 Hi friends and subscribers, welcome back to my YouTube channel. My name is Daniel Rosel and this channel focuses on life on the ground here in Jerusalem and Israel. As everyone has probably heard by now, these are exceptionally challenging times here in Israel. It seems almost certain that the IDF is about to enter into a protracted military campaign with the stated objective of eliminating the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza. Policymakers have hinted that this could take months and will likely require a painstaking ground invasion involving a massive call-up of reservists. As some of you may know, I've recently become interested in local politics and have been attempting to follow what the various parties are proposing, especially here in Jerusalem. Today, Israel's Ministry of the Interior announced that the local elections would be postponed until January 30th 2024. To note, these were due to take place on October 31st, so just later this month, so this is quite a substantial three-month pushback. It's notable that this is the first time that municipal elections have been deferred since another time of national crisis for Israel, which was the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The delay in the municipal elections is another strong signal that Israel expects that this round of fighting with Hamas in Gaza is not going to be a business-as-usual affair. With vast numbers of Israelis called up for reserve duty, a daily onslaught of rocket attacks and infiltration attempts, and of course the Hamas massacre of civilians that kicked off this round of fighting, nobody has been thinking much about local politics lately, and that includes me. Nevertheless, I personally continue to care greatly about the future of the city of Jerusalem. So to the extent that we can take a break from focusing on the war from time to time to think about the brighter, more prosperous Israel that we want to see emerge in this conflict's aftermath, I'll periodically continue to drop in with some updates about it. I want to say a word of thanks to everyone who's reached out through various channels with well wishes. I'm safe and well in Jerusalem, and I even flew back from Barcelona a few days ago, just after the war started, just in order to be here. Because, although this may be difficult for some people to understand, and even if I don't have much to contribute, at Israel's time of national need, there's simply nowhere in the world that I'd rather be. Thanks for watching today's video. If you'd like to continue receiving videos for me about life in Jerusalem and in Israel, then please do consider subscribing to this channel.