In an excerpt from his recently translated memoir, the Israeli journalist Danny Adeno Abebe describes his childhood in the Ethiopian village of Til­a­ma­do, the entire population of which set off on foot for Israel in 1983:

[U]ntil we made the journey to Israel, I had never left the confines of my village and its grazing lands. My friends and I knew nothing but life in the village. Our impression was that the world outside simply did not exist. Our village was the whole wide world, but its inhabitants had a single dream somewhere over the horizon—Yerusalem: Jerusalem.

We always knew that the moment the opportunity arose, we would drop everything to realize our dream to move to Jerusalem. But this was a wish we were forbidden from expressing out loud. We spoke about it in whispers, mainly on Shabbat and during the Jewish holidays.

The villagers never mentioned Israel. Everyone, including the children, spoke of Jerusalem. Of a faraway kingdom, a land of God and ancient stones, whose righteous people spoke the holy tongue. Every festival was dedicated to Jerusalem. Every prayer was directed toward Jerusalem. Every event recalled Jerusalem. On holidays and at family events, we used to sing a song called Ende Yerusalem, “Nothing Like Jerusalem.” In later years, even the Christians embraced this song, and they still sing it at weddings.

The Jews of the village were commonly labeled falashas: “foreigners.” The Ethiopian establishment, from top to bottom and throughout history, treated the Jews as aliens disloyal to the state and its government. Consequently, we were not entitled to land or the basic rights afforded to our Christian neighbors. There was an unfunny joke in Ethiopia: “Why don’t Jews get rich? So they won’t have to leave property behind when they run away.” For the same reason, nobody was prepared to lend money to Jews: they feared that they would run away without repaying their debts.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”