Israel is assembling troops near Gaza, from which it has cut-off food, water fuel, and electricity. Israel state officials believed that Hamas is holding about 150 hostages in Gaza. Yesterday, Hamas threatened to execute Israeli hostages if Israel bombs civilian homes in Gaza without warning.

There is concern that the war will expand to fronts other than Gaza and southern Israel. Hezbollah fired some missiles into northern Israel from Lebanon. The Israeli military says it bombed three military positions in Lebanon after it found that armed militants had made it across the border into Israel.

Today on Midday, perspectives on the conflict: what’s happened and what’s next as a bloody war continues in the Middle East.

Our guests are Dr. Steven A. Cook, the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and Elisheva Goldberg, a former aide to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and a contributing writer for Jewish Currents magazine. She’s also the media and policy director at the New Israel Fund.

(Photo by Hatem Ali, Associated Press)

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