Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept up appearances for nearly 19 months: Freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas, he insisted, stood equally atop the pyramid of Israel’s war goals.

Even as members of his right-wing governing coalition threatened to topple his government if he agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Even as he himself threw up eleventh-hour obstacles to reaching such a deal. And even as evidence mounted that Israel’s military operations had both directly and indirectly led to the killing of Israeli hostages. Amid all those contradictions, Netanyahu insisted both objectives were just as important.

But not anymore. Now, Netanyahu is unabashedly prioritizing war – and the survival of his government – over the fate of 59 hostages still in Gaza and the will of most Israelis.

A week after calling the defeat of Israel’s enemies the “supreme objective” of the war, Netanyahu is turning that rhetoric into action: calling up tens of thousands of reservists to pummel, seize and occupy large swaths of Gaza – what the prime minister calls the “final moves” against Hamas.

Israeli officials say the plan won’t be implemented immediately, giving Hamas at least another week-and-a-half to agree to another limited hostage and ceasefire deal on Israel’s terms – with some insisting that is the government’s preference. The deadline, they say, is the conclusion of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region next week. But such a deal is unlikely to materialize in that timeframe and these are no longer idle threats.

The right-wing ministers who have sabotaged previous ceasefire deals and long called for conquering Gaza are now celebrating, viewing the newly approved plans as the first step toward their vision of occupying and ultimately annexing the enclave. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich now vows that there will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for the hostages.”

For Netanyahu, that means political security – taking Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s repeated threats to leave the government and force new elections off the table, keeping him in the prime minister’s office.

It also means going against the will of a clear majority of Israelis – 56% according to Israel’s Kan 11 and 69% according to Channel 12 – who support a deal to end the war in exchange for the release of all remaining hostages.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is open to such an all-in-one deal, hoping to salvage its position of power in Gaza, but the Israeli government has rejected any end to the war that leaves the group armed and governing the strip.

For the families of Israeli hostages, Netanyahu’s decision has been a gut punch, one they fear won’t just delay the return of their loved ones but actively endanger them.

“It seems the government has placed defeating Hamas above rescuing and returning the hostages, because doing so would require stopping the war,” Anat Angrest, the mother of captive Israeli soldier Matan Angrest, told Haaretz. “Ministers are sending soldiers into harm’s way and putting the hostages at further risk, when all that was needed was a pause to develop a real strategic plan. What’s happening now is a war fueled by revenge and conquest, not by a genuine desire to save lives.”

“It doesn’t reflect the will of the people, or the Jewish heart,” she said.

The expanded Israeli assault in Gaza won’t just bring the risk to the hostages of more Israeli bombs. Hamas has repeatedly said it will execute hostages if Israeli forces close in on their positions, a threat it carried out last August in murdering six of them. Israel’s plan to displace nearly all of Gaza’s population to its southern part while continuing to starve the rest of the strip of humanitarian aid could also endanger the hostages’ access to the already limited food they are given.

For the people of Gaza, Netanyahu’s decision threatens catastrophe beyond the dire humanitarian crisis already gripping the besieged territory. The expanded Israeli assault guarantees another mass forced displacement of Palestinians, more death and destruction and the continued use of starvation as a weapon of war.

Even as Netanyahu’s decision to prioritize destroying Hamas over the fate of the remaining hostages becomes clear, the Israeli military’s ability to achieve its aims vis-à-vis the group remain uncertain.

The factors that have allowed Hamas to survive and stay in power in Gaza after nearly 19 months of war still remain, and Israeli national security analysts remain skeptical that tens of thousands of additional troops will fundamentally change the dynamics of the conflict. Sending them with the goal of occupying large swaths of Gaza could drive up Israeli military casualties, with the risk of bogging the military down for years in a counterinsurgency morass.

Perhaps that is why Netanyahu did not barrel headfirst down the path he has now chosen.

Trump’s return to power allowed Netanyahu to shed the guardrails imposed on him by President Joe Biden during the first 15 months of the war. But even as Trump and his administration made clear they would not seek to constrain Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Netanyahu did not immediately pursue the expanded war his right-wing allies have been clamoring for.

But in a fulcrum moment, he has now chosen – a decision that will shake the Gaza Strip, forever altering the fate of more than 2 million Palestinians and 59 hostages.

Families of October 7 hostages held in Gaza demanded any new information from the Israeli government after US President Donald Trump said three more captives had died.

“As of today, it’s 21. Three have died. So, this is a terrible situation,” Trump said on Tuesday.

The remark was a shock to the families of the hostages.

“We demand once again from the Israeli government – if there is new information that has been hidden from us, pass it on to us immediately,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Wednesday.

“The headquarters once again calls on the Prime Minister to stop the war until the last abductee is returned. This is the most urgent and important national task.”

Israel’s public and official position, reiterated on Tuesday by Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and the Missing Gal Hirsch, is that 24 hostages are alive. “The Hamas terror organization is currently holding 59 hostages,” Hirsch said on social media several hours after Trump’s comments. “24 of them are on the list of living hostages.”

But there have been clear indications that Israel has reason to believe the true number is fewer, even beyond Trump’s comments.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement in which he made the clearest acknowledgement, yet that Israel believes not all 24 are alive.

“We know for certain that there are 21 alive. There’s no argument about this. There’s three where there is doubt about whether they are alive,” he said in the prerecorded video. “We’re not giving up on anyone.”

Earlier this week, Netanyahu approved an expansion of the war in Gaza and a plan to force the Palestinian population into a shrinking tract of land in the southern part of the besieged territory. Israel says its military operations are intended to put pressure on Hamas to make a ceasefire agreement, but prospects for an imminent deal are quickly dwindling, and with them the hope of bringing the remaining hostages out soon.

Even before the latest video statement, Netanyahu has recently been careful to say that “up to 24” hostages are being held alive in Gaza.

Last week, when Netanyahu said there were “up to 24” living, his wife, Sara, interrupted him and said: “Fewer.”

The open mic moment sparked its own outcry from the families of the hostages. “If the wife of the prime minister has new information about the kidnapped who were killed, I demand from her to know if my Matan is still alive, or if he was murdered in captivity because your husband refuses to finish the war,” Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, said on social media.

Israeli officials have said there are “grave concerns” about three of the hostages but would not say whether Israel knows for certain that they are dead.

Trump’s comments strongly suggest otherwise and appear to indicate that Israel has shared sensitive information about the condition of the hostages with the Trump administration.

More than 250 people were taken hostage when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – sparking the ongoing war in Gaza.

Valerie the dachshund has finally been reunited with her owners after surviving 540 days alone on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Owners Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock described the moment they got to hold the tiny pup in their arms in a statement published Wednesday.

Gardner said she “burst into tears” when Valerie ran up to her as they saw each other again for the first time on Tuesday.

“She was wagging her tail, making her little happy sounds, and wiggling around with joy. I held her and cried and cried,” she said in the statement.

“She’s stockier now, strong and healthy… healthier than we are, honestly!” added Gardner.

Fishlock said the pair hadn’t expected to see Valerie again.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” he said in the statement.

Valerie, who will soon celebrate her third birthday, went missing on a camping trip to the island in November 2023.

When strangers tried to help, she fled into the undergrowth, and her owners eventually gave up and returned home to the mainland.

With no sightings it was assumed Valerie had met her match with a snake or perhaps one of the giant Rosenberg’s goannas — reptiles up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) long — that occupy the island.

However, reports of sightings started to emerge, sparking a massive search operation led by volunteers from the Kangala Wildlife Rescue, a non-profit group set up in 2020 following the devastating Australian bushfires.

Valerie was eventually found on April 25, and has been looked after by the charity since.

Director Jared Karran described Valerie as “truly something special.”

“She was just so much smaller than we imagined. If it was a miracle before that she’d survived — seeing her size — it’s just unbelievable that she was able to survive and thrive out there!” he said in the statement.

Home to around 5,000 people, Kangaroo Island is about 45 minutes from the mainland by ferry. Tourists go there to see Australian native wildlife, but officials have long had a problem controlling introduced species including feral cats. The island is thick with bush, and there are many places for a small dog to hide.

Another difficulty is the island’s vibrant ecosystem, according to the charity.

“One of the reasons this is such a difficult rescue and not as easy as just baiting and setting traps, is due to the fact we are constantly competing with hundreds of wildlife like possums, wallabies, kangaroos, goannas and feral cats. All which are all just after a feed also,” the group said in a post on Facebook before the little dog was found.

Now Valerie is preparing to return home to Albury, New South Wales, where she will be reunited with Gardner and Fishlock’s other pets, Lucy the rescue cat, Mason the red heeler and their latest addition, Dorothy, a fellow dachshund.

India launched military strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of war.

The escalation puts India and Pakistan, two neighbors with a long history of conflict, in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

New Delhi said the strikes are in response to the massacre of 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – who died in April when gunmen stormed a scenic mountain spot in the India-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed border region. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denies.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened with India’s strikes?

India launched “Operation Sindoor” in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday night ET) in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials said nine sites were targeted, but claimed no Pakistani civilian, economic or military sites were struck. They said the 25-minute operation targeted “terrorist infrastructure” belonging to two militant groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The name ‘Sindoor’ appears to be a reference to the red vermilion, or powder, many Hindu women wear on their foreheads after marriage. The April tourist massacre – which singled out men as victims – left several Indian women widowed.

A Pakistani military spokesperson said six locations were hit with 24 strikes. Some of those strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab, Pakistan’s military said, and were the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since 1971, when the two countries fought one of their four wars.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistani security sources claimed they had shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone during India’s attack.

They did not say exactly where, or how, the jets were downed – but said three Rafale jets were among those planes. India’s Rafale fighter jets are prized military assets that it bought from France only a few years ago.

An eyewitness and local government official said an unidentified aircraft crashed in the village of Wuyan in Indian-administered Kashmir. Photos published by the AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field next to a red-brick building.

It was not immediately clear from the photos who the aircraft belonged to.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday the country “has every right” to respond, calling India’s actions an “act of war.”

How many casualties are there?

At least 26 civilians were killed and 46 injured by India’s strikes, a Pakistan military spokesperson said, according to the news agency Reuters.

Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military, said those killed include teenagers and children – the youngest of whom was three years old.

Seven civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir were also killed by shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, Reuters reported, citing police there.

What else is happening on the ground?

On Wednesday, the two sides also exchanged shelling and gunfire across the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir.

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have ordered citizens to evacuate from areas deemed dangerous, saying accommodation, food and medicine will be provided.

The strikes have disrupted flights, with Pakistan closing parts of its airspace. Multiple major international airlines are avoiding flying over Pakistan, while several Indian airlines have reported disrupted flights and closed airports in the country’s north.

Some context: There have been regular exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control in the weeks following the Pahalgam massacre.

What prompted all of this? What is Kashmir?

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups there that conduct attacks across the border, something Islamabad has long denied.

The massacre in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam in April sparked widespread anger in India, putting heavy pressure on the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India immediately blamed Islamabad, sparking tit-for-tat retaliatory measures in which both countries downgraded ties, canceled visas for each other’s citizens, and saw India pull out of a key water-sharing treaty.

What could come next?

The three previous wars over Kashmir have each been bloody; the last one in 1999 killed more than a thousand Pakistani troops, by the most conservative estimates.

In the decades since, militant groups have fought Indian security forces, with violence killing tens of thousands. The two countries have clashed multiple times, most recently in 2019 when India conducted airstrikes in Pakistan after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack in the region.

But those recent clashes did not explode into all-out war. Both sides are aware of the risks; since 1999, the two countries have worked to strengthen their militaries, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

How is the world reacting?

The strikes have raised global alarm and pleas for the two nations to prevent further escalation.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres voiced “deep concern” over India’s strikes, warning that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nations.

The United States – which had urged restraint from both countries last week – said it was “closely monitoring developments,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

“We are aware of the reports, however we have no assessment to offer at this time,” the spokesperson said Tuesday. “This remains an evolving situation, and we are closely monitoring developments.”

The United Arab Emirates, China and Japan have also called for both sides to de-escalate.

At least 22 people, including seven children, were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a school compound sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Al Bureij camp in central Gaza, hospital officials said.

Dozens more were injured in the strike, they said.

At the site of the attack, video from the scene showed a large crater where people searched through the rubble of the school for survivors, the remnants of tents and belongings littering the ground.

Safaa Al Khaldi, who was sheltering at the school, said that her son was injured in the strike.

“Our children are starving, our children cannot find a piece of bread,” she said, referring to Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza, now in its third month. “What did we do wrong?”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck “terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command and control center,” on Tuesday, but did not provide any further information about the strike.

At the school compound, one woman screamed at Hamas, an expression of anger at Gaza’s ruling militants once virtually unthinkable. “Hamas should get out of the school, they are hiding between the people,” she cried. “Get them out, what’s the fault of the children who are torn apart?”

Tuesday’s strike on the refugee camp comes less than 24 hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the population of Gaza will be displaced to the south after his security cabinet approved an expanded military operation in the enclave.

“There will be a movement of the population to protect them,” Netanyahu said of the “intensified operation,” which by one far-right minister said would be a plan to “conquer” the besieged territory.

Since the Israeli cabinet approved an expanded military operation in Gaza on Sunday, at least 48 Palestinians have been killed and another 142 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, according to figures provided by the ministry.

On Monday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said 13 of its 29 clinics in Gaza have shut down. The ones that are still functioning have “limited capabilities,” it said. Meanwhile, 21 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning, according to the UN health agency.

Israel’s blockade, which has prevented the entry of food and medicine, is pushing the Gaza’s ravaged healthcare system towards collapse, aid agencies have warned.

Near the site of the latest Israeli strike, a woman hugged her crying daughter, saying that all her daughter’s friends were killed.

“My friend Leen is gone, my friend Yousra is gone, my friend Miral is gone,” the daughter said as tears streamed down her face.

The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) warned Tuesday of a “deepening catastrophe” in Gaza amid the blockade.

“OCHA stresses that under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected, and their essential needs – including food, shelter, water and healthcare – must be met, wherever they are in Gaza and whether they move or stay,” OCHA said.