Politics
Many with Massachusetts ties are feeling the impacts of the war.
The Israeli military has swept into Gaza as of Monday, Nov. 12, severing the enclave in two and consolidating forces in Gaza City. Gunfights are reportedly raging in the streets outside Al-Shifa hospital, where conditions for patients and others sheltering are dire. Israel officials have said that the hospital covers a major Hamas headquarters, and that the group purposefully built its centers of command near civilian hubs such as hospitals. The hospital’s director said these allegations are untrue.
More than a month after Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel, thousands of lives have been lost. The initial attack killed more than 1,400 people, while more than 200 were taken hostage by Hamas and are currently being held in Gaza. Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv Saturday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to do more to secure the hostages. More than 10,000 people have already reportedly been killed in Gaza amid Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign and ground invasion.
Israel is facing mounting pressure from people around the world to initiate a ceasefire. Netanyahu said Saturday that the military operations would continue in “full force,” and that a ceasefire would only be possible if all the hostages are released.
The war has sent reverberations around the globe, affecting many in Massachusetts. Follow here for live updates.

A large crowd of pro-Palestine demonstrators marched from the Boston Public Library to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sunday afternoon. They gathered to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the U.S. government to stop funding Israel’s military. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people joined the march, waving Palestinian flags and signs as they moved from the Back Bay across the Harvard Bridge to Cambridge, The Boston Globe reported.
“I’m seeing people of all different ethnic backgrounds, all different races, all different colors,” Layan Alnajjar of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Connecticut told the Globe. “We are all united together under one common cause, and that is the liberation of Palestine by any means necessary.”
Local universities and student demonstrations have become a flashpoint in the Boston area. MIT, where the march ended, said last week that students who refused an order to vacate a lobby amid a confrontation between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters would be suspended from “non-academic” activities. Multiple people were arrested at Brandeis University Friday. Protests there were spurred by the school’s decision to ban a pro-Palestine student group after it made a series of online posts that president Ronald Liebowitz viewed as being in support of the Oct. 7 attacks.
“Stand up against Israel in the streets, in the schools,” demonstrator Saleem Hallal said at Sunday’s rally, according to the Globe. “At Brandeis, MIT, students are getting arrested and suspended. Make no mistake, they can’t suspend the movement; they can’t suspend a free Palestine.”

Previous live updates can be found here.
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