IT’S WAR: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday formed an emergency government, a ‘war cabinet” aligning with two opposition lawmakers who are former army chiefs, adding military expertise for decisions about how to pursue the war against Hamas, including whether to invade Gaza.

  “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a news conference. “It will be crushed and eliminated.”

  Evidence of the atrocities in Saturday’s attack is still being documented, but it’s horrific. Netanyahu said the Hamas gunmen shot children in the head, burned people alive, raped women, and beheaded soldiers.

  Some of those reports are coming out of the Kfar Aza Kibbutz, just a short distance from the Gaza border. i24News reporter Nicole Zedeck said, “I witnessed some of those scenes with my own eyes as we were walking through this community that may be a quarter of a mile from the Gaza border, the atrocities that were still left behind, children, cribs, baby cribs overturned on their side, splattered with blood,”

  “How are we even to understand this, to digest this?” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today appearing with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

  As Israel continues to hit targets in Gaza, there’s danger that the conflict could grow. Fire has been exchanged along Israel’s northern border with both Syria and Lebanon in particular, hitting Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group allied with Hamas.

  Israel is still pounding Hamas in Gaza while marshalling forces for a possible ground invasion into the area that is now sealed off to the world. Israel shut off the power it supplies to Gaza and authorities inside the zone say their only power plant has run out of fuel. The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza said he’s treating 800 patients with 500 beds and has four days of fuel to run his generators. 

  The US state Department now says the number of Americans killed is 24, up from 14, and 17 are missing. Israel says it has had 1,200 fatalities, at least 169 of them military. Authorities in Gaza say they’ve had 1,127 deaths of both militants and citizens as well as 5,000 wounded.

  People in Gaza say the Israelis are hitting schools, hospitals and mosques. That may be true, and it also might be true that Hamas is using those locations as safe houses for their operations. It might also not be the case. Both people and truth are casualties of war.

CONGRESS OF CHAOS: A simple majority of Republicans yesterday chose Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana as their nominee for the next speaker of the House, but he may have to make some hard deals to get the 217 votes he’ll need out on the floor.

  The vote was 113 to 99 for Scalise over Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, and some members have already said they will not back Scalise in the open vote.  But pushing for quick action, Scalise said, “We need to make sure we’re sending a message to people all throughout the world that the House is open and doing the people’s business.” 

  The House is crippled without a speaker and it’s especially dire because of the question of aiding Israel in its war against Hamas. But the hard core right wingers are still hard core, and they say they’re sticking with Jim Jordan. “I just voted for Jim Jordan for speaker on a private ballot in conference, and I will be voting for Jim Jordan on the House floor,” said Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Max Miller from Ohio said, “I’m Jim Jordan all the way.”

NO SHOW: Talks have broken down between the striking Hollywood actors and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios. “After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” the studio alliance said in statement. 

  This comes after talks had resumed with hope of progress. A big hang-up is the actors’ demand to get well paid for streaming services that are becoming the future of filmed entertainment. SAG-AFTRA, the performers union that represents 160,000 people, did not respond to the producers’ statement.

THE SPIN RACK: Indicted Long Island rep. George Santos, who ran on a fictional resume, says he’s going to fight the criminal charges against him and run for re-election. — The frustrated United Automobile Workers expanded their strike against Ford Motor yesterday to 8,700 workers at a plant in Kentucky that makes F-Series trucks and the Ford Expedition SUV. The UAW is now on strike at 18 locations involving all the big three manufacturers. — A jury in Southern California has awarded $135 million to two men who had claimed they were abused in the 1990s by an employee of the Moreno Valley Unified School District, which had hired the man despite having a history of complaints about molesting kids. — Workers in England have begun to remove the felled Sycamore Gap tree from Hadrian’s Wall, where it dropped in late September after it was cut down in an act of vandalism that shocked England. The tree had stood for 200 years in a little valley right next to the historic wall built by Roman conquerors. The UK’s National Trust says the tree will be stored and preserved. — Somewhere out there is a winning ticket for the $1.76 billion Powerball lottery.

BELOW THE FOLD: Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill told the Palm Beach Post that he was fined $7,000 for not wearing socks on the Dolphins’ first touchdown play in their 70-20 victory over the Denver Broncos. You can break a man’s bones in the NFL, but you have to do it wearing socks.

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