Israel appears to have taken out several top level Hamas leaders in a Lebanon bombing ….
Prime Minister Netanyahu is dancing with military and political issues…
Israeli troops ARE departing some place’s in North Gaza….
There is back and forth on how Gaza is going to be governed going forward….
The deputy head of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, and two leaders of its armed wing were killed in an explosion in Lebanon on Tuesday, the group said on its official Telegram channel.
The three died in what Hamas described as a “Zionist raid” in a suburb of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Videos from the scene verified by The New York Times show at least one car engulfed in flames in front of a high-rise building as dozens of people gather in the area.
Mr. al-Arouri was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and was elected the deputy chairman of the group’s political bureau in October 2017. His official role was head of Hamas in the West Bank and deputy to the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh. But regional security officials said that Mr. al-Arouri spent much of his time in recent years in Beirut, where he served as a sort of Hamas ambassador to Hezbollah, the armed group that exercises de facto control over southern Lebanon.
The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In late November, Mr. Netanyahu said in a televised news conference that Israel would “operate against Hamas leaders wherever they are.”
Here is what else to know:
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Israel’s military said it had begun withdrawing some troops from Gaza, part of a planned pullout of roughly five brigades. It did not offer details. But heavy fighting appeared to continue, with the military saying it had conducted several targeted operations across Gaza in the last few days, killing “dozens” of Hamas fighters.
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A day after a landmark ruling by Israel’s Supreme Courtchallenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, the country’s leaders appeared on Tuesday to want to avoid any immediate constitutional crisis during wartime. Analysts said that initial signals from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party and right-wing allies about the need for national unity indicated that they might decline, at least until the war with Hamas is over, to take further steps to rein in the court.
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The judges’ narrow 8-7 decision struck down a law that Mr. Netanyahu’s government passed to limit the judiciary’s powers. Its passage in July set off large-scale protests, led by Israeli liberals, over the Netanyahu government. Many who oppose his administration view the court as the only check on government power.
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The law at issue in the landmark Supreme Court ruling had barred justices from using the concept of “reasonableness” as a legal standard to strike down government decisions. The eight justices who rejected the law said the standard was a necessary tool for judges to protect against arbitrary government overreach, especially given Israel’s lack of a formal constitution. Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition contends that the concept is ill defined and subjective.
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Israel’s military said on Monday evening that there was a plan for the gradual return of Israeli residents to communities more than 2.5 miles from the border with Gaza, with additional defensive and emergency response measures. Several communities near the border were devastated in the Oct. 7 attacks….
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