Israel begins pumping sea water into Hamas tunnels as Biden set to meet with hostage families

The Israel Defense Forces reported another soldier died overnight, bringing the total up to 116 killed since ground operations began in Gaza, according to Fox News' Trey Yingst in Israel.

When asked by Yingst on Thursday, Israeli officials did not give a specific timeline for securing northern Gaza, but added that operations in Khan Younis are taking place "in pockets, not with the aim of holding large pieces of land."

Watch Yingst's full report from southern Israel Thursday in the video above.

Israel's embassy in Washington, D.C., is raising awareness for the more than 130 hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza by lighting menorahs in their honor during Hanukkah.

"Over 130 hostages remain captive in Gaza," the embassy wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "This Hanukkah, we are going to #BeTheLight for those who can’t light a menorah this year."

In the post, pictures of the hostages could be seen on a wall behind multiple menorahs with lit candles.

Harvard's embattled president Claudine Gay attended a menorah lighting ceremony at the university on Wednesday amid resounding calls to resign over antisemitism demonstrations on campus and a lackluster testimony to Congress on the topic.

Approximately 100 students attended the daily lighting ceremony, which was organized by the Harvard Chabad organization. Gay, alongside Professor Jeff Bussgang, was spotted lighting the first candle.

In an Instagram post, the Harvard Chabad announced Gay's presence at the lighting, which led to her being blasted in the comment section.

"When someone asks for a definition of the word, ‘performative,’ we can show them this!" one person wrote.

"What a joke," another wrote. "Absolutely disgraceful."

"Resign," others commented.

Gay's appearance came the day after Harvard’s highest governing body announced that they would not be terminating her.

Click here to read more on this story from Fox News Digital's Sarah Rumpf-Whitten.

The Israel Defense Forces said its ground operations against Hamas terrorists remain active in three areas within Gaza.

In Shuja'iyya, the IDF reported that troops targeted Hamas terrorists of the Shuja'iyya Battalion and dismantled their central operating site inside a school compound.

In Jabalia, the IDF directed the Israeli Air Force to strike a sniper firing toward troops inside the building. During the operation, weapons were seized and "a number of terrorists" were neutralized, the IDF said.

Lastly, in Khan Younis, several locations with Hamas weaponry were located and troops destroyed two tunnel shafts, a rocket launch pit and a weapons storage facility.

The families of American citizens still believed to be held hostage by Hamas inside Gaza met with President Biden at the White House, urging him to do everything in his power to bring all of the remaining hostages home. 

Four Americans were released from Hamas captivity during a prisoner exchange last month and eight more are still reported captive after the Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel. 

Family members Ruby Chen, Orna and Ronen Neutra, Jonathan and Roy Dekel-Chen, Adi and Yael Alexander, and Liz Naftali joined Bret Baier on "Special Report" to share stories of their loved ones and place a spotlight on the effort to secure their release.

Read the full article about Gaza hostages by Ashley Carnahan

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a press briefing on Wednesday that it is taking extensive steps to avoid Gazan casualties amid its war against Hamas.

During the conference, Major Keren Hajioff said that the Israeli military is "committed to international law and a moral code of conduct."

"First, we're encouraging Gazan civilians to temporarily move out of the line of fire," Hajioff explained. "We published a website with maps and instructions to guide Gazans in specific neighborhoods to safer areas."

The IDF official said that the Israeli military is taking precautions for Gazans without Internet service as well.

"We're also communicating by dropping fliers with instructions in Arabic," Hajioff continued. "We also have IDF officers communicating in Arabic, in the media, online, on the radio and on the ground. This is in addition to tens of thousands of individual phone calls that we're making to people in Gaza."

"I want to make it very clear, our warnings to civilians in Gaza to move away from the danger Hamas puts them in ultimately means that the IDF is announcing in advance its areas of operation," she added. "This is almost unheard of in military warfare."

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning antisemitism on Wednesday, as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

The resolution specifically censured antisemitism on college campuses and the controversial testimonies by Ivy League presidents last week.

The final vote was 303-126 with three members voting present. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the only Republican member to vote against the resolution.

125 Democrats voted no, while 84 voted in favor. The three Democrats to vote present were Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Rep. Julie Brownley, D-Calif.

Two members - one Republican and one Democrat - missed the vote.

Fox News Digital's Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

Progressives must condemn Hamas as antisemitic incidents occur across the East San Francisco Bay Area, a neighborhood safety activist and former union organizer told Fox News. 

"The performative altruism that we've experienced in Oakland with our activist class has just been super cringe," said Seneca Scott, who founded the neighborhood safety nonprofit Neighbors Together Oakland. "These people are really useful idiots. And they're just parroting what they see in their algorithm."

"Synagogues being vandalized, Jewish students on universities not feeling safe and people walking in coffee shops in Oakland, California, having to see hate graffiti sprayed on the wall," Scott continued. "The real progressives need to take the lead and say 'We condemn Hamas. We don't agree with anyone who uses rape and torture and murder as a means of gaining power.'" 

Read the full article about Seneca Scott by Jon Michael Raasch

"1619 Project" creator Nikole Hannah-Jones argued Tuesday that embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay is taking heat because of her race, and critics are accusing of her of being soft on anti-Jewish hate as a phony excuse for firing her.

Hannah-Jones told CNN that the furor over Gay is to do with her being African American.

The journalist’s comments came days after Gay was grilled in a congressional hearing and later apologized after giving equivocating, vague responses about whether calls to exterminate Jews violated Harvard conduct rules. Gay has also been accused of multiple instances of plagiarism in past academic writings.

Read the full article about Nikole Hannah-Jones by Gabriel Hays

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum reported that an Israeli hostage was killed in Gaza, bringing the total number of deceased hostages to 20 out of 135 who have not been released.

The name of the deceased hostage is Tal Chaimi, 41. His family was informed earlier on Wednesday.

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum said that Chaimi was "was connected in every fiber of his soul to the kibbutz, and was one of the pillars of the community."

"His family and friends recount that he was always the first to help, lend a hand, and bring calmness and security to all around him," the press release read. "Just three months ago, Tal lost his mother Esti after a difficult illness."

"Tal leaves behind his wife Ella, three children - 9 year old twins and a 6 year old son, his father Zohar and his sister Or," the announcement added.

Fox News Digital's Dana Karni contributed to this report.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that Hamas terrorists have fired over a hundred rockets from the humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip.

The IDF said on X that 116 rockets were launched in total, including 38 that landed in Gaza.

"Hamas has fired 116 rockets from the humanitarian zone toward Israel since its opening on October 18," the IDF post read. "38 of those rockets fell inside Gaza, endangering their own civilians."

"Hamas continues to carry out terrorist activities from the humanitarian zone, designated to prevent harm to civilians, further endangering Gazan lives," the Israeli military added.

Ivy League administrators of two colleges rejected their schools’ foundational values of faith, morality and virtue last week when they failed to condemn threats of genocide on campus, several education and religious leaders told Fox News Digital this week.

"They’ve drifted radically from their founding principles," said former U.S. Department of Education Secretary William Bennett about some of America's most prestigious universities.

"They’ve forgotten their roots and their moorings," he said.

Read the full article on Ivy League schools by Kerry Byrne

Outrage among university donors, corporate leaders and the public has been building since faculty and students across U.S. college campuses openly and even gleefully supported the Hamas October 7 atrocities against Israeli civilians.

The outcry reached a deafening roar after Tuesday, Dec. 5, testimony from the presidents of three of America’s top universities offered equivocation and double standards in response to congressional questioning about antisemitism on campus. Before the weekend was over, one of them, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, was forced to resign. 

Yet, many of those expressing indignation, including self-proclaimed liberals and progressives, are merely seeing years of racially divisive rules and rhetoric now fully bearing fruit.  

Read the full opinion piece by Ying Ma

ZIKIM BASE, Israel-Gaza border: It was one of the deadliest clashes of Israel’s ground war in Gaza against Hamas. Nine soldiers killed, some top officers, along with several injured. It happened when Hamas terrorists ambushed troops Tuesday on a mission in the Shejaiya section of Gaza City. On the same day, another soldier was killed farther north.

Fox News spent time that day, just a few miles away, at the Zikim base on the northern Gaza border, a dusty place with sand dunes around and the Mediterranean Sea nearby.  

We watched for several hours as troops steadily streamed toward and away from the battle. They rode in pumped-up, open-top Humvees that sometimes made them look more like extras in a "Mad Max" movie.  

Read the full piece on the Israel-Hamas war by Greg Palkot

Pro-Palestinian protesters marching through downtown Syracuse last week gathered outside the Landmark Theatre to protest comedian Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up show, accusing the star of being "complicit in genocide" over his support for Israel.

According to The Daily Orange, an independent student newspaper at Syracuse University, protesters called for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and an end to all U.S. aid to Israel.

They also condemned House lawmakers for passing a resolution last week which declared anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

Read the full article on Jerry Seinfeld by Taylor Penley

New York City Mayor Eric Adams invited family members of hostages in Gaza to his home on Wednesday to celebrate Hanukkah.

According to a press release from the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, the guests were related to hostages still in Gaza, including Omer Shemtov, Tamir Nimrodi, Itay Chen, Shlomi Ziv, Hanan Yablonka, Alex Lobanov and Ron Binyamin.

"We are at a defining moment, a moment when we understand the importance of light and what it symbolizes, especially after the terrible events of October 7," Adams said in a statement. "We want to be clear in our call: Hamas must be destroyed."

"I stand with the families of the hostages who came to New York to express the demand to bring their loved ones home now," he continued. "It is a failure that those responsible for these heinous crimes are not brought to justice when there are hostages in Gaza while the networks are filled with hate."

Fox News Digital's Dana Karni contributed to this report.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bipartisan resolution Wednesday calling for the "immediate resignation" of Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth after the boards of each respective institution decided to support the leaders despite their testimony about antisemitism on their campuses.

The resolution was announced on Tuesday hours after the fellows of the Harvard Corporation reaffirmed their support for Gay as the "right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing" early Tuesday morning. 

House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as well as Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., afterward introduced a resolution condemning the testimony of Harvard, MIT and UPenn's presidents and calling for "the immediate resignation of the remaining presidents at Harvard and MIT." 

Just two days after the hearing last week, MIT’s Executive Corporation had already pledged "full and unreserved support" for Kornbluth, issuing a statement that championed "her outstanding academic leadership, her judgment, her integrity, her moral compass, and her ability to unite our community around MIT’s core values."

Read the full article by Fox News' Danielle Wallace

Family members of the eight American hostages who remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza spoke to the press after meeting with President Biden on Wednesday.

The family members spoke with Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken at the White House. They told reporters that they were reassured that Biden's administration was doing everything within its power to secure the release of their family members.

While the families decided to keep the specifics of their conversation private, they encouraged the media and Americans to speak about their family members as people and not just hostages.

"They are not just numbers," the families said.

A recently released Hamas hostage's revelation of sexual violence against her fellow captives appears to refute anti-Israel progressives who tend to downplay or dismiss terrorists' atrocities.

Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, was held hostage by Hamas with three of her children for 51 days following the Palestinian terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack on Israelis.

Her husband and eldest daughter were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the attack.

Goldstein-Almog and her children were released by the terror group, and the wife and mother gave an interview with the Israeli press on Dec. 11 about her time as a hostage.

During her interview, Goldstein-Almog revealed she heard firsthand accounts of sexual violence from other female hostages by their Hamas captors.

Read the full article by Fox News' Houstone KeeneFox News' Houstone Keene