About 90% of evacuated students and 97% of staff have returned to schools in the affected northern communities; U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited an elementary school in the Eshkol Regional Council near Gaza, where explosions from the strip could be heard in the background; High school students launched protests calling for the release of the hostages

Eitan Glickman, Israel Moshkovitz, Lior El-Hai, Roni Green Shaulov, Meir Turgeman, Elisha Ben Kimon, Alexandra Lukash|