Humanitarian Pauses

Corridors for fleeing: Israel has agreed to four-hour pauses each day where it will cease striking in defined areas so that Gazans can flee south. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus confirmed yesterday at a press briefing that these corridors would be opened from about 9 or 10 a.m. local time to 1 or 2 p.m. each day, allowing more Palestinians to evacuate from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. An estimated 900,000 of the 1.1 million who resided in the north have already left.

Reports surfaced this morning of another hospital strike, this one on Al Shifa hospital—allegedly carried out by Israel, though the IDF has not yet confirmed it. A spokesman for the IDF, Daniel Hagari, claimed last month that Al Shifa is where Hamas “does its command and control in different departments of the hospital.” Gazans were allegedly resting in the courtyard of the hospital where the strike hit. Death tolls are not yet known.

Israeli troops have circled several other hospitals in Gaza, continuing their campaign into Gaza City. They have effectively split the north and south of the territory in two. And yesterday, President Joe Biden declared there was “no possibility” of a ceasefire emerging between Israel and Hamas.

Shutdown redux: “Congress passed a continuing resolution that will allow the government to stay open until mid-November, buying legislators more time to settle on a spending package to fund the government for the upcoming fiscal year,” I wrote on October 2. Well, guess what? Mid-November is almost here, and no such spending package has materialized. The House does have a new speaker, and his efficacy will be tested by the coming scramble against yet another deadline.

“House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull two year-long spending bills from the floor this week amid opposition from both ends of their badly divided GOP conference,” reports CNN. “And [House Speaker Mike] Johnson is still grappling with a strategy to keep the government’s lights on without sparking a right-wing rebellion, with the current funding patch set to expire in eight days.”

“What we’ve been trying to do is get 218 votes with Republicans only, and about 20 guys on the right keep dragging it over and then lose it. It’s not workable,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R–Neb.). Some House Republicans are suggesting a “laddered” continuing resolution, which would set different deadlines for funding different parts of the government. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) calls that a “right-wing joyride which would crash and burn the economy.” But if there’s a “joyride” that will “crash and burn the economy,” it’s the runaway government spending that legislators of both parties have grown accustomed to, to which some members of today’s GOP are finally saying “enough.”

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Scenes from New York:

Saw this while walking in Manhattan yesterday. Only 24 percent of Ma