(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest: Gaza [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-17 CNN The Israel Defense Forces claims to have discovered “the biggest Hamas tunnel” in Gaza, spanning a length of four kilometers (about 2.5 miles). The IDF said the tunnel, secured “a few weeks ago” but revealed to the public Sunday, is wide enough to drive a large vehicle through, reaches up to 50 meters (over 160 feet) underground and is equipped with electricity, ventilation and communication systems. It does not cross into Israel but ends 400 meters before the now-closed Erez crossing on the northern Israel-Gaza border, according to the IDF. Military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a news conference Sunday evening that the IDF had mapped three similar tunnel locations, but has only revealed one so far. "In the future, we will expose the additional ones that we intend to dismantle," he added. CNN could not independently verify the IDF’s claims. This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments. BBC France has called for an "immediate and durable truce" in the Israel-Hamas war, saying that it is deeply concerned about the situation in Gaza. Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna added that too many civilians were being killed. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said a ceasefire would be an error, describing it as a gift to Hamas. The UK and Germany earlier called for a "sustainable ceasefire", but stopped short of saying it should be immediate. Ms Colonna arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday for a meeting with her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen. BBC British teenager Alex Batty, who was found in France after being missing for six years, has returned to the UK, Greater Manchester Police has said. Alex, his mother and grandfather all vanished in 2017 while they were on holiday in Spain. His mother does not have parental guardianship of the 17-year-old and her current whereabouts are unknown. The force said at a press conference it is yet to establish the circumstances about his disappearance. Police are yet to determine whether there will be a criminal investigation. NPR Aside from a few discarded hypodermic needles on the ground, the Hunter's Field Playground in New Orleans looks almost untouched. It's been open more than nine years, but the brightly-painted red and yellow slides and monkey bars are still sleek and shiny, and the padded rubber ground tiles still feel springy underfoot. For people who live nearby, it's not a mystery why the equipment is still relatively pristine: Children don't come here to play. "Because kids are smart," explains Amy Stelly, an artist and urban designer who lives just over a block away on Dumaine Street. "It's the adults who aren't. It's the adults who built the playground under the interstate." Hunter's Field is wedged directly beneath the elevated roadbeds of the I-10 Claiborne Expressway in the city's 7th Ward. There are no sounds of laughter or children playing. The constant cuh-clunk, cuh-clunk of the traffic passing overhead makes it difficult to hold a conversation with someone standing next to you. NPR After wreaking havoc in Florida, a strong storm system is producing widespread flooding, gusty winds and the possibility of tornadoes as it makes its way up the Atlantic coast. Excessive downpours will remain a threat until Monday morning for most parts of the mid-Atlantic and East coasts and until Tuesday for New England. The storm will continue to move north and enter eastern Canada on Monday night. In North Carolina and eastern South Carolina, thunderstorms could possibly include "frequent lightning, severe thunderstorm wind gusts, few tornadoes, and a minimal threat of hail," the NWS said Sunday in its advisory. A flash flood warning is in effect for parts of the South Carolina coast until 3 p.m. EST. USA Today Several synagogues and Jewish institutions across the U.S. were targeted with bomb threats Sunday as the rise in antisemitism seen since the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas war continued to sweep the nation and world. Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C., said Metropolitan Police followed protocol, evacuating the building and conducting a search before programs were allowed to continue. "We center ourselves with the prayer, 'olam hesed yibaneh,' that we will help to build a world of love and that our community’s connections to each other, our neighbors and the world will not be diminished by threats or disruptions like this," Temple Sinai said in a statement. Reuters BERLIN, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Germany's government faced calls on Sunday to help farmers and car buyers by revisiting cuts forced upon it by a court ruling which blew a 60 billion euro ($65 billion) hole in its budget. A coalition move to end subsidies for agricultural diesel drew criticism from Green lawmaker and agriculture minister Cem Ozdemir and from legislators belonging to Finance Minister Christian Lindner's business-friendly Liberals. Opposition conservatives and Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats also criticised the decision to end, with no prior warning, a programme that paid subsidies to buyers of new electric vehicles, with critics saying the move would hit German carmakers already struggling with Chinese and U.S. competition. The criticism highlights the political cost imposed on an already fractious coalition by the Constitutional Court ruling, which dented the 2023 budget and delayed by weeks an agreement on a budget for next year. Deutsche Welle Police in the Republic of Ireland are investigating what they described as a "criminal damage incident by fire" that occurred Saturday night at a former hotel earmarked to house asylum seekers in the village of Roscahill in western County Galway. Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar on Sunday said he was "deeply concerned" about the incident. Police said no one was in the facility when the blaze occurred. Ireland's RTE television broadcast video footage of flames partially destroying the Ross Lake House Hotel on Sunday. The fire followed a rally at the site, with those present opposing government plans to house 70 asylum seekers in the village. In a statement, Prime Minister Varadkar said, "I am deeply concerned about recent reports of suspected criminal damage at a number of properties around the country, which have been earmarked for accommodating those seeking international protection here, including in County Galway last night." Varadkar went on to say, "There is no justification for violence, arson or vandalism in our Republic. Ever." Al Jazeera Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila has called for an “urgent probe” after Israeli forces were accused of crushing Palestinians, including wounded patients, using bulldozers in the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. On Saturday, doctors and other witnesses said Israeli forces bulldozed tents housing displaced Palestinians near the hospital – one of the 11 hospitals still functioning inside Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 – and crushed them to death. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that civilians were deliberately targeted. “People were buried alive using bulldozers. Who could do that? All those who committed this crime should be brought to justice and taken to the international criminal court,” a witness said. Several videos shared on social media also appear to show people crushed under the rubble in front of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. Al Jazeera Thousands of displaced people have fled the formerly safe city of Wad Madani in Sudan, as the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reaches the city. Paramilitary forces established a base in the east of Sudan’s second-largest city and the capital of al-Jazirah state, the AFP news agency reported on Sunday, forcing thousands of already displaced people to escape. The RSF attack has opened a new front in the eight-month-old war, in what had previously been “one of Sudan’s few remaining sanctuaries”, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Sudan director William Carter. Crowds of people – many of whom had taken refuge in the city from violence in the capital Khartoum – were seen packing up belongings and leaving on foot in videos posted on social media The Guardian, International The US is to announce the launch of an expanded maritime protection force involving Arab states to combat the increasingly frequent Houthi attacks being mounted from Yemen’s ports on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The force, provisionally entitled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is due to be announced by the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, when he visits the Middle East. Much like the Task Force 153 already operating out of Bahrain, the larger protection force is designed to provide reassurance to commercial shipping companies that Houthi attacks will be seen off, and that the sea remains safe for commercial shipping. Five big shipping companies have now stopped their ships using the Red Sea in the wake of attacks mounted by Houthis in protest at Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. The Guardian, US The Republican party of Florida suspended chairman Christian Ziegler and demanded his resignation during an emergency meeting Sunday, adding to calls by governor Ron DeSantis and other top officials for him to step down as police investigate a rape accusation against him. Ziegler is accused of raping a woman with whom he and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, had a prior consensual sexual relationship, according to police records. “Christian Ziegler has engaged in conduct that renders him unfit for the office,” the party’s motion to censure Ziegler said, according to a document posted on the social media platform Twitter/X by Lee county GOP chairman Michael Thomason. Ziegler tried to defend himself during the closed-door meeting, but the party board quickly took the action against him, Thompson said. New York Times (gift article) At the University of Pennsylvania, approval for the screening of a documentary critical of Israel was denied. At Brandeis University — which expressed a public commitment to free speech — a pro-Palestinian student group was barred for statements made by its national chapter. At the University of Vermont, a Palestinian poet was set to deliver a talk, but the school pulled the meeting space after students complained he was antisemitic. There are growing signs that colleges are starting to clamp down on pro-Palestinian protests and events on campus, as the institutions face pressure from donors, alumni and politicians, who are furious over what they say is an antisemitic campaign against Jews. DOZENS OF ASSISTED-LIVING RESIDENTS DIED AFTER WANDERING AWAY UNNOTICED Washington Post (gift article) The alarms went off at 9:34 p.m. inside Courtyard Estates at Hawthorne Crossing, an assisted-living facility near Des Moines catering to people with dementia. A resident had wandered through an exit door, a routine event in America’s growingsenior assisted-living industry. Automated texts pinged the iPads of the two caretakers working the night shift, and the phones of an on-call nurse and the facility’s director. The warnings repeated every few minutes. Though local temperatures were plunging toward minus-11, no one responded. The on-call nurse told investigators she ignored the door alerts because she was with her family. The caretakers said they didn’t see them on their iPads. And they never followed through with hourly safety checks on memory-care residents. At 6 a.m. — more than eight hours later — staff finally went looking for Lynne Stewart, a 77-year-old Alzheimer’s patient with a history of wandering. They found her collapsed on the frozen ground near the exit, ice covering her body. She soon died at a nearby hospital from prolonged exposure. The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw. 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