Hostage Update

There are now currently 58 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 59 hostages remaining in total)

• 38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
• 24 hostages will remain in captivity after Phase I and have not been declared dead.
  • 5 hostages are Americans: Meet the Five American Hostages Still Held By Hamas: Edan Alexander is assumed to be alive, Itay Chen is assumed to have been killed on 10/7, and Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Omer Neutra have been confirmed to have been killed.
  • 4 are soldiers
  • 7 are residents of the Gaza border communities
  • 11 were abducted from the Nova music festival
  • 2 are foreign workers: Bipin Joshi from Nepal and Pinta Nattapong from Thailand
• Link: These are the hostages to be released (and left behind) in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal’s first phase – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

• On October 7^th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
  • During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
  • 193 hostages in total have been released or rescued
    • The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
  • 8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive
• Of the 59 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 31 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
  • Thus, at most, 28 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
  • Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)

Watch

From the Washington Institue for Near East Policy: Gaza Phase 2: Sorting Out the Political and Security Scenarios: by Harel Chorev , David Schenker, Tamar Hermann, Ghaith al-Omari

Listen

[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: Are ANY colleges confronting the madness? – With Andrew Martin & Santa Ono

• …against the backdrop of chaos at Columbia and Barnard this past week, we sat down with WashU’s Andrew Martin and Michigan’s Santa Ono at the ADL’s “Never is Now” Summit in New York City, for a candid conversation about what has happened at each of their universities, lessons learned, and charting a path forward.

Antisemitism

The ICE Detention of a Columbia Student Is Just the Beginning by Gabe Kaminsky, Madeleine Rowley, and Maya Sulkin in The Free Press

• Yes, this is an actual post from the official Senate Judiciary X account that has now been viewed over 17M times
• On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested an anti-Israel activist who helped lead protests against the Jewish state on Columbia University’s campus after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. … President Donald Trump warned that Khalil’s arrest would be the first ‘of many to come.’
• Indeed, a White House official told The Free Press that the basis for targeting Khalil is being used as a blueprint for investigations against other students. … ‘He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.,’ said the official, noting the Trump administration reviewed intelligence that found Khalil was a national security risk.
• Khalil’s case has thrown into dramatic relief debates over the limits of protected speech and what constitutes a legitimate response to the explosion of antisemitism on campuses across America since October 2023. … The move to revoke Khalil’s green card—and the basis for the decision—has prompted sharp criticism from pro–free speech groups across the political spectrum.
• ‘We’ve got an administration that is taking action against antisemitism and has not always drawn a clean line between protected political speech … and unlawful discriminatory harassment,’ Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Free Press. … ‘The lack of clarity results in a chill on protected political expression. We’ve got concerns here.’
• But students who have faced antisemitic hostility on campus since October 7, 2023, see things differently. … ‘I don’t think anybody who is fomenting pro-terror, antisemitic, anti-American rhetoric, who isn’t a US citizen, has any inherent right to be here,’ said [Barnard freshman Shoshana] Aufzien.
• Mark Goldfeder … told The Free Press that there are several strong legal arguments for the revoking of visas. … Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, … a visa holder who ‘endorses or espouses terrorist activity or … support[s] a terrorist organization’ can be deported. This statute … could survive what’s called ‘strict scrutiny’ under the First Amendment. … ‘What would that be? National security.’
• For starters, Turner v. Williams, a Supreme Court case from 1904, set the precedent that aliens can be deported if they are engaging in specific dangerous activities or if they have certain dangerous views that those “who hold and advocate them would be undesirable additions to our population.”
• Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1952, a visa holder who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support[s] a terrorist organization” can be deported. This statute, Goldfeder says, could survive what’s called “strict scrutiny” under the First Amendment.
• “The statute would have to protect a compelling governmental interest and be narrowly tailored to protect that interest,” said Goldfeder. “Because free speech is so incredibly important, in order to survive strict scrutiny, there would have to be an additional constitutional imperative weighing on the other side. What would that be? National security.”
• Link: The ICE Detention of a Columbia Student Is Just the Beginning

Can Trump Deport a Green-Card-Holding, Pro-Hamas Columbia Grad? by Andrew C. McCarthy with National Review

• On Saturday night, as our Haley Strack reports, federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, who claims Palestinian heritage. Khalil is a recent Columbia graduate and, at the time of his arrest, was still a resident of Columbia-owned housing. … According to Newsweek, Khalil was accused by the university of ‘organizing an event that glorified Hamas’s October 7 attack.’
• Khalil is widely reported to have been a leader of the pro-Hamas protests. … If the government had strong evidence that he’d committed the crime of providing material support to a designated terrorist organization—such as recruiting or fundraising on behalf of Hamas—the Justice Department would indict him. Fortunately, it need not be provable in criminal court that an alien agitator committed crimes in order to establish that the alien should be deported.
• Unlike a mere student-visa holder, a green-card holder … is on track to become a naturalized citizen. … Their rights can approximate those of American citizens but, as the administration will surely argue, they are not equal to those of American citizens (who, of course, may not be deported).
• Section 1182 of federal immigration law controls the categories of aliens who may be excluded from the United States. … An alien may be excluded if he has ‘endorsed’ or ‘espoused’ terrorist activity … If the government can prove that Khalil was in a campus group that endorsed or espoused Hamas’s atrocities against Israel, it should be able to deport him regardless of his LPR status.
• Ergo, an LPR, such as Khalil, is going to argue that he has First Amendment protections for speech and association that are indistinguishable from those of an American citizen … Nevertheless, that claim should fail because, when it comes to support for terrorism, our law does not privilege LPRs over other classes of aliens.
• And if it [the government] can deport him, there are likely to be thousands of others who can be deported, too—and should be.
• Link: Can Trump Deport a Green-Card-Holding, Pro-Hamas Columbia Grad?

The Arrest of Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil, by William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal

• On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested an anti-Israel activist who helped lead protests against the Jewish state on Columbia University’s campus after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. . . . Mr. Khalil was lead negotiator for the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ that roiled the campus while he was enrolled there in 2024. His lawyer said he plans to fight the government’s attempt to revoke his green card and deport him.
• The arrest represents a huge change in the status quo and marks the Trump administration’s determination to address the inability—or unwillingness—of elite universities to maintain the basics of civilized behavior.
• More immediately, the arrest is a result of President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order combating antisemitism. The White House fact sheet explaining the order quotes Mr. Trump: ‘To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.’
• On Friday the administration announced that it intends to pull $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia, where undergraduate tuition runs $71,170 a year. The administration has clearly decided that foreign students who disrupt our campuses shouldn’t be in the U.S. Columbia isn’t the only elite university to have indulged anti-Israel occupations, but it is the most prominent.
• Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts declared Mr. Trump’s proclamation falls ‘squarely within the scope of Presidential authority under the INA.’ . . .
• Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, says no: “All the Trump administration is doing is a basic application of the law. The Immigration and Naturalization Act says people can have their visas pulled or denied for membership in or support of terrorist organizations. That goes for green cards too, though more legal process may be required there.”
• ‘So I bet what will happen,’ says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, ‘is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment-protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.’
• These ‘protests’ weren’t really about speech. If all the ‘protesters’ had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: ‘We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.’
• The administration has caught the academy’s attention in a way nothing before has. . . . It might as well have said: We understand how serious this is now that it threatens to stop the federal gravy train.
• The other person taking this seriously is Mr. Khalil, who faces the prospect of being deported. It will be interesting to see how defiant others will be now that defiance might get them sent home.
• Link: The Arrest of Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia University, and Deportation Law: What You Need to Know by The Jewish Onliner

• On March 09 2025, Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after his student visa was reportedly revoked. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited his leadership in activities ‘aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,’ as a primary reason for his removal proceedings. A judge has since issued a temporary stay on his deportation, ensuring that the matter will proceed through the courts.
• Section 212(a)(3) lists several security-related grounds on which an individual may be deemed ineligible for admission or subject to removal. Among these, Subsection (B)(i) outlines nine terrorism-related grounds, with (VII) stating that any alien who: ‘endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization’ is inadmissible to the United States.
• A common argument against Khalil’s deportation is that it violates his First Amendment rights. However, legal precedent establishes that the First Amendment applies differently to non-citizens, particularly in the immigration context.”
• “In Citizens United v. FEC (2010) … the government may impose special restrictions on the speech rights of various groups, including foreigners, when justified by a legitimate governmental interest. Likewise, in Turner v. Williams (1904) … the government has broad discretion to deny entry or remove individuals whose advocacy threatens national security.
• Additionally, the organization Khalil helps lead—Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CAUD)—has openly called for the eradication of Western civilization and explicitly advocated for Palestinian ‘armed resistance,’ a reference to terrorism perpetrated by Hamas. … According to Khalil’s LinkedIn profile, he interned as a Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees … Khalil’s connection to UNRWA raises further concerns regarding his associations.
• A federal immigration judge will ultimately decide Khalil’s fate. The temporary stay does not preclude his deportation; it merely delays proceedings while legal arguments are considered. … Khalil’s legal team may argue that his activities were political expression rather than direct endorsement of terrorism, but courts have historically deferred to executive and congressional determinations regarding national security in immigration matters.
• Link: Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia University, and Deportation Law: What You Need to Know

Joe Rogan and the Jews by Park MacDougald in Tablet Magazine

• It gives us no pleasure to report this, but we figured you should hear it from us. Jeffrey Epstein—the late New York financier—was a “Jewish organization of Jewish people working on behalf of Israel and other groups,” including organized crime and elements of the Central Intelligence Agency, to collect blackmail on American politicians and businessmen. This Jewish blackmail ring is so powerful that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, despite their promises of transparency, will never be able to produce any documents to prove its existence. Nor will President Donald Trump and his administration be able to cut U.S. support for Israel—the blackmail runs too deep.
• Now, it may horrify ordinary people to learn that a substantial portion of Jews believe their existence depends on their ability to manipulate powerful Americans into compromising positions with sexually trafficked teenagers, but we should have some sympathy. It is not their fault that Israel was founded by organized crime syndicates, sinister transnational bankers, and terrorists, who brought the methods of the Jewish underworld into the present day.
• There, we saved you 2 hours and 41 minutes. That was the run time of Joe Rogan’s interview with Ian Carroll, a TikTok influencer whose short rise from total obscurity to Rogan’s show—one of the most coveted slots in the entertainment business, which many a content creator would kill to appear on—would normally lead us to ask questions about foreign intelligence operations and shadowy behind-the-scenes influence networks, had Carroll not already helpfully answered our questions about such things (it’s Israel).
• All kidding aside, Rogan—whatever his penchant for kooky theories about the moon landing or ancient aliens—never struck us as an antisemite, periodic hyperventilating from the Anti-Defamation League and other adjuncts of the Democratic Party notwithstanding. He is, or traditionally has been, an American everyman, and he doesn’t appear to be a resentful or damaged person, which is usually a prerequisite for going off the deep end regarding Jews.
• Which makes it all the more difficult to figure out what’s going on here. Does Rogan believe this stuff? Is he playing for relevance at a time when deranged talk about all-powerful “Zionist” and “neocon” influence, boosted by Elon Musk’s X algorithm, is all the rage on social media? Is there a network?
• Or maybe we’re looking at an op. The Joe Rogan Experience, after all, has 19.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and it became clear after last year’s election that many in the upper reaches of the Democratic Party saw Rogan and the wider podcast world as key to Trump’s victory.
• The truth is we have no idea what the real story is. But as we’ve been trying to point out at Tablet for years now (see here and here), the sorts of questions we’re now forced to ask about Rogan are, in at least one sense, similar to the sorts of questions that guys like Carroll are posing about wealthy Jewish sex traffickers collecting blackmail on behalf of Mossad. That is to say, both are downstream of the hall-of-mirrors reality we now live in, in which the cumulative effect of two decades of official lies, secrecy, propaganda, and censorship has combined with the destabilizing impact of digital media on our collective psychic health.
• Carroll did manage to say one true thing, though, which is that Oct. 7 opened the door for “interest” in his favorite subject. But the reason is not that Americans are, all of a sudden, interested in pulling back the veil on the Jewish power that secretly controlled their lives. It was that the attacks and their aftermath exposed that Jews (including the mythical Israel lobby) are not nearly as powerful as they have been made out to be; that there is a huge, potentially lucrative audience for those who could explain that the murdered, kidnapped, and raped Israelis really had it coming; and that Jews cannot silence their opponents but in many cases are reduced to asking for pity, which, as anyone with a basic understanding of human psychology will tell you, only invites more sadism.
• Which is to say, the attacks put blood in the water. What we’re seeing now are the sharks.
• Link: Joe Rogan and the Jews

Hamas Supporters Know Exactly What They Are Defending with Seth Mandel in Commentary Magazine

• One of the recurring characters in the history of anti-Israel media bias is The Unluckiest Lady In Lebanon. She was so-nicknamed because during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the wire services would run staged photos of her several times over the course of the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, and each time the caption would tell us that she was standing on the rubble of her just-destroyed home.
• Mass media has always been a deadlier weapon than Katyushas from Lebanon or Qassams from Gaza. The many-housed lady from Lebanon may have been unlucky, but Hezbollah was lucky to have her.
• This happened routinely because wire services would hire local stringers and freelancers, do absolutely no vetting whatsoever, and publish whatever suited the anti-Israel cause. In doing so, these agencies ushered in an era of media irresponsibility from which we have yet to emerge: We called it The Age of Fauxtography.
• During the course of the 2008-2009 war, Operation Cast Lead, Hamas hid among the civilian population and then ghoulishly embraced the fauxtography trend to deflect blame for the Palestinian deaths that Hamas was responsible for.
• Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life.
• As Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath showed—the amount of support for Hamas and the obsession with demonizing the Jews, all with the willing collaboration of the media, is a song played on repeat.
• Supporters of Hamas didn’t abandon their cause when they saw Hamasniks dancing around with the dead bodies of captive children, because it’s what one expects of Hamas. News organizations didn’t institute reforms in 2006 precisely because they expected to be using those same tactics again and again.
• Sure, there’s the occasional ignoramus on the Internet or a college campus. But for the most part, everyone knows what they’re doing here. It’s a depressing realization, but it is our unambiguous reality. And we cannot change that reality unless we face it.
• Link: Hamas Supporters Know Exactly What They Are Defending

Israel/Middle East Related Articles

Grim Lessons From Phase One of the Israel-Hamas Deal by Peter Berkowitz in Real Clear Politics

• Palestinians have responded to the White House’s plan for their future with understandable outrage. Like most other people the world over, they are fundamentally attached to the land in which they live. As one inhabitant told the Guardian, ‘We would rather die here than leave this land’.
• In 1948, a combination of the foundation of Israel and the Arab-Israeli war displaced around 750,000 Palestinians, turning them into refugees. Incredibly, nearly 80 years on, the number of Palestinians classified as refugees has actually increased, to nearly six million.
• At about the same time, at the insistence of Arab states, a second UN refugee organisation was established … It was called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, otherwise known as UNRWA. UNRWA was only meant to exist temporarily … Yet it’s still going strong nearly 80 years later. Not only has it failed to tackle the original refugee crisis, it has also actively overseen an 800 per cent increase in the number of Palestinian refugees it is responsible for.
• Take the case of Mohamed Anwar Hadid. His father fled Nazareth in 1948 … He ended up in California where he became a property developer building luxury mansions and hotels in Beverly Hills. You might not have heard of Hadid. But you are likely to have heard of his daughters, supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid. … Amazingly, the two sisters, their father and other members of the Hadid family are all still registered as Palestinian refugees with UNRWA.
• Over several decades, the ‘right of return’ has allowed successive Palestinian political leaders to continue a war against Israel by other means – by insisting on their right to return to land ‘occupied’ by Israel. No other group of refugees has been granted a similarly inalienable right of return. … The twin issues of refugee status and the right of return have taken on enormous symbolic significance for Palestinians. They have also made, and will continue to make, any peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis inordinately difficult.
• Now would be a good time to start reassessing Palestinians’ permanent refugee status and the right of return. That way we might finally start taking some of the heat out of this interminable conflict.
• Link: Grim Lessons From Phase One of the Israel-Hamas Deal

Short-Lived U.S.-Hamas Talks Are a Cautionary Tale for Washington and Jerusalem by David Makovsky

• On March 4, U.S. envoy Adam Boehler held direct talks with Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya in Doha, Qatar, following lower-level talks a week earlier. The negotiations reportedly centered on freeing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander and releasing the bodies of four other American-Israeli hostages. Although Boehler’s subsequent media remarks focused on the humanitarian imperative of recovering the remaining hostages, he also favorably mentioned an apparent Hamas proposal for a “five-year to ten-year truce,” lending much greater diplomatic weight to the meetings.
• Apparently stung by Israeli criticism of Boehler’s remarks and the talks with Hayya, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear on March 10 that the United States will not engage in direct negotiations with Hamas again and will stick to the main diplomatic channel instead: “That was a one-off situation…As of now, it hasn’t borne fruit. Doesn’t mean he was wrong to try, but our primary vehicle for negotiations on this front will continue to be [Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff] and the work he’s doing through Qatar.”
• In Israel’s view, direct talks like Boehler’s risk creating the impression that Hamas can drive a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, reinforcing the notion that the group gained leverage from attacking Israel and seizing hostages on October 7.
• Historically, Hamas has treated truce proposals—like the one Boehler mentioned—as opportunities for rearmament, breaking the agreements when it suited the group’s interests. Now that Hamas is on the ropes in Gaza, it likely believes that some degree of U.S. recognition is paramount to its survival and will do and say almost anything to get it.
• This episode was also the closest that Washington and Jerusalem have come to being publicly at odds since the start of the Trump administration.
• Israel is generally assiduous about avoiding “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem, believing that adversaries can only gain from such gaps. In response to Boehler’s talks, Netanyahu’s office issued a brief statement signaling its opposition but in a very restrained manner, saving most of its ire for private channels. Secretary Rubio’s subsequent remarks no doubt pleased the prime minister and vindicated his restraint.
• More broadly, the episode indicates that the two governments are operating under different timelines. Boehler’s direct talks with Hamas suggest that the Trump administration sees the hostages as living on borrowed time. Yet Netanyahu’s recent actions may be driven by concerns about his domestic political future, which would be undermined by any suggestion that Israel is leaving Gaza.
• This episode points to the importance of the United States and Israel being even more in sync on Gaza diplomacy whenever possible. Of course, differences cannot be entirely eliminated, since the two allies’ interests are closely aligned but not identical. But if Witkoff believes that the Doha talks could be a vehicle for exiling Hamas and its weaponry, Jerusalem and Washington will need to coordinate closely on shared objectives, strategies, and tactics. This includes enforcing consistency in U.S. public messaging, so that Hamas does not believe Washington will eventually bend on letting it hold onto power (de facto or formal). Such issues are particularly sensitive now, when the chances of renewed warfare and the lives of the remaining hostages both hang in the balance.
• More broadly, foreign adversaries are always looking to exploit gaps between the United States and Israel.
• Link: Short-Lived U.S.-Hamas Talks Are a Cautionary Tale for Washington and Jerusalem

Casualties (no change)

1,852 Israelis have been killed including 846 IDF soldiers since October 7th (no change since Sunday)

• The South: 407 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed (no change since Sunday)
• The North: 132 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Sunday)
• The West Bank: 63 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,583 (+1 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 497 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • 5,731 (+5 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 851 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.

• The Gaza Casualty Count:
  • According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 62,614 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
  • [MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
  • On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
  • Read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, The Free Press, and the Times of Israel