J Street works to promote an open, honest and rigorous conversation about Israel. The opinions reflected in articles posted in the News Roundup do not necessarily reflect J Street’s positions, and their posting does not constitute an endorsement from J Street.

What Is Kamala Harris’ Foreign Policy? It’s Been a Work in Progress, NBC News
“It’s a very big generational difference,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a left-of-center political advocacy group that calls itself “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace.” “She brings a perspective that is much more in line with where most of the Democratic Party and up-and-coming policymakers and officials are,” Ben-Ami said. After Harris, who had met Netanyahu only once before on a visit to Israel as a senator in 2017, delivered remarks last Thursday on the war in Gaza, a senior Israeli official criticized her to reporters, accusing her of overly stressing the importance of ending the war.

Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Is Killed in Iran by an Alleged Israeli Strike, Threatening Escalation, AP
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital Wednesday, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risks escalating the conflict even as the U.S. and other nations were scrambling to prevent an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.

Israel Says It Killed a Hezbollah Commander in Beirut It Blames for a Deadly Strike, NPR
In a statement late Tuesday, Israel’s military said “Israeli Air Force fighter jets eliminated the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s most senior military commander and the head of its Strategic Unit, Fuad Shukr ‘Sayyid Muhsan,’ in the area of Beirut.” Calling him a “right-hand man” to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the statement said Fuad Shukr was responsible for operations including the attack that killed 12 children and teenagers and wounded several people on Saturday in Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

IDF Indicts Reservist for Severely Beating Palestinian Detainees, Filming Acts, The Times of Israel
The soldier, named as Staff Sgt. (res.) Yisrael Zakaria Hajbi, was serving at the Sde Teiman base — which houses a detention facility — at the time of the alleged abuse. According to an indictment filed by military prosecutors, the reservist on several occasions between February and June, while securing the transport of terror suspects, allegedly “used severe violence against the detainees he was entrusted with guarding.”

Austin Says US Will Help Defend Israel If It’s Attacked in Wake of Haniyeh Killing, The Times of Israel
Asked what assistance the United States would provide if a wider conflict should break out in the Middle East, Austin says Washington would continue to help defend Israel if it were attacked, but the priority was de-escalating tensions. “We certainly will help defend Israel. You saw us do that April. You can expect to see us do that again,” he said.

Lice, Scabies, Rashes Plague Palestinian Children as Skin Disease Runs Rampant in Gaza’s Tent Camps, AP
Skin diseases are running rampant in Gaza, health officials say. The cause, they say, is the appalling conditions in overcrowded tent camps housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes, along with the summer heat and the collapse of sanitation.

‘The Destruction Is Massive’: Khan Younis Residents Return to Rubble After Israeli Military Withdraws, CNN
Palestinians who fled the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis just over a week ago started to return to their homes Tuesday to find extensive destruction, with many homes and multistory buildings reduced to ruins, after the Israeli military withdrew its forces.

Gaza’s Only Humanitarian Zone Has Shrunk by a Fifth Recently, The New York Times
The Israeli military has designated just one area of the Gaza Strip as a “humanitarian zone” for displaced people — and that area keeps shrinking. In the latest downsizing, the military on Saturday ordered the evacuation of two more parts of central Gaza that had been part of the humanitarian zone.

Relief as Palestinian Medical Evacuees Leave Gaza, BBC
The WHO said 85 sick and severely injured patients from Gaza had been evacuated to Abu Dhabi. The sweeping Israeli military operations that followed have wrecked Gaza’s healthcare system and the main route for medical evacuees through Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut down after the Israeli military took control there in early May.

Iranian President Sworn in With Chants of ‘Death to America, Israel’, Reuters
“Those who supply weapons that kill children cannot teach Muslims about humanity,” Pezeshkian said to chants of “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.” Leaders of Iran’s Palestinian allies Hamas and the Islamic Jihad as well as senior representatives of Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi movement and Lebanon’s Hezbollah attended the ceremony.

US Officials in Saudi Arabia to Discuss Yemen as Israel-Hezbollah Tension Grows, Axios
A White House official said McGurk is leading a senior inter-agency delegation, including representatives from the Departments of State and Defense, to Saudi Arabia “to discuss the bilateral relationship and regional developments.” McGurk will then travel to Cairo for “consultations with Egyptian counterparts on related issues, and to advance discussions on the ceasefire and hostage deal.”

Israeli Army Appoints Controversial General Barak Hiram to Commander of Gaza Division, Haaretz
In December, the New York Times published an investigation that claimed Hiram ordered a tank commander to break into Pesi Cohen’s home even at the risk of harming civilians. Documentation published by News Channel 12 in December showed that a tank arrived at the kibbutz a few hours after the attack began and fired tank shells in the direction of Cohen’s home.

IDF Court Extends Arrest of 8 Soldiers Accused of Abusing Palestinian Detainee, The Times of Israel
According to the IDF, the soldiers were suspected of aggravated sodomy (a charge equivalent to rape), causing bodily harm under aggravated circumstances, abuse under aggravated circumstances and conduct unbecoming of a soldier. Some of the suspects were also suspected of assault and interfering with the work of public servants, the IDF said.

Israel Used Dogs, Waterboarding on Palestinian Detainees From Gaza, UN Report Says, Reuters
Thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly removed from Gaza, sometimes from bomb shelters, and dragged into detention in Israel where some have been tortured and dozens have died, according to a U.N. human rights office report on Tuesday.

Only a Strong US ‘No’ to Israel Will Stop Another War, The New York Times
Steven Simon shares, “If Israel moves ahead with plans to wage war on Hezbollah and the militant force does unleash thousands of missiles on Israel, then it had better hope that its missile defenses and civil defense capabilities are up to snuff. The United States has the capacity to take down advanced Iranian missiles, which it would do, but not necessarily to bail out an Israel swamped by Hezbollah’s missiles thanks to an unrealistic war plan.”

Two Big Questions After the Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, The Forward
Rob Eshman shares, “Gazans who awoke to the news no doubt wonder if Haniyeh’s death will enable Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory and bring the war to an end to a war Hamas started that has devastated their homes and families. But with Sinwar still alive, Netanyahu is unlikely to ease his new conditions for a deal. It may make negotiations far more complicated, since Haniyeh himself was a key interlocutor with international mediators. And it could very possibly escalate to a regional war. Iran cannot let an assassination of a foreign leader on its territory go unanswered.”

Choosing Humanity | A Conversation With Palestinian-Israelis About Life After October 7, J Street
Discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often paint Israelis and Palestinians as monolithic — united in their life experience and in their animosity for the other group. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, it’s not so simple as they navigate the complexities and challenges of being connected to both societies.