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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Sunday, February 9, 2025

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Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was murdered by Hamas terrorists in captivity in Gaza, speak during a rally calling for the release of all hostages, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, November 23, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Parents of slain hostage Goldberg-Polin urge Trump to get ‘all 76 hostages out this week’

‘Let’s think bigger and faster,’ not in a phased framework, pleads Jon Polin; US envoy for hostages reacts, saying president has assembled ‘the A team’ to secure everyone’s release

Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu, right, with UTJ MK Moshe Gafni in the Knesset on December 28, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Live updates (closed)

Feb. 9: Gafni: A state commission of inquiry would mean Netanyahu’s prime ministership is over

By Shira Silkoff and ToI Staff

Netanyahu says Trump’s Gaza plan ‘much better for Israel’ than previous ideas * Smotrich: Hostage families’ pain must not ‘overcome reason,’ Israelis ‘brainwashed’ into wanting deal

9:53 pm

Trump says he is committed to US buying, owning Gaza, but other countries could assist in rebuilding
9:17 pm

Gafni: A state commission of inquiry would mean Netanyahu's prime ministership is over
9:14 pm

Sa'ar said to advocate for establishing state commission into Oct. 7; PM opposed, says war isn't over

Demonstrators protest calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip, outside of Sderot, February 8, 2025. (Dor Pazuelo/Flash90)

Ex-hostage Karina Ariev: Rallies 'gave me the hope to go on'

Hostages’ families call for all-in-one release after 3 captives return emaciated

By Noam Lehmann

Speakers at weekly protests pan premier for staying abroad as captives are freed, urge Trump and his envoy to save captives from the ‘Auschwitz conditions’ that Hamas holds them in

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Released hostage Or Levy reunites with his three-year-old son Almog after 491 days in captivity in Gaza, at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, February 8, 2025. (Courtesy)

Almog, 3, to his dad, freed hostage Or Levy: ‘It took you a long time to come back’

By ToI Staff and Emanuel Fabian

Images capture mix of joy and tragedy as Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami also are reunited with their families after being abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023

Displaced Palestinians cross the Netzarim corridor as they make their way to the northern parts of the Gaza Strip on February 9, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)

Palestinians return to eastern part of Netzarim as IDF leaves the entire central Gaza corridor

By Emanuel Fabian

Sources in the Strip confirm troops fully pull out of key buffer zone, though military does not immediately comment

A Hamas weapon depot near Damascus, Syria, targeted by the IDF on February 8, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF says it carried out airstrike on Hamas arms depot near Damascus

By Emanuel Fabian

The 17 hostages slated to be returned in phase one of the Gaza ceasefire deal as of February 8, 2025 after the first five rounds saw 16 captives freed. Row 1 (L-R): Ariel Bibas, Kfir Bibas, Shiri Bibas, Sasha Troufanov; Row 2: Shlomo Mantzur, Ohad Yahalomi, Oded Lifshitz, Tsahi Idan; Row 3: Hisham al-Sayed, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Iair Horn, Omer Wenkert; Row 4: Itzik Elgarat, Eliya Cohen, Avera Mengistu, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov. (All photos courtesy)

These are the 17 hostages yet to be returned in phase one of Gaza ceasefire

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Hamas has said 8 abductees to be freed in first phase are dead, but has not specified who; still unreleased are Shiri Bibas, her two children, five older men, nine men under 50

What the Left can learn from Trump’s dream of Gaza

It may never become the Riviera of the Eastern Mediterranean, but we need to dream alternative futures if we are to break free of the cycle of violence

Rebeca Permuth de Sabbagh

‘Would you rather…?’: Hostages edition

Even with all the impossible choiceless choices I puzzled over in childhood, I never thought such sordid dilemmas could be real

Israeli captives, from left to the right, Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, who have been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, onstage before being handed over to the Red Cross in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Reports: Newly freed hostages were abused, now suffer malnutrition, heart disorders

By Elana Kirsh, Diana Bletter and ToI Staff

Outlets cite families of Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami as saying they were held in Gaza tunnels; health officials: Conditions worse than previous returned captives

Hamas hands over hostage Or Levy to the Red Cross on February 8, 2025. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

ToI podcastDaily Briefing Feb. 9: Day 492 – 2 released hostages didn’t know loved ones were killed

By Jessica Steinberg and Emanuel Fabian

An ambulance drives next to an Israeli army checkpoint set up during a raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the West Bank on February 9, 2025. (Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

PA says two women, one pregnant, killed by Israeli fire in West Bank; IDF probing

By Charlie Summers, Emanuel Fabian and AFP

PA health ministry identifies the two women as Rahaf al-Ashqar, 21, and Sundus Shalabi, 23, who was 8 months pregnant; IDF expands offensive into Nur Shams camp near Tulkarem

Demonstrators raise placards and chant slogans during a protest calling for the release of hostages held captive in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 massacre, in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on February 8, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)

As negotiators arrive in Doha, sources say it’s just for ‘show,’ PM aims to brick deal

Hebrew media reports delegation ‘has no real mandate’ and Netanyahu is ‘signaling clearly’ that he has no intention of reaching the second stage of the ceasefire

A pro-hostage deal protester opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hoists a sign reading: 'They're suffering a Holocaust and you're vacationing in America,' in Tel Aviv, February 8, 2025. (Lior Segev/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

PM dispatches delegation to Doha but further delays talks on hostage deal’s 2nd phase

Top row, left to right: Released hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami seen on a stage set up by Hamas in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, before the terror group handed them over to the Red Cross, February 8, 2025. Bottom row, the three Israelis as pictured before they were abducted. (Eyad Baba / AFP; courtesy)

Ministers call to destroy Hamas after hostages return looking like ‘Holocaust survivors’

By Jeremy Sharon

Netanyahu panned for saying Palestinians could have state in Saudi territory

By ToI Staff and Reuters

‘They have a lot of land,’ PM tells right-wing Channel 14; Riyadh decries Israel’s ‘extremist, occupying mentality’; Arab League says remarks are a ‘complete detachment from reality’

People walk past an electronic billboard that shows US President Donald Trump, left, shaking hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the pro-normalization message 'We are ready,' in Tel Aviv, February 3, 2025. (AP Photo/ Ariel Schalit)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, gives an interview to Fox News' Mark Levin aired February 8, 2025. (Screenshot/Fox News)

Netanyahu: Gazans relocated from Strip would be allowed back if they disavow terror

By Lazar Berman and ToI Staff

US President Donald Trump speaks as he hosts a dinner for Republican senators at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 7, 2025. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP)

Trump says he prefers nuclear deal with Iran than ‘bombing the hell out of it’

US president says Tehran will ‘really be happy’ with potential pact, as Revolutionary Guard reportedly tells Khamenei atomic weapons needed to counter ‘existential threats’ from West

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi gives a press conference in Tehran on December 30, 2024. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran says it’s ready to negotiate with US, but not under ‘maximum pressure’ policy

By AFP

People simulate a hanging during a demonstration in Paris by an Iranian opposition group on the occasion of the 46th anniversary of the uprising against the Shah, on February 8, 2025. (Thibaud MORITZ / AFP)

Iranian opposition group rallies some 6,000 in Paris, calling for fall of regime

By AFP

Pete and Gillian Brisley visit the home of their daughter Lianne Sharabi, who was killed along with her two daughters Noiya and Yahel in Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack, and of their son-in-law, Eli Sharabi, who was taken captive, in Kibbutz Be'eri, southern Israel, on February 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Teddy bear helps hostage’s family come to terms with grief amid joy over his release

By DANICA KIRKA

As Eli Sharabi was freed from Gaza, his parents-in-law Gillian and Pete Brisley watched, clutching a toy that once belonged to his wife, their daughter Lianne, murdered on Oct. 7

US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel, right, reunites with his wife Aviva shortly after being released from captivity in Gaza, February 1, 2025. (IDF)

Family of freed hostage Keith Siegel says there were ‘moments when he lost all hope’

A Thai hostage who was freed from Hamas, Pongsak Thenna, center, hugs a relative upon arrival at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, in Samut Prakarn Province, Thailand, February 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

‘Tears of joy’: 5 freed Thai hostages land in Bangkok, are greeted by loved ones

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Sarusak Rumnao, Watchara Sriaoun, Sathian Suwannakham, Pongsak Thenna and Bannawat Saethao say they’re ‘very happy that we get to return to our homeland’

Archaeologists unearthed a 2,500-year-old mass burial site associated with trade caravans from Yemen, Phoenicia, and Egypt in the Negev, next to modern-day Tlalim Junction. The discovery was disclosed to the public by the Israel Antiquities Authority on February 5, 2025. (Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority)

'Sacred prostitution?'

Mysterious 2,500-year-old burials hint at human trafficking in ancient Israel

By Rossella Tercatin

A mass grave in the Negev excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority sheds light on funerary, divination, and commercial practices in the first millennium BCE

IDF strikes Hezbollah operatives in eastern Lebanon; 6 reported killed, 2 wounded

By Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff

Military says targets were seen at weapons manufacturing site in Beqaa Valley, ‘blatantly’ violating the ceasefire agreement

Illustrative: Smoke rises from the site of Israeli airstrikes that targeted the outskirts of the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa valley on October 31, 2024. (Sam Skaineh/AFP)

This handout picture released by the Lebanese presidency shows President Joseph Aoun (C) meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (L) and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on February 8, 2025. (Lebanese Presidency/AFP)

Lebanon forms first government since 2022; Hezbollah won’t have ‘blocking third’ veto

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Sasson Gabbay as Nuchem Shtisel with Hadas Yaron as Libbi Shtisel in 'Kugel,' a prequel to TV show 'Shtisel,' coming to streaming platform IZZY at the end of February 2025 (Courtesy)

The Belgian bunch

Nuchem and Libbi return to screen in ‘Shtisel’ prequel ‘Kugel’

By Jessica Steinberg

It’s a reunion with the family angst, drama and Haredi ambience of the Antwerp branch

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