Israel announced it will attack Gaza from the air, land and sea, expanding its war against Hamas days after its tanks began an intense ground operation. The military again urged civilians to move south as troops have entered Gaza from the north (see where troops crossed the border).
Benjamin Netanyahu called the troops’ arrival the “second stage” of the war and warned Israelis to expect a long, difficult fight. But he did not say that Israel had launched a full ground invasion. While the number of soldiers in Gaza remains unclear, a more limited initial ground war would align with recent suggestions from the U.S. defense secretary, The Times’s Eric Schmitt reports.
The first stage of the war has been a bombing campaign that Palestinians say has killed thousands of people, many of them children. Israel said its airstrikes were intended to hit military targets, like Hamas’s fighters and weapons stores. But experts say the majority of the group’s fighters and many of its weapons are underground in a vast network of tunnels, making it difficult for Israel to strike them from the air.
In this next stage, the ground war, troops are expected to face bloody urban combat. Hamas is likely to booby-trap apartments and fire at Israelis from rooftops. Gaza’s densely packed streets are difficult to attack with tanks, which could help Hamas despite Israel’s stronger military.
Details of the fighting are expected to become clearer today as phone and internet service begins to return to Gaza. The enclave was in a near-total blackout for much of the weekend. Palestinians said that airstrikes had cut off cell networks, making it harder for them to coordinate medical rescues, speak to family or share news about the fighting.
The blackout also complicated evacuation efforts. For more than two weeks, Israel has been calling on Gazans to move south, closer to the border with Egypt, an order that has pushed hundreds of thousands to leave their homes.
As desperation spread during the blackout, thousands of people broke into warehouses to take aid, like flour, according to the U.N. The Israeli military said, without giving details, that humanitarian efforts to send more aid to Gaza — led by Egypt and the U.S. — would be expanded tomorrow.
The latest on the fighting
More on the war
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In a social media post that was deleted after a fierce backlash, Netanyahu publicly blamed Israel’s failures on Oct. 7 on the country’s heads of military intelligence and its internal security agency.
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China is pitching itself as a neutral peace broker, but antisemitism is spreading across Chinese state media and social platforms.
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Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in several cities, including New York and London, calling for a cease-fire. See videos.
NEWS
Maine Shooting
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The man who killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, had been paranoid and made threats against his Army reserve base last month, prompting an alert to state police, officials said.
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The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in America this year.
Matthew Perry
The Sunday question: Is Speaker Mike Johnson too extreme?
The House’s new leader, who has gone on the record supporting the criminalization of gay sex and dismantling the social safety net, goes beyond “trying to turn back the clock on decades of social progress,” The Times’s Paul Krugman writes. But Johnson is also principled, and his “rock-ribbed, if bland, conservatism might give him some space for some prudential deal-making,” Patrick T. Brown writes for CNN.
MORNING READS
Lives Lived: Joanna Merlin played Tzeitel, the eldest daughter, in the hit Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” then became a renowned casting director. She died at 92.
TALK | FROM THE TIMES MAGAZINE
I spoke with the legendary and physically daring performance artist Marina Abramovic, subject of the new book, “Marina Abramovic: A Visual Biography.” She is also currently the subject of a solo show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
On social media, you can see people doing things that have the DNA of performance art. But that’s all about trying to monetize lives and become influencers. Do you see connections between what people do on social media and performance art?
This has nothing to do with art. Instagram is not art. Social media is not art. These kids are not artists. I’m sorry, but they’re not.
I was reading some Ernst Junger, and he has a line: “Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!”
Wonderful. It is important not to fear pain, to understand pain and accept it. Then pain is much more bearable.
But we’re talking about physical pain. Have you learned how to deal with emotional pain?
No. This is the most difficult. The thing about emotional pain, just feel it. You have to feel it. That’s all we can do. You ever have love pain?
Of course.
It’s hell on earth, huh?
Yeah.
People say, “Oh no, I can deal with this.” That means they never feel love.
There’s that cliché about how everyone has creativity in them, they just have to learn how to express it. Do you think that’s true?
No. First of all, you can’t become an artist. You are or you’re not. But there are different categories. You could be a good artist. You can be a great artist. But there’s one category I’m interested in: wow artist. In every century is maybe two or three or one.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Give these gifts to runners.
Secure your home with these cameras.
Visit Dakar to hear music and see shows.
THE WEEK AHEAD
What to Watch For
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Biden is expected to issue an executive order to regulate artificial intelligence tomorrow.
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Tuesday is Halloween. Trick or treat!
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The Federal Reserve meets Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether to raise interest rates. Most experts expect them to remain the same.
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Trump’s children are scheduled to testify in his company’s civil fraud trial in New York: Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday, Eric Trump on Thursday and Ivanka Trump on Friday.
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The U.S. government releases its monthly jobs report on Friday.