |
This week on j street
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Gaza Ceasefire Hanging in the Balance
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J Street Alarmed By GOP Shift to Referring to West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”
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J Street Responds to Hamas’ Handover of Four Hostage Bodies
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J Street Concerned By Threat of Intensifying Violence, Chaos and Prospect of Annexation in West Bank
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What we’re reading
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Israel sends negotiators to Cairo to extend phase-one of Gaza ceasefire
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| Israel announced on Thursday it was sending negotiators to Cairo for talks, seeking to extend a first phase of a ceasefire due to expire in two days, in the apparent aim of securing the release of more hostages while delaying any final deal on Gaza’s future. The announcement came after Hamas handed over four bodies of hostages, the last due to be released under the terms of the six-week first phase of the ceasefire that started on January 19. Talks have yet to begin on a second phase that would ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war. |
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Israeli official says IDF won’t withdraw from Philadelphi Corridor as ceasefire stipulates
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| An Israeli official has sent a statement to Israeli reporters on condition of anonymity stating that Jerusalem will not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, despite the hostage-ceasefire deal’s requirement for the IDF to depart the Egypt-Gaza border stretch at the end of the first phase…the deal Netanyahu accepted six months later still requires Israel to begin completing its withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor on the 42nd day of phase one — this coming Saturday — and to finish that pull-out by the 50th day of the ceasefire (March 9). |
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Gaza polio vaccination drive reached 600,000 children in five days, WHO says
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| A polio vaccination drive in Gaza reached more than 600,000 children, the head of the World Health Organization announced Thursday, saying a ceasefire allowed previously-missed children to receive a dose. After the disease resurfaced in Gaza for the first time in over 20 years, paralyzing a 10-month-old child last August, two vaccination rounds took place in September and October. |
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The nightmare drags on for the families of hostages who remain in Gaza
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| Alexander is pinning her hopes on the Trump administration. On Sunday, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, told CBS that Alexander was “front and center” for the administration. “It’s one of President Trump’s most (important) objectives, is to get all Americans home and we’re going to be successful in getting Edan home,” Witkoff said. |
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West Bank Operation Tests Palestinian Leaders’ Ability to Root Out Militants
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| The Palestinian Authority was carrying out one of the most extensive security operations in its history, pursuing armed militants in the West Bank city of Jenin. For weeks, the authority’s forces slowly advanced on the militants’ densely populated stronghold, Palestinian officials said. When the Israeli military launched its own wide-scale raid there in January, the authority was expected to abandon its operation. But it did not. Instead, when dozens of militants fled to nearby villages, Palestinian security forces swooped in to arrest them, officials said. “We made very important progress in reinforcing law and order,” Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, the spokesman for the authority’s security forces, said in a phone interview. |
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Israel’s Military Lays Out Its Oct. 7 Failures
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| The Israeli military on Thursday released the first findings from its internal investigations into the colossal military and intelligence failure of Oct. 7, 2023, describing how senior officers vastly underestimated Hamas and then misinterpreted early warnings that a major attack was coming. The inquiries attempted to answer the question that has confounded Israel since that day, when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen overran Israeli communities, army bases and a music festival: Where was the army? |
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Katz says he instructed IDF to stay for year in West Bank refugee camps and not allow 40,000 residents home
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| Defense Minister Israel Katz says he has instructed the IDF to stay for the next year in West Bank refugee camps that have been cleared of terror operatives and civilians, and not allow anyone to return…I instructed the IDF to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared, for the coming year, and not allow residents to return and the terror to return and grow,” Katz says. “We will not return to the reality that was in the past. We will continue to clear refugee camps and other terror centers to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of the extreme Islam that was built, armed, funded and supported by the Iranian evil axis, in an attempt to establish an eastern terror front,” he adds. |
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Israel demands complete demilitarisation of southern Syria
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| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the complete demilitarisation of much of southern Syria. It is an announcement that could make conflict between Israel and the new leadership in Syria, after the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad, more likely. In a speech to Israeli military cadets on Sunday, Netanyahu said that Israel would not allow the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the Islamist group that led the overthrow of Assad – nor the new Syrian army that is being formed to “enter the area south of Damascus”. |
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