Tomorrow will mark two weeks since the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, and the entire Middle East remains on a knife’s edge. 
 

• Hamas, which executed the deadly attacks that killed 1,400 Israeli civilians, released two hostages into Israeli custody on Friday. The hostages are Judith and Natalie Ranaan, a mother and daughter, both American citizens. President Biden said he was “overjoyed” about their release in a statement following their release and thanked the nations of Qatar, whose diplomats brokered the negotiations, and Israel for their partnership in securing the release. The women were identified as Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie, and were abducted by Hamas while they were staying at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. According to Natalie’s brother, Ben Raanan, his mother and sister had been visiting family in celebration of their grandmother’s 85th birthday. Almost 200 hostages remain in Hamas custody. 
   

• United Nations Secretary General António Guterres visited the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip earlier on Friday. He stood by aid trucks that he said were still blocked from reaching Palestinians who have “no food, no medicine, no fuel.” The trucks, he told Reuters, are a “lifeline” for nearly 2 million Gazans living under siege and Israeli airstrikes. President Biden said on Friday that he has received a “commitment” from Israel and Egypt that the Rafah crossing will open, he believes, in the next one to two days. More than 200 aid trucks are waiting at the crossing as Egyptian, Israeli, American, and United Nations officials continue logistical discussions.
   

• On Thursday an American naval destroyer shot down at least 15 drones and four cruise missiles launched from Yemen and “seemingly” headed toward Israel, according to Defense Department officials. Pentagon spokesman Brig. General Patrick Ryder disclosed the operation, and added that the Defense Department was still assessing whether the drones were targeting the American warship, but he noted on Friday that personnel on the ship did not believe the drones posed a threat, and no similar incidents had occurred since.

Meanwhile, conditions on the ground in Gaza continue to be dire. 
 

• A Greek Orthodox church in the Gaza strip was struck by an Israeli airstrike as it sheltered hundreds of Palestinians on Thursday. The Church of St. Porphyrius is Gaza’s oldest active church. According to an eyewitness account, the strike hit a two-story building in the church compound, killing 18 people and injuring at least 100 more. Approximately 100 people were in the building at the time of the strike, and about 400 people total—mostly displaced Christian civilians—were taking shelter in the church complex. Among those reported killed in the blast were relatives of former Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian who represented Michigan’s 3rd congressional district from 2011-2021. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that a strike targeting what they described as a Hamas control center “damaged the wall of a church in the area” and that it is “aware of reports on casualties.” 
   

• Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered near the Gaza strip on Thursday, “You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come,” according to a press release from his office. On a separate visit to a bordering area on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops “The entire nation of Israel stands behind you, and we will give the hard blow to our enemies so that we can achieve victory. For victory!” The looming ground operation has the potential to displace millions of Palestinians, and over one million people have been displaced already. Thousands of people took to the streets in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and the West Bank after Islamic prayers on Friday in protest of Israel’s actions in the war. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the conflict has killed 4,127 Gazans. 

In his Thursday night Oval Office address, President Biden affirmed his administration’s unwavering support of Israel’s right to defend itself, and Friday asked Congress for an “unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security.” But the president also stated that he had communicated to the Israeli government that its forces “must operate by the laws of war.” In an investigation published on Friday, Amnesty International said that it found five specific instances of Israeli attacks that “violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives.” Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said the IDF has shown a “shocking disregard for civilian lives.” The White House has yet to comment.

There’s a high-stakes November coming up, and it might not be the November you’re thinking of. The media hype has turned to 2024, but that won’t stop 2023 elections from having massive implications for abortion access, voting rights, and more. From the Virginia legislative elections to the Ohio reproductive rights ballot measure, we’ve got work to do in the next few weeks. Visit votesaveamerica.com/nooffyears to learn more and find out how you can get involved.

After a third failed (like, really failed this time) vote on the House floor, Congressional Republicans met behind closed doors and voted by secret ballot to push aside Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in his bid for the speakership. The vote to drop Jordan was 112-86. So now the House GOP is without a nominee for speaker more than two weeks after they booted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the position. Members of the conference have until Sunday to declare speaker candidacies, and the group will start this process all over again on Monday. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) are among the number of lawmakers who said they were either running for speaker or seriously considering it. Interestingly, the group that kneecapped Jordan’s speakership was a coalition of the chamber’s most moderate Republicans, who had been against Jordan from the start, and some of the furthest-right members of the Freedom Caucus who torpedoed Steve Scalise for not sitting with them at lunch. These guys can NOT get it together!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday that El Niño—a natural ocean and weather pattern in the Tropical Pacific—will drive what could be a warmer or wetter winter in parts of the United States. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is running low on cash for his miserable 2024 presidential campaign, so he’s relying on his super PAC Never Back Down to pay for his private air travel, testing the limits of campaign finance law. 

Police are searching for a man who allegedly killed a Maryland judge on Thursday as an act of retribution after the man lost custody of his children in a case earlier that day.  

Instagram parent company Meta has formally apologized for adding “terrorist” to the biographies of some Instagram users who self-identified as Palestinian in that section of their page. The company said it fixed a problem “that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations,” in some of its products. 

OpenAI is in talks with venture capital firm Thrive Capital that would make the company the most valuable start-up in Silicon Valley with a valuation of $80 billion, nearly triple what it was less than six months ago.  

A biography of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is set to be released next week, and in it he is quoted saying so many bitchy things about his fellow Republicans that we honestly gotta give it up for Mitt for this one. He called Chris Christie “A bridge-and-tunnel loudmouth,” among other bon mots.

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Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who helped orchestrate the plot to help disgraced former president Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 election results using fake electors, became the third defendant in the sweeping Fulton County, Georgia conspiracy case to enter a plea deal with prosecutors. Dropping like flies!

In more bad news for Trump and good news for democracy, the former president was fined $5,000 on Friday after a disparaging social media post about a key staffer in his New York civil fraud trial remained up on his campaign website weeks after the judge ordered him to delete it.