RECENT LOCAL NEWS
By Josef Federman and Jack Jeffery | Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a cease-fire deal with the Hamas militant group that would bring a temporary halt to a devastating war that has stretched on for over six weeks and release dozens of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Under the deal, Hamas is to free 50 of the roughly 240 hostages it is holding in the Gaza Strip over a four-day period, the Israeli government said Wednesday. It said it would extend the lull by an additional day for every 10 hostages released.
The government said the first hostages to be released would be women and children.
Ahead of Wednesday morning’s Cabinet vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would resume its offensive against Hamas after the cease-fire expires.
It was not immediately clear when the truce would go into effect.
Netanyahu convened his Cabinet for the vote late Tuesday. The meeting stretched well into the early hours Wednesday, underscoring the sensitivity of a proposal that would suspend an Israeli offensive against Hamas before it has reached its goals.
Ahead of the vote, Netanyahu sought to assure the government ministers that the break was only tactical, vowing to resume the offensive after the truce expires. Top security officials also attended the meeting.
“We are at war, and we will continue the war,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.”
Israel has vowed to continue the war until it destroys Hamas’ military capabilities and returns all hostages.
Netanyahu said that during the lull, intelligence efforts will be maintained, allowing the army to prepare for the next stages of battle. He said the battle would continue until “Gaza will not threaten Israel.”
The announcement came as Israeli troops battled Palestinian militants in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza and around hospitals overcrowded with patients and sheltering families.
The deal does not mean an end to the war, which erupted on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed across the border into southern Israel and killed at least 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped some 240 others.
THE TOLL IN GAZA
In weeks of Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, and more than 2,700 others are missing and believed to be buried under rubble, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry says it has been unable to update its count since Nov. 11 because of the health sector’s collapse.
Gaza health officials say the toll has risen sharply since, and hospitals continue to report deaths from daily strikes, often dozens at a time.
The Health Ministry in the West Bank last reported a toll of 13,300 but stopped providing its own count Tuesday without giving a reason. Because of that, and because officials there declined to explain in detail how they tracked deaths after Nov. 11, the AP decided to stop reporting its count.
The Health Ministry toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants but has not provided evidence for its count.
In southern Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed two journalists with Al-Mayadeen TV, according to the Hezbollah-allied Pan-Arab network and Lebanese officials. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. A separate Israeli drone strike in Lebanon killed four Hamas members, a Palestinian official and a Lebanon security official said.
The Israeli military has been trading fire almost daily across the border with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Palestinian militants since the outbreak of the war.
TALKS ON HOSTAGES
Israel, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, had negotiated for weeks over a hostage release that would be paired with a temporary cease-fire and the entry of more aid.
In Washington, President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a deal on releasing some hostages was “very close.”
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari expressed optimism, telling reporters that “we are at the closest point we ever had been in reaching an agreement.”
Izzat Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said Tuesday that an agreement could be reached “in the coming hours.”
FIGHTING IN JABALIYA AND AROUND HOSPITALS
Inside Gaza, the front line of the war shifted to the Jabaliya refugee camp, a densely built district of concrete buildings near Gaza City that houses families displaced in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israel has bombarded the area for weeks, and the military said Hamas fighters have regrouped there and in other eastern districts after being pushed out of much of Gaza City.
The fighting in Jabaliya also affected two nearby hospitals, trapping hundreds of patients and displaced people sheltering inside. A strike Tuesday hit inside one of the facilities, al-Awda, killing four people, including three doctors, the hospital director told Al-Jazeera TV. The director, Ahmed Mahna, blamed the strike on Israel, a claim that AP could not independently confirm. The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders confirmed that two of the doctors killed worked for it.
Residents of Jabaliya said there was heavy fighting as Israeli forces tried to advance under the cover of airstrikes. “They are facing stiff resistance,” said Hamza Abu Mansour, a university student.
The Israeli military said strikes hit three tunnel shafts where fighters were hiding and destroyed rocket launchers. Footage released by the military showed Israeli soldiers patrolling on foot as gunfire echoed around them.
It was not possible to independently confirm details of the fighting.
It’s unclear how many Palestinian civilians remain in northern Gaza, but the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that some 160,000 people are still in its shelters there, though it can no longer provide services. Thousands more still shelter in several hospitals in the north even after many fled south in recent weeks.
Most hospitals are no longer operational. The hospital situation in Gaza is “catastrophic,” Michael Ryan, a senior World Health Organization official, said Monday.
With Israeli troops surrounding the Indonesia Hospital, also near Jabaliya, staff had to bury 50 dead in the facility’s courtyard, a senior Health Ministry official in the hospital, Munir al-Boursh, told Al-Jazeera TV.
Up to 600 wounded people and some 2,000 displaced Palestinians remain stranded at the hospital, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
A similar standoff played out in recent days at Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, where over 250 patients and medical workers are stranded after the evacuation of 31 premature babies.
Israel has provided evidence in recent days of a militant presence at Shifa. But it has yet to substantiate its claims that Hamas had a major command center beneath the facility, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
DIRE CONDITIONS IN NORTH AND SOUTH
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have crowded into the southern section of the Gaza Strip, where Israeli strikes have continued and where the military says it intends to extend its ground invasion. Many are packed into U.N.-run schools and other facilities across the territory’s south or sleeping on the streets outside, even as winter rains have pelted the coastal enclave in recent days.
There are shortages of food, water and fuel for generators across all of Gaza, which has had no central electricity for over a month.
Strikes overnight crushed residential buildings in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 20 people, according to hospital officials. Footage from the scene showed the legs of five young boys sticking out from under a collapsed concrete slab of one home.
Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets throughout Gaza, often killing women and children. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Jeffery reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed.
Local, state and federal officials gathered in Watsonville on Tuesday to commemorate an agreement that paves the way for the decades-overdue reconstruction of the Pajaro River Levee.
The legally binding agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Pajaro Regional Flood Risk Management Agency describes the $599 million project and the cost-sharing and construction responsibilities of both parties.
Zach Friend, chair of the Pajaro Regional Flood Risk Management Agency, said the Tuesday signing marks something that hasn’t been “seen in generations: an opportunity to rebuild the levee for communities that deserve it.”
“We are today at a defining moment in the over 75-year history of this river levee,” he said. “We’ve been looking for some sense of hope to transition from fear of flooding to moving toward construction.”
Known as the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project, the work is expected to provide 100-year flood risk reduction to Watsonville, Pajaro, and surrounding agricultural areas by constructing levees and improvements along the lower Pajaro River and its tributaries.
Winter storms during the first three months of 2023 caused the levee to break in places and overtop its banks in others. The town of Pajaro was flooded, as were surrounding agricultural fields. Thousands of people were evacuated.
That was the latest in decades of floods that have devastated the area since the levee was built in 1949, including during the 1990s, which killed multiple people and caused more than $100 million in damage.
In March, President Joe Biden’s administration announced it had approved $67 million to help fund the long-awaited project. That funding was part of a $2.7 billion bipartisan infrastructure package to strengthen the nation’s ports and waterways.
In October 2022, state, county and federal lawmakers celebrated the completion of funding for the levee rebuild following a series of legislative moves, including Senate Bill 489, authored by Sen. John Laird to authorize the Department of Water Resources to advance funds to the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project.
Per the agreement, 65% of the project’s costs will be funded by the federal government, with the rest funded by the state.
Costs for ongoing levee operations and maintenance is a local responsibility, and in 2022, voters who own property near and along the levee approved a property tax assessment to help with that cost.
In October 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ Assembly Bill 876, which fast-tracks the work by exempting the project from certain local environmental laws and regulations under the California Environmental Quality Act through construction. Officials say without the bill, construction would have started in 2025 at the earliest.
Now, construction is expected to start in the summer of 2024, Rivas said.
“We were able to shave off years of the construction of these levees,” he said. “Time matters. With each passing year, our escalating climate crisis raises the stakes for all of our communities along our state’s waterways.”
Rivas noted that while the signing was an important moment, he told the crowd of government officials and media gathered at the Watsonville Civic Plaza that “these repairs should’ve occurred decades ago.”
“It shouldn’t have taken this type of effort, it shouldn’t have taken this long to get this done,” he said. “We have to do better.”
Work to repair the damaged portions in advance of the winter rains is already underway. Newsom also approved $20 million in state funds to help rebuild Pajaro.
SANTA CLARA — As Brock Purdy humbly sits atop the NFL’s passing leaders, he reflected back to July, when he began “ripping” 50-yard passes with accuracy with his surgically repaired arm. A couple of weeks later, he promptly opened training camp with two deep overthrows, all in search of consistency and arm strength.
“It’s been a work in progress back to camp,” Purdy said Tuesday. “Once the season hit, I was able to do it.”
Purdy’s long ball is a long-sought element the 49ers (7-3) are using to their highlight-reel benefit as they go visit the Seattle Seahawks (6-2) on Thanksgiving night.
When Purdy made his first career road start there last December, his arm was healthy but a broken rib almost kept him out of the lineup, and it still hindered what he could throw in that 21-13, division-clinching win.
“Anything that just made me really coil up and absolutely rip it,” Purdy recalled of his play-call limitations. “The quick game and intermediate stuff, I was able to do. But to launch the ball or roll left and throw on the run, the way I positioned my body and how it tweaked on my rib, that’s something we accounted for.”
A new and improved Purdy is ready for his Seattle encore.
Sunday saw him air out the NFL’s longest completion this season, a 76-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline to Brandon Aiyuk, on a pass soaring 45 yards in the air. A week earlier, Purdy stepped up in a collapsing pocket and launched a 66-yard scoring strike — “a grenade out of a bunker,” coach Kyle Shanahan said — to George Kittle down the right sideline in Jacksonville.
“If the looks are there, he takes it,” Shanahan said. “The more areas of the field you hit, the more areas they have to defend. We try to throw where they’re not, and Brock is doing a good job with that.”
Purdy’s NFL-leading average of 9.7 yards per attempt is ahead of the franchise-best, single-season marks of John Brodie (9.14 YPA, 1961), Joe Montana (9.12 YPA, 1989) and Steve Young (9.02 YPA, 1991). Purdy has averaged 12.3 yards per attempt over the past two wins (40-of-51, 629 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions).
“That’s something we worked on since camp,” wide receiver Deebo Samuel said. “It’s good that we’re taking shots down the field, so it’s not one football across the middle all the time, and it gives defenses other things to think about. When you’re out there against all the guys we have on offense, you have to defend all the field.”
That said, the 49ers’ offensive approach Thursday (and every game) still revolves more so around NFL-leading rusher Christian McCaffrey and a run game that demolished the Seahawks in three victories last season. Still, McCaffrey’s 2023 dominance could be anticipated; Purdy’s passing prowess was no sure thing.
“I don’t think anybody’s making more big plays down the field than Brock Purdy,” general manager John Lynch said on KNBR 680-AM. “He’s throwing the ball down the field, chunk yardage. There’s a lot of weapons there. He’s going to take it to the right place.”
Purdy first had to get his ulnar collateral ligament repaired after last season’s NFC Championship Game injury in that 31-7 debacle in Philadelphia. On March 10, an internal-brace procedure in Texas put Purdy on the fast track to recovery. On May 29, he began a throwing program. On July 25, he was cleared for the start of training camp. A month later, Purdy’s reps were cut in half in a “de-loading” plan to freshen him up for the season.
“I remember stages in the offseason: ‘OK, he’s throwing. Now it looks like his arm got a little stronger.’ I do believe from Game 1 until now, Brock’s arm has continually gotten stronger,” Lynch said. “Maybe the bye week allowed it to rest a little and he came back with a little extra juice.”
Purdy indeed credited the bye week for allowing him to “feel fresh again,” but he won’t go so far as to say his UCL surgery made him stronger, or gave him what George Kittle jokingly referred to last game as “a bionic arm.”
“I do feel my pre- and post-(game) routine of throwing has allowed my arm to get stronger, just in general,” Purdy said. “After surgery, I recovered. But my habits of what I’d done in the NFL compared to college, it’s night and day. It has helped my arm get stronger.”
“My man’s been lifting a little weights,” Samuel said with a laugh. “He’s getting a little stronger and it’s looking pretty good coming off his arm.”
Purdy leads the NFL in passer rating (115.1), completion percentage (70.2), touchdown percentage (6.5) and yards-per-attempt (9.7).
Brock Purdy finished 7 of 10 for 213 yards and 2 touchdowns on passes over 10 air yards against the Buccaneers.
Purdy currently leads the NFL in EPA per dropback on passes over 10 air yards this season (+0.87).#TBvsSF | #FTTB pic.twitter.com/o9egKw5puv
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 20, 2023
Shanahan said Purdy’s arm is “definitely stronger than what we thought it was when we drafted him. But we saw that the first day out at rookie mini-camp.” Purdy’s processing and decision-making skills are why Shanahan trusts him to sling the ball short, deep, over the middle and into anticipatory open windows.
Purdy’s study habits, indeed, are an overlooked aspect as to why the offense is opening up, stronger arm or not.
“He has a good feel for how I’m about to run my route on certain looks and where I might end up,” Aiyuk said. “He has a good feel on all his receivers, and that helps his accuracy even more.”
“In camp, I’d study how (Aiyuk) runs in and out of breaks. It’s different from Deebo, different from George,” Purdy said. “BA’s got length, he’s got range. I know where to throw the ball and where he shouldn’t be. Throwing with anticipation is huge for me and so he understands that. When I let the ball go, he gets where he needs to be and we made it happen.”
BROWN’S ROOKIE APPROACH
Safety Ji’Ayir Brown is confident he’s ready to enter the 49ers’ starting lineup in place of Talanoa Hufanga, and linebacker Fred Warner agrees.
“People from the outside looking in are probably thinking, “You’ve got to grab him, you’ve got to look him in the eye, and say, ‘Don’t mess this up!’ But he obviously came in and did his thing last week,” Warner said of Brown, who had three pass breakups and an interception in relief Sunday. “He’s fully capable of coming in and playing the position at a high level and he’ll fit in right with what our game plan is going to be.”
Brown liked how poised he was defending passes but felt he could improve his vision on plays. “Just stay prepared and execute my job,” Brown said of his strategy this week.
Hufanga went on season-ending Injured Reserve, having torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee Sunday. “We talked after the game and he told me how great of a job I was doing,” Brown said. “I reached back out to him to try to keep his head high.”
Hufanga is their first starter this season to go on IR, where they currently have defensive end Drake Jackson (knee), cornerback Sam Womack (knee), defensive end Robert Beal Jr. (hamstring), wide receiver Danny Gray (shoulder) and tight end Cameron Latu (knee).
GUARD SHACK
Left guard Aaron Banks (toe) was to practice Tuesday night for the first time since a two-game hiatus, but right guard Spencer Burford is not because of a knee injury which might sideline him Thursday. For help, the 49ers signed guard Ben Bartch off the Jaguars practice squad, where he landed after Jacksonville traded for Ezra Cleveland. Bartch (6-6, 315) was a 2020 fourth-round pick out of St. Johns, and he’s made 20 starts in 41 games.
All other 49ers were slated to practice, with limited roles set for defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (thumb), wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud (rib) and cornerback Shemar Jean-Charles (shoulder).
By Liam Reilly and Clare Duffy | CNN
Paris Hilton’s entertainment company 11:11 Media has pulled an advertising campaign from Elon Musk’s X just one month after announcing an exclusive partnership with the platform, becoming the latest brand to halt ad spending on the site formerly known as Twitter over concerns about antisemitism and pro-Nazi content on the site.
“11:11 Media made the decision to immediately pull the campaign from the platform,” Bruce Gersh, 11:11 Media’s president and chief operating officer, told CNN on Tuesday.
The decision by Hilton’s company to pull its advertising is a blow to X and the platform’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, who announced a major promotional partnership with Hilton just last month. The deal, which was touted by Yaccarino as a long-term, “official partnership” between Hilton, 11:11 Media, and X, aimed to create “a launchpad for new initiatives in video and live video, live commerce, Spaces, and so much more.” The deal also established a revenue-sharing agreement between the parties.
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising chief who has been tasked with wooing wary advertisers back to X despite Musk’s tumultuous leadership, declared Hilton the “queen of pop culture” and described the partnership as “a new era” that would reside exclusively on X.
A spokesperson for Hilton declined to comment on whether the suspension of 11:11’s ad campaign also meant the end of Hilton’s partnership with X. A spokesperson for X also did not immediately respond.
Hilton remains active on the platform via her personal account, @ParisHilton, where she has amassed 16.6 million followers.
The decision by 11:11 Media to pull its advertising campaign from X comes after at least half a dozen brands also paused their ad spending on X last week over concerns about pro-Nazi content and Musk’s embrace of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on the platform.
IBM halted its ad spend on X on Thursday after a report from progressive media watchdog Media Matters showed its ad had run alongside pro-Nazi content on X. Other major brands, including Disney and Paramount, followed suit on Friday, but did not specify their reasoning for pulling their ad spending from X.
