• President Joe Biden is holding a critical solo press conference at 5:30 p.m. ET at the end of the NATO summit, as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers and donors are calling the president to step aside from the 2024 race.
  
• Earlier in the day, Biden will meet with Senate Democrats at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is reportedly open to a Democratic ticket led by someone other than Biden.
  
• In Florida, former President Donald Trump will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who traveled to the U.S. for this week’s NATO summit in Washington.
  
• USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf are in Israel today.
  
• Later today, the IDF is set to release its internal probe into the Oct. 7 attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hardest hit during Hamas’ terror attacks. The findings were shared earlier this week with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, and were delivered to kibbutz residents today before their broader release. The report’s release is likely to set off debate in Israel — and beyond — and will include details of an incident in which a standoff between Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists resulted in the deaths of 13 hostages.

Is there an end in sight for Israel’s longest war in half a century?

More than nine months after Hamas launched its deadly attack on southern Israel, setting off a long, deadly and costly war that threatens Israel on multiple fronts, negotiators appear closer than ever to locking in a deal that would indefinitely end the fighting and restore calm to the region — though there is still time for any agreement to collapse, as it has many times in recent months, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports. 

CIA Director Bill Burns, Mossad chief David Barnea and the White House’s Brett McGurk are in Doha, Qatar, today after days of shuttle diplomacy across the Middle East. One senior White House official told the Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Wednesday that the framework for a three-stage deal has been agreed upon, as the parties now negotiate on the nuts and bolts of its implementation.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who met with McGurk in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, said Israel would be open to withdrawing all its forces from Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor, a key buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt. 

An Israeli withdrawal from the corridor would be contingent on efforts to end smuggling between Egypt and Gaza, which has provided Hamas with a lifeline — and an extensive amount of weapons that the terror group has used to continue its war against Israel and to maintain control of the Gaza Strip. An underground wall reportedly may be built on the border that would detect attempts at digging tunnels. Under the proposed agreement, a U.S.-trained force made up of some 2,500 Palestinian Authority supporters — whom Israel has vetted — and backed by moderate Arab nations would handle security and governance in the enclave, removing Hamas from power.

A cease-fire in Gaza could also calm tensions in Israel’s north, where dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group began launching missiles on Oct. 8. As we write this, Hezbollah has launched yet another barrage of explosive drones into northern Israel. One person in the Western Galilee has been reported as critically wounded from the barrage. Nearly 100,000 residents of northern Israel remain displaced around the country through the end of August, according to a government order issued earlier this week. With school starting the day after the latest evacuation order ends, families who are unable to return to their homes in the north are unlikely to uproot their children in the middle of the school year. That would make the prospects of an imminent return even less viable, which is likely to have a devastating impact on northern communities for the foreseeable future.

There’s also a looming countdown, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slated to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress in two weeks. 

Already facing the threat of a boycott by Democrats — and the possibility that some far-left lawmakers may disrupt his speech — Netanyahu is under pressure to have something to show when he makes his case before Congress. Having a cease-fire deal in place ahead of the speech would increase the likelihood of a meeting between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden — and would also serve as a major accomplishment for Biden as he faces calls to end his reelection bid.

But there is also domestic pressure. A majority of Israelis want the government to prioritize the release of the hostages over Netanyahu’s pledged “total victory” over Hamas, with many, including the IDF’s top brass, saying that the latter goal is effectively impossible. 

A poll published last week by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 67% of respondents said that returning the hostages should be the top priority, while a similar number (68%) said they believed the goal of “total victory” was out of reach. An Israel Democracy Institute poll released this week found that more Jewish Israelis (50%) prefer a deal to free all hostages that would end the war as opposed to those (34%) who prefer a temporary cease-fire in exchange for some of the hostages. But in Netanyahu’s base, the political right, a plurality (45%) prefer the partial deal. 

Still, when asked how much longer Israelis can continue fighting, whether in Gaza or against Hezbollah in the north, a plurality of Jewish Israelis (34%) said as long as it takes and another 30% said they could see the country fighting for at least six months to a year.

Palace Intrigue: In The Wall Street Journal, Tevi Troy reflects on how White House crises can snowball into bigger headaches for administration staffers. “I learned this firsthand in George W. Bush’s White House during Hurricane Katrina. In those days, it seemed nothing could go right for the administration, as every effort the White House made to fix problems failed. President Bush’s attempt to show concern by flying over New Orleans backfired spectacularly. The picture of the president looking down from his plane became one of the worst images of his tenure. I had my own awkward moment in that period when I was supposed to brief a group of rabbis on what the administration was doing to help the affected area. The typically skillful White House operators somehow messed up the conference call. Instead of opening my channel and muting the participants’, the operators put me on mute and allowed the rest to speak. You can imagine what I heard, mostly along the lines of, ‘If they can’t get a phone call right, how are they going to solve the problems in New Orleans?’ The episode, though quickly resolved, was typical of the reeling White House’s inability to catch a break.” [WSJ]

Famous Amos:The New York Times’ Michael Crowley profiles White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein, highlighting his visit to a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon a few weeks before Oct. 7. “The trip demonstrated the surprising way Mr. Hochstein has become one of the few Americans trusted, however grudgingly, by Hezbollah’s leadership. And that trust is crucial today, now that Mr. Biden has designated Mr. Hochstein as his diplomatic point man for preventing clashes across the Israel-Lebanon border from exploding into a war that could be even more devastating than the conflict in Gaza. Officially, Mr. Hochstein, 51, is Mr. Biden’s top aide for global energy and infrastructure. But his wonky title does not capture the ever-broadening portfolio bestowed upon him by a president whose close confidence he has earned over more than a decade and who is said to view his adviser as a results-getting ‘doer.’” [NYTimes]

Grading the Gray Lady: The New Yorker’s Clare Malone interviewsNew York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn about his role atop the newspaper, as well as his handling of the Times’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. “Looking back over these eight months and what the team has gone through to try to take into account everything that you’re describing — the fact that there are very passionate views on opposite sides of this conflict,” Kahn said. “The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza has been an absolutely vital part of the coverage that we’ve had. The displaced people, the civilian casualties caught up in the conflict have been a constant focus for us. On the other side of the equation, the trauma of October 7th, the shock of what was the largest attack on Israeli soil that Israelis had experienced, the mobilization to defeat Hamas, have also been an important story for us, and we’ve tried to tell it fully. And it’s really true that there isn’t that large a slice of the audience that’s neutral on these issues. But I’m immensely proud both of the news that we’ve done day to day — and this is a huge news story every day, every cycle — but also of the investigative work that we’ve done into the failings of the Israeli military, into the nature of some of these strikes, but also into the enablement of Hamas by the international community, the money that flows to Hamas, and the issues around the way Hamas embeds itself in the civilian population, and its treatment of hostages has been a really important part of our coverage as well.” [NewYorker]

A bipartisan group of 33 House lawmakers wrote to Biden on Thursday urging him to “immediately” nominate an ambassador-level envoy for the Abraham Accords and Middle East normalization, a position established by Congress late last year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod scoops…

U.S. officials confirmed that Washington will soon send previously withheld 500-pound bombs to Israel, part of a shipment that had been paused by the Biden administration for two months; the second half of the shipment, 2,000-pound bombs, remains on hold… 

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced a resolution honoring the victims of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the terror attack at the AMIA Jewish Community Center in the Argentinian capital two years later, in which 85 people were killed…

Former President Donald Trump is mulling cutting back intelligence-sharing with NATO allies if elected to another term, as part of a broader plan to pull back from the international group…

After actor George Clooney, who recently held a fundraiser for President Joe Biden, penned a New York Times op-ed calling on the president to end his reelection bid, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told the Huffington Post, “I’m a big fan of many of his films. Ides of March. Burn After Reading was really great. I really love Joe Biden, and he’s our guy and he’s the only person that’s ever kicked [Trump’s] ass. And I think the ICC needs a new head. And the ruling against Israel is appalling.” (The International Criminal Court reference was a nod to Clooney’s wife, Amal, who worked on the ICC’s case against Israel and recommended issuing arrest warrants for top Israeli officials.)… 

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) became the first senator to call on Biden to withdraw as the party’s presidential candidate, while Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) issued the same call, joining eight other House Democrats… 

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would cut $10 million in funding for the office at the Department of Education responsible for investigating and adjudicating antisemitism claims to $130 million in 2025, over the objections of Democrats, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

A new poll of 8,000 European Jews by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights found that 96% had experienced antisemitism in the year prior to being surveyed, with only 18% of respondents saying that their governments are appropriately addressing the issue…

Italy is attempting to broker a land-border agreement between Israel and Lebanon modeled after the 2022 maritime agreement between the two countries…

Calcalist interviewed Taiwan’s envoy in Israel about the shared challenges faced by Taipei and Jerusalem…

Reuters spotlights Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan, who traveled to Israel’s south on Oct. 7 to rescue Nova music festival attendees and is now attempting to revive Israel’s political left…

The Financial Times looks at how declining support for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is further destabilizing the situation in the territory…

The United Arab Emirates reportedly deported a recent graduate of NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus after he shouted “Free Palestine!” while crossing the stage at the school’s graduation ceremony; NYU told the Associated Press that it “has no authority over any nation’s immigration or law enforcement actions or decisions” and had communicated to students “clearly and repeatedly about expectations, obligations, and boundaries, including the protocols for the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation”…

The UAE issued life sentences to 43 people convicted of operating a Muslim Brotherhood group in the Gulf nation…

David Liederman, whose eponymous dessert chain popularized the concept of chocolate chunk cookies, died at 75…

Molecular biologist and geneticist Maxine Singer died at 93…

Shluchim (emissaries) from Chabad on Campus met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The shluchim traveled to Israel for their annual gathering.

Founder and retired CEO of Sidewalk Labs, he was previously CEO of Bloomberg L.P., Daniel L. Doctoroff turns 66… 

Entrepreneur, investment banker, civil servant and political advisor, Stephen Berger turns 85… Developmental psychologist at Harvard, he was selected in the 1981 inaugural class of MacArthur genius fellows, Howard Gardner turns 81… Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, he was PM Tony Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East for nine years, Baron Michael Abraham Levy turns 80… Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) turns 78… EVP of the Milken Family Foundation and past chair of the Board of Trustees of JFNA, Richard V. Sandler turns 76… Journalist covering classical music, he is the author of Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947, Norman Lebrecht turns 76… Founder in 1992 of Schnur Associates, she spent 12 years as executive director of the Greater New York Coalition for Soviet Jewry, Zeesy Schnur… West Orange, N.J., resident, Jeffrey Maas… Actress, she portrayed Frau Farbissina in the “Austin Powers” film series, Mindy Lee Sterling turns 71… Singer-songwriter, known by his stage name “RebbeSoul,” Bruce Burger turns 67… Los Angeles-based Group EVP of public relations for Discovery Channel and Science Channel, Laurie Goldberg… Executive chairman of Aston Martin and the owner of the Aston Martin Formula 1 Team, Lawrence Stroll turns 65… Radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvey Jay Mamon, MD, Ph.D…. Managing member at Samuel Capital Management, Barry Mannis… Former member of the Knesset for the Likud party, Yaron Mazuz turns 62… Former commander of the IDF’s Southern Command, now in the IDF reserves, Maj. Gen. Shlomo “Sami” Turgeman turns 60… Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit since 2014, Judge Robin Stacie Rosenbaum turns 58… Retired tax attorney, she now bakes challahs on NYC’s UWS to benefit the UJA, Adina Tamar Spiro Wagman… Executive editor of The City, Alyssa A. Katz… Senior program and community engagement director at the Los Angeles-based Smidt Foundation, Lindsey Caren Kozberg… Consultant focused upon social impact strategies, Joshua D. Wachs… Actor, podcaster and lead singer of the band Sun Spin, Michael Owen Rosenbaum turns 52… Ukrainian-born computer scientist and entrepreneur, Max Levchin turns 49… Founder and CEO of Wisconsin-based Good Karma Brands, Craig Karmazin turns 49… Principal at Civitas Public Affairs Group, Celine Mizrahi… Chabad rabbi at Washington University in St. Louis, Rabbi Hershey Novack… Comedian, podcaster and political commentator, Katherine Rose “Katie” Halper turns 43… Screenwriter and executive producer, Theodore Beren Bressman… Retired ice hockey forward, Jacob Micflikier turns 40… Executive director of the New Democrat Coalition, Anne Sokolov… and her twin sister, a co-founder at Social Goods, Kate Sokolov… Retired offensive guard in the NFL for eight seasons, his Hebrew name is Gedalia Yitzhak, Geoff Schwartz turns 38… Senior deputy associate counsel in the White House Counsel’s office, Matthew J. Rosenbaum… Bryan Stone…