News
Hamas And The Ongoing Israel-Gaza Conflict: What You Need To Know
(CTN NEWS) – On October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a significant and unprecedented attack on Israel, resulting in the deaths of over 1,400 people and the taking of more than 220 hostages.
Following this attack, Israel launched a series of retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza, leading to a substantial number of casualties.
The situation is escalating, with the possibility of a ground offensive looming.
What’s Happening In The Gaza Strip?
The United Nations has issued a dire warning about the continuing need for humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
While approximately 34 trucks containing essential supplies such as food, water, and medical resources were permitted to pass through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt over the weekend, this falls significantly short of Gaza’s usual daily requirement of 400 to 500 trucks.
UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, expressed serious concerns about the limited access to clean water, citing high risks of dehydration and waterborne diseases.
The ongoing conflict has displaced an estimated 1.4 million people in Gaza, with many relocating from the northern areas to the southern parts of the territory as advised by the Israeli military for their safety.
The population of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, which typically numbers around 400,000 people, has now surged to over a million, leading to crowded living conditions with families sharing homes or residing in tents.
Despite the influx of displaced residents, Israel continues its airstrikes on what it claims are Hamas military targets in the southern parts of Gaza.
This situation has prompted some of those who initially fled the northern regions of Gaza to return due to the dire conditions in the south, according to the United Nations.
Additionally, the World Health Organization has issued a warning, stating that evacuating patients from hospitals in northern Gaza has become exceptionally challenging.

Will Israel Invade Gaza?
Israel’s stated objective is the destruction of Hamas. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated that the next phase of the operation in Gaza, potentially a ground offensive, could last for a few months, with the ultimate goal of eradicating Hamas.
To achieve this objective, Israel has mobilized significant military forces, including tens of thousands of soldiers along the Gaza perimeter fence, along with tanks and artillery.
The country has also called up approximately 300,000 reservists to supplement its standing force of 160,000.
Hamas, on the other hand, is estimated to have around 25,000 members in its military wing, known as the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Israel’s military strategy involves a barrage of strikes on hundreds of targets within Gaza.
These targets include Hamas’s extensive network of underground tunnels, which house bunkers for leaders and serve as operational headquarters.
Hamas has claimed that these tunnels extend over 310 miles, with many entrances concealed within civilian structures like houses, mosques, and schools.
Israeli forces will likely avoid direct tunnel combat unless necessary, opting to use explosives to collapse the tunnels.
The challenge for Israeli troops lies in the urban combat within densely populated areas.
It is expected that Hamas will employ booby traps and improvised explosive devices at key entry points and along narrow streets.
Recently, the Israeli military reported the death of one Israeli soldier and several injuries during a raid into Gaza aimed at locating hostages and clearing the path for a ground assault.
International leaders, including those from the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Italy, have expressed their support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism.
They have also emphasized adherence to international humanitarian law, particularly the protection of civilians in the conflict.

What Is Hamas & What Does It Want?
Hamas is a Palestinian militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.
The group is openly committed to Israel’s destruction and aims to establish an Islamic state in its place.
Hamas has engaged in multiple conflicts with Israel since it came to power.
It has launched thousands of rockets into Israel or permitted other militant groups to do so, in addition to carrying out various lethal attacks.
In response, Israel has conducted numerous airstrikes targeting Hamas.
In 2008 and 2014, Israel also deployed ground forces in Gaza.
Since 2007, Israel, along with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, citing security concerns as the reason.
Hamas, or its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union, the UK, and several other nations.
Iran provides support to Hamas, including funding, weapons, and training.

What Was The Hamas Attack On Israel?
On October 7, a significant incident occurred when hundreds of Hamas militants breached the heavily fortified perimeter fence, infiltrating southern Israel.
This attack, which involved landing by sea and using paragliders, marked one of the most serious cross-border incidents Israel had faced in decades.
During this operation, the militants killed approximately 1,400 people, the majority of whom were civilians, in a series of attacks on military installations, kibbutzim, a music festival, and took hostages back into Gaza.
It was particularly surprising that Israel’s security services did not anticipate the attack, given their substantial resources, as noted by the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner.
The incident occurred during a period of heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, and this year had seen record levels of Palestinian casualties in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which might have motivated Hamas to launch such an operation.
Hamas may have aimed to achieve a significant propaganda victory to bolster its popularity among ordinary Palestinians.
Additionally, the capture of Israeli hostages was likely intended to exert pressure on Israel to release a portion of the estimated 4,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
According to the Israeli military, there are 222 people currently held in Gaza, including 20 children and at least 10 individuals aged over 60, along with soldiers taken as hostages.
MORE RELATED NEWS:
US rejects Israel-Gaza ceasefire as Hamas released 2 female hostages
LEGEND LOST: Veteran Indian Spinner Bishan Singh Bedi Died at the age of 77
Israeli and Hamas Troops Clash on the Ground as the Death Toll in Gaza Rises to 5,087
News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
SEE ALSO:
Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.
-
News4 years agoLet’s Know About Ultra High Net Worth Individual
-
Entertainment2 years ago
Mabelle Prior: The Voice of Hope, Resilience, and Diversity Inspiring Generations
-
News11 years ago
Enviromental Groups Tell Mekong Leaders Lao Dam Evaluation Process Flawed
-
Health4 years agoHow Much Ivermectin Should You Take?
-
Tech3 years agoTop Forex Brokers of 2023: Reviews and Analysis for Successful Trading
-
Lifestyles3 years agoAries Soulmate Signs
-
Entertainment3 years agoWhat Should I Do If Disney Plus Keeps Logging Me Out of TV?
-
Health3 years agoCan I Buy Ivermectin Without A Prescription in the USA?


