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.

Editor David Horovitz joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's Daily Briefing, which is a bonus episode of our weekly What Matters Now series.

Recording at noon on Thursday in ToI's Jerusalem office ahead of a planned fateful cabinet vote on the firing of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar tonight, Horovitz attempts to summarize this fraught Israeli moment.

As Israel Defense Forces troops are again entering the Gaza Strip for ground operations, fears of a crumbling Israeli democracy are bringing thousands to the streets, alongside others who reject the notion of a renewed war in Gaza without a hostage deal first.

Horovitz takes us through a litany of issues fueling the domestic strife and assesses how Israel again finds itself at a crossroads.

"All of us want Israel to survive and to thrive and we have two things simultaneously: We have terrible threats from without and we have tremendous division from within," says Horovitz. "This is extremely dangerous for Israel."

And so this week, we ask ToI editor David Horovitz, what matters now?

Please see today's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

For Israel, everything will not be okay

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Israelis march in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

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