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.

Today is day 77 of the war. Health reporter Renee Ghert-Zand and political reporter Sam Sokol join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's podcast.

As of this morning, 139 soldiers have fallen in the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza. But thousands more are wounded. Ghert-Zand reports how Israel is not prepared to handle these numbers in the long or short term.

Sokol accompanied a mission of US evangelical leaders to the south this week that was put together by Joel C. Rosenberg, a Jerusalem-based Israeli Christian interfaith activist, and Likud MK Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN. We hear impressions from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Ken Blackwell, a former US ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights who worked for Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in the 1970s.

The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 21 hostages, with the bodies of only eight of them having been recovered by Israel. The task of determining the death of hostages held in Gaza has fallen to an independent committee of three leading Israeli medical professionals. Ghert-Zand brings highlights from her interview with Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s director general Prof. Ofer Merin, one of the members of the committee.

For the latest updates, please look at The Times of Israel’s ongoing live blog.

Discussed articles include:

Live blog December 22, 2023

War caught Israeli rehab hospitals unprepared to handle number of wounded

Devastation of Gaza border towns a ‘gut punch,’ says Huckabee during evangelical tour

How an unprecedented medical committee determines when a hostage held in Gaza is dead

Soldier from battalion that mistakenly shot hostages meets mom of one of those killed

THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Civilians and soldiers killed in Hamas's onslaught on Israel

THOSE WE ARE MISSING: The hostages and victims whose fate is still unknown

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IMAGE: People walk by photographs of civilians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, posted in Tel Aviv, December 21, 2023. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

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