House Democrats nominated Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for speaker on Tuesday as Republicans held a forum for its candidates.

Party leaders said members voted “unanimously” to renominate Jeffries, who was also the Democrats’ pick in January when the House eventually settled on Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for speaker after 15 contentious rounds of voting.

In a statement, Jeffries thanked his colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their support and urged “traditional Republicans” to break from “MAGA extremism” to create an “enlightened, bipartisan coalition.”

House Democrats tonight renominated Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker: “I am grateful to my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their extraordinary support and the unanimity of purpose as we continue to put people over politics.” pic.twitter.com/9HBh6wVfyB

— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) October 10, 2023

Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the House, held a forum on Tuesday to hear from their candidates for speaker. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) are facing off as the two declared GOP contenders. Though McCarthy said he urged his supporters not to nominate him, at least one GOP House member — Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) — said he will vote for McCarthy anyway.

A Republican internal election for speaker is expected to take place on Wednesday morning, but after the forum on Tuesday, it was not clear whether either Jordan or Scalise had sufficient support to win their party’s nomination. Ultimately, a simple majority will be needed to win the speaker’s gavel in a chamber-wide vote.

Upon leaving the GOP forum, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) said there were “50/50 odds” of a speaker being chosen on Wednesday, according to CNN. A far less optimistic Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said he “put it at 2%” that Republicans can settle on a speaker by Wednesday, per NBC News.

A single member — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — triggered a no-confidence vote in McCarthy last week over objections to his leadership. Gaetz was joined by seven fellow Republicans and the Democrats in successfully removing the speaker from the role.

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The unprecedented series of events has led to debate about whether to change or get rid of the “motion to vacate” rule that resulted in McCarthy’s ouster, as well as to revamp GOP conference rules governing the threshold for picking a nominee.

Despite uncertainty on the GOP side as to whether the conference can unite around a specific candidate, there is a sense of urgency as Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who is serving as speaker pro tempore in the short term, is limited in what he can do in the role.

One leading issue is government spending, with a government shutdown possible in mid-November if lawmakers cannot come to an agreement after a six-week continuing resolution expires.

Then there is Israel’s war on Hamas after the militant group’s deadly attack from Gaza over the weekend. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said he expects a bipartisan resolution declaring support for Israel “to be one of the first, if not the first items considered on the floor once we elect a new Speaker.”

The death toll from the Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel jumped again late on Tuesday night to more than 1,200.

Israeli officials released the information on Wednesday morning local time. Nearly 3,000 were injured from the unprecedented terrorist attacks.

U.S. officials confirmed earlier in the day that at least 14 Americans had been killed and that U.S. citizens were among those who were taken kidnapped by Hamas and taken back to Gaza where they are being held hostage.

Israel said that approximately 1,500 Hamas terrorists have been found dead inside Israel. Israel’s military said that it had struck 2,294 Hamas targets in round the clock airstrikes.

“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre. You see the babies, the mother, the father, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them,” said IDF Major General Itai Veruv. “It’s something we used to imagine from our grandmothers, grandfathers in pogroms in Europe and other places.”

Israeli military forces reportedly discovered at least 40 babies on Tuesday who were brutally murdered by terrorists in a kibbutz in southern Israel after the forces drove the terrorists out of the area.

Israeli-based i24 News correspondent Nicole Zedeck, reporting from Kfar Aza, said it was “hard to even explain exactly the mass casualties that happened right here.”

Zedeck said she saw “baby cribs thrown to the side” and “strollers left behind” after upwards of 70 terrorists stormed the community on Saturday, slaughtering entire families and taking numerous hostages. In a kibbutz, babies are typically all housed together in one nursery.

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The terrorists reportedly set homes on fire to force people out of their safe rooms where they were then gunned down by the Islamic terrorists.

French journalist Margot Haddad confirmed reports of Hamas killing and beheading children and infants under two years old.

“That’s it, the information is out. It’s so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100% confirmation. Infants and children under 2 years old were beheaded by Hamas in the Kibbutz of Kfar Aza. It is a horror, a massacre,” Haddad wrote. “For those asking for the source. [There] are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check. But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see/agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza.”