Hello from London.
“Shock” is scarcely adequate to describe yesterday’s assault on Israel by Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza Strip. Fifty years and a day after another surprise attack, by Egypt and Syria, began the Yom Kippur war, and on the day of another Jewish festival, it has left at least 600 Israelis dead and hundreds more injured. The Palestinian raiders have also taken dozens of hostages, whom (as we report today) Hamas will want to swap for its own prisoners. “They were hunting for civilians,” Robert Albin, a philosophy professor living in Sderot, just a kilometre from the Gaza border, told our sister publication, 1843 magazine.
Israel’s retaliation has been swift: air strikes on Gaza have killed at least 313 Palestinians and a much larger operation is planned for the coming days. Israel’s troops are still striving to drive militant fighters out of areas seized by Hamas. How or how soon this latest war will end no one can tell. As our leader published today says, Hamas must be made to pay for its atrocities. But it is also clear that Binyamin Netanyahu’s long-pursued policy of ignoring Palestinians’ aspirations to sovereignty is in tatters.
Developments in Israel will of course demand much of our attention in the days, perhaps weeks, to come. But we’re watching plenty else besides, including, today, the elections in the German states of Bavaria and Hesse. Exit polls suggest that the parties in the national coalition government—the Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats—have had a bad day, though these are not always reliable. The hard-right Alternative for Germany seems to have gained ground.
Next Sunday we’ll have our eye on another European poll, in Poland. The governing right-wing Law and Justice party may lose power after a bad-tempered campaign all round. In Britain, though no election is imminent, the current round of party conferences may be the last before a national vote. This weekend the opposition Labour Party convenes in Liverpool. It’s miles ahead of the governing Conservative Party in the polls, but Britons don’t seem to know what it might do in office (eg, on taxes). This week my colleagues in the Britain section plan to tell you what to expect from Labour.
As a former economics and business correspondent, I feel duty bound to recommend another new story to you, on what my colleagues are calling “big health”. Although drugmakers and hospitals attract most public anger over the inflated cost of American health care, a group of middlemen—insurers, pharmacies, drug distributors and pharmacy-benefit managers—have quietly been doing very nicely. The combined revenues of the nine biggest were equal to around 45% of America’s health-care bill last year, up from 25% in 2013.
Last week Tom Nuttall asked you what you thought of the prospect of the European Union’s expansion from 27 members to as many as 36. Thank you for your replies. “Yes, but carefully,” says Ken Brill, “and with a change that allows it to discipline member states that violate its principles and raison d'être.” Ukraine may be a good candidate, Ken thinks; Kosovo and Serbia, not. Don’t expand to include all the Balkans “just to be fair”, says David Court, and don’t add any without a mechanism to ensure that all members, old and new, abide by the EU’s rules and norms.
I too have a question for you, to which I fear the answers may be bleak: can you envisage a peaceful end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and if so, how? After a few months’ absence from the digital team to oversee our coverage of Britain, Adam Roberts will be back next week to ponder your answers. | 
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