The magic begins when the sun sets, reflecting off the bay water and revealing Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont. The “golden hour” is a photographer’s favorite palette, because the setting sun bathes the hills, the swamps, the animals and the visitors in warm light. The deer appears and increases the dark sky.

Photos by Dai Sugano

Originally published: January 26, 2025 at 6:00 am PST

SAN JOSE – Nearly five months after Santa Clara County announced its plans to buy Regional Medical Center within the wake of HCA Healthcare's decision to downgrade the trauma center, an agreement has been reached on the sale.

The county will take over operations of the 258-bed East San Jose hospital on April 1, making it the fourth hospital within the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare System — the second-largest county-owned health and hospital system within the state.

The purchase caps a virtually year-long saga that sent shockwaves across the East Side as residents frightened in regards to the lack of a trauma center nearby and county officials raised concerns in regards to the potential strain on the local health care system.

Santa Clara County is buying the hospital for $150 million, lower than the $175 million price previously announced in August.

“In the long term, this is a real strategic move for the county,” County Manager James Williams told The Mercury News. “This is a huge win for the community. This will help ensure stability and access to integrated care for the entire eastern portion of Santa Clara County, and that provides stability throughout the Santa Clara Valley healthcare system.”

HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) originally intended to completely close the Regional Medical Center's trauma center and discontinue certain services for cardiac arrest and stroke patients. But in July, the Tennessee-based healthcare giant announced it will as an alternative downgrade from a Level II facility to a Level III facility and retain a few of those life-saving services. The changes got here into effect on August 12, 2024.

But county leaders and native medical experts said that wasn't enough. There aren’t any other Level II trauma centers in Santa Clara County, and the downgrade to Level III resulted within the hospital now not having certain specialties – similar to neurosurgery – on call. The nearest Level I trauma centers are Valley Medical Center, eight miles away, and Stanford Health Care, greater than 20 miles away.

In an announcement, the president of HCA Healthcare's Far West division said
Jackie Van Blaricum said, “Our dedicated nursing staff will be instrumental in ensuring that Regional Medical Center makes a smooth transition to the Santa Clara Valley Health System.” HCA Healthcare stays a powerful community partner of Good Samaritan Hospital and we sit up for continuing to offer the high-quality Providing health care Santa Clara County deserves.”

Williams said the county's first priority is to revive Regional Medical Center's designation as a Level II trauma center, which he said will occur the day the sale closes and the county takes over. He expects cardiac arrest and stroke services to resume soon.

Williams said the county continues to be planning to revive labor and delivery services that were closed on the hospital in 2020, but there was no timeline for when that might occur.

“There will be no disruption to services,” Williams said of the ownership change. “The hospital itself will go from HCA operations to county operations literally overnight. There will be no disruption or closure of the hospital itself.”

Recently elected Superintendent Betty Duong, whose district includes the Regional Medical Center, said in an announcement that “the dismantling of health care services at RMC East has hit San Jose hard.”

“The county’s purchase and rescue of the Regional Medical Center, located in the heart of one of the most marginalized and historically disadvantaged areas of our county, is critical to restoring critical access to health care,” she said.

Originally published: January 13, 2025 at 2:51 pm PST

A 12 months of conflict has ushered in a brand new era of mass displacement within the Middle East.

Since Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the next sustained Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israel has expanded its operations on several fronts, including the West Bank, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.

As fighting continues unabated and the prospects of a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel increase, the region is now entering a brand new phase of internal and cross-border displacement that has already displaced thousands and thousands of individuals.

As Scholars of migrationWe fear that the results of such displacement will impact the region for a few years to come back – and can likely further impact the power of individuals within the region to steer protected and secure lives.

Displaced and trapped within the Gaza Strip

Israel's ongoing attacks have led to this almost 2 million Palestinians Last 12 months, 9 out of 10 residents of the densely populated strip were forced to go away their homes in Gaza.

what’s unique in scale The reason for the displacement in Gaza is that just about all internally displaced people remain trapped and unable to go away the world amid Israel's ongoing border closure and bombardment.

This has led to cascading humanitarian crises, including famine and the Spread of diseasetogether with countless other hardships that make a standard life nearly unattainable.

For many Palestinians in Gaza, years of bombardment have meant repeated displacement as Israeli attacks shifted from area to area and humanitarian spaces continued to shrink.

And although there are some complex historical and geopolitical reasons Regarding the border closures, international law experts argue that Egypt and Israel have done so violate international refugee law by refusing to permit Palestinians in Gaza to cross the Rafah border to hunt asylum.

The situation in Gaza is structurally different from previous displacement crises within the region – even in civil war-torn Syria, where there have been constant cross-border aid operations been on the sting of the collapse. That's due to Israel continues to limit and blocking aid deliveries to the world, and humanitarian employees are struggling to supply basic food, shelter and medical supplies during bombing campaigns which have rarely stopped.

What makes matters worse is that the experience of the past 12 months has shown this Refugee camp, civilian homes, UN schoolsAnd Hospitals Caring for civilians and refugees is just not a protected place. Israel often justifies its attacks on such sites by saying they’re utilized by Hamas or Hezbollah, regardless that that is officially the UN Disputes from many these allegations. These targeted Israeli attacks last 12 months also killed a minimum of 220 UN staff – greater than some other crisis ever recorded.

This contributes to difficulties for humanitarian employees in getting access to vulnerable populations, particularly displaced people. For its part, the United States stays so the highest donor to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in addition to to Israel's most significant arms supplier.

Beyond Gaza, into Lebanon

There were also massive displacements in Lebanon because of Israel's developing war with Hezbollah.

Even before the escalation of the conflict on the Lebanese-Israeli border in September almost 100,000 Lebanese were driven from their homes within the south of the country by Israeli shelling. There were now around 63,000 Israelis contained in the country repressed from the north of the country because of Hezbollah rocket attacks.

But Israeli from the tip of September 2024 strikes Attacks on Hezbollah and Palestinian targets in Beirut and across Lebanon killed tons of of civilians and led to an exponential increase in internal and cross-border displacement. More than 1 million Lebanese have now fled They were forced to go away their homes inside days amid Israeli invasion and bombardment.

Furthermore, Syrians refugees and the big variety of migrant employees in Lebanon were also displaced. Many slept on the streets or in makeshift tents and had no access to buildings converted into shelters for Lebanese.

Another glaring example of reverse migration: around 230,000 people – each Lebanese and Syrians – have fled across the border into Syria.

As recent regional conflicts come full circle with displacement and crisis following the post-2011 Arab rebellion, returning house is a priority for a lot of Syrians who still fear repression under the federal government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad unsafe option. Israel's ongoing invasion of Lebanon is more likely to only reinforce these trends tilled the land Numerous villages and towns within the south of the country – miles above the buffer zone recognized by the United Nations – need to be evacuated.

Layers of regional displacement

Over the course of several a long time, quite a few large-scale cross-border displacements have occurred within the Middle East for a myriad of reasons. The original forced displacement of Palestinians related to the creation of Israel in 1948 and the conflicts that followed created the world last the longest Refugee situation, as around 6 million Palestinians live throughout the Levant. The first Gulf War, sanctions against Iraq within the Nineteen Nineties, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 resulted in thousands and thousands of long-term refugees political implications for the region.

More recently, the 2011 Arab uprisings and subsequent wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya resulted in thousands and thousands of refugees and internally displaced people 6 million Syrians still live in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and one other 6 million are displaced inside Syria. With Syrians largely not returning home, international organizations have grow to be a semi-permanent safety net to supply basic services to refugees and host communities.

New layers of displacement in Lebanon – nationals, refugees and migrant employees – in addition to cross-border movement into Syria will result an additional burden on the underfunded Humanitarian aid system.

Furthermore, the present war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is just not the primary time that a conflict between the state and its northern neighbor has preceded large-scale displacement. In an try and eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982. The Israeli invasion in 1982 led to the Massacre of Sabra and Shatila The deployment of 1,500 to three,000 Palestinian civilians – carried out by Israel's Lebanese Christian allies – shows that military operations that don’t distinguish between militants and civilians can have a devastating impact on the displaced population.

Civilians bear the brunt

Between 600,000 and 900,000 Lebanese fled abroad throughout the country's civil war from 1975 to 1990.

Two a long time later, Israel invaded Lebanon again in 2006 to wipe out Hezbollah around 900,000 Lebanese needed to flee within the south – each inland and across the border into Syria.

While the speed and scale of Lebanon's displacement in 2006 was unprecedented on the time, the number of individuals forced to flee in late September and early October 2024 quickly surpassed that record.

The region is subsequently very accustomed to the results of mass displacement. However, a 12 months into the present conflict, it is obvious that the Middle East is now entering a brand new era of displacement – ​​in each scale and kind.

And the variety of families impacted by this recent era of displacement is simply expected to extend. Tensions within the region have worsened further with recent rocket attacks against Israel from Iran Threats of retaliation of Israel.

The experience of a long time of conflict within the region shows that civilians are almost certainly to bear the brunt of the fighting, whether through forced displacement, lack of access to food or medical care, or death.

Only a cessation of current hostilities and a everlasting ceasefire across the region can create the conditions for vulnerable populations to start returning and rebuilding. This is especially the case for the displaced people in Gaza, who’ve been repeatedly forced from their homes but don’t have any borders through which to achieve safety and for whom a political solution stays elusive.

Bay Area voters may soon be asked to assist stabilize the region's crisis-ridden public transportation system.

A regional committee of transit officials, politicians, union and business representatives, and citizen groups was established to explore ways to save lots of BART from financial collapse and make sure the solvency of other transit agencies within the Bay Area.

The 18-member Special Committee on Transport Revenue Measures began meeting in June to develop recommendations for putting a public transit funding measure on the 2026 ballot. The committee will meet through October to make a decision what kind of measure to placed on the ballot, what it should fund and the way it needs to be funded.

Since the pandemic, public transit ridership within the Bay Area has steadily increased but still not reached pre-pandemic levels. As state and federal aid dries up, transit agencies within the region are expected to face budget deficits totaling at the least $600 million a 12 months – enough to trigger massive service cuts that will significantly impact the economy, convenience and climate goals, in accordance with estimates from the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA).

The committee's formation comes as BART faces a $35 million deficit in fiscal 12 months 2026. But the funding measure cannot advance unless state lawmakers pass a bill allowing it to be placed on the ballot. It could also compete with a regional inexpensive housing funding measure that was faraway from the 2024 ballot on the last minute and will find yourself on the 2026 ballot.

David Canepa, district manager of San Mateo County, is a member of the committee and said that there isn’t any consensus throughout the group on tips on how to proceed.

“The people on the task force don't agree on where the funds should come from. The polls show that the public doesn't want this. We don't agree among ourselves either. So it's a tough task,” he said.

The task force was formed shortly after two Bay Area lawmakers – Democratic Senators Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Aisha Wahab of Hayward – blocked a state bill that will have asked voters to approve a $750 million annual public transit bailout package.

The bill would have authorized regional transportation authorities to place the funding measure to a vote in 2026 to assist stabilize public transit, avoid service cuts, and improve local transit.

The bill would have given the MTA the green light to use for a sales tax, payroll tax, property tax or vehicle registration surcharge for as much as 30 years. But MTC leadership said it needed more time to “reach consensus on how to structure a regional measure that will protect public transit in the Bay Area well into the future.”

More than two dozen organizations, including the California Taxpayers Association, the California Association of Realtors and the California Chamber of Commerce, also opposed the bill. One letter said SB 1031 would put Bay Area businesses at a competitive drawback and impose excessive sales taxes on working families and businesses. Both the California Taxpayers Association and the California Chamber of Commerce said they’d not heard from the brand new committee, which is reviewing a possible ballot proposal for a similar 12 months.

It's not clear what exactly can be funded by a future ballot measure, but a poll last 12 months by polling firm EMC Research found support for taxes to scale back Bay Area traffic, fix potholes, and improve and expand public transit is fairly low. The poll found that 55% of voters would approve of a half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, 51% would approve of a 0.17% income tax, and 55% would approve of a 0.36% payroll tax. That's not enough support to pass a funding measure at this point.

EMC Research said in a presentation to the duty force last month that “Bay Area voters are pessimistic and sensitive to tax increases.”

“There is currently no great interest in taxes of any kind,” Canepa said.

A survey conducted by the Bay Area News Group and the Silicon Valley three way partnership last fall also showed little enthusiasm for brand spanking new taxes.

According to a poll of 1,802 registered voters in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties conducted by Embold Research, 56% say commuter rail — BART, Caltrain and light-weight rail like VTA and Muni Metro — is very important to the Bay Area and needs to be maintained, even when it costs taxpayers more cash.

But that will not be enough to attain the two-thirds majority currently required in California for such special taxes, and the 55 percent minimum required for such measures, which state lawmakers need to put to voters in the autumn, would even be unlikely to be reached.

Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, sits on the committee reviewing a possible funding measure. Wunderman points to a 2023 council survey that shows BART could see as many as 300,000 additional trips over the course of the workweek, boosting ridership to over 50% of pre-pandemic levels, if crime, safety and cleanliness were addressed more quickly.

Wunderman said the survey shows that concerns about these issues far outweigh the explanations for not using the BART line and much outweigh concerns about telecommuting. Ninety percent of respondents said their top priority was more frequent cleansing of trains and stations. Nearly half of respondents said they’d witnessed crime on the BART line.

“I don't think we can pass a measure without restoring public confidence in safety,” Wunderman said. “I think once that happens, the public will be much more open to financial support.”

Santa Clara County and HCA Healthcare have reached an agreement that can allow the county to maneuver forward with the acquisition of Regional Medical Center after the hospital decided to downgrade the standard of its trauma center, officials said Wednesday afternoon.

If the deal goes through, East San Jose Hospital would change into the fourth hospital within the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare System – the second-largest county-owned health and hospital system in California. County Executive James Williams said the agreed-upon price is $175 million.

The announcement got here six months after HCA Healthcare, the corporation that owns Regional Medical Center, announced it might close the trauma center and other life-saving programs. The move was met with anger from the community and East San Jose residents, prompting HCA to reverse its decision and as an alternative downgrade the trauma center from a Level II facility to a Level III facility.

The county also owns O'Connor Hospital and Valley Medical Center, one in all two Level I trauma centers within the county, in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy. In 2019, the county purchased O'Connor, St. Louise and De Paul Health Center in Morgan Hill for $235 million after its previous owner, Verity Health Systems, filed for bankruptcy.

This is a breaking news story. Check back later for updates.

The ski resorts at Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado, are so near Aspen that you simply might think the world doesn't need its own airport. Its glamorous neighbor is just 48 miles north because the crow flies, though that's about 150 miles by road.

But for people flocking to the laid-back town of Crested Butte, for its extreme ski slopes and epic mountain bike trails, there's a brand new reason to avoid farther-flung Aspen: the destination's shiny latest airport, opening in January 2023.

Not only is the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport's terminal easy to navigate at just 40,000 square feet, it's also heated and cooled by geothermal energy and features triple-pane windows to maintain travelers warm in a city considered one in all the coldest places within the United States.

And Crested Butte is just not the one small town airport being modernized.

Across the United States, at the very least a dozen small and mid-sized facilities are being renovated and, in some cases, built from scratch—typically with budgets within the eight and nine figures. This contradicts the long-held belief amongst aviation experts that these regional facilities are destined to collect dust and die out.

During the pandemic, smaller U.S. airports actually fell out of favor. With business travel virtually nonexistent, airlines scaled back their offerings to concentrate on more profitable private routes between major hubs. Planned facility improvements were also placed on hold. Even as those problems subsided, severe pilot shortages forced major airlines to chop more routes, realizing that profit margins on smaller loads simply aren't as high as they were a decade ago. It was a confluence of crises that appeared to have doomed small airports endlessly.

But a few of those aspects have since evolved. For one, second-tier cities are experiencing a sustained population boom, a trend that began with the urban exodus through the pandemic in 2020 and continues as distant staff seek cheaper places to live. Numerous unsold seats on these classic leisure flights have also proven to airlines that it's time to rethink their route plans, explains Brian Sumers, aviation expert and founding father of the newsletter Airline Observer. Not to be missed is the high level of customer satisfaction related to these smaller facilities, that are thankfully freed from stress-inducing crowds and countless concourses that take endlessly to navigate.

Of course, money plays a giant role, too. The Biden administration's bipartisan infrastructure bill has pumped at the very least $9 billion into improving airports across the country since 2022, complementing private and non-private funding at a more local level that has helped revitalize a lot of additional facilities. Although budgets can change on a regular basis, Knoxville and Memphis in Tennessee have invested a complete of $830 million in airports; Des Moines, Iowa, has budgeted $445 million to remodel its facility; and Pittsburgh can expect a full $1.5 billion.

In other words, the renaissance of small American airports is officially underway. Here are just a few examples of upcoming redevelopments that excite us—consider them as emblematic of what could soon occur in a small town near you.

The challenge of expanding a small airport is to keep up its family atmosphere, says Brent Mather, the Denver-based design principal of Gensler, a number one architecture firm that’s leading a lot of such projects. Being capable of arrive half-hour before departure and still get through security and onto the plane, he says, “means a lot, especially for the people who live there. It's a huge selling point.”

At the newly renovated Eagle County Regional Airport near Vail, Colorado, for instance, it takes lower than five minutes to cross your entire 6,000-square-meter hall, which opened at the tip of 2020. By comparison, it’s 2.33 kilometers from the commuter train on the airport terminal to the gates at Denver International Airport – about half-hour on foot.

That philosophy is the idea for the design of a $2 billion, 1 million-square-foot terminal at John Glenn Columbus International Airport, scheduled to open in 2029. A market-like dining hall will sit in the middle of the only concourse. The idea, says Tim Hudson, head of aviation at Gensler, is to create a seamless passenger experience where you may eat, drink and shop in a hyper-accessible space from which passengers can see at the very least two-thirds of the airport's gates and lots of flight monitors. “It's a big concourse, a central security checkpoint and a concession program – where passengers have access to the entire building.”

The latest terminal, which can completely replace the prevailing one, is being co-designed by Gensler and Columbus-based Moody Nolan and could have 36 gates – seven greater than the present airport – and a parking garage for five,000 cars. Groundbreaking is scheduled for early 2025.

“Our current terminal opened in 1958 and was built for a different time,” said Joseph Nardone, president and CEO of the Columbus Regional Airport Authority. “With a more efficient, streamlined and sustainable design, we will be able to meet and exceed travelers' expectations and support our growing community for years to come.”

The variety of travelers to this central Ohio city is predicted to grow from 8.7 million passengers in 2023 to an estimated 13 million in 2033 – a rise driven by Columbus's development right into a technology and business center within the Midwest.

In Nevada, Reno-Tahoe International Airport is preparing for 2 latest concourses, with construction set to start in 2025 and be accomplished in 2030. An influx of recent residents, fueled by the airport's family-friendly status and a growing number of information centers, is predicted to spice up Reno-Tahoe's annual passenger count from 2.3 million today to three.7 million by 2046. The airport's expansion could have two priorities: increasing gate size to accommodate larger aircraft and adding more food and beverage options.

Another consideration is the sense of place. Mather is well aware that flights to and from regional airports are typically costlier than their larger, international counterparts, and with that premium comes the expectation of higher service and more inspired design.

“We want people to arrive and say, 'Wow! OK, I'm in Reno, this is going to be a really great experience,' whether they're traveling for business or pleasure,” he explains.

In Columbus, the central stall will offer floor-to-ceiling views of the runways and resemble town's historic North Market, a fancy of farm stands and restaurants popular with visitors. That also needs to boost spending: At San Francisco International Airport's Terminal 2, the same redesign that converted regular airport restaurants right into a farmers' market-style dining room led to a 23 percent increase in sales, Hudson says.

At the Gunnison-Crested Butte, the important restaurant and lounge feature brightly painted stripes on a sloped roof harking back to the colourful Victorian facades in downtown Crested Butte, and wraparound windows frame stunning mountain scenery in all places.

Reno's future airport will even have a continuous concourse with panoramic views of the world's distant peaks. Mather says he thought in regards to the feeling of leaving a ski resort in Tahoe and catching a flight home from Reno when he designed those partitions of windows. “I want it to feel like it's an extension of the vacation,” he says.

Originally published: August 20, 2024 at 12:50

Israel's apparent assassinations of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top military leaderin Beirut, and Hamas politicians Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehranhave once more raised the specter of a regional war between regional adversaries – a war into which the United States could potentially be drawn.

By targeting these two politicians, the Israeli government showed that it’s willing to risk an escalation of the conflict on recent fronts. And this despite the indisputable fact that some senior defense ministers at best contradictory messages In recent months, there was debate about whether the Israel Defense Forces are sufficiently prepared for a full-scale war in Lebanon or elsewhere after nine months of confrontation within the Gaza Strip.

As a Scholar of Lebanon and IsraelI even have been following recent events within the region with growing concern. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could bet that Iran and Hezbollah haven’t any real appetite for all-out war and would quite pursue a policy of continued attrition against Israel.

If so, it’s a dangerous strategy and any miscalculation could have catastrophic consequences.

Increase the stakes

Shukr was killed in the continuing exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah that began on October 8, a day after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, sparking a violent and sustained response in Gaza. In particular, it was in retaliation for the July 28, 2024 killing of 12 children within the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, for which Hezbollah was blamed.

The Beirut assassination was a daring and dangerous move by Israel, carried out in broad daylight in town despite repeated calls from the United States and other Western countries. to not attack the Lebanese capital.

By carrying out the Beirut operation, Israel has exceeded the bounds of the “rules of the game” in its war of attrition with Hezbollah since October 7. Until now, the Lebanese capital has only been attacked once by Israel, with the January 2, 2024, assassination of Saleh Arourione other Hamas leader, not removed from where Shukr was killed.

At the time, it was assumed that Hezbollah wouldn’t escalate the conflict due to the death of a Palestinian leader, regardless of how vital he might need been.

But there may be little doubt that Hezbollah will react to this recent attack; the questions are how and when and whether the response to it is going to bring the opponents one other step closer to a full-scale war.

An embarrassment for Iran

Haniya’s assassination in Tehran took place within the context of Israel’s declared commitment kill all Hamas leaders was involved within the October 7 massacre, although the country has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack, contrary to usual practice.

Israel According to reports, Qatar guaranteesHaniyeh's host country that it could not attack Hamas leaders inside its borders. Israel also decided to not kill him during Haniyeh's recent visit to Turkeypossibly out of concern about further angering Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Instead, evidently Israel was waiting for the proper opportunity elsewhere to send a transparent message not only to Hamas, but in addition to Israel's foremost regional adversary and Hamas's foremost sponsor, Iran.

The assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran puts the Iranian regime in an embarrassing position. The attack by a foreign country openly violated Iran’s sovereignty at a time when the regime was preparing to Celebrate the appointment of a brand new presidentThe Hamas leader was one in every of the international dignitaries invited to the inauguration.

The attack demonstrates two things: Iran's vulnerability and Israel's ability to perform an attack based on accurate intelligence and superior technology. Either way, it exposes the weaknesses of the Iranian regime.

The last time Iran claimed that its sovereignty had been violated by Israel – within the attack on its embassy in Damascus on April 1, 2024 – it responded by firing lots of of missiles and attack drones at Israel.

Iran could this time use its proxies, including Hezbollah, or respond directly by deploying its own military from its own territory, because it did in April. On July 31, it was reported that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a direct attack.

Israel’s internal political conflicts

I consider that the attacks have destroyed any prospect of an early ceasefire agreement within the Gaza Strip, including the discharge of Israeli hostages.

The killings are also more likely to make the war of attrition between Israel and Hezbollah much more explosive and dangerous.

All parties, including Israel, are apparently aware that a full-scale war is in nobody's interest. This would explain why, despite months of provocations by all parties, there was no such escalation.

But at the identical time, the region is moving ever closer to this possibility; the Middle East is in a phase of maximum fragility.

And all this is going on while Israel is struggling domestically with major challenges for the political system and the rule of lawThe war in Gaza has delivered to the fore forces inside Israeli society that openly seek to vary the political system and challenge each the command structure and the fighting culture of the military.

A recent mob attack on the military police led by right-wing Knesset members Investigation into allegations of torture and sexual assault of Hamas prisoners in Israel is only one example of the cracks developing inside Jewish-Israeli society.

Towards a full-scale war?

Netanyahu, who critics say is understood for his Desire to remain in powerhas built his profession by exploiting internal divisions. His Dependence on right-wing extremist members his government and the indisputable fact that he’s exploiting internal tensions in Israel have only exacerbated divisions.

His decision to authorise the attacks in Beirut and Iran have to be understood within the context of his struggle for political survival.

I consider that every one of Netanyahu's actions, including the prolongation of the war in Gaza, have to be understood on this context. His political survival relies on the support of far-right parties that seek to proceed and expand the war and openly call for a more aggressive stance towards Hezbollah and Iran.

He's also supported by public opinion in Israel, which supports a confrontation with Hezbollah “with full force”, without taking into consideration the indisputable fact that such an motion would likely have devastating consequences for Hezbollah and Lebanon and would exact an unlimited human and infrastructural toll on Israel.

Netanyahu could depend on the indisputable fact that Iran and Hezbollah have to date shown no desire for a full-scale war, although Hezbollah said it is ready.

So far, Israel has shown no desire for a full-scale war on several fronts. But I fear that events resembling the attacks of the previous couple of days could lead on us right into a downward spiral that might be difficult to regulate.

San Jose community leaders are condemning plans by HCA Healthcare to expand a neighborhood hospital on the western fringe of town while degrading care on the Regional Medical Center on the east side.

In February, HCA Healthcare — considered one of the nation's largest for-profit health care corporations — announced it will close Regional Medical Center's trauma center and downgrade other life-saving programs on Aug. 12. But last week, the corporate reversed its decision and said it will as a substitute downgrade the trauma center from a Level II to a Level III facility. But East San Jose officials criticized the plan, saying it still falls short.

On Wednesday evening, community members continued to rally outside the hospital – this time against HCA's decision to expand Good Samaritan Hospital in a wealthier a part of town just 14 miles away. The project, which is being carried out in compliance with state earthquake regulations, calls for 2 latest hospital wings that may increase the variety of beds from 404 to 419.

San Jose City Councilman Peter Ortiz, who represents the district where the Regional Medical Center is positioned, expressed concern that the HCA is asking town for support for the expansion while cutting medical services, which can particularly affect Latino and Vietnamese immigrant families.

“This shouldn't be a tale of two hospitals,” Ortiz said. “There shouldn't be one hospital on the east side of San Jose and one hospital on the west side of San Jose. We should have one health care system that serves our entire city equally.”

A Regional Medical Center official said in a press release that Good Samaritan Hospital “began the process three years ago to meet California's 2030 earthquake standards.”

“Funding for these state-mandated improvements is not optional and will not impact decisions or investments at other hospitals,” the official said. “Regardless, the service changes we are making at Regional Medical Center are designed to meet the evolving needs of our patients and demonstrate our continued commitment to the East San Jose community.”

But Darcie Green, executive director of the nonprofit Latina Contra Cancer, said community members who’ve been protesting outside the hospital for eight weeks will proceed to fight for higher care. Green said that despite their presence on the Regional Medical Center, they’ve not yet met with hospital leadership. A gathering scheduled for Wednesday afternoon was abruptly canceled.

“We will occupy this lawn for as many weeks as it takes to demand the best health care for the residents of East San Jose and the best health care in this facility for all residents of the county because we deserve it, it is our human right and they have the power to enforce it,” Green said.

Months of relentless clashes between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah have Mass evacuations of the civilian population And widespread deathInjuries and destruction.

The violence has intensified for the reason that starting of June, accompanied by increasingly heated rhetoricBoth sides have prevented mutual attacks from escalating into full-blown war, recognizing the likely catastrophic consequences. The query is whether or not this fragile containment can hold in the longer term.

In threatening language, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said proposed on 23 June that more of the country's troops would soon be released to maneuver to the north to fight Hezbollah. A couple of days earlier, CNN reported that Israel moved Iron Dome batteries from the south to the north in preparation for a possible war with Hezbollah.

As a Scholar of Lebanon and IsraelI actually have closely followed the domestic political dynamics in each countries.

The stakes are enormous, and the implications, for my part, go far beyond the continuing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have exposed the basic incontrovertible fact that the war in Gaza is in some ways also a war for dominance in the broader Middle East. It risks drawing the United States even deeper into this potential abyss, which could put Washington able to increased diplomatic efforts to maintain the violence between Israel and Hezbollah under control.

Regional dynamics

Hezbollah, a gaggle that is taken into account a proxy for Iran but has its own domestic concerns, risks turning Lebanon right into a War undesirable for many LebaneseAlthough Hezbollah professes solidarity with Hamas and the Palestinian cause, it’s motivated not by the worldwide call for justice for the Palestinians, but fairly by its support for Iran's long-term goal of destroying Israel and establishing a Palestinian state ruled by Hamas.

Iran’s regional rivals, especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, are closely watching how Iran exploits the Gaza conflict and growing violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border to advance its regional interests. supported by Iran in its war against Ukraine, can be monitoring the conflict and considers it as means weakening the United States.

Israel, then again, is managing the developing crisis on its northern border from a position of accelerating weakness in its struggle for regional dominance with Iran. Critics have accused Israel's far-right government there may be an absence of sufficient strategic eager about the objectives of the present conflict.

Such strategic myopia, they argue, ignores Israel's need to keep up positive relations with its regional and global allies, primarily the United States.

Instead of devastating Gaza after the October 7 massacres by Palestinian militants, Israel's leadership could have used the war to strengthen its relations with the Sunni-majority states within the Middle East and leverage its alliance with the US to secure regional support for the Jewish state. But the Israeli government's stubborn refusal to entertain any ideas about constructive political engagement with the Palestinians is resulting in a drastic erosion of Israel's relations with regional actors who would otherwise be willing to side with the Jewish state against Iran.

Potential for conflict between the US and Iran

A full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah would likely set all the region ablaze, involving Iran and its proxies, and will also drag the United States right into a direct confrontation with Tehran – a horror scenario that President Joe Biden has been trying to forestall since October 7.

Unlike the war against Hamas – by which American support for Israel is proscribed to diplomacy and arms deliveries – a war with Hezbollah could force the United States to provide concrete combat assistanceas it happened in April as a countermeasure to retaliatory strikes by Iran and its proxies against Israel.

Hasan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, has even expanded the geographical scope of the conflict by Cyprus threatenedand stated that his organization would attack the island if it cooperated with Israel in the course of the war.

Washington is clearly very concerned about the implications of an escalation of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Since the primary days of the Gaza war, the US has been attempting to negotiate an Israeli-Lebanese agreement This would mean the withdrawal of Hezbollah troops from the border area and their substitute by international troops and the Lebanese army.

In return, in line with the American proposal, Israel and Lebanon would form a border commission to resolve Lebanese and Israeli grievances in regards to the course of their shared border line once and for all.

But the continuing war of attrition between Hezbollah and Israel is making such an agreement increasingly difficult.

In Israel, pressure from conservative and non secular circles and from residents of the north, the war with Hezbollah is escalating. Current surveys suggest that nearly all of Israeli Jews would welcome the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) going to war against Hezbollah “with all their might”.

The Israeli Defense Forces, then again, are sending contradictory messages. Their spokesman recently delivered an aggressive message: the moment of truth is getting closer regarding the choice to go to war. Meanwhile, senior generals, including the Chief of Staff, have stated that after nine months of fighting the Israeli armed forces are overstretched and exhaustedand the opening of a front against Hezbollah cannot happen before the military receives latest forces and is reorganized.

Israel in a vulnerable situation

As for Netanyahu, who once cold and risk-averse political realist is now risking a scenario that could lead on to a complete strategic defeat for the country and undermine the safety and viability of an Israel integrated into regional politics. great concern since January If Netanyahu believes that an open war with Hezbollah would serve his narrow personal interests, he could force Israel into that war. We could also be nearing the moment when that fear becomes a reality.

Hezbollah, then again, continues to place pressure on Israel, increasing the danger of a full-scale conflagration because it recognizes that Israel could also be in its most vulnerable situation – possibly for the reason that 1948 war.

Given Iran and Hezbollah’s long-term strategic goals of eliminating Israel, continuing this war of attrition actually pays off, even when the worth is still economically and the political decline of Lebanon.

The American And the French – Lebanon's former colonial creator and ruler – has worked hard to seek out diplomatic solutions to the crisis. Hezbollah has said from the outset that it could stop its cross-border shelling if a ceasefire agreement was reached in Gaza.

But at this point, neither Israel nor the Hamas leadership appear to want to achieve that time. In fact, the post-October 7 scenario hoped for by Hamas – that its allies within the so-called Axis of Resistance will enter the war and attack Israel on multiple fronts – only appears to be becoming more likely.

In short, the Lebanese-Israeli border is currently an explosive front that’s susceptible to explosion.

Of course, continued mutual deterrence between Israel and Hezbollah could hold either side back, very similar to mutual assured destruction (MAD) held the US and the Soviet Union back in the course of the Cold War. And the US can be aggressively attempting to put out the flames.

But with no major diplomatic breakthrough, the situation is bound to proceed to simmer and will escalate right into a far deadlier war than the one which has been happening since October 7.