Israel Returns to War in Gaza with Wider Aims and Almost No Constraints 

An Israeli tank maneuvers inside Gaza, in front of destroyed buildings, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli tank maneuvers inside Gaza, in front of destroyed buildings, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel Returns to War in Gaza with Wider Aims and Almost No Constraints 

An Israeli tank maneuvers inside Gaza, in front of destroyed buildings, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli tank maneuvers inside Gaza, in front of destroyed buildings, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. (Reuters)

Israel's renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.

Israel resumed the war with a surprise bombardment early Tuesday that killed hundreds of Palestinians, ending the ceasefire and vowing even more devastation if Hamas doesn't release its remaining hostages and leave the territory.

President Donald Trump has expressed full support for the renewed offensive and suggested last month that Gaza's 2 million Palestinians be resettled in other countries. Iran-backed armed groups allied with Hamas are in disarray.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition is stronger than ever, and there are fewer hostages inside Gaza than at any point since Hamas ignited the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which gives Israel's military more freedom to act.

It all suggests that the war's next phase could be more brutal than the last, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed, the vast majority of the population was displaced and much of Gaza was bombed to rubble.

“If all the Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not expelled from Gaza. Israel will act with an intensity that you have not seen,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday.

“Return the hostages and expel Hamas, and other options will open up for you, including going to other places in the world for those who wish. The alternative is complete destruction and devastation.”

Even less US pressure to spare civilians

The Biden administration provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel throughout the first 15 months of the war.

But it also tried to limit civilian casualties. In the early days of the war, Biden persuaded Israel to lift a complete siege on Gaza and repeatedly urged it to allow in more humanitarian aid, with mixed results. He opposed Israel's offensive in southern Gaza last May and suspended a weapons shipment in protest, only to see Israel proceed anyway. Biden also worked with Egypt and Qatar to broker the ceasefire through more than a year of negotiations, with Trump's team pushing it over the finish line.

The Trump administration appears to have set no restrictions. It hasn't criticized Israel's decision to once again seal off Gaza, to unilaterally withdrawal from the ceasefire agreement that Trump took credit for, or to carry out strikes that have killed hundreds of men, women and children.

Israel says it only targets fighters and must dismantle Hamas to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack, when Palestinian gunmen killed roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.

The Biden administration voiced doubt about those aims, saying months ago that Hamas was no longer able to carry out such an attack.

The offensive killed more than 48,000 Palestinians before the January ceasefire, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

Trump has suggested Gaza be depopulated

Trump appeared to lose interest in the ceasefire weeks ago, when he said it should be canceled if Hamas didn't immediately release all the hostages.

A short-lived White House attempt to negotiate directly with Hamas was abandoned after it angered Israel. Trump's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, then blamed Hamas for the demise of the truce because it didn't accept proposals to immediately release hostages.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages — its only bargaining chip — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the ceasefire agreement.

Trump, meanwhile, has suggested that Gaza's entire population be transferred to other countries so that the US can take ownership of the territory and rebuild it for others.

Palestinians say they don't want to leave their homeland, and Arab countries roundly rejected the proposal. Human rights experts said it would likely violate international law.

Israel has embraced the proposal and said it is drawing up plans to implement it.

Netanyahu's government is stronger than ever

Netanyahu came under heavy pressure from families and supporters of the hostages to stick with the truce in order to bring their loved ones home. For months, thousands of protesters have regularly gathered in downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, blocked major highways and scuffled with police.

In restarting the war, though, Netanyahu brushed them aside and strengthened his hard-line coalition.

Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned to protest the ceasefire, returned to the government shortly after Tuesday's strikes. He and Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right ally of Netanyahu, want to continue the war, depopulate Gaza through what they refer to as voluntary migration, and rebuild Jewish settlements there that Israel removed two decades ago.

Netanyahu has also fired or forced out several top officials who had appeared more open to a hostage deal.

Hamas and its allies are in disarray

Hamas still rules Gaza, but most of its top leaders have been killed and its military capabilities have been vastly depleted. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 fighters — without providing evidence.

In its first attack since Israel ended the ceasefire, Hamas fired three rockets on Thursday that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv, without causing casualties.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, which traded fire with Israel throughout much of the war, was forced to accept a truce last fall after Israel's air and ground war killed most of its top leadership and left much of southern Lebanon in ruins. The overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad removed a key ally and further diminished the armed group.

Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, and which directly traded fire with Israel twice last year, appears unlikely to intervene. Israel said it inflicted heavy damage on Iran's air defenses in a wave of retaliatory strikes last fall, and Trump has threatened US military action if Iran doesn't negotiate a new agreement on its nuclear program.

The Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen have resumed long-range missile fire against Israel, which has rarely caused casualties or serious damage. The US, meanwhile, launched a new wave of strikes on the Houthis, which could further limit their capabilities.

International criticism could be more muted

The first phase of the war sparked worldwide protests, some criticism from European leaders and action at the United Nations. Israel was accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanayahu.

This time could be different.

The Trump administration has detained foreign-born pro-Palestinian student activists and others, and threatened to pull billions of dollars in federal funding from universities accused of tolerating antisemitism, making a repeat of last year's US campus protests unlikely.

Europe is already locked in high-stakes disputes with Trump over aid to Ukraine and American tariffs, and appears unlikely to push back on the Middle East.

The US and Israel have adamantly rejected the actions by both international courts, accusing them of bias. Trump signed an executive order in early February imposing sanctions on the ICC, of which neither the United States nor Israel are members.



Numbers That Matter from the First 100 Days of Trump’s Second Term

US President Donald Trump looks on, on the day he welcomes the Super Bowl LIX winner, NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 28, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump looks on, on the day he welcomes the Super Bowl LIX winner, NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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Numbers That Matter from the First 100 Days of Trump’s Second Term

US President Donald Trump looks on, on the day he welcomes the Super Bowl LIX winner, NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 28, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump looks on, on the day he welcomes the Super Bowl LIX winner, NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 28, 2025. (Reuters)

President Donald Trump's first 100 days back in the White House have been a demolition job — and that's a point of pride for his administration.

For the Republican administration, the raw numbers on executive actions, deportations, reductions in the federal workforce, increased tariff rates and other issues point toward a renewed America. To Trump's critics, though, he's wielding his authority in ways that challenge the Constitution's separation of powers and pose the risk of triggering a recession.

From executive orders to deportations, some defining numbers from Trump’s first 100 days:

Roughly 140 executive orders In just 100 days, Trump has nearly matched the number of executive orders that his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, signed during the previous four years, 162. Trump, at roughly 140, is essentially moving at a pace not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when the Great Depression necessitated urgent action.

But the number alone fails to capture the unprecedented scope of Trump's actions. Without seeking congressional approval, Trump has used his orders and directives to impose hundreds of billions of dollars annually in new import taxes and reshape the federal bureaucracy by enabling mass layoffs.

John Woolley, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-director of the American Presidency Project, sees "very aggressive assertions of presidential authority in all kinds of ways" that are far more audacious than anything done by former presidents. That includes Biden's student debt forgiveness program and Barack Obama's decision to allow residency for immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children.

"None of those had the kind of arbitrary, forceful quality of Trump’s actions," Woolley said.

145% tariff rate on China Trump's tariff agenda has unnerved the global economy. He's gone after the two biggest US trade partners, Mexico and Canada, with tariffs of as much as 25% for fentanyl trafficking. He's put import taxes on autos, steel and aluminum. On his April 2 "Liberation Day," he slapped tariffs on dozens of countries that were so high that the financial markets panicked, causing him to pull back and set a 10% baseline tax on imports instead to allow 90 days of negotiations on trade deals.

But that pales in comparison to the 145% tariff he placed on China, which prompted China to fight back with a 125% tax on US goods. There are exemptions to the US tariffs for electronics. But inflationary pressures and recession fears are both rising as a trade war between the world's two largest economies could spiral out of control in dangerous ways.

The US president has said that China has been talking with his administration, but he's kept his description of the conversations vague. The Chinese government says no trade negotiations of any kind are underway. Trump is banking on the tariffs raising enough revenue for him to cut taxes, even as he simultaneously talks up the prospect of an agreement.

So far, despite the economic risks, the Trump team shows little desire to budge, even as the president claims a deal with China will eventually happen.

"I believe that it’s up to China to de-escalate because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday.

More than 10,000 square miles of Crimea Trump said during his presidential campaign that he could quickly defuse the Russian-started war in Ukraine. But European allies and others say the US president's statements about how to end the war reflect a troubling affinity for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Trump's peace proposal says that Ukraine must recognize Russian authority over the more than 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) of the Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy rejected the idea out of hand: "There is nothing to talk about — it is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people."

Russia annexed the area in 2014 when Obama was president, and Trump says he's simply being realistic about its future.

The four meetings that Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, has had with Putin have yet to produce a trustworthy framework for the deal that Trump wants to deliver.

After recent Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns, Trump posted on social media that perhaps Putin "doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along."

Over 2,000 more Palestinians in Gaza dead Trump was eager to take credit for an "epic ceasefire" agreement in the Israel-Hamas war in order to restart the release of hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But the ceasefire ended in March, and more than 2,000 Palestinians have died since the temporary truce collapsed. Palestinian officials have put the total number of deaths above 52,200. Food, fuel and medicine have not entered the Gaza Strip for almost 60 days.

Trump said in February that he would remove the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and relocate them elsewhere, suggesting that the United States could take over the area, level the destroyed buildings and construct a luxurious "Riviera of the Middle East."

Roughly 280,000 federal job losses The Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire and adviser Elon Musk, is dramatically shrinking the government workforce. Across all agencies, there have been about 60,000 firings, including at the IRS, which might make it harder to collect taxes and reduce the budget deficit. Another 75,000 federal workers accepted administration buyout offers. And the Trump administration has floated at least another 145,000 job cuts.

Those estimated job losses don't include the possible layoffs and hiring freezes at nonprofits, government contractors and universities that had their federal funding frozen by the Trump administration.

The federal government had about 3 million federal employees, including at the US Postal Service, when Trump became president, according to the Labor Department.

139,000 deportations The Trump administration says it has deported 139,000 people who were in the United States without proper legal authority. Trump’s first months also have produced a sharp drop in crossings at the Southwest border, with Border Patrol tracking 7,181 encounters in March, down from 137,473 the same month last year.

Deportations have occasionally lagged behind Biden’s numbers, but Trump officials reject the comparison as not "apples to apples" because fewer people are crossing the border now.

The administration maintains that it's getting rid of violent and dangerous criminals. But many migrants who assert their innocence have been deported without due process.

In April, the Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return to the US of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador citizen who was deported to his home country. Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland and had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs. So far, Abrego Garcia remains held in a Salvadoran prison.

Trump said last week that he won the presidential election on the promise of deportations and that the courts are interfering with his efforts.

"We’re getting them out, and a judge can say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’" Trump said. "The trial's going to take two years, and now we’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do."