Day 660 - Israel does a 180 and begins aid airdrops into Gaza

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Military correspondent Emanuel Fabian joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

Israel carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid into Gaza early Sunday since the start of the ongoing war against Hamas, and pledged to halt fighting in certain parts of the Strip in 10-hour stints and create safe passages for the United Nations to distribute goods to the Palestinian population. We learn what has been airdropped so far, what's on the horizon and how much aid awaits distribution along the border.

Fabian reports back on his trip late last week with the IDF to Gaza City. We learn that the troops are largely "fighting infrastructure" -- tunnels and booby-trapped buildings -- and that the Hamas battalion is largely defeated. Fabian wonders if this approach will indeed lead to the release of the Israeli hostages.

Law enforcement on Saturday arrested a man suspected of carrying out a car-ramming attack in central Israel last week that wounded eight IDF soldiers. Police said the suspect, named earlier as Arkan Khaled, a 27-year-old Israeli resident of Taybeh, was caught while hiding at a construction site in the town of Kfar Yona close to the Beit Lid junction where the attack occurred.

Israeli forces took over a pro-Palestinian activists' boat, Handala, that was attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip on Saturday night, and towed it toward the Ashdod Port. Handala is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which also dispatched the previous boat and was carrying 19 activists and two Al Jazeera journalists.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Two IDF soldiers killed when armored vehicle hit by explosive in Khan Younis

IDF reservist succumbs to wounds sustained last week in roadside explosion in Gaza

IDF airdrops aid into Gaza for 1st time, vows to implement ‘pauses’ for UN deliveries

Back in Gaza City again, IDF finds itself fighting ‘infrastructure,’ not terrorists

Suspect in Thursday car-ramming caught at central Israel construction site

IDF takes over pro-Palestinian activist boat attempting to break Gaza blockade

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IMAGE: Israeli Air Force staff prepare boxes of humanitarian aid ahead of an airdrop in the Gaza Strip, July 26, 2025. (IDF)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing.
0:05.7	Today is Sunday, July 27th, Day 660 of the war.
0:11.4	I'm Mendo Borchelle Dan here with our military correspondent Emmanuel Fabian.
0:15.0	Hi, Manny. Thanks for joining me today.
0:16.8	Hi, Amanda.
0:17.6	So Israel has implemented drastic changes in its humanitarian aid policy starting today
0:24.6	with pauses, new rights for getting aid to Gazans, and its first ever airdrop during this war.
0:32.8	Mani will fill us in. The fighting continues, however, and Mani was recently in Gaza City and is reporting back.
0:40.4	And finally, the IDF detained a pro-Palestinian boat, Handala last night.
0:45.4	And so where are these activists now?
0:48.2	All this and more when we're back.
0:55.8	What's happening in Ukraine?
0:57.9	What's happening in Middle East?
1:00.1	Those are not isolated conflicts.
1:02.5	The cooperation between these regimes is not ad hoc.
1:06.9	Hi, I'm Manja Marcus, host of What Came After.
1:10.1	Join me for a special episode featuring
1:12.1	Latvian member of the European Parliament, Rehards Coles. Coles and I sat down at the European
1:17.0	Parliament in Brussels this past January for an unflinching look at how Latvia is confronting
1:22.2	Russian aggression and how the invasion of Ukraine by a nuclear-armed autocracy has emboldened other regimes, including China and Iran.
1:31.0	Israel is being abandoned in its darkest hour since the Holocaust.
1:37.0	As the world grapples with rising authoritarianism, Coles warns of the West's dangerous complacency.
	...

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