Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran “would be more inclined to support Hezbollah.” He added that Tehran supports Hamas militants in Gaza, but would give greater backing to Hezbollah “particularly if they felt that Hezbollah was being significantly threatened.”

Brown spoke to reporters as he traveled to Botswana for a meeting of African defense ministers.

Israeli officials have threatened a military offensive in Lebanon if there is no negotiated end to push Hezbollah away from the border. Just days ago, Israel’s military said it had “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon, even as the U.S. works to prevent the months of cross-border attacks from spiraling into a full-blown war.

Netanyahu said Sunday he hoped a diplomatic solution could be achieved but said he would solve the problem “in a different way” if needed. ″We can fight on several fronts and we are prepared to do that,” he said.

U.S. officials have tried to broker a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The issue is expected to come up this week as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visits Washington for meetings with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior U.S. officials.

Israel-Hamas War 13 hours ago

Democrats wrestle with whether to attend Netanyahu's address to Congress as many plan to boycott

news Jun 20

Hezbollah leader warns Israel of war with ‘no red lines,' threatens Cyprus

news Jun 19

Israel warns Lebanon of prospect of ‘all-out war' as U.S. seeks to de-escalate hostilities

U.S. President Joe Biden’s senior adviser, Amos Hochstein, met with officials in Lebanon and Israel last week in an effort to deescalate tensions. Hochstein told reporters in Beirut on Tuesday that it was a “very serious situation” and that a diplomatic solution to prevent a larger war was urgent.

Brown also said the U.S. won’t likely be able to help Israel defend itself against a broader Hezbollah war as well as it helped Israel fight off an Iranian barrage of missiles and drones in April. It is harder to fend off the shorter-range rockets that Hezbollah fires routinely across the border into Israel, he said.

Asked if the U.S. has changed its force posture in the region to better assure troops are protected, he said the safety of the force has been a priority all along and noted that no U.S. bases have been attacked since February.

Brown said the U.S. continues to talk with Israeli leaders and warn against widening the conflict. He said a key message is “to think about the second order of effect of any type of operation into Lebanon, and how that might play out and how it impacts not just the region, but how it impacts our forces in regions as well.”

Pentagon officials have said that Austin has also raised concerns about a broader conflict when he spoke to Gallant in a recent phone call.

“Given the amount of rocket fire we’ve seen going from both sides of the border, we’ve certainly been concerned about that situation, and both publicly and privately have been urging all parties to restore calm along that border, and again, to seek a diplomatic solution,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, last week.

A war between the two heavily armed foes could be devastating to both countries and incur mass civilian casualties. Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal is believed to be far more extensive than Hamas’.

Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire across Lebanon’s border with northern Israel since fighters from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip staged a bloody assault on southern Israel in early October that set off the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The situation escalated this month after an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hezbollah military commander in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah retaliated by firing hundreds of rockets and explosive drones into northern Israel and Israel responded with a heavy assault on the militant group.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, including 70 civilians. On Israel’s side, 16 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed.

An escalation in the conflict could also trigger wider involvement by other Iran-backed militant groups in the region.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech last Wednesday that militant leaders from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries have previously offered to send tens of thousands of fighters to help Hezbollah, but he said the group already has more than 100,000 fighters.

With Netanyahu scheduled to address U.S. lawmakers on July 24 and his government now at war with Hamas in Gaza, the number of absences is likely to be far greater.

Congressional Democrats are wrestling with whether to attend. Many are torn between their long-standing support for Israel and their anguish about the way Israel has conducted military operations in Gaza. More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that triggered the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures.

While some Democrats are saying they will come out of respect for Israel, a larger and growing faction wants no part of it, creating an extraordinarily charged atmosphere at a gathering that normally amounts to a ceremonial, bipartisan show of support for an American ally.

“I wish that he would be a statesman and do what is right for Israel. We all love Israel,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said recently on CNN about Netanyahu. “We need to help them and not have him stand in the way of that for such a long time.”

She added, “I think it’s going to invite more of what we have seen in terms of discontent among our own.”

Tensions between Netanyahu and Democratic President Joe Biden have been seeping into the public, with Netanyahu last week accusing the Biden administration of withholding U.S. weapons from Israel — a claim he made again Sunday to his Cabinet. After the prime minister leveled the charge the first time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t.”

news Jun 19

Israel warns Lebanon of prospect of ‘all-out war' as U.S. seeks to de-escalate hostilities

news Jun 10

Israel thrust between far-right support and Gaza cease-fire, as Netanyahu rival quits war cabinet

The invitation from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to Netanyahu came after consultation with the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. As of now, no meeting between the leaders during Netanyahu’s Washington visit has been scheduled, this person said.

Netanyahu said in a release that he was “very moved” by the invitation to address Congress and the chance “to present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us to the representatives of the American people and the entire world.”

Republicans first floated the idea in March of inviting Netanyahu after Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, gave a speech on the Senate floor that was harshly critical of the prime minister. Schumer, D-N.Y., called the Israeli leader “an obstacle to peace” and urged new elections in Israel, even as he denounced Hamas and criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Republicans denounced the speech as an affront to Israel and its sovereignty. Johnson spoke of asking Netanyahu to come to Washington, an invitation that Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York ultimately endorsed, albeit reluctantly. Pelosi, who opposed the invitation to Netanyahu in 2015 when she was Democratic leader, said it was a mistake for the congressional leadership to extend it again this time.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who attended the 2015 address as a House member, said he saw no reason why Congress “should extend a political lifeline” to Netanyahu.

Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would be “healthy” for members of both parties to attend. “I think that a lot of Americans are getting a one-sided narrative, especially the younger generation, and I think it’s important they hear from the prime minister of Israel, in terms of his perspective,” said McCaul, R-Texas.

Interviews with more than a dozen Democrats revealed the breadth of discontent over the coming address, which many feel is a Republican ploy intended to divide their party. Some Democrats say they will attend to express their support for Israel, not Netanyahu.

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has an “obligation” to attend because of that position.

“It should not have taken place,” he added. “But I can’t control that. And I have to do my job.”

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who leads the Sente Foreign Relations Committee, has signaled he will be there. Cardin said that what he’s looking for in Netanyahu’s speech is a “type of message that can strengthen the support in this country for Israel’s needs,” but also lay the groundwork for peace in the region.

Other Democrats are waiting to see whether Netanyahu will still be prime minister by the time he is supposed to speak to Congress.

There have been open signs of discontent over the handling of the war by Netanyahu’s government, a coalition that includes right-wing hard-liners who oppose any kind of settlement with Hamas.

Benny Gantz, a former military chief and centrist politician, withdrew from Netanyahu’s war Cabinet this month, citing frustration over the prime minister’s conduct of the war. On Monday, Netanyahu dissolved that body. Meantime, a growing number of critics and protesters in Israel have backed a cease-fire proposal that would bring home hostages taken by Hamas.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., said he stands with those “who hope that he’s not prime minister by the time late July rolls around. I think that he has been bad for Israel, bad for Palestinians, bad for America.” But, he added, he believes it his job to show up when a head of state addresses Congress, “even if its someone who I have concerns about and disagree with.”

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., attended the 2015 speech and described it as “among the most painful hours” he has spent while in Congress. He plans to boycott unless Netanyahu became a “champion for a cease-fire.”

A large portion of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — lawmakers who are among the most critical of Israel’s handling of the war — is expected to skip. Among them is Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the caucus, who told The Associated Press that it was a “bad idea,” to invite Netanyahu.

“We should be putting pressure on him by withholding offensive military assistance so that he sticks to the deal that the president has laid out,” she said.

Netanyahu’s visit is expected to draw significant protests and some members of Congress are planning an alternative event.

Rep. Jim Clyburn said he is in the early stages of bringing “like-minded” people together to exchange ideas about a path forward for Israelis and Palestinians that includes a two-state solution. The senior Democrat from South Carolina was a vocal critic of Netanyahu’s 2015 address, which he and several prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus viewed as an affront to Obama.

“I just think that, rather than just say, ‘I’m not going to go, I’m going to stay way,’ I am saying ‘I’m going to stay away with a purpose,’” he said. “I’m not going to listen to his foolishness. But here are some ideas that we have that might be a way forward.”

___ Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Josh Boak, Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Fadel Naem, director of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that more than three dozen bodies arrived at the hospital. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency group active in Gaza, said its emergency workers were digging for survivors at the site of a strike in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City and that it had pulled several dozen bodies from a building hit by an Israeli strike in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City.

Israel said Saturday that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.

The deaths come a day after at least 25 people were killed in strikes on tent camps and 50 wounded near the southern city of Rafah.

Israel said Saturday that it was continuing to operate in central and southern Gaza and has pushed ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water or medical supplies.

news Jun 20

Hezbollah leader warns Israel of war with ‘no red lines,' threatens Cyprus

Israel-Hamas War Jun 10

UN Security Council adopts a cease-fire resolution aimed at ending Israel-Hamas war in Gaza

news Jun 10

Israel thrust between far-right support and Gaza cease-fire, as Netanyahu rival quits war cabinet

A separate Israeli strike Saturday in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, according to the group. The member was the seventh killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants who stormed southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage. Israel has responded by bombarding and invading the enclave, killing more than 37, 400 Palestinians there according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Also Saturday, Israel’s army said an Israeli man was fatally shot in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, where Israeli forces fatally shot two militants Friday, the latest flare of violence in the territory since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

At least 549 Palestinians in the territory have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. Over the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank have killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to U.N. data.

Israeli nationals are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank that fall under the under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

In April, the death of a 14-year-old Israeli settler sparked a series of settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the territory. The army said a Palestinian was later arrested in connection with the killing.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died from his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah last week. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces raided al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah to arrest a suspect Friday and then opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were pelting them with stones.

Israel said Saturday that it was investigating a separate incident into conduct of its soldiers after a video surfaced online showing an injured Palestinian being transported on the hood of an Israeli armored car in the northern West Bank. The army said the man in the video was a wanted suspect and injured during an exchange of fire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces near the city of Jenin. The man was being transported to a Red Crescent ambulance situated nearby, it said. The army said the conduct in the video didn’t “conform to the values” of the army.

Anger across the country is growing at the government’s handling of the war in Gaza and the hostage crisis.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for new elections and for the government to bring the hostages home. Among the families were the parents of Naama Levy, an Israeli soldier who marked her 20th birthday in captivity.

___

Jeffery reported from Ramallah and Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

This was the latest deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas. It comes less than a month after an Israeli bombing triggered a deadly fire that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, drawing widespread international outrage — including from some of Israel’s closest allies — over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah.

Witnesses whose relatives died in one of the bombardments near a Red Cross field hospital north of Rafah told The Associated Press that Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the hospital was flooded with casualties, including 22 dead and 45 wounded, and condemned the firing of “high-caliber projectiles” a few meters (yards) from the facility. Hundreds of people live in tents nearby, including many of the hospital staff, the ICRC said.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 17

Netanyahu dissolves influential war Cabinet after key partner bolted from government

Israel-Hamas War Jun 16

Israeli military announces ‘tactical pause' in Rafah area to allow increased human aid deliveries

According to Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, witnesses told rescue workers about Friday’s shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with makeshift tents. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza reported the number of people killed and wounded in the attacks.

The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense and the Red Cross hospital appear to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast, known as Muwasi. The Israeli military said the episode was under review but that “there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF” inside the safe zone, using an acronym for Israel’s armed forces. It did not offer details on the episode or say what the intended targets might have been.

Israel has previously bombed locations in the vicinity of the “humanitarian zone” in Muwasi, a rural area with no water or sewage systems where displaced Palestinians have built tent camps in recent months.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it’s because they operate among the population.

With Israel’s war against Hamas now in its ninth month, international criticism is growing over the campaign of systematic destruction in Gaza, at a huge cost in civilian lives. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

The attack near the Red Cross hospital began with a munition that only made a loud bang and bright flash, said Mona Ashour, who lost her husband after he went to investigate what was happening.

“We were in our tent, and they hit with a ‘sound bomb’ near the Red Cross tents, and then my husband came out at the first sound,” Ashour said, holding back tears while clutching a young girl outside Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

“And then they hit with the second one, which was a little closer to the entrance of the Red Cross,” she said.

Hasan al-Najjar said his sons were killed helping people who panicked after the first strike.

”My two sons went after they heard the women and children screaming,” he said at the hospital. “They went to save the women, and they struck with the second projectile, and my sons were martyred. They struck the place twice.”

The hospital’s location is known to all parties in the conflict and marked with the Red Cross emblem, the ICRC noted on Friday. The 60-bed field hospital was opened in mid-May to provide emergency surgeries, obstetric, pediatric and outpatient care, according to a news release at the time, which shows white tents covering an area about the size of a soccer field.

Israel is pushing ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water, or medical supplies.

Elsewhere, Civil Defense teams in the northern Gaza Strip recovered the bodies of five people who were killed in an airstrike that hit two apartments in Gaza City, and several others were wounded. An airstrike earlier Friday hit a municipal garage in the city and killed five people.

Fadel Naeem, the orthopedic chief at al-Ahli hospital, said the bodies of 30 people were brought there Friday, calling it “a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said Friday that two soldiers were killed in combat in central Gaza. No information was given about the circumstances of the deaths of the two, both men in their 20s. Three other Israeli soldiers were severely injured, the army said.

Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 37,400 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Associated Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, and Drew Callister in New York contributed to this report.

The move was widely expected following the departure of Benny Gantz, a centrist former military chief. Gantz’s absence from the government increases Netanyahu’s dependence on his ultra-nationalist allies, who oppose a cease-fire. That could pose an additional challenge to the already fragile negotiations to end the eight-month war in Gaza.

Government officials said Netanyahu would hold smaller forums for sensitive war issues, including with his security Cabinet, which includes far-right governing partners who oppose cease-fire deals and have voiced support for reoccupying Gaza.

The war Cabinet was formed in the early days of the war, when Gantz, then an opposition party leader and Netanyahu rival, joined the coalition in a show of unity following the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas. He demanded that a small decision-making body steer the war, in a bid to sideline far-right members of Netanyahu’s government. It was made up of three members — Gantz, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The move to scrap the war Cabinet comes as Israel faces more pivotal decisions.

Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages taken by Hamas during its attack. Israeli troops are still bogged down in the Gaza Strip, fighting in the southern city of Rafah and against pockets of Hamas resurgence elsewhere, in addition to a dramatic escalation last week on the northern border with Lebanon.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 10

UN Security Council adopts a cease-fire resolution aimed at ending Israel-Hamas war in Gaza

Israel-Hamas War Jun 9

Centrist member of Israel's war cabinet resigns over lack of plan for postwar Gaza

Israel-Hamas War Jun 8

Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. At least 210 Palestinians are killed

After launching hundreds of rockets and drones toward Israel in some of the most intense barrages in the conflict, Hezbollah sharply reduced the number of projectiles fired toward northern Israel on Sunday and Monday.

The lull continued even after Israeli military officials said they killed a key operative in Hezbollah’s rocket and missile department, Mohammed Ayoub, in a drone attack on Monday morning. The Israeli military said it tracked just two missiles fired Monday from Lebanon, and they did not enter Israeli territory. In the past 48 hours, there were just six launches, down from more than 200 on Thursday.

The lull could be due to the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha that began Sunday morning, as well as a visit from Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden. Hochstein is in Israel to discuss the volatile situation along the Lebanon-Israel border. He is scheduled to be in Beirut on Tuesday.

The U.S. has been trying to ease tensions along the frontier, and Hochstein made several trips to the region in recent months. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Israel-Hamas war erupted, and daily exchanges of fire have been commonplace since then. In recent weeks, the exchanges have intensified, with fires breaking out on both sides of the border.

Netanyahu has played a balancing act throughout the war, weighing pressure from Israel’s top ally, the U.S., and growing global opposition to the fighting, as well as from his government partners, chief among them Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Both have threatened to topple the government should Israel move ahead on a cease-fire deal. The latest proposal is part of the Biden administration’s most concentrated push to help wind down the war. For now, progress on a deal appears to be stalled.

Critics say Netanyahu’s wartime decision-making has been influenced by the ultra-nationalists in his government and by his desire to remain in power. Netanyahu denies the accusations and says he has the country’s best interests in mind.

Gantz’s departure, while not posing a direct threat to Netanyahu’s rule, rocked Israeli politics at a sensitive time. The popular former military chief was seen as a statesman who boosted Israel’s credibility with its international partners at a time when Israel finds itself at its most isolated. Gantz is now an opposition party leader in parliament.

Gantz’s decision also prompted another resignation. Former army chief and fellow party member Gadi Eisenkot left the war Cabinet, where he had observer status.

Netanyahu’s government is Israel’s most religious and nationalist ever. In Israel’s fractious parliamentary system, Netanyahu relies on a group of small parties to help keep his government afloat. Without the support of Gantz’s party, Netanyahu is expected to be more beholden to far-right allies.

The “tactical pause” announced by the military, which applies to about 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) of road in the Rafah area, falls far short of a complete cease-fire in the beleaguered territory that has been sought by the international community, including Israel’s top ally, the United States. If it holds, the limited halt in fighting could help address some of the overwhelming needs of Palestinians that have surged even more in recent weeks with Israel’s incursion into Rafah.

The army said the pause would begin at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and remain in effect until 7 p.m. (1600 GMT). It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice.

The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, the military said. The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the route would increase the flow of aid to other parts of Gaza, including Khan Younis, Muwasi and central Gaza. Hard-hit northern Gaza, which was an early target in the war, is being served by goods entering from a crossing in the north.

The military said the pause came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.

Aid agencies, including the U.N., did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The pause along the southern route comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a cease-fire, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a halt to the fighting and the release of hostages taken by the militant group. While Biden described the proposal as an Israeli one, Israel has not fully embraced it and Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.

Israel’s eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group, sparked by the group’s Oct. 7 attack, has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the U.N. reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to ease the crunch and has said the ongoing fighting, including in Rafah, has complicated aid deliveries throughout the war.

From May 6 until June 6, the U.N. received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.

The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.

COGAT says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.

A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the U.N.’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.

The U.N. denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for U.N. trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 10

UN Security Council adopts a cease-fire resolution aimed at ending Israel-Hamas war in Gaza

Israel-Hamas War Jun 9

Centrist member of Israel's war cabinet resigns over lack of plan for postwar Gaza

It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.

The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.

It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they moved along the highway.

The U.S.-sponsored resolution welcomes a cease-fire proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States says Israel has accepted. It calls on the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which initially said it viewed the proposal “positively,” to accept the three-phase plan.

Hamas responded to the adoption by saying it welcomed the resolution and was ready to work with mediators in indirect negotiations with Israel to implement it. The statement was among the strongest from Hamas to date but stressed the group would continue “our struggle” to end the Israeli occupation and work on setting up a “fully sovereign” Palestinian state.

The resolution — which was approved overwhelmingly with 14 of the 15 Security Council members voting in favor and Russia abstaining — calls on Israel and Hamas “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”

U.S. Ambassdador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote the council “sent a clear message to Hamas to accept the cease-fire deal on the table,” reiterating that Israel has accepted the deal which is supported by countries across the world.

“The fighting could stop today, if Hamas would do the same,” she told the council. “I repeat, this fighting could stop today.”

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told reporters earlier on Monday that the United States wanted all 15 Security Council members to support what he described as “the best, most realistic opportunity to bring at least a temporary halt to this war.”

Whether Israel and Hamas agree to the three-phase cease-fire plan remains in question, but the resolution’s strong support in the U.N.’s most powerful body puts added pressure on both parties to approve the proposal.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 9

Centrist member of Israel's war cabinet resigns over lack of plan for postwar Gaza

Israel-Hamas War Jun 8

Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. At least 210 Palestinians are killed

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Biden presented only parts of the proposal and insisted that any talk of a permanent cease-fire before dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities is a nonstarter.

Earlier Monday, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders met in Qatar to discuss the proposed cease-fire deal and said later that any deal must lead to a permanent cease-fire, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza, reconstruction and “a serious exchange deal” between hostages in Gaza and Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council, said that while the text isn’t perfect, “it offers a glimmer of hope to the Palestinians, as the alternative is (the) continuing killing and suffering of the Palestinian people.”

“We voted for this text to give diplomacy a chance to reach an agreement that will end the aggression against the Palestinian people that has lasted far too long,” Bendjama said.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack in southern Israelthat killed about 1,200 people, mainly Israeli civilians, and saw about 250 others taken hostage. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 36,700 Palestinians and wounded in excess of 83,000 others, according to theGaza Health Ministry. It has also destroyed about 80% of Gaza’s buildings, according to the U.N.

The Security Council adopted a resolution on March 25 demanding a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with the U.S. abstaining, but there was no halt to the war.

Monday’s resolution underscores “the importance of the ongoing diplomatic efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United States aimed at reaching a comprehensive cease-fire deal, consisting of three phases.” It comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his eighth trip to the Middle Eastsince Oct. 7 pursuing that goal.

Biden’s May 31 announcement of the new proposal said it would begin with an initial six-month cease-fire with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza and the return of Palestinian civilians to all areas in the territory.

Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian assistance “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip,” which Biden said would lead to 600 trucks with aid entering Gaza every day.

In phase two, the resolution says that with the agreement of Israel and Hamas, “a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” will take place.

Phase three would launch “a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families.”

The resolution reiterates the Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to achieving the vision of a negotiated two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.”

It also stresses “the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” something Netanyahu’s right-wing government has not agreed to.

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

CCTV footage showed a person wearing a dark hoodie using a small sledgehammer to smash nine holes in the reinforced glass windows of the building in North Sydney after 3 a.m., a police statement said.

Two inverted red triangles, seen by many as a symbol of Palestinian resistance, were also painted on the front of the building.

Albanese urged people to have “respectful political debate and discourse.”

“People are traumatized by what is going on in the Middle East, particularly those with relatives in either Israel or in the Palestinian Occupied Territories,” Albanese told reporters.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 9

Centrist member of Israel's war cabinet resigns over lack of plan for postwar Gaza

Israel-Hamas War Jun 8

Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. At least 210 Palestinians are killed

“And I just say, again, reiterate my call to turn the heat down and measures such as painting the U.S. consulate do nothing to advance the cause of those who have committed what is, of course, a crime to damage property,” Albanese added.

The consulate was closed on Monday because of a public holiday in New South Wales state but would reopen on Tuesday, a consulate statement said.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said an overwhelming majority of Australians did not approve of such vandalism.

“We can make our point in this country without resorting to violence or malicious behavior,” Minns said.

The consulate was sprayed with graffiti in April, including the words “Freee (sic) Gaza.” The U.S. Consulate in Melbourne was vandalized by pro-Palestinian activists on May 31.

Saturday saw both an Israeli military assault that freed four hostages but left 274 Palestinians and one Israeli commando dead, and, Cindy McCain said, two of WFP’s warehouses in Gaza had been “rocketed” and a staffer injured.

Sunday’s U.N. announcement of the pause appears the latest setback for the U.S. sea route, set up to try to bring more aid to Gaza’s starving people.

The U.S. Agency for International Development described the pause as a step to allow for a security review by the humanitarian community in Gaza. USAID works with the World Food Program and their humanitarian partners in Gaza to distribute food and other aid coming from the U.S.-operated pier.

Completed in mid-May, the U.S. pier was operational for only about a week before being knocked offline by storm damage for two weeks. After repairs, it returned to operation again Saturday, bringing in 1.1 million pounds (492 metric tons) of food and other aid, before McCain said her agency was pausing its humanitarian work there.

The U.N. agency gave no further details, including how long the pause would last. WFP spokespeople did not respond to requests for further details.

Asked about the pier operation during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” McCain said: “Right now we’re paused.”

“I’m concerned about the safety of our people after the incident yesterday,” McCain said, without elaboration. “We also, two of our warehouses, the warehouse complex were rocketed yesterday.”

“We’ve stepped back for the moment,” she said, and want “to make sure that we’re on safe terms and on safe ground before we’ll restart. But the rest of the country is operational. We’re doing … everything we can in the north and the south.”

USAID said in a statement to The Associated Press that it was working with other U.S. government officials and with humanitarian groups in Gaza “to ensure that aid can safely and effectively resume movement following completion of the security review that the humanitarian community is currently undertaking.”

President Joe Biden in March announced in his State of the Union address that he had directed the U.S. military to set up the temporary pier. The U.S. project was meant to bring in a limited amount of aid into Gaza, where Israeli restrictions on land crossings, and fighting, have brought more than 1 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people near the point of famine.

Saturday’s return to operation for the U.S. pier project came the same day that Israel mounted a heavy air and ground assault that rescued four hostages, who had been taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack that launched the war in Gaza.

Pushing back against social media claims after the Israeli military operation, U.S. Central Command said in a tweet Saturday that neither the pier nor any of its equipment, personnel or other assets were used in the Israeli operation. It noted that Israel used an area south of the pier “to safely return hostages.”

A core principle of humanitarian groups holds that their work must be independent of the mission of combatants in a conflict zone, so as to keep aid operations and aid workers from becoming targets.

USAID said in a separate statement Saturday that no humanitarian workers were involved in the Israeli operation.

Speaking of the “rocketing” of the WFP warehouses, McCain said Sunday that one staffer was injured but “everybody else is fine.”

“That’s why a cease-fire is necessary. That’s why we need to stop this,” so that aid from her program and other organizations can flow into Gaza “at scale.”

—

Sara Burnett contributed.

The move does not immediately pose a threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who still controls a majority coalition in parliament. But the Israeli leader becomes more heavily reliant on his far-right allies.

Gantz, a popular former military chief, joined Netanyahu’s government shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in a show of unity.

His presence also boosted Israel’s credibility with its international partners. Gantz has good working relations with U.S. officials.

Gantz had previously said he would leave the government by June 8 if Netanyahu did not formulate a new plan for postwar Gaza.

US & World

Israel-Hamas War Jun 8

Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. At least 210 Palestinians are killed

Israel-Hamas War Jun 3

Four more Israeli hostages have died in Hamas custody

United Nations Jun 2

Condemnations mount over Israeli proposal to label UN aid agency a terrorist group

He scrapped a planned news conference Saturday night after four Israeli hostages were dramatically rescued from Gaza earlier in the day in Israel’s largest such operation since the eight-month war began. At least 274 Palestinians, including children, were killed in the assault, Gaza health officials said.

Hundreds of protesters held a red banner that stretched around the White House, urging President Joe Biden to change his approach to the war in Gaza.

“Biden, Biden you can’t hide, we are your red line,” protesters chanted.

NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment.

“The intention is to draw a red line where Biden won’t draw one when it comes to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and say we as the people are drawing the red line today to say enough is enough,” said Nas Issa, a protester from the Palestinian Youth Movement. “It’s time for an arms embargo, and it’s time to end this.”

Later, protesters bearing tents set up an encampment in the Ellipse, the 52-acre park directly south of the White House. Some protesters told NBC News that student community organizers led the move to start an encampment.

Some of the protesters boarded buses to the protest from cities including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, according to one of the organizing groups’ posts on the social media site X.

“Sometimes it feels a little helpless because everyone talks about the fact that it started Oct. 7. Meanwhile, there’s been decades of oppression, illegal detentions, illegal occupations, illegal settlements,” said Ibrahim Dabdoub, who drove to D.C. from Nashville, Tennessee.

Dabdoub attended the protest with his two sisters. The three siblings of Palestinian descent traveled from Canada, Tennessee and North Carolina for the protest.

Dabdoub and his sister Dania voted for Biden in 2020 — their third sister attending the protest is not an American citizen — but neither plans to support him this November.

“I regret everything,” Dania Dabdoub said of her 2020 vote, adding that she “will never vote for him again.”

Similarly, Qais Musmar, who traveled from Springfield, Virginia, for the protest, said he voted for Biden in 2020, adding, “I kind of regret it right now.” He said he would probably vote for an independent candidate in November, though “there’s a lot that [Biden] could do” to change his mind.

Ehab Abutavikh traveled from near Paterson, New Jersey, to participate in this protest, his first, with his cousin and aunt. Abutavikh’s family is from Gaza and about a dozen family members have died in the war, he said.

He said his message to those in the White House was that they needed to “open their eyes” and “end what’s happening.” Abutavikh was not old enough to vote in 2020 and said he does not know yet how he plans to vote in November.

Organizers and politicians, including Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and Socialism Party candidate Claudia De la Cruz, railed against the Biden administration during speeches in the park directly across from the White House.

“Biden can stop the genocide that is currently happening in Gaza,” De la Cruz said. “He could stop it, but it goes against all his interests. And so we are here to say that we are the red line.”

The messages from protesters ranged from pushing for an end to the war and a change in U.S. policy to calls against a two-state solution.

“We don’t want no two state, we’re taking back ’48,” some protesters chanted, referring to the 1948 war that led to the establishment of the state of Israel.

A group of protesters also yelled, “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here.”

Hundreds of signs dotted the crowds, many with messages like “lift the siege on Gaza now” and “genocide is our red line,” but a few had controversial messages including a sign that said “f— Israel, stand with Hamas.” Another sign displayed a Star of David with red handprints around it.

A handful of protesters wore green headbands that appeared to be similar to those worn by members of Hamas.

One protester wearing the headband said that it was “Hamas’ one,” though the protester said he does not speak Arabic and was not sure what it said. When asked if he supported Hamas, the protester, who would not give his name, said that he “wouldn’t say supporter, I would say maybe sympathizer.”

Hamas is designated by the U.S. to be a terrorist organization and spearheaded the Oct. 7 attack on Israel where about 1,200 people were killed and around 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. More than 36,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and it is unclear how many are civilians versus militants.

But the vast majority of protesters did not espouse pro-Hamas views.

Rob Stephens, who lives in D.C., said he wanted to join the protest because his mother was a Holocaust survivor.

“I think she would be here too,” he said, adding that she would be “appalled.”

Stephens voted for Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for the president again this November because he does not “want a fascist, wannabe Hitler,” appearing to refer to former President Donald Trump.

Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said that the president “believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans.”

“He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East,” the statement continued. “He’s working tirelessly to that end.”

Israel-Hamas War Jun 8

Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. At least 210 Palestinians are killed

United Nations Jun 2

Condemnations mount over Israeli proposal to label UN aid agency a terrorist group

Multiple statues in Lafayette Square across from the White House were vandalized during the protest with spray paint, graffiti and painted red handprints. Protesters attached signs reading slogans such as “Hands off Rafah! Stop the genocide!” to statues. Some graffitied slogans such as “free Gaza,” “kill pigs” and “f— pigs” on the statues.

Police said they attempted to arrest one person who climbed a statue, but members of the crowd intervened. The police deployed pepper spray and the person got away.

Biden is currently in France, not at the White House.

The president’s rhetoric toward Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become increasingly critical in recent months.

Just days ago, Biden said in an interview with Time magazine that there was “every reason” to believe that Netanyahu was prolonging the war for political gain. Biden has previously said that Netanyahu was making a “mistake” with his handling of the war.

Sarah Dean, Fiona Glisson, Alex Rhoades, Benjamin Deeter and Allie Raffa contributed.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• NYPD officer accused of shooting driver in New Jersey road rage incident
• New Mexico police arrest 11-year-old boy on allegations of monthlong crime spree
• Hundreds of Indigenous families complete relocation off Gardi Sugdub due to rising sea levels

Israelis were jubilant as the army said it freed Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41, in a daytime operation in the heart of Nuseirat, raiding two locations at once while under fire. All were well, the military said. They were taken by helicopter for medical checks and tearful reunions with loved ones after 246 days held.

Argamani had been one of the most widely recognized hostages after being taken, like the three others, from a music festival. The video of her abduction showed her seated between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!”

Her mother, Liora, has brain cancer and had released a video pleading to see her daughter. Israel’s Channel 13 said Argamani was moved to the hospital where her mother is treated. In a message released by the government, Argamani told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu she was “very excited,” saying she hadn’t heard Hebrew in so long.

Israel-Hamas War Jun 6

Netanyahu to address joint session of Congress next month

Israel-Hamas War Jun 6

Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas

Netanyahu in a statement vowed to continue the fighting until all hostages are freed. The operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Israeli aircraft hummed overhead as the bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda’s numbers couldn’t immediately be confirmed.

“The horrific massacre committed today by Netanyahu and his fascist government against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which led to slaughter of 210 and more than 400 wounded so far — under the pretext of liberating those detained by the resistance — confirms what the resistance has said repeatedly: that Netanyahu doesn’t plan to reach an agreement to stop the war and free the captured Israelis peacefully,” said Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official now based in Lebanon.

AP reporters saw dozens of bodies brought from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armored vehicles rolled by.

A baby was among the dead. Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.

“My two cousins were killed, and two other cousins were seriously injured. They did not commit any sin. They were sitting at home,” one relative said in the chaos. As Palestinians explored the newly destroyed buildings, a small child sat on a collapsed metal door, overwhelmed.

Neighboring Egypt condemned “with the strongest terms” Israel’s attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp, with its foreign ministry calling it a “flagrant violation of all rules of international law.” Neighboring Jordan also condemned it.

“The bloodbath must end immediately,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the social platform X, noting reports of civilian deaths.

Israel’s military said it had attacked “threats to our forces in the area,” adding that one commando died from his wounds.

Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters that military intelligence determined some time ago that the hostages were being held in two apartments, about 200 meters (219 yards) away from each other, in the heart of the Nuseirat camp. He said the forces had trained repeatedly on a model of the apartment buildings.

Hagari said the forces moved in simultaneously in broad daylight on both apartments, believing this ensured the best element of surprise. But he said the rescuers came under heavy fire as they moved out, including from gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades from within the neighborhood.

“A lot of fire was around us,” he said, adding that the military responded with heavy force, including from aircraft, to extract the rescuers and freed hostages.

A U.S. hostage cell provided advice and support throughout the process of locating and rescuing the hostages, according to a Biden administration official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. The hostage cells are multi-agency teams.

Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. Survivors include about 15 women, two children under 5 and two men in their 80s.

Saturday’s operation brought the total number of rescued hostages to seven. Two were freed in February and one was freed in the aftermath of the October attack. Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of at least 16 others, according to the government.

The latest rescue lifted some spirits in Israel as divisions deepen over the best way to bring hostages home. Many Israelis urge Netanyahu to embrace a cease-fire deal U.S. President Joe Biden announced last month, but far-right allies threaten to collapse his government if he does.

Netanyahu, whose support has fallen, rushed to the hospital to greet the freed hostages and his office released a stream of photos and videos of him meeting the families. But thousands of Israelis again gathered Saturday evening for the latest anti-government demonstration and calls for a cease-fire agreement.

“It’s time to pay the price of a political deal. One deal that will bring them all back without risking soldiers,” said Omri Shtivi, whose brother Idan marked his 29th birthday Saturday while in captivity.

It was unclear what effect the rescue might have on apparently stalled cease-fire efforts. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week, seeking a breakthrough.

“The hostage release and cease-fire deal that is now on the table would secure the release of all the remaining hostages together with security assurances for Israel and relief for the innocent civilians in Gaza,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

International pressure is mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war in Gaza, which reached its eighth month on Friday with more than 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

Palestinians also face widespread hunger because fighting and Israeli restrictions have largely cut off the flow of aid.

Meanwhile, Benny Gantz, a popular centrist member of Israel’s three-member War Cabinet who had threatened to resign from the government if it didn’t adopt a new plan by Saturday for the war in Gaza, postponed an expected announcement. Netanyahu urged him not to step down.

___

Mednick and Jeffery reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The timing of the address was first reported by Punchbowl News and comes after all four leaders in Congress issued a formal invitation to Netanyahu at the end of last month.

In their May 31 letter, Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked Netanyahu to appear before Congress “to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy, combatting terror, and establishing a just and lasting peace in the region.”

Several Democrats have already indicated they plan to boycott the speech over Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza or have otherwise expressed concern that his address could deepen tensions in Congress.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Tuesday that he wouldn’t have invited Netanyahu to address Congress unless the Israeli leader committed to a two-state solution first. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., referred to the Israeli prime minister as a “war criminal” during an NBC News interview this week and said that he would not attend the speech.

President Joe Biden has publicly criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war in recent months and has said that more needs to be done to to ensure humanitarian aid flows into Gaza.

The same day congressional leaders extended their invitation to Netanyahu, Biden announced that Israel had put forward a three-part plan that he said would pave the way for a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and trigger the release of all hostages who have been held there since October. That proposal appeared to be undermined a day later, when Netanyahu called a permanent cease-fire in Gaza a “nonstarter” unless certain conditions are met.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• As the world loses the last links to D-Day, vets recount the fateful hours on Normandy’s beaches
• Hallie Biden details tumultuous relationship and Hunter Biden’s addiction struggles
• Suspect in Gilgo Beach killings may have started preying on women more than three decades ago

It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensives in the Gaza Strip. A day earlier, the military announced a a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there. Troops repeatedly have swept back into sections of the Gaza Strip they have previously invaded, underscoring the resilience of the militant group despite Israel’s nearly eight-month onslaught in the territory.

Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.

Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering. He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open. “It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Rashed said.

United Nations Jun 2

Condemnations mount over Israeli proposal to label UN aid agency a terrorist group

Casualties from school strike arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, which had already been overwhelmed by a stream of constant ambulances since the central Gaza incursion began 24 hours earlier, said Omar al-Derawi, a photographer working for the hospital. Videos circulating online appeared to show several wounded people being treated on the floor of the hospital, a common scene in Gaza’s overwhelmed medical wards. Electricity in much of the hospital is out because staff are rationing fuel supplies for the generator.

“You can’t walk in the hospital — there’s so many people. Women from the victims’ families are massed in the hallways, crying,” he said.

Hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital recorded at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women. Another strike on a house overnight killed six people, according to the records. Both strikes occurred in Nuseirat, one of several built-up refugee camps in Gaza dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the new state.

Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital. Mohammed al-Kareem, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, said he saw people searching for their loved ones among bodies, and that one woman kept asking medical workers to open the wraps on the bodies to see if her son was inside.

“The situation is tragic,” he said.

The Israeli military said Hamas had embedded a “compound” within the school and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants inside were using it as a shelter where they were planning attacks against Israeli troops, though it didn’t immediately offer evidence. It released a photo of the school, pointing to classrooms on the second and third floor where it claimed militants were located.

It said it took steps before the strike “to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians … including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.”

UNRWA schools across Gaza have functioned as shelters since the start of the war, which has driven most of the territory’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes.

Last week, Israeli strikes hit near an UNRWA facility in the southern city of Rafah, saying they were targeting Hamas militants. An inferno that followed ripped through tents nearby housing displaced families , killing at least 45 people. The deaths triggered international outrage, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fire was the result of a “tragic mishap.” The military said the fire may have been caused by secondary explosions. The cause of the explosions has not been determined.

Israel sent troops into Rafah in early May in what it said was a limited incursion, but those forces are now operating in central parts of the city. More than 1 million people have fled Rafah since the start of the operation, scattering across southern and central Gaza into new tent camps or crowding into schools and homes.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Israel’s offensive has killed at least 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its figures.

Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas.

The United States has thrown its weight behind a phased cease-fire and hostage release outlined by President Joe Biden last week. But Israel says it won’t end the war without destroying Hamas, while the militant group is demanding a lasting cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government have threatened to bring down the coalition if he signs onto a cease-fire deal. On Wednesday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a leading hard-liner, spoke at an annual march through Jerusalem’s Old City, saying, “We are delivering a message from here to Hamas: Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours” — referring to a main gate into the Arab-majority section of the city — “And with God’s help total victory is ours.”

The annual march commemorates “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel has routinely launched airstrikes in all parts of Gaza since the start of the war and has carried out massive ground operations in the territory’s two largest cities, Gaza City and Khan Younis, that left much of them in ruins.

The military waged an offensive earlier this year for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza.

Troops pulled out of the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza last Friday after weeks of fighting caused widespread destruction. First responders have recovered the bodies of 360 people, mostly women and children, killed during the battles.

___

Samy Magdy reported from Cairo.

The families of hostages Nadav Popplewell, Yoram Metzger, Amiram Cooper and Haim Perry were informed that they are “no longer alive” and that Hamas has their remains, the IDF said.

“Our hearts go out to their families,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. “We are sorry. We couldn’t save them in time.”

Hagari also announced the death of 35-year-old paramedic Dolev Yehud, who was killed Oct. 7.

“He left his home to save lives,” Hagari said, adding that Yehud is survived by his pregnant wife and their three children. “He was murdered by Hamas.”

The deaths were announced as an Israeli cease-fire proposal backed by President Joe Biden was being challenged by right-wing ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government who are opposed to any deal with Hamas.

The IDF’s said its decision to “pronounce the four hostages dead was based on intelligence.”

“We estimate that the four of them were killed together in the Khan Yunis area several months ago while being held by Hamas terrorists,” Hagari said of Popplewell, Metzger, Cooper and Perry.

Hagari did not say how they died. But in March, Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Ubaida announced that Perry, Metzger and Cooper were among the seven hostages killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.

Last month, Popplewell was seen in a propaganda video released by Hamas, Israeli media reported.

Popplewell, who was 51 and a dual Israeli-British citizen, had been taken captive with his mother from their home at the Nirim kibbutz. His brother, Roi Popplewell, was killed in the attack, according to Israeli media.

“Kibbutz Nirim announces with deep sorrow the death of abductee Nadav Popplewell in the captivity of Hamas in Gaza,” the community said in a statement released Monday.

Popplewell’s elderly mother, Hanna Perry, was among a group of more than a dozen Israeli hostages who were released on Nov. 24 as part of a temporary cease-fire deal.

Metzger, who was 80 and lived in the Nir Oz kibbutz, was last seen alive in December in a video released by Hamas.

At the time, his son Guy told NBC News that he was “really worried” about his father and that he seemed “very, very tired.”

“He looks very sick, also his friends,” the younger Metzger said. “We are really worried about their condition.”

Perry, who was also 80, and lived in the same kibbutz as Metzger, Hagari said.

“Haim was a peace activist,” Hagari said. “He believed, he fought, for coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Haim was a volunteer who used to transport sick children from Gaza to receive medical treatment in Israel.”

Cooper, 85, was one of the founders of the Nir Oz kibbutz, Hagari said.

Yehud was initially believed to have been abducted by Hamas, as well. But after having gotten no indication that he was being held in Gaza, the Israelis rechecked the remains of the dead found at the Nir Oz kibbutz and identified Yehud’s body, the IDF reported.

His remains were identified by the National Institue of Forensic Medicine and Shura military base, the IDF said.

Some 125 Israeli hostages remain in captivity nearly eight months after they were abducted in a deadly surprise attack by Hamas that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Hunter Biden trial live updates: Jury selection begins in historic trial of president’s son
• Justice Department condemns Supreme Court’s racist ‘Insular Cases’
• Colorado will offer in-person voting behind bars in November

The president’s office said Sunday that the Cabinet decided to change laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the country and to establish a subcommittee to oversee the process.

It said President Mohamed Muizu will appoint a special envoy to assess the Palestinian needs and to launch a fundraising campaign.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in response that the Foreign Ministry recommends Israelis avoid any travel to the Maldives, including those with foreign passports, and those currently there to consider leaving.

Nearly 11,000 Israelis visited Maldives last year, which was 0.6% of the total tourist arrivals.

In one of the highest-profile cases, an attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed five foreign aid workers, the Israeli army promptly published its findings, acknowledged misconduct by its forces and dismissed two soldiers. But other investigations remain open, and admissions of guilt are rare.

Israel’s Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said this week that the military is investigating about 70 cases of alleged wrongdoing. She gave few details. The military refused to disclose the full list of investigations and told The Associated Press it could only respond to queries about specific probes.

A look at some of the investigations that have been publicly announced:

A deadly strike on a tent camp kills displaced families

On Tuesday, Israel revealed the preliminary results of an investigation into a deadly strike on a tent camp sheltering displaced families in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Sunday’s strike killed at least 45 people and caused widespread destruction. Most of the victims were women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between the deaths of civilians and Hamas militants.

The military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said a preliminary investigation found that the Israeli munitions used that day in efforts to eliminate two Hamas militants were too small to be the source of a fire that broke out.

US & World

Israel-Hamas War May 31

Biden details a 3-phase hostage deal aimed at winding down the Israel-Hamas war

Israel-Hamas War May 28

‘We have nothing.' As Israel attacks Rafah, Palestinians are living in tents and searching for food

Israel-Hamas War May 27

Netanyahu calls Israeli strike that killed dozens in Gaza tent camp ‘tragic' incident

Hagari said the destruction may have been caused by secondary explosions, possibly from Palestinian militants’ weapons in the area. Hamas did not respond to that explanation, but a member of the militants’ political bureau remarked Tuesday that Israel “believes that it is deceiving the world, with its false claim that it did not intend to kill and burn children and women, and its claim to investigate its crimes.”

The Israeli military said in a statement that the investigation had been turned over to a fact-finding group that operates independently outside the army’s chain of command. Those findings are then handed to the military advocate general, who decides if there should be disciplinary measures. It’s not clear how long the probe will last.

Scores of civilians are shot dead around a flour convoy

In February, witnesses said Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City. At least 104 people were killed and 760 were wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which described it as a massacre.

Army officials initially said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in a stampede when huge crowds tried to grab supplies off the pre-dawn convoy of 30 army trucks carrying flour toward hard-hit northern Gaza. But the military’s preliminary investigation, released a week later, appeared to back off that, saying only that the stampede caused “incidents of significant harm to civilians.”

The investigation found that troops opened fire at some who approached them and posed a threat to them and that a tank also fired warning shots to disperse “suspects.” But it did not directly address how the people were killed.

The military said the case is also being investigated by the fact-finding group.

Al-Ahli hospital explosion sets off deadly inferno

An explosion in October in the courtyard of the Al-Ahli hospital, where thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter or medical treatment, set off an inferno that burned men, women and children alive.

There are still conflicting claims over what happened.

Officials in Gaza quickly said an Israeli airstrike had hit the hospital, killing at least 500 people. Images of the aftermath ignited protests across the region.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War May 26

Sirens sound in Tel Aviv for the first time in months as Hamas says it fired rockets from Gaza

Colleges & Universities May 25

From Seinfeld to Butker, commencement speaker appearances invite controversy

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply

Within hours, Israeli officials said they had conducted an investigation and determined that they had not been involved. They released live video, audio and other evidence that it said showed the blast was caused by a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group.

Islamic Jihad denied responsibility.

An AP investigation, along with U.S. and French intelligence assessments, concluded a misfired rocket likely caused the explosion.

A Palestinian man is shot while walking with others

In January, the Israeli government announced it was investigating the death of a Palestinian man who was fatally shot while walking with four others.

Video footage shows one of the men holding a white flag — the international symbol of surrender — and the others behind him holding their hands in the air. They then scramble backward as several shots ring out.

In a second clip, one of the men is lying on the ground. The shooter is not visible in the video but before the shots are fired, the camera pans, showing what looks to be an Israeli tank positioned nearby. Ahmed Hijazi, a citizen journalist who filmed the episode, told The Associated Press that an Israeli tank fired on the group.

The army said it conducted an in-depth investigation and found the tank did not fire at the men. It also said it was “not possible to determine with certainty” whether the man was killed by Israeli fire.

Four Palestinians are shot on a dirt road

On March 22, Israel’s military launched an investigation after footage emerged appearing to show the bombing of five Palestinians near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Aerial footage circulating on social media shows four men walking along a dirt road before a strike hits them, killing all four instantly. Another man farther along the road tries to run away before he is hit and killed. The origin of the footage remains unclear.

The military said the investigation had been turned over to the independent fact-finding group.

A Gaza surgeon dies in an Israeli prison

Famed Gaza surgeon Adnan al-Bursh died in an Israeli prison after he was rounded up in an arrest raid on Al Awda hospital in mid-April, according to the United Nations.

Bursh led the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital. At the time of his arrest in December, he was reportedly in good health and operating on patients, the U.N. said.

But those who saw Bursh in detention reported that he looked depleted and bore signs of violence, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Israel’s military and police did not respond to requests for comment.

Palestinian detainees who have returned from Israeli detention have reported beatings, harsh interrogations and neglect while in Israeli custody. Israel has denied the reports. Bursh was transferred to Israel’s Ofer military prison in the West Bank, where he died.

Israeli police will conduct an autopsy of Bursh’s body with a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel present, the group said, noting it had filed a petition on behalf of Bursh’s family. It’s unclear when the autopsy will be conducted.

Authorities have released no information on the cause of death and it is unclear who is investigating. Israel’s military and police referred questions to Israel’s Prison Service, which referred questions back to the military.

Marchers chanted for the release of hostages in Gaza on Sunday at a New York City parade for Israel that drew thousands of people under heightened security.

The parade kicked off almost eight months after the unprecedented Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the deadliest in Israel’s history. The annual parade in the past was dubbed “Celebrate Israel,” but organizers said the exuberant atmosphere would be toned down this year given the war and hostages still being held in captivity in Gaza, as well as outbursts of antisemitism worldwide.

People chanted “Bring them home now!” and waved Israeli flags as they marched up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for what this year is being called “Israel Day on Fifth.” Crowds of spectators and hundreds of police officers lined the route, and steel barricades were installed along the sidewalk. One sign read: “From the river to the sea, Hamas will cease to be.”

“Especially this year, after Oct. 7, it’s especially important to have this show of unity,” said Rena Orman, a Bronx native who took part in the parade as part of Mothers Against College Antisemitism. “Everybody wants hostages back. Everyone wants this to end. No one is cheering for this. Everyone wants peace.”

Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said earlier this week that the event would focus on solidarity, strength and resilience.

“This is not a mood of confetti and music,” Treyger said. “This is more of a mood of unwavering, ironclad solidarity with hostages to bring them home, and also our unwavering love and pride in our Jewish identity.”

The parade, which is in its 59th year, kicked off late Sunday morning with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams among the elected officials attending. Spectators and marchers came from around the New York City region.

“I think it’s important — especially with what’s going on in the Middle East, in Israel with the war going on — to show our support and to show that the hostages aren’t forgotten and the country itself is not forgotten,” said participant Michael Garber of neighboring New Jersey.

There was never a thought of cancelling the parade this year, Treyger said, despite what he termed an astronomical rise in antisemitism.

“This is a moment that we have to meet,” he said.

But there will be significant security.

New York Police Department officials employed measures typically used for high-profile events such as New Year’s Eve and July 4. That included drones, K-9 units, bike patrols, fencing and barriers and designated entry points for spectators all along the parade route. Backpacks, large bags and coolers were prohibited, and spectators had to pass through metal detectors.

City officials stressed Friday there were no specific or credible threats to either the parade or the city, and any protestors have the right to demonstrate so long as it is done peacefully.

“We’re not going to allow any unlawfulness and any disruption of any celebration of one’s heritage in this city,” Adams said at a security briefing.

The parade represents the first large-scale Jewish event in the city since the war started, although there have been roughly 2,800 protests in the city, with about 1,300 of them related to the conflict, the Democrat said.

Israel faces growing international criticism over its offensive in Gaza, at a huge cost in civilian lives. Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in the besieged territory have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office came a day after Biden outlined the plan, and as families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept the proposal. A major demonstration in Israel on Saturday night urged the government to act now.

And a joint statement by mediators the U.S., Egypt and Qatar pressed Israel and Hamas, saying the proposed deal “offers a road map for a permanent cease-fire and ending the crisis” and gives immediate relief to both the hostages and Gaza residents.

But Netanyahu’s statement said that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel. Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent cease-fire is put in place.”

In a separate statement, Netanyahu accepted an invitation from U.S. congressional leaders to deliver an address at the Capitol, a show of wartime support for Israel. No date has been set.

Biden on Friday asserted that Hamas is “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one by the militant group in October that started the war. He urged Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to release about 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 30 more, for an extended cease-fire.

Cease-fire talks halted last month after a push by the U.S. and other mediators to secure a deal in hopes of averting a full-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Israel says the Rafah operation is key to uprooting Hamas fighters responsible for the Oct. 7 attack.

news May 28

‘This can no longer be justified': International outcry over Rafah attack piles more pressure on Israel

Israel-Hamas War May 27

Netanyahu calls Israeli strike that killed dozens in Gaza tent camp ‘tragic' incident

Israel-Hamas War May 20

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

Israel on Friday confirmed its troops were operating in central parts of the city. The ground assault has led around 1 million Palestinians to leave Rafah and thrown humanitarian operations into turmoil. The World Food Program has called living conditions “horrific and apocalyptic” as hunger grows.

Families of hostages said that time was running out.

“This might be the last chance to save lives,” Gili Roman told The Associated Press. His sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November, but sister-in-law Carmel is still held. “Our leadership must not disappoint us. But mostly, all eyes should be on Hamas,” Roman said.

Families described an aggressive meeting Thursday with Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, who told them the government wasn’t ready to sign a deal to bring all hostages home and there was no plan B.

Hanegbi said this week he expects the war to continue another seven months to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.

Many hostages’ families accuse the government of a lack of will.

“We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal, and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months,” Sharone Lifschitz said. Her mother, Yocheved, was freed in November but her father, Oded, is still held.

The first phase of the deal proposed by Biden would last for six weeks and include a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The third phase calls for the start of a major reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding from the war’s devastation.

Biden acknowledged that keeping the proposal on track would be difficult, with “details to negotiate” to move from the first phase to the second. Biden said if Hamas fails to fulfil its commitment under the deal, Israel can resume military operations.

Hamas has said it viewed the proposal “positively” and called on Israel to declare an explicit commitment to an agreement that includes a permanent cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions.

In Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians have fled following Israel’s assault on Rafah, there was some hope.

“This proposal came late, but better late than never,” said Akram Abu Al-Hasan.

The main difference from previous proposals is the readiness to stop the war for an undefined period, according to analysts. It leaves Israel the option to renew the war and diminish Hamas’ ability to govern, but over time, said Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum in Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

“It was a very good speech … it seems that Biden is trying to force it on the Israeli government. He was clearly speaking directly to the Israeli people,” said Gershon Baskin, director for the Middle East at the International Communities Organization.

Also on Saturday, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News said officials from Egypt, the United States and Israel would meet in Cairo over the weekend about the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since Israel took over the Palestinian side in May.

The crossing is a main way for aid to enter Gaza. Egypt has refused to open its side, fearing the Israeli control will remain permanent. Egypt wants Palestinians to be in charge again.

Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. More than 36,370 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s campaign of bombardment and offensives, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

___

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Samy Magdy in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.

Protesters returned to the lawn for the first time in weeks with a number of tents and banners in the middle of the university’s alumni weekend. The protesters were identified as “an autonomous group of Palestinian students,” by the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Columbia.

One of their banner’s read, “@alumni No Donations ’til Divestment,” the Columbia Spectator reported.

“We are aware of the encampment erected yesterday evening and are monitoring the situation. We remain committed to hosting a successful weekend for our alumni,” a university spokesperson told NBC News.

According to the school’s website, alumni weekend activities run from Thursday, May 30, to Saturday, June 1.

Video shared on X on Friday evening appeared to document a “quick response” by campus security to remove tents shortly after the encampment was put back together. The officers eventually left and a number of tents remained, and several protesters remained camped out overnight, the Spectator reported.

Around the same time, hundreds of protesters marched to the Brooklyn Museum and briefly took over its lobby. According to the NYPD, nearly three dozen people were taken into custody.

The action by protesters comes almost a month after the last campus occupation was broken up by a large-scale invasion by the NYPD. Heavily-geared police beached Hamilton Hall after a smaller group of protesters had stormed the building and taken it over following nearly two weeks of student occupation on the South Lawn.

Hundreds of students were arrested over the course of a couple weeks, not just at Columbia University’s campus, but also at City College, NYU and others.

The April campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.

Police have swept through campuses across the U.S. in response to protests calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza. There have been confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

Despite graduation ceremonies and the end of academic instruction, many students groups have continued protests to pressure colleges to divest from companies with links to Israel.

Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza have continued as a recent Israeli airstrike killed at least 45 people last weekend in a Rafah camp. The city has become a shelter for many people forced from their homes due to months of bombings and attacks by Israel’s armed forces.

Apr 28

Photos: Pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian demonstrations clash at University of California, Los Angeles

Israel-Hamas War Apr 25

College protesters are demanding schools ‘divest' from companies with ties to Israel. Here's what that means.

Israel-Hamas War Apr 25

USC cancels graduation ceremony and dozens are arrested on other campuses as anti-war protests grow

Biden added that Hamas is “no longer capable” of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel as he urged Israelis and Hamas to come to a deal to release the remaining hostages for an extended cease-fire.

The Democratic president in remarks from the White House called the proposal “a road map to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages.”

Biden said the first phase of the proposed deal would would last for six weeks and would include a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

American hostages would be released at this stage, and remains of hostages who have been killed would be returned to their families. Humanitarian assistance would surge during the first phase, with 600 trucks being allowed into Gaza each day.

Israel May 31

Meta and OpenAI say they disrupted influence operations linked to Israeli company

news May 28

‘This can no longer be justified': International outcry over Rafah attack piles more pressure on Israel

The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.

“And as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, the temporary cease-fire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposals, ‘the cessation of hostilities permanently,’” Biden said.

The third phase calls for the start of a major reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding from devastation caused by the war.

But Biden acknowledged that keeping the deal on track would be difficult, saying there are a number of “details to negotiate” to move from the first phase to the second.

Biden’s remarks came as the Israeli military confirmed that its forces are now operating in central parts of Rafah in its expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city. Biden called it “a truly a decisive moment.” He added that Hamas said it wants a cease-fire and that an Israeli-phased deal is an opportunity to prove “whether they really mean it.”

Israel has faced growing international criticism for its strategy of systematic destruction in Gaza, at a huge cost in civilian lives. Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in the besieged territory have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.

Cease-fire talks ground to a halt at the beginning of the month after a major push by the U.S. and other mediators to secure a deal, in hopes of averting a planned Israeli invasion of the southern city of Rafah. The talks were stymied by a central sticking point: Hamas demands guarantees that the war will end and Israeli troops will withdraw from Gaza completely in return for a release of all the hostages, a demand Israel rejects.

Police officials say there’s no specific threat to the event at this point. Security will be stepped up as a precaution.

The NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau has warned that extremists from various ideological backgrounds may view the event as an attractive target for violence or disruption, particularly in light of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, according to a memo reviewed by NBC New York.

The assessment notes that the current threat environment for Israel and the Jewish community is particularly severe.

Foreign terrorist organizations such as Hamas, ISIS, and al-Qaida have persistently incited violence against Israeli and Jewish targets through online propaganda. These developments have the potential to inspire homegrown violent extremists in the United States to carry out similar attacks, experts say.

The report references the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, where hundreds of Hamas militants launched a coordinated assault, resulting in about 1,200 deaths and over 200 kidnappings. This event, along with subsequent military actions and humanitarian crises, has heightened global tensions and led to calls for retribution from various extremist groups.

The parade, organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, is expected to draw more than 40,000 participants, including Israeli and U.S. politicians, dignitaries, celebrities, and families of hostages. The event will feature floats from various Israeli, Israeli-American, and Jewish schools and community organizations.

Given previous disruptions at major events, such as the 2023 Thanksgiving Day Parade, the NYPD anticipates potential protest actions aimed at the Israel Day on Fifth Parade. There is a significant risk of attempts to block or otherwise disrupt the event, with large-scale protests related to the Israel-Hamas war continuing to occur nationwide.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Israel had not violated Biden’s “red line” for withholding future offensive arms transfers because it has not, and it appears to the U.S. that it will not, launch a full-scale ground invasion into the city in southern Gaza.

“Everything that we can see tells us that they are not moving into a major ground operation in population centers in the center of Rafah,” Kirby said.

Kirby called the loss of life “heartbreaking” and “horrific,” and said “we certainly condemn the loss of life here.” He added that the U.S. was monitoring the results of an Israeli investigation into the strike, which suggested the civilian deaths were the result of a secondary explosion after a successful strike on two Hamas operatives.

“We understand that this strike did kill two senior Hamas heads who are directly responsible for attacks,” Kirby said. “We’ve also said many times Israel must take every precaution possible to do more to protect innocent life.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Israel’s weeks-old offensive in Rafah was still on a “far different” scale than the assaults Israeli forces waged on other cities in Gaza earlier in the seven-month war against Hamas. The U.S. had urged Israel not to replicate those earlier attacks in Rafah, given the vulnerable civilians crowded there.

Miller said he had no direct knowledge of reported accounts from witnesses on the ground Tuesday that Israeli tanks had entered the center of Gaza, and noted Israel had denied responsibility for a new Israeli strike outside of Rafah on Tuesday that Gaza health officials said killed more than 20 people.

Asked whether the strike would result in any U.S. policy changes, Kirby said, “I have no policy changes to speak to.”

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said she did not know whether it was a U.S.-provided weapon that was used in the deadly Sunday strike that killed the dozens of civilians at a displacement camp. “I do not know what type of ammunition was used in that airstrike,” Singh said. “I have to refer you to the Israelis to speak to that.”

The Israelis have said they used small-diameter precision munitions in the attack and have suggested that a secondary explosion caused the number of civilian deaths. Singh said the U.S. has not paused shipments to Israel in the wake of the strike. “Security assistance continues to flow,” Singh said.

___

AP writers Tara Copp and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed.

The tent camp inferno has drawn widespread international outrage, including from some of Israel’s closest allies, over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah. And in a sign of Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage, Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state on Tuesday.

The Israeli military suggested Sunday’s blaze in the tent camp may have been caused by secondary explosions, possibly from Palestinian militants’ weapons. The results of Israel’s initial probe into the fire were issued Tuesday, with military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari saying the cause of the fire was still under investigation but that the Israeli munitions used — targeting what the army said was a position with two senior Hamas militants — were too small to be the source.

The strike or the subsequent fire could also have ignited fuel, cooking gas canisters or other materials in the camp. The blaze killed 45 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials’ count. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fire was the result of a “tragic mishap.”

Israel’s assault on Rafah, launched May 6, spurred more than 1 million people to flee the city, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees said Tuesday. Most were already displaced multiple times in the nearly eight-month war between Israel and Hamas. Families are now scattered across makeshift tent camps and other war-ravaged areas.

The strikes over the past few days have hit areas west of Rafah, where the military had not ordered civilians to evacuate. Israeli ground troops and tanks have been operating in eastern Rafah, in central parts of the city, and along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Shelling late Monday and early Tuesday hit Rafah’s western Tel al-Sultan district, killing at least 16 people, the Palestinian Civil Defense and the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Seven of the dead were in tents next to a U.N. facility about about 200 meters (yards) from the site of Sunday’s fire.

“It was a night of horror,” said Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Tel al-Sultan since December. He said he heard “constant sounds” of explosions overnight and into Tuesday, with fighter jets and drones flying above.

He said it reminded him of the Israeli invasion of his neighborhood of Shijaiyah in Gaza City, where Israel launched a heavy bombing campaign before sending in ground forces in late 2023. “We saw this before,” he said.

The United States and other allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city, with the Biden administration saying this would cross a “red line” and refusing to provide offensive arms for such an undertaking. On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller gave no indication the administration sees Israel as crossing any of the red lines for Rafah, saying the offensive is still on a “far different” scale than assaults on other population centers in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive last week as part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

A proposed U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a halt to the fighting in Rafah was being circulated by Algeria on Tuesday, with plans to potentially bring it to a vote this week. The U.S. has vetoed multiple Gaza cease-fire resolutions.

On Tuesday afternoon, an Israeli drone strike hit tents near a field hospital by the Mediterranean coast west of Rafah, killing at least 21 people, including 13 women, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

US & World

Israel-Hamas War May 27

Netanyahu calls Israeli strike that killed dozens in Gaza tent camp ‘tragic' incident

Israel-Hamas War May 26

Palestinian medics say Israeli airstrikes killed 35 after hitting tents for displaced people in Rafah

Israel-Hamas War May 26

Sirens sound in Tel Aviv for the first time in months as Hamas says it fired rockets from Gaza

A witness, Ahmed Nassar, said his four cousins and some of their husbands and children were killed in the strike and a number of tents were destroyed or damaged. Most of those living there had fled from the same neighborhood in Gaza City earlier in the war.

“They have nothing to do with anything,” he said.

Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Rafah, saying Israeli forces must enter the city to dismantle Hamas and return hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.

In its investigation of Sunday’s deadly strike and fire, the Israeli military released satellite photos of what it said was a Hamas rocket launch position about 40 meters (yards) from an area of sheds that was targeted. In the photo, the alleged launcher itself did not appear to have been struck.

He said Israeli warplanes used the smallest bombs possible — two munitions with 17-kilogram (37-pound) warheads. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” he said.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Israel recovers the bodies of 3 more hostages from Gaza

Israel-Hamas War May 19

The Israel-Hamas war is testing whether campuses are sacrosanct places for speech and protest

Hagari said that the fire was “a devastating incident which we did not expect” and ignited due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

Still, the strikes have triggered a flight of people from areas west of Rafah. Sayed al-Masri, a Rafah resident, said many families were heading to the crowded Muwasi area or to Khan Younis, a southern city that suffered heavy damage during months of fighting.

“The situation is worsening” in Rafah, al-Masri said.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said two medical facilities in Tel al-Sultan are out of service because of intense bombing nearby. Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity operating throughout the territory, said the Tel al-Sultan medical center and the Indonesian Field Hospital were under lockdown with medics, patients and displaced people trapped inside.

Most of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning. Rafah’s Kuwait Hospital shut down Monday after a strike near its entrance killed two health workers.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organization said the casualties from Sunday’s strike and fire “absolutely overwhelmed” field hospitals in the area, which were already running short on supplies to treat severe burns.

“That requires intensive care, that requires electricity, that requires high-level medical services,” Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva. “Increasingly, we are struggling to even have the high-level skilled doctors and nurses because they’ve been displaced.”

The war began when Hamas and other militants burst into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 civilians and abducting around 250. More than 100 were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel responded to the attack with a massive air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 36,096 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. Around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

The fighting in Rafah has made it nearly impossible for humanitarian groups to import and distribute aid to southern Gaza.

The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter through the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing since the start of its operation, but aid groups say it’s extremely difficult to access that aid on the Gaza side because of the fighting.

The U.N. says it has only been able to collect aid from around 170 trucks over the past three weeks via Kerem Shalom. Smaller amounts of aid were also entering through two crossings in the north and by sea through a U.S.-built floating pier, but it’s nowhere near the 600 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed. And the pier is being removed for repairs.

Magdy and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press correspondents Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Mohammed Jahjouh in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

Images showed the area engulfed in flames as screaming Palestinians fled for safety, with some video shared on social media showing disturbing images including severely burned corpses and a man holding what appears to be the headless body of a small child.

The strike drew condemnation from world leaders just days after the United Nations’ top court ordered Israel to halt its offensive on the southern Gaza city where more than a million had sought refuge.

In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike “a tragic incident,” his office said, clarifying comments made in Hebrew that could be translated in English as either “a tragic mishap” or “a tragic mistake.”

“We are investigating the case and will draw conclusions because this is our policy,” he said.

As global outcry mounted, the Israel Defense Forces initially said it had targeted two senior Hamas leaders, did not strike a designated humanitarian area and took steps to reduce the risk of harming civilians, but said a full investigation would be conducted into “the deaths of civilians in the area of the strike.”

Israel-Hamas War May 26

Palestinian medics say Israeli airstrikes killed 35 after hitting tents for displaced people in Rafah

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply

Qatar warned it could hinder efforts to reach a cease-fire deal, which had been renewed in Europe over the weekend. Adding to tensions, Egypt’s military said one of its soldiers was killed after reports of a firefight with Israeli forces at the Rafah border area.

The IDF confirmed that “a shooting incident occurred on the Egyptian border,” adding that the incident was under review and that discussions were being held with the Egyptians.

NBC News was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.

‘They said it is safe’

The Gaza health ministry reported that at least 35 people had been killed in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, the majority of them women and children. First responders had warned the number of casualties could rise as many were trapped in flames that erupted following the bombardment.

And on Monday, the ministry said the death toll had risen to at least 45 people.

“This massacre is the largest in the city of Rafah in months,” the spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Rafah, Muhammad Al-Mughir, told NBC News. He stressed that the area hit was a designated “humanitarian area” next to U.N. warehouses.

Samuel Johann, the emergency coordinator in Gaza for Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctor Without Borders, said Sunday’s strike hit just under a mile from an MSF stabilization point for trauma patients. He said the facility received dozens of people, with at least 28 already dead and 180 arriving injured.

One family described their harrowing escape after the apartment building they were sheltering in appeared to be impacted.

“Suddenly, windows shattered,” Hala Siam told NBC News’ crew on the ground. “The children got scared. We all went out to the street.”

“They said it is safe,” Siam said of the area she and her family were sheltering in. “There is no safe place in Rafah.”

The IDF said its strike targeted two Hamas leaders who it said were responsible for organizing terrorist attacks in the occupied West Bank area. It said that it was aware of reports that civilian tents were ignited in the strike and that the incident was “under review.”

In a subsequent statement, the IDF said that the airstrike was based on “prior intelligence information regarding the presence of the senior Hamas terrorists at the site.” It said that before the strike “a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians” and that “it was assessed that there would be no expected harm to uninvolved civilians.”

It said that an investigation was underway into “the circumstances of the deaths of civilians in the area of the strike. The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians during combat.”

In a statement, Hamas described the strike as a horrific “massacre.” It did not confirm the death of the commander or senior leader.

Earlier Sunday, Hamas’ military wing announced a missile barrage into Israel targeting Tel Aviv, the first in many weeks. The IDF said that eight projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Rafah into Israeli territory and that a number had been intercepted.

As outrage mounted over Sunday’s Rafah attack, mediators Qatar and Egypt condemned the assault as a violation of international law. Qatar, a key broker in talks with Hamas, warned it could imperil efforts toward a new hostage deal.

Following weekend talks involving CIA Director William Burns in Paris, an Israeli official told NBC News the Israeli government was hopeful talks may resume this week.

But French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged by the Israeli strikes that have killed many displaced persons in Rafah,” adding “these operations must stop.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also condemned the strike and said he was “horrified.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council said images of the scene were heartbreaking.

“Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians. But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians,” the spokesperson said. “We are actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened, and understand that the IDF is conducting an investigation.”

In a briefing last Wednesday ahead of the International Court of Justice ruling, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Israel’s military operations appeared to have been “more targeted and limited.”

President Joe Biden had been vocal warning any full-scale assault on Rafah could see him suspend the shipment of certain weapons.

Netanyahu has faced increasing scrutiny over how Israel is conducting the war, which it launched after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. Some 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage, officials said, of which 125 are thought to still be captive in Gaza with around a quarter believed to be dead.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza over seven months of war, according to local health authorities. Aid groups have warned of catastrophic conditions for civilians who lack access to food and clean water, fueling a possible famine in parts of the enclave.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Sunak’s plan to make 18-year-olds do national service grabs attention on U.K. election trail
• Papua New Guinea says landslide killed more than 2,000 people
• Arizona teen escapes bear attack with nasty scratches

The attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population had sought shelter before Israel’s incursion earlier this month. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled.

Footage from the scene of the largest airstrike showed heavy destruction. Israel’s army confirmed the strike and said it hit a Hamas installation and killed two senior Hamas militants. It said it was investigating reports that civilians were harmed. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was in Rafah on Sunday and was briefed on the “deepening of operations” there, his office said.

A spokesperson with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the death toll was likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continued in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood about two kilometers (1.2 miles) northwest of the city center.

The society asserted that the location had been designated by Israel as a “humanitarian area.” The neighborhood is not included in areas that Israel’s military ordered evacuated earlier this month.

The airstrike was reported hours after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel’s massive air, sea and ground offensive.

Israel-Hamas War May 26

Sirens sound in Tel Aviv for the first time in months as Hamas says it fired rockets from Gaza

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply

There were no reports of casualties in what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza since January. Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility. Israel’s military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from Rafah and “a number” were intercepted, and the launcher was destroyed.

Earlier Sunday, dozens of aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month. Israel’s military said 126 aid trucks entered via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing.

But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid — including medical supplies — because of fighting. The crossing has been largely inaccessible because of Israel’s offensive in Rafah. United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid. The World Health Organization last week said an expanded Israeli incursion in Rafah would have “disastrous” impact.”

“With the humanitarian operation near collapse, the secretary-general emphasizes that the Israeli authorities must facilitate the safe pickup and delivery of humanitarian supplies from Egypt entering Kerem Shalom,” the spokesperson for U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Egypt refuses to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing until control of the Gaza side is handed back to Palestinians. It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Kerem Shalom, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

The war between Israel and Hamas has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense, residential areas.

Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages. Hamas still holds some 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah to eliminate Hamas’ remaining battalions and achieve “total victory” over the militants, who recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza.

The war has also heightened tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian authorities on Sunday said Israeli forces shot dead a 14-year-old boy near the southern West Bank town of Saeer. The Israeli army said the Palestinian male was shot dead after trying to stab Israeli forces at Beit Einun Junction.

SOUTHERN GAZA LARGELY CUT OFF FROM AID

Southern Gaza has been largely cut off from aid since Israel launched what it called a limited incursion into Rafah on May 6. Since then over 1 million Palestinians, many already displaced, have fled the city.

Northern Gaza receives aid through two land routes that Israel opened during global outrage after Israeli strikes killed seven aid workers in April.

A few dozen trucks enter Gaza daily through a U.S.-built floating pier, far below the 150 trucks a day that officials hoped for. Aid groups say 600 trucks a day are needed.

ISRAEL DETAINS MAN OVER MUTINY THREAT

Israel’s military said it had detained a suspect over a widely circulated video in which a man dressed as a soldier threatens mutiny. The man says tens of thousands of soldiers were ready to disobey the defense minister over his suggestion that Palestinians should govern Gaza after the war, and pledged loyalty to Netanyahu alone.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the man has been removed from reserve duty. It was not clear when or where the video was made. The prime minister’s office released a brief statement condemning all forms of military insubordination.

___

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel and Magdy from Cairo.

The militants have continued to fire projectiles at communities around Gaza more than seven months into the war but have not fired longer-range rockets in months. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the latest barrage.

Earlier on Sunday, aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel through a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month. But it was unclear if humanitarian groups would be able to access the aid because of ongoing fighting in the area.

Egypt refuses to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing until control of the Gaza side is handed back to Palestinians. It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

But that crossing has been largely inaccessible because of fighting linked to Israel’s offensive in the nearby city of Rafah. Israel says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter, but United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid on the other side.

The war between Israel and Hamas, now in its eighth month, has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Around 80% of the population’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages. Hamas is still holding some 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

Hamas claimed to have captured an Israeli soldier during fighting in northern Gaza and released video late Saturday showing a wounded man being dragged through a tunnel. The Israeli military denied any of its soldiers had been captured, and Hamas did not provide any other evidence to substantiate its claim.

In a separate development, the Israeli military said it had detained a suspect over a widely circulated video in which a man dressed as an Israeli soldier threatens mutiny. In the video, the man said tens of thousands of soldiers were ready to disobey Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over his suggestion that Palestinians should govern Gaza after the war and pledged loyalty to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alone.

It was not clear if the man was on active duty, or when or where the video was made. Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, had shared the video on social media, sparking criticism from political opponents. The prime minister’s office released a brief statement condemning all forms of military subordination.

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply

Israel-Hamas War May 24

Israel recovers the bodies of 3 more hostages from Gaza

Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera TV aired footage of what it said were trucks entering Gaza through Kerem Shalom. Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the Sinai Peninsula, which handles the delivery of aid from the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, told The Associated Press that 200 aid trucks and four fuel trucks are scheduled to be sent to Kerem Shalom on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the U.N. was able to retrieve the aid from the Gaza side.

Southern Gaza has been largely cut off from aid since Israel launched what it says is a limited incursion into Rafah on May 6. Since then, over 1 million Palestinians have fled the city, with most having already been displaced from other parts of the besieged territory.

Northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the U.N.’s World Food Program says famine is already underway, is still receiving aid through two land routes that Israel opened in the face of worldwide outrage after Israeli strikes killed seven aid workers in April.

A few dozen trucks have also been entering Gaza daily through a U.S.-built floating pier, but its capacity remains far below the 150 trucks a day that officials had hoped for. Aid groups say the territory needs a total of 600 trucks a day to meet colossal humanitarian needs.

Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah in order to eliminate Hamas’ last remaining battalions and achieve its goal of “total victory” over the militants, who have recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza where the military had already operated.

Netanyahu faces growing pressure from the Israeli public to make a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages, something Hamas has refused to do without guarantees for an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have ruled that out.

Scuffles broke out between Israeli police and protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday after thousands gathered to demonstrate against the government and demand the return of the hostages. The protesters called for Netanyahu’s resignation and demanded new elections.

International pressure is also growing, as the war leaves Israel increasingly isolated on the world stage.

Last week, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah. The top United Nations court also said Israel must give war crimes investigators access to Gaza.

Israel is unlikely to comply with the orders, and has sharply condemned the ICC’s move toward arrest warrants for its leaders. Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense, residential areas.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that the bodies of 81 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours. That brings the overall Palestinian death toll from the war to at least 35,984. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count.

The Israeli government has said that 14,000 militants and 16,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, without providing evidence.

Criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly since it turned its focus to Rafah. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another international court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also under some pressure at home to end the war, which was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people, most civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostage. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring the hostages home, fearing time is running out.

“The charges of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in the Hague are false, outrageous and morally repugnant,” Netanyahu’s government said in response to the ruling, maintaining its position that the military hasn’t and won’t target civilians.

Israel doesn’t accept the ICJ’s jurisdiction, but South Africa was able to bring its case because both countries are signatories to the Genocide Convention that includes a clause allowing disputes about the convention to be settled by the ICJ.

Although the ruling is a blow to Israel’s international standing, the court doesn’t have a police force to enforce its orders. In another case on its docket, Russia has ignored the court’s 2022 order to halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The sharply focused decision sent a three-pronged message to Israel, ordering a halt to the Rafah offensive, access to Gaza for war crimes investigators, and a big and immediate increase of humanitarian aid to the region, parts of which are enduring famine.

Rafah is in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, and over 1 million people sought refuge there in recent months after fleeing fighting elsewhere, with many of them living in teeming tent camps. Israel has been vowing for months to invade Rafah, saying it was Hamas’ last major stronghold, even as several allies warned that an all-out assault would spell disaster.

Israel started issuing evacuation orders about two weeks ago as it began operations on the edge of the city. Since then, the army says an estimated 1 million people have left as forces press deeper inside.

Rafah is also home to a critical crossing for aid, and the U.N. says the flow of aid reaching it has plunged since the incursion began, though commercial trucking has continued to enter Gaza.

The court ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open, saying “the humanitarian situation is now to be characterized as disastrous.”

“This legally binding and very specific ruling leaves Israel with very little wiggle room,” said Reed Brody, a veteran human rights lawyer and prosecutor.

Benny Gantz, a popular centrist member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, appeared to indicate that Israel would not change its course regarding Rafah.

“The State of Israel is committed to continue fighting to return its hostages and promise the security of its citizens — wherever and whenever necessary — including in Rafah,” he said.

“We will continue operating in accordance with international law wherever we might operate, while safeguarding to the best extent possible the civilian population. Not because of the ICJ, but because of who we are and the values we stand for.”

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the court’s order underscored the perilous situation of Palestinians in Gaza, but warned that it could be ignored if the international community doesn’t use whatever leverage it can on Israel.

“The ICJ’s decision opens up the possibility for relief, but only if governments use their leverage, including through arms embargoes and targeted sanctions, to press Israel to urgently enforce the court’s measures,” Jarrah said.

The court’s president, Nawaf Salam, read out the ruling as a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside.

Fears the court expressed earlier this year about an operation in Rafah have “materialized,” the ruling said, and Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive” in the city and anything else that might result in conditions that could cause the “physical destruction in whole or in part” of Palestinians there.

But the ruling didn’t call for a full cease-fire throughout Gaza, as South Africa, which has historic ties to the Palestinian people and brought the case, requested last week.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, said the country’s allegation that a genocide is underway is getting “stronger and stronger by the day.”

“We are really pleased that the court has given very serious consideration to the matters that we put before it and has affirmed that an urgent decision is needed from the court to pause this onslaught against innocent Palestinian people,” she told South African state broadcaster SABC, adding that it’s now up to the U.N. Security Council to determine how to protect the Palestinians.

The cease-fire request is part of a case accusing Israel of committing genocide during its Gaza campaign. Israel vehemently denies the allegations. The case will take years to resolve, but South Africa wants interim orders to protect Palestinians while the legal wrangling continues.

The court ruled Friday that Israel must ensure access for any fact-finding or investigative mission sent by the U.N. to investigate the genocide allegations.

At public hearings last week at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.

The court has already found that Israel’s military operations pose a “real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. The operation has obliterated entire neighborhoods, sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes, and pushed parts of the territory into famine.

“This may well be the last chance for the court to act,” Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who is part of South Africa’s legal team, told judges last week.

In January, ICJ judges ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive. In a second order in March, the court said Israel must take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

The ICJ rules in disputes between nations. A few kilometers (miles) away, the International Criminal Court files charges against individuals it considers most responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

On Monday, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said he has asked ICC judges to approve arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three top Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

___

Associated Press reporters Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed.

The bodies of Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum, and Orion Hernandez were found and their families have been notified. The army said they were killed on the day of the attack at the Mefalsim intersection and their bodies were taken to Gaza.

The announcement comes less than a week after the army said it found the bodies of three other Israeli hostages killed on Oct. 7.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of at least 39 more, while 17 bodies of hostages have been recovered.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back, but he’s made little progress. He faces pressure to resign, and the U.S. has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israel-Hamas War May 17

Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival

Israel-Hamas War May 20

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

On Friday Netanyahu said the country had a duty to do everything to return those abducted, both those killed and those who are alive.

In a post on X Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron gave condolences to the family of Hernández-Radoux, a French-Mexican citizen, saying France remains committed to releasing the hostages.

The country is also expecting a ruling Friday afternoon by the International Court of Justice to decide on an urgent plea by South Africa to order Israel to cease operations. Israel is unlikely to comply with any such order. Even so, a cease-fire order by judges of the International Court of Justice would heap more pressure on an increasingly isolated Israel.

On the hostages, Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas. On-and-off negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt have yielded little.

Anger is growing at home at the government’s handling of the hostage crisis.

Earlier this week a group representing the families of hostages released new video footage showing Hamas’ capture of five female Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border on Oct. 7.

The video shows several of the young soldiers bloody and wounded. In one scene, a militant tells one of the terrified women she is beautiful.

The video sparked more protests across the country calling for the hostages’ release.

The army said on Friday the hostages were found during an operation in Jabaliya. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a news conference that the army was able to retrieve the bodies based on “critical intelligence” uncovered last week by Israeli forces operating in Gaza.

The group representing the families of the hostages said the bodies had been returned to their families for burial.

Nisenbaum, 59, was a Brazilian-Israeli from the southern city of Sderot. He was taken hostage when he went to rescue his 4-year-old granddaughter.

Oryon Hernandez Radoux, 30, was taken from the Nova music festival, which he attended with his partner Shani Louk. Louk’s body was one of those found by the army nearly a week ago.

Yablonka, 42, a father of two, was also taken from the music festival. His family in December told the AP that he loved music. Yablonka’s family had no news of him for nearly two months after he’d been taken, not knowing if he was alive or dead.

Israel’s offensive since the war began has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and has caused a humanitarian crisis and a near-famine.

While it has weakened Hamas’ capabilities, after nearly eight months of war, militants are regrouping in some of the hardest-hit areas in northern Gaza and resuming rocket attacks into nearby Israeli communities. Israel says its troops are operating in Rafah in the south, in central Gaza and in Jabaliya in the north.

——

Associated Press reporters Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv and John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed

It is unclear when the address will take place. Johnson told reporters Wednesday that he was working with Netanyahu on a date and would be sending the formal invitation this week.

“Tonight, I’m happy to announce something else to you: that we will soon be hosting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Capitol for a joint session of Congress,” Johnson said in a speech marking Israel’s independence, hosted by the Israeli Embassy.

“This will be a timely and, I think, a very strong show of support to the Israeli government in their time of greatest need,” he added.

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for details on the timing. The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the invitation.

Johnson had said he would invite Netanyahu to the House regardless of whether Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed to a joint invitation. Thursday, however, was the first time the plans were formally announced.

Schumer’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.

Johnson made the announcement in his keynote address for the Israeli Embassy event, which took place at the National Building Museum. Several other lawmakers attended the program, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California also spoke.

Johnson said Tuesday that he had given Schumer a deadline to sign a joint letter inviting Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress.

“My office told Senator Schumer’s office yesterday that he needed to sign the joint letter and if not, we were going to proceed and invite Netanyahu just to the House, and I’ll send individual invitations to senators,” Johnson said Tuesday.

In March, Schumer declined Netanyahu’s request to address Senate Democrats. Earlier in March, Schumer delivered a fiery speech blasting Netanyahu, saying he had “lost his way” and calling for new elections in Israel.

President Joe Biden later praised Schumer’s speech, saying “expressed a serious concern, shared not only by him but by many Americans.”

In recent months, Biden has increasingly sharpened his criticism of Israel’s handling of the war. The White House called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “unacceptable.” Biden has also said that what Netanyahu is “doing is a mistake,” referring to his handling of the war. 

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

• Inside the fringe worldview of RFK Jr.’s VP pick
• A Tesla owner says his car’s ‘self-driving’ technology failed to detect a moving train ahead of a crash caught on camera
• Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill allowing Arizona doctors to perform abortions in California

The small number of biscuits came in the first shipments unloaded from the pier Friday, WFP spokesman Steve Taravella said. The U.S. Agency for International Development told The Associated Press that a total of 41 trucks loaded with aid from the more than $320 million pier have reached humanitarian organizations in Gaza.

“Aid is flowing” from the pier, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Wednesday in response to questions about the troubled launch of aid deliveries from the maritime project. “It is not flowing at a rate that any of us are happy with.”

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Tuesday that he did not believe any of the aid from the pier had yet reached people in Gaza. Sullivan said a day later that some aid had been delivered “specifically to the Palestinians who need it.”

American officials hope the pier at maximum capacity can bring the equivalent of 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza each day. That’s a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food, emergency nutritional treatments and other supplies that USAID says are needed each day to bring people in Gaza back from the start of famine and address the humanitarian crisis brought on by the seven-month-old Israel-Hamas war.

Israeli restrictions on land crossings and a surge in fighting have cut deliveries of food and fuel in Gaza to the lowest levels since the first months of the war, international officials say. Israel’s takeover this month of the Rafah border crossing, a key transit point for fuel and supplies for Gaza, has contributed to bringing aid operations near collapse, the U.N. and relief groups say.

All 2.3 million people of Gaza are struggling to get food, according to aid groups, with the heads of the WFP and USAID having said famine has begun in north Gaza.

The U.S. pier project to bring aid to Gaza via the Mediterranean Sea has had a troubled launch, with groups of people overrunning a convoy Saturday and taking most of the supplies and a man in the crowd who was shot dead in still-unexplained circumstances.

Saturday’s chaos forced suspension of aid convoys from the pier for two days. Shada Moghraby, the WFP’s spokesperson at the U.N., said trucks carrying aid from the pier arrived at a U.N. warehouse Tuesday and Wednesday, but it wasn’t clear how many.

Israel-Hamas War May 20

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

Israel-Hamas War May 11

Israel orders new evacuations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as it prepares to expand operations

The WFP had warned this week that the U.S. project could fail unless Israeli authorities gave clearances and cooperation for alternate land routes and better security.

Humanitarian officials and the U.S. say the sea route is not a replacement for bringing aid through land crossings, and they have repeatedly called on Israel to allow a steady large flow of trucks through entry points and to ensure aid workers are safe from the Israeli military.

Israel insists it puts no restriction on the number of trucks entering Gaza and has blamed “lack of logistical capabilities and manpower gaps” among aid groups. But Israel’s military operations make it very difficult for groups to retrieve the aid.

___

AP writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations.

The formal recognition will be made on May 28. The development is a step toward a long-held Palestinian aspiration that came against the backdrop of international outrage over the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s offensive there.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, a far-right government minister paid a provocative visit to a flashpoint holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, was likely to escalate tensions across the region.

Norway was the first to announce its decision to recognize a Palestinian state, with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre saying “there cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition.”

“By recognizing a Palestinian state, Norway supports the Arab peace plan,” he said and added that the Scandinavian country will “regard Palestine as an independent state with all the rights and obligations that entails.”

Israel-Hamas War May 21

Israel says it will return video equipment seized from AP

Israel-Hamas War May 20

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

Several European Union countries have in the past weeks indicated that they plan to make the recognition, arguing a two-state solution is essential for lasting peace in the region. The decision may generate momentum for the recognition of a Palestinian state by other EU countries and could spur further steps at the United Nations, deepening Israel’s isolation.

Norway, which is not a member of the EU but mirror its moves, has been an ardent supporter of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The terror has been committed by Hamas and militant groups who are not supporters of a two-state solution and the state of Israel,” the Norwegian government leader said. “Palestine has a fundamental right to an independent state.”

Since the unprecedented attack by Hamas-led militants on Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli forces have led assaults on the northern and southern edges of the Gaza Strip in May, causing a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of people, and sharply restricted the flow of aid, raising the risk of famine.

Wednesday’s announcements come more than 30 years after the first Oslo agreement was signed in 1993. Since then, “the Palestinians have taken important steps towards a two-state solution,” the Norwegian government said.

It added that the World Bank determined that a Palestinian state had met key criteria to function as a state in 2011, that national institutions have been built up to provide the population with important services.

“The war in Gaza and the constant expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank still mean that the situation in Palestine is more difficult than it has been in decades,” it said.

In making his announcement, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said the move was coordinated with Spain and Norway — and that it was a “historic and important day for Ireland and for Palestine.” He said it was intended to help move the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to resolution through a two-state solution.

Harris said he thinks other countries will join Norway, Spain and Ireland in recognizing a Palestinian state “in the weeks ahead.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist leader since 2018, made the expected announcement to the nation’s Parliament on Wednesday. He had spent months touring European and Middle Eastern countries to garner support for the recognition, as well as for a possible cease-fire in Gaza. He has said several times that he was committed to the move.

“We know that this initiative won’t bring back the past and the lives lost in Palestine, but we believe that it will give the Palestinians two things that are very important for their present and their future: dignity and hope,” Sánchez said.

“This recognition is not against anyone, it is not against the Israeli people,” Sánchez added, while acknowledging that it will most likely cause diplomatic tensions with Israel. “It is an act in favor of peace, justice and moral consistency.”

Sánchez argued that the move is needed to support the viability of a two-state solution that he said “is in serious danger” with the war in Gaza.

“I have spent weeks and months speaking with leaders inside and outside of the region and if one thing is clear is that Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu does not have a project of peace for Palestine, even if the fight against the terrorist group Hamas is legitimate,” the Spanish leader said.

Earlier this month, Spain’s Foreign Minister José Albares said he had informed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken of his government’s intention to recognize a Palestinian state.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said “recognition is a tangible step towards a viable political track leading to Palestinian self-determination.”

But in order for it to have an impact, he said, it must come with “tangible steps to counter Israel’s annexation and settlement of Palestinian territory – such as banning settlement products and financial services.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered Israel’s ambassadors from Ireland and Norway to immediately return to Israel. He spoke before Spain’s announcement.

“Ireland and Norway intend to send a message today to the Palestinians and the whole world: terrorism pays,” Katz said.

He said that the recognition could impede efforts to return Israel’s hostages being held in Gaza and makes a cease-fire less likely by “rewarding the jihadists of Hamas and Iran.” He also threatened to recall Israel’s ambassador to Spain if the country takes a similar position.

Regarding the Israeli decision to recall its ambassador in Oslo, Gahr Støre said “we will take note of that. This is a government with which we have many disagreements. What we agree on is to condemn Hamas’s cruel attack on Oct. 7.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking after Norway’s announcement, welcomed the move and called on other countries to follow.

In a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency, Abbas said Norway’s decision will enshrine “the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination” and support efforts to bring about a two-state solution with Israel.

Some 140 countries have already recognized a Palestinian state — more than two-thirds of United Nations members — but none of the major Western powers has done so. This move could put more pressure continental heavyweights France and Germany to reconsider their position.

The United States and Britain, among others, have backed the idea of an independent Palestinian state existing alongside Israel as a solution to the Middle East’s most intractable conflict. They insist, however, that Palestinian independence should come as part of a negotiated settlement.

The head of the Arab League called the step taken by the three European nations “a courageous step.”

“I salute and thank the three countries for this step that puts them on the right side of history in this conflict,” Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit wrote on the social media platform X.

Turkey also applauded the decision, calling it an important step toward the restoration of the “usurped rights of the Palestinians.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said the move would help “Palestine gain the status it deserves in the international community.”

___

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain, and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this story.

The government seized the AP equipment positioned in southern Israel after accusing it of violating a new media law by providing images to the satellite channel Al Jazeera.

Israeli officials used the new law on May 5 to close down Qatar-based Al Jazeera within Israel, confiscating its equipment, banning its broadcasts and blocking its websites.

After Israel seized the AP equipment, the Biden administration, journalism organizations and an Israeli opposition leader condemned the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pressured it to reverse the decision.

Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said late Tuesday on the social platform X: “I have now ordered to cancel the action and return the equipment to the AP.”

Karhi said the defense ministry will undertake a review of news outlets’ positioning of live video of Gaza. Officials hadn’t previously told AP the positioning of its live camera was an issue. Instead, they repeatedly noted that the images appeared in real-time on Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera is one of thousands of AP customers, and it receives live video from AP and other news organizations.

“While we are pleased with this development, we remain concerned about the Israeli government’s use of the foreign broadcaster law and the ability of independent journalists to operate freely in Israel,” said Lauren Easton, AP’s vice president of corporate communications.

US & World

news May 20

International Criminal Court prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israel's Netanyahu, Hamas leaders

Israel-Hamas War May 21

Israel tries to contain fallout over ICC warrant requests after allies voice support for the move

Officials from the Communications Ministry arrived at the AP location in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon and seized the equipment. They handed the AP a piece of paper, signed by Karhi, alleging it was violating the country’s foreign broadcaster law.

Shortly beforehand, AP was broadcasting a general view of northern Gaza. The AP complies with Israel’s military censorship rules, which prohibit broadcasts of details like troop movements that could endanger soldiers. The live video has generally shown smoke rising over the territory.

The AP had been ordered verbally last Thursday to cease the live transmission, which it refused to do.

Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid called the government’s move against AP “an act of madness.”

Karhi responded to Lapid that the law passed unanimously by the government states that any device used to deliver Al Jazeera content could be seized.

Journalism organizations condemned Israel’s seizure of AP equipment, and the Biden administration also applied pressure.

“As soon as we learned about the reports, the White House and the State Department immediately engaged with the government of Israel at high levels to express our serious concern and ask them to reverse this action,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council. “The free press is an essential pillar of democracy and members of the media, including AP, do vital work that must be respected.”

When Israel closed down Al Jazeera’s offices earlier this month, media groups warned of the serious implications for press freedom in the country.

“Israel’s record on press freedom already has been dismal throughout the war,” the Foreign Press Association said in a statement on Tuesday. “It has prevented independent access to Gaza for foreign journalists.”

The AP live video shot from Sderot has provided a rare independent glimpse of the situation in Gaza.

Israel has long had a rocky relationship with Al Jazeera, accusing it of bias against the country. Netanyahu has called it a “terror channel” that spreads incitement.

Al Jazeera is one of the few international news outlets that has remained in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres. AP is also in Gaza.

During the previous Israel-Hamas war in 2021, the army destroyed the building housing AP’s Gaza office, claiming Hamas had used the building for military purposes. The AP denied any knowledge of a Hamas presence, and the army never provided any evidence to back up its claim.

The war in Gaza began with a Hamas attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

___

France, as well as Belgium and Slovenia, each said Monday they backed the move by International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan, who accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Their support exposes divisions in the West’s approach to Israel and deepens the country’s global isolation over its conduct in the war in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz’ meetings with his French counterpart and other senior officials could set the tone for how countries navigate the warrants — if they are eventually issued — and whether they could pose a threat to Israeli leaders.

Israel still has the support of its top ally, the United States, as well as other Western countries that spoke out against the decision. But if the warrants are issued, they could complicated international travel for Netanyahu and Gallant. Israel itself is not a member of the court.

As the fallout from the prosecutor’s decision spiraled, violence continued in the region, with an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank killing at least seven Palestinians, including a local doctor, according to Palestinian health officials.

In a late-night statement Monday about the ICC prosecutor’s warrant requests, France said it “supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations.”

“France has been warning for many months about the imperative of strict compliance with international humanitarian law and in particular about the unacceptable nature of civilian losses in the Gaza Strip and insufficient humanitarian access,” the statement said.

France has a large Jewish community and has close trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, whose leaders frequently visit.

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said Monday in a post on X that “crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators.”

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the prosecutor’s move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. The United Kingdom called the move “not helpful,” saying the ICC does not have jurisdiction in the case, while Israeli ally Czech Republic called Khan’s decision “appalling and completely unacceptable.”

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel has faced rising criticism from even its closest allies over the war in Gaza, which is now in its eighth month. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between noncombatants and fighters in its count. The war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the coastal enclave’s population and driven parts of it to starvation, which Khan said Israel used as a “method of warfare.”

The war between began on Oct. 7, following Hamas’ deadly attack, when the militants from Gaza crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage. Khan accused Hamas’ leaders of crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder and sexual violence.

Since the war began, violence has also flared in the occupied West Bank.

On Tuesday, an Israeli raid into the Jenin refugee camp and the adjacent city of Jenin killed at least seven Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The area has both has long been a bastion of armed struggle against Israel.

The military said its forces struck militants during the operation while the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group said its fighters battled the Israeli forces.

However, according to Wissam Abu Baker, the director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, the medical center’s surgery specialist Ossayed Kamal Jabareen was among the dead. He was killed on his way to work, Abu Baker said.

Jenin and the refugee camp, seen as a hotbed of militancy, have been frequent targets of Israeli raids, long before Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza broke out.

Since the start of the war, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed in West Bank fighting, many of them militants, as well as others throwing stones or explosives at troops. Others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Israel says it is cracking down on soaring militancy in the territory, pointing to a spike in attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. It has arrested more than 3,000 Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem, which it later annexed, and the Gaza Strip, which it withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005. The Palestinians seek those territories as part of their future independent state, hopes for which have been dimmed since the war in Gaza erupted.

___

Associated Press journalists Majdi Mohammed in the Jenin refugee camp, West Bank, John Leicester in Paris and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Clooney said the panel had agreed unanimously that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that both the Hamas and Israeli leaders had committed war crimes, according to a statement.

“We have unanimously determined that the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine and by Palestinian nationals,” she said. “We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence. We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move to seek arrest warrants as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

Hamas also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s actions, saying the request to arrest its leaders “equates the victim with the executioner.”

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Clooney and her husband, the actor George Clooney, are co-founders of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a nonprofit that provides legal support to victims of human rights abuses. She is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London and an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School. 

The New York Times reported that Amal Clooney had received criticism on social media for not speaking up about the Israel-Hamas war.

In her statement on Monday, Amal Clooney said: “As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law. So I support the historic step that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”

“Look at that entire incident,” Adams said on the “Mornings on 1” program on the local cable news channel NY1. He complained that protesters who marched through Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge section on Saturday had blocked traffic, spit at officers and, in once instance, climbed on top of a moving city bus. “I take my hat off to the Police Department, how they handled an unruly group of people.”

“People want to take that one isolated incident that we’re investigating. They need to look at the totality of what happened in that bedroom community,” Adams added.

Footage shot by bystanders and independent journalists shows police officers intercepting a march in the street, shoving participants toward the sidewalk, and then grabbing some people in the crowd and dragging them down to the asphalt. Officers can be seen repeatedly punching at least three protesters, in separate incidents, as they lay pinned on the ground.

A video shot by videographer Peter Hambrecht and posted on X shows an officer in a white shirt punching a protester while holding his throat. Hambrecht said the arrests took place after police told the crowd to disperse.

“They were aware they might get arrested, but many times people use that to justify the beating which is obviously ridiculous,” Hambrecht told The Associated Press in a text message.

Independent journalist Katie Smith separately recorded video of an officer unleashing a volley of punches on a man pinned to the ground, hitting him at least five times with a closed fist.

At least 41 people were arrested, police said.

The NYPD later released its own video showing misbehavior by protesters, including people throwing empty water bottles at officers, splashing them with liquids and lighting flares and smoke bombs. It also showed one protester sitting on the roof of a moving transit bus waving a Palestinian flag.

“We will not accept the narrative that persons arrested were victims, nor are we going to allow illegal behavior,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said in a statement on X.

The NYPD agreed to change the way it handles public protests last summer after it had to pay out at least $35 million to settle claims of police misconduct during the large protests against racial injustice after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

The legal settlement required the department to reduce the number of officers it sent to most protests. It also required police to allow most demonstrations to take place on public streets, even if they temporarily block traffic, as long as they are nonviolent and don’t involve a threat of major property damage. Police can still step in under the settlement to redirect protest marches to prevent them from blocking access to bridges and tunnels, or places like hospitals and police precincts. But the written agreement says “the fact that some individuals in a crowd have engaged in unlawful conduct does not by itself provide grounds” to end demonstrations and order a crowd to disperse.

The City Council member who represents Bay Ridge, Justin Brannan, said the demonstration broken up by police was one held annually in the neighborhood to protest the displacement of Palestinian people following the establishment of Israel in 1948.

“Bay Ridge is home to the largest Palestinian community in NYC,” Brannan wrote on X. “There has been a Nakba Day demonstration here every year for the past decade without incident. I saw no evidence of actions by protestors today that warranted such an aggressive response from NYPD.”

New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman criticized the arrests and called them an escalation of police tactics against demonstrators.

“The aggressive escalation by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group yesterday in Bay Ridge was a violation of New Yorkers’ right to speak out and risks chilling political expression,” Lieberman said, naming the NYPD unit that is often called to protests.

While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

Netanyahu called the prosecutor’s accusations against him a “disgrace,” and an attack on the Israeli military and all of Israel. He vowed to press ahead with Israel’s war against Hamas.

Biden said the effort to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant over the war in Gaza was “outrageous,” adding “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

Hamas also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s actions, saying the request to arrest its leaders “equates the victim with the executioner.”

Netanyahu has come under heavy pressure at home to end the war sooner than later. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring home Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, fearing that time is running out.

In recent days, the two other members of his war Cabinet, Gallant and Benny Gantz, have threatened to resign if Netanyahu does not spell out a clear postwar vision for Gaza.

But on Monday, Netanyahu received wall-to-wall support as politicians across the spectrum condemned the ICC prosecutor’s move. They included Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, and his two main political rivals, Gantz and opposition leader Yair Lapid.

It is unclear what effect Khan’s move will have on Netanyahu’s public standing. The possibility of an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, whose popularity has dropped during the war, could give him a boost as Israelis rally behind the flag. But his opponents could also blame him for bringing a diplomatic catastrophe on the country.

Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Hebrew University and the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, said it was far more certain that Netanyahu’s already troubled international standing could be further weakened.

“This is going to make Netanyahu an outcast, and his ability to move around the world will be seriously compromised,” said Shany. Even if the ICC does not issue the arrest warrant, other countries may now be more reluctant to provide support and assistance, he said.

Hamas is already considered an international terrorist group by the West. Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region. Qatar, like Israel, is not a member of the ICC.

The latest war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, when militants from Gaza crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.

Since then, Israel has waged a brutal campaign to dismantle Hamas in Gaza. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, at least half of them women and children, according to the latest estimates by Gaza health officials.

The war has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80% of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to U.N. officials.

Speaking of the Israeli actions, Khan said “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known.”

The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries throughout the war. Israel denies this, saying there are no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and accusing the U.N. of failing to distribute aid.

Of the Hamas actions on Oct. 7, Khan, who visited the region in December, said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes.”

In their rampage, Hamas militants gunned down scores of revelers at a dance party and killed entire families as they huddled in their homes. “These acts demand accountability,” Khan said.

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney served on a five-member expert panel that advised Khan. She said the panel had agreed unanimously that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that both the Hamas and Israeli leaders had committed war crimes, according to a statement.

South Africa, which has been leading a genocide case against Israel at the U.N. world court, welcomed Khan’s announcement seeking the arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders. “The law must be applied equally to all in order to uphold the international rule of law,” the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.

The U.N. General Assembly endorsed the ICC, but the court is independent.

Dozens of countries don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and other crimes. They include Israel, the United States, Russia and China.

The ICC accepted “The State of Palestine” as a member in 2015, a year after the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction.

In 2020, then U.S. President Donald Trump authorized economic and travel sanctions on the ICC prosecutor and another senior prosecutor. The ICC staff were looking into U.S. and allies’ troops for possible war crimes in Afghanistan. President Biden lifted the sanctions in 2021.

Last year, the court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Russia responded by issuing its own arrest warrants for Khan and ICC judges.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces criticism from the two other members of his War Cabinet, with his main political rival, Benny Gantz, threatening to leave the government if a plan is not created by June 8 that includes an international administration for postwar Gaza.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on Sunday to discuss an ambitious U.S. plan for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel and help the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza in exchange for a path to eventual statehood.

Netanyahu opposes Palestinian statehood and has rejected those proposals, saying Israel will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and partner with local Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Gantz’s ultimatum expressed support for normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, but he also said, “we will not allow any outside power, friendly or hostile, to impose a Palestinian state on us.”

Gantz’s withdrawal would not bring down Netanyahu’s coalition government but would leave him more reliant on far-right allies who support the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, full military occupation and the rebuilding of Jewish settlements there.

Even as discussions about the future take on new weight, the war rages. In recent weeks, Hamas militants have regrouped in parts of northern Gaza that were heavily bombed in the war’s early days and where Israeli ground troops operated.

Israel-Hamas War May 19

The Israel-Hamas war is testing whether campuses are sacrosanct places for speech and protest

Joe Biden May 19

Biden tells Morehouse graduates that he hears their voices of protest over the war in Gaza

The airstrike in Nuseirat, a built-up Palestinian refugee camp in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, killed 27 people, including 10 women and seven children, according to records at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.

A separate strike on a Nuseirat street killed five people, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service. In Deir al-Balah, a strike killed Zahed al-Houli, a senior officer in the Hamas-run police, and another man, according to the hospital.

Palestinians reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway.

The Civil Defense said strikes hit several homes near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, killing at least 10 people. Rescuers’ footage showed them trying to pull the body of a woman from the rubble as explosions echoed in the background.

In the urban Jabaliya refugee camp nearby, residents reported a heavy wave of artillery and airstrikes. Abdel-Kareem Radwan, 48, said the whole eastern side has become a battle zone where the Israeli fighter jets “strike anything that moves.”

Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, said rescuers had recovered at least 150 bodies, more than half of them women and children, since Israel launched the operation in Jabaliya last week.

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting some 250. Mourners gathered Sunday for the funeral of one of four hostages killed in the attack whose bodies were recently found by Israeli troops in Gaza.

The war has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Around 80% of the population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced within the territory, often multiple times.

“We need a decent life to live,” said Reem Al-Bayed, who left Gaza City and is sheltering with thousands in the gritty coastal Muwasi camp in the south without basic facilities like wells. “All countries live a decent life except us.”

She gave herself a quick mouthful of bread before tearing the rest into pieces for half a dozen children, then poured them a can of beans.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames the high death toll on Hamas, which it says operates in dense residential areas.

Netanyahu’s critics, including thousands of Israeli protesters, accuse him of prolonging the war and rejecting a cease-fire deal so he can avoid a reckoning over security failures that led to the attack.

Polls show that Gantz, a political centrist, would likely succeed Netanyahu if early elections are held. That would expose Netanyahu to prosecution on longstanding corruption allegations.

Netanyahu denies any political motives and says the offensive must continue until Hamas is dismantled and the estimated 100 hostages held in Gaza, and the remains of more than 30 others are returned. He has said it’s pointless to discuss postwar arrangements while Hamas is still fighting because the militants have threatened anyone who cooperates with Israel.

Netanyahu also faces pressure from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, which has provided crucial military aid and diplomatic cover for the offensive while expressing growing frustration with Israel’s conduct of the war and the humanitarian crisis.

President Joe Biden’s administration recently held up a shipment of 3,500 bombs and said the U.S. would not provide offensive weapons for a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, citing fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.

But last week, after Israel launched what it called a limited operation in Rafah, the Biden administration told legislators it would move forward with the sale of $1 billion worth of arms, according to congressional aides.

The Palestinian Crossings Authority in a statement said humanitarian aid has not entered through the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt since the military operation began almost two weeks ago.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo and Krauss from Jerusalem.

They were provocative in their times, products of an ideal that holds universities as sacrosanct spaces for debate, innovation — and even revolution. But Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the resulting war in Gaza are testing that perception, as anger over the brutal military campaign collides with election-year politics and concerns about antisemitism in places where freedom of expression is supposed to rule.

“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making,” wrote poet John Milton, an alumnus of Cambridge University, in his 1644 treatise against censorship in publishing. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

That lofty principle has clashed with the stark reality of the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas militants who crossed the border killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. Israel’s drive to root out Hamas has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, and left millions on the edge of famine.

Administrators on some campuses have called in local police to break up pro-Palestinian protesters demanding that their schools divest from Israel in demonstrations that Israel’s allies say are antisemitic and make campuses unsafe. From Columbia University in New York to the University of California, Los Angeles, thousands of students and faculty have been arrested in the past month.

“Columbia,” read one sign held aloft there after arrests on April 30, “Protect your students (Cops don’t protect us).”

US & World

Israel-Hamas War May 17

Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival

news May 17

Campus protests have called for schools to divest from Israel. Here's how that would actually work

Israel-Hamas War May 17

First aid shipment enters Gaza Strip through pier built by US military

Historically, universities are supposed to govern — and police — themselves in exchange for their status as “something of a secular sacred ground,” said John Thelin, University of Kentucky College of Education professor emeritus and a historian of higher education.

“One has to think of an American college or university as a ‘city-state’ in which its legal protections and walls include the campus — grounds, buildings, structures facilities — as legally protected, along with a university’s rights to confer degrees,” he added in an email. Calling in the police, as administrators did at Columbia, Dartmouth, UCLA and other schools, represents the “break down of both rights and responsibilities within the campus as a chartered academic institution and community,” he said.

The crackdowns are reviving memories of student-led protests during the American civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Student activism in the 1960s led campus officials to call law enforcement. And on May 4, 1970, the National Guard opened fire on unarmed students, killing four at Kent State University. Four million students went on strike, temporarily closing 900 colleges and universities. It was a defining moment for a nation sharply divided over the Vietnam War, in which more than 58,000 Americans were killed.

A half-century later, the Israel-Hamas conflict has lit another fuse, with claims that “outside agitators” have infiltrated the protests to inflame tensions.

“The scale, fierceness, the short time frame since the Hamas attacks, the irreconcilable demands of current competing protestors, and their occasional violence, has tested university leaders on how to respond,” said John A. Douglass, a senior research fellow and professor of public policy and higher education at the University of California, Berkeley.

In the News

Joe Biden May 19

Biden tells Morehouse graduates that he hears their voices of protest over the war in Gaza

news May 15

‘We have to do what we have to do': Israel's Netanyahu stands firm on Rafah offensive despite U.S. tensions

Israel-Hamas War May 14

Texas doctor trapped in Gaza urges ceasefire: ‘The children are dying'

Most major colleges and universities have their own police departments, “but inviting and soliciting help from local community police departments in riot gear, and not only called on to disperse encampments but protect rival protestors from each other, is a relatively new phenomenon,” he said.

What’s lost when the police are called in?

“Trust between the university and significant parts of its most important constituency: its students,” said Anna von der Goltz, a history professor at Georgetown University. The cost, she said, also potentially includes the university’s credibility “as a community that is capable of setting its own rules and dealing effectively with violations of those rules.”

The wave of pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses took inspiration from demonstrations at Columbia that began on April 17.

As protesters set up their encampment that day, the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, was called for questioning before Congress, where Republicans accused her of not doing enough to fight antisemitism on the school’s Manhattan campus. The next day, university officials called in the New York City police, who arrested more than 100 protesters — among them, the daughter of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who had questioned Shafik in Washington.

Similar scenes played out across the country: The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony after disallowing its student valedictorian, who is Muslim, from giving her keynote speech. Police arrested hundreds of protesters at New York University and Yale. At Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, President Sian Leah Beilock called in police to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment just a few hours after it went up.

Inspired by the protests in the United States, pro-Palestinian encampments popped up in the U.K. andEurope earlier this month as administrators there confronted the same question: Allow or intervene?

At Cambridge University, idyll of Darwin and Hawking, an encampment of about 40 tents in front of the Gothic spires of King’s College appeared disciplined and orderly after three nights, with a posted schedule that included meals, training, traditional Palestinian kite-making — and strict message discipline as passersby stopped to talk under rare sunshine.

Cambridge protester Jana Aljamal, 22, a Palestinian student from Jerusalem, said she doesn’t think the U.S. protesters want the focus on themselves: “What’s happening in Gaza is more important.”

“We have our own guidelines,” she added of the Cambridge protest. “To protect the freedom of protest, the freedom of expression and the ability to have these conversations, the ability to have a community behind us, the ability to raise action.”

The scene was more tense last week at several European universities, with the University of Amsterdam canceling classes after pro-Palestinian demonstrations turned destructive. But the protests haven’t yet approached the intensity of demonstrations in the United States.

Will there be a reckoning of how administrators handle protests over a conflict with no end in sight? Von der Goltz said the strategies employed at schools like Rutgers and Brown, where administrators negotiated an end to the protests, will get scrutiny.

“What did they perhaps do that other administrators didn’t?” she wrote. “I expect there to be some kind of reckoning at Columbia, UCLA, etc., because things have clearly gone very wrong there on multiple levels.”

___

About 400 demonstrators braved steady rains to rally on the National Mall on the 76th anniversary of what is called the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe. In January, thousands of pro-Palestinian activists had gathered in the nation’s capital in one of the larger protests in recent memory.

There were calls in support of Palestinian rights and an immediate end to Israeli military operations in Gaza. “No peace on stolen land” and “End the killings, stop the crime/Israel out of Palestine,” echoed through the crowd.

Protesters also focused their anger on President Joe Biden, whom they accuse of feigning concern over the death toll in Gaza.

“Biden Biden, you will see/genocide’s your legacy,” they said. The Democratic president was in Atlanta on Saturday.

Israel-Hamas War May 17

Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival

news May 17

Campus protests have called for schools to divest from Israel. Here's how that would actually work

Reem Lababdi, a George Washington University sophomore who said she was pepper-sprayed by police last week when they broke up an on-campus protest encampment, acknowledged that the rain seemed to hold down the numbers.

“I’m proud of every single person who turned out in this weather to speak their minds and send their message,” she said.

This year’s commemoration was fueled by anger over the ongoing siege of Gaza. The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, and Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Speaker Osama Abuirshad, executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, gestured at the Capitol building dome behind him.

“This Congress does not speak for us. This Congress does not represent the will of the people,” he said. “We’re paying for the bombs. We’re paying for the F-16s and F-35s. And then we do the poor Palestinians a favor and send some food.”

Speakers also expressed anger over the violent crackdown on multiple pro-Palestinian protest camps at universities across the country. In recent weeks, long-term encampments have been broken up by police at more than 60 schools; just under 3,000 protesters have been arrested.

“The students are the conscience of America,” said Abuirshad, who compared the university demonstrations to earlier protest movements against the Vietnam War and apartheid-era South Africa. “That’s why the authorities are working so hard to silence them.”

In addition to pressing Israel and the Biden administration for an immediate end to hostilities in Gaza, activists have long pushed for the right of return for Palestinian refugees — an Israeli red line in decades of start-and-stop negotiations.

After the Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within Israel’s borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some 6 million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population.

At several points during the rally and subsequent march, protesters performed a call-and-response, with the speaker naming different cities in Israel and the occupied territories. The response: “raageh!” — Arabic for “I’m returning!”

The demonstrators marched for several blocks on Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues, with police cars closing the streets ahead of them. One lone counter-protester, waving an Israeli flag, attempted to march near the front of the procession. At one point, one of the demonstrators snatched his flag and ran away.

With tensions rising, members of the protesters’ “safety team” formed a tight phalanx around the man, both to impede his progress and protect him from hot-heads in the crowd. The standoff was broken when a police officer intervened, led the man away and told him to go home.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

A photo of 22-year-old Louk’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel. The military identified the other two bodies as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a 56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter.

All three were killed by Hamas while fleeing the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, where militants killed hundreds of people, military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at a news conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking,” saying, “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”

The military said the bodies were found overnight, without elaborating, and did not give immediate details on where they were located. Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s war in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back, but he’s made little progress. He faces pressure to resign, and the U.S. has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas. On-and-off negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt have yielded little.

Israel-Hamas War May 17

First aid shipment enters Gaza Strip through pier built by US military

news May 17

Campus protests have called for schools to divest from Israel. Here's how that would actually work

The shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day entering the Gaza Strip as Israel presses in on the southern city of Rafah as its 7-month offensive against Hamas rages on.

But the U.S. and aid groups also warn that the pier project is not considered a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza. Before the war, more than 500 truckloads entered Gaza on an average day.

Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, while the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Food Program say famine has already taken hold in Gaza’s north.

Troops finished installing the floating pier on Thursday, and the U.S. military’s Central Command said the first aid crossed into Gaza at 9 a.m. Friday. It said no American troops went ashore in the operation.

“This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature, and will involve aid commodities donated by a number of countries and humanitarian organizations,” the command said.

The Pentagon said no backups were expected in the distribution process, which is being coordinated by the United Nations.

The U.N. humanitarian aid coordinating agency said the start of the operation was welcome but not a replacement for deliveries by land.

“I think everyone in the operation has said it: Any and all aid into Gaza is welcome by any route,” spokesperson Jens Laerke, of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told journalists in Geneva on Friday. Getting aid to people in Gaza “cannot and should not depend on a floating dock far from where needs are most acute.”

The U.N. earlier said fuel deliveries brought through land routes have all but stopped and that would make it extremely difficult to bring the aid to Gaza’s people.

“It doesn’t matter how the aid comes, whether it’s by sea or whether by land, without fuel, aid won’t get to the people,” U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the issue of fuel deliveries comes up in all U.S. conversations with the Israelis. She also said the plan is to begin slowly with the sea route and ramp up the truck deliveries over time as they work the kinks out of the system.

news May 15

‘We have to do what we have to do': Israel's Netanyahu stands firm on Rafah offensive despite U.S. tensions

Israel-Hamas War May 14

Texas doctor trapped in Gaza urges ceasefire: ‘The children are dying'

Israel fears Hamas will use fuel in the war, but it asserts it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza. Under pressure from the U.S., Israel has opened a pair of crossings to deliver aid into the territory’s hard-hit north in recent weeks.

It has said that a series of Hamas attacks on the main crossing, Kerem Shalom, have disrupted the flow of goods. The U.N. says fighting, Israeli fire and chaotic security conditions have hindered delivery. There have also been violent protests by Israelis that disrupted aid shipments.

Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push against Hamas around that city on the Egyptian border, raising fears about civilians’ safety while also cutting off the main entry for aid into the Gaza Strip.

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the pier project, expected to cost $320 million. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.

U.S. officials said the initial shipment totaled as much as 500 tons of aid. The U.S. has closely coordinated with Israel on how to protect the ships and personnel working on the beach.

But there are still questions about the safety of aid workers who distribute the food, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.

“There is a very insecure operating environment,” and aid groups are still struggling to get clearance for their planned movements in Gaza, Korde said.

That concern was highlighted last month when Israeli strike killed seven relief workers from World Central Kitchen whose trip had been coordinated with Israeli officials. The group had also brought aid in by sea.

Pentagon officials have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even if just temporarily. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the U.S. military’s Central Command, told reporters Thursday that “we are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”

Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction, and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.

Biden has made it clear that there will be no U.S. forces on the ground in Gaza, so third-country contractors will drive the trucks onto the shore.

Israeli forces are in charge of security on shore, but there are also two U.S. Navy warships nearby that can protect U.S. troops and others.

The aid for the sea route is collected and inspected in Cyprus, then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier off the Gaza coast. There, the pallets are transferred onto the trucks that then drive onto the Army boats, which will shuttle the trucks from the pier to a floating causeway anchored to the beach. Once the trucks drop off the aid, they return to the boats.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed from Geneva.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino outlined the plan to 211 member federations after leaders of the Palestinian and Israel soccer bodies spoke at the governing body’s annual congress in Bangkok.

“Now, due to the obvious sensitivity of these matters, FIFA will mandate as of now independent legal expertise to analyze and assess the three requests made by the Palestinian Football Association and ensure that the statutes and regulations of FIFA are applied in the correct way in order to ensure a fair and due process,” Infantino said.

“This legal assessment will have to allow for inputs and claims of both member associations.” The results and the recommendations … will be forwarded to the FIFA council.

“Due to the urgency of the situation, an extraordinary FIFA Council will be convened and will take place before July 20 to review the results of the legal assessment and to take the decisions that are appropriate.”

The Palestinian soccer federation has now spoken at a FIFA Congress at least five times since 2014 without making the progress it wants.

news May 15

‘We have to do what we have to do': Israel's Netanyahu stands firm on Rafah offensive despite U.S. tensions

Israel-Hamas War May 14

Texas doctor trapped in Gaza urges ceasefire: ‘The children are dying'

Palestinian soccer’s issues with Israel in that decade have included travel restrictions on its players, the Israeli league including teams from West Bank settlements, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In the past 10 years, FIFA under two different presidents has deferred a vote or decision, or created a working group to report back at a later meeting.

The Palestine Football Association proposal to 211 member federations called for “appropriate sanctions, with immediate effect, against Israeli teams” and was forecast in FIFA documents released last month.

The motion noted “international law violations committed by the Israeli occupation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza” and cited FIFA statutory commitments on human rights and against discrimination.

The Palestinian FA wrote that “all the football infrastructure in Gaza has been either destroyed, or seriously damaged, including the historic stadium of Al-Yarmuk.”

On Friday at the congress, Palestinian soccer’s leader Jibril Rajoub said “the Palestinian people, including the Palestinian football family, are enduring an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”

He said 193 footballers were among the thousands of Palestinians to die in the ongoing war which erupted Oct. 7 with Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. About 80% of Gaza’s population have been driven from their homes.

Rajoub, who said he had been threatened because of his sanctions proposal, urged FIFA delegates not to delay the vote.

“The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs has made serious threats to imprison me if I do not withdraw this proposal, but no power in the world can stand in the way of truth,” Rajoub said.

But Infantino said the matter couldn’t go to a full vote of the membership on Friday because it had to be dealt with by FIFA’s governing council.

“I do not want to divide our 211 member countries,” he said. “I have a responsibility as president to apply the statutes of FIFA and its regulations, whatever my personal conviction on these and other terrible matters around the world.”

He said at the FIFA council meeting on Wednesday, all 37 members unanimously agreed to condemn the acts of violence that have taken place and decided to send a strong message of solidarity.

“The FIFA Council also reiterated that football should not and should never become a hostage of politics and always remain … a force of good uniting people rather than dividing,” Infantino said.

The meeting Friday included delegates from Russia, whose national and club teams have been suspended from international competitions since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The legal argument put by FIFA and UEFA was the refusal of other European teams to play Russians would cause chaos in competitions.

Israel has played in UEFA competitions as a member since 1994 and no European federation has refused to play its teams.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the U.S. believes there will be no backups in the distribution of the aid, which is being coordinated by the United Nations.

The U.N., however, said fuel imports have all but stopped and this will make it extremely difficult to deliver the aid to Gaza’s people, all 2.3 million of whom are in acute need of food and other supplies after seven months of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas.

“We desperately need fuel,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. “It doesn’t matter how the aid comes, whether it’s by sea or whether by land, without fuel, aid won’t get to the people.”

Singh said the issue of fuel deliveries comes up in all conversations with the Israelis.

The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier off the Gaza Strip early Thursday, and officials were making final checks before trucks begin driving onto the shore to deliver pallets of aid.

The pier project, expected to cost $320 million, was ordered more than two months ago by U.S. President Joe Biden to help starving Palestinians as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting prevent food and other supplies from making it into Gaza.

Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the pier project is not considered a substitute for far cheaper deliveries by land that aid agencies say are much more sustainable.

The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.

U.S. officials said Thursday as much as 500 tons of food will begin arriving on the Gaza shore within days and that the U.S. has closely coordinated with Israel on how to protect the ships and personnel working on the beach.

But there are still questions on how aid groups will safely operate in Gaza to distribute food to those who need it most, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.

“There is a very insecure operating environment” and aid groups are still struggling to get clearance for their planned movements in Gaza, Korde said. Those talks with the Israeli military “need to get to a place where humanitarian aid workers feel safe and secure and able to operate safely. And I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern city of Rafah as well as Israel restarting combat operations in parts of northern Gaza have displaced some 700,000 people, U.N. officials say. Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push against Hamas.

Pentagon officials say the fighting isn’t threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, but they have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily.

Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction, and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.

The “protection of U.S. forces participating is a top priority. And as such, in the last several weeks, the United States and Israel have developed an integrated security plan to protect all the personnel,” said Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the U.S. military’s Central Command. “We are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”

Central Command stressed that none of its forces entered the Gaza Strip to secure the pier and would not during its operations. It said trucks with aid would move ashore in the coming days and “the United Nations will receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza.”

The World Food Program will be the U.N. agency handling the aid, officials said.

Israeli forces will be in charge of security on shore, but there are also two U.S. Navy warships nearby, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops offshore and allies on the beach.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani confirmed that the pier had been attached and that Israeli engineering units had flattened ground around the area and surfaced roads for trucks.

“We have been working for months on full cooperation with (the U.S. military) on this project, facilitating it, supporting it in any way possible,” Shoshani said. “It’s a top priority in our operation.”

The U.N., U.S. and international aid groups say Israel is allowing only a fraction of the normal pre-war deliveries of food and other supplies into Gaza since Hamas’ attacks on Israel launched the war in October. Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, while USAID and the World Food Program say famine has taken hold in Gaza’s north.

Israel says it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza. The U.N. says fighting, Israeli fire and chaotic security conditions have hindered delivery. Under pressure from the U.S., Israel has in recent weeks opened a pair of crossings to deliver aid into hard-hit northern Gaza and said that a series of Hamas attacks on the main crossing, Kerem Shalom, have disrupted the flow of goods.

The first cargo ship loaded with food left Cyprus last week and the cargo was transferred to a U.S. military ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, off the coast of Gaza.

Military leaders have said the deliveries of aid will begin slowly to ensure the system works. They will start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, and that number will quickly grow to about 150 a day. Aid agencies say that isn’t enough and must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to open land corridors.

Because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed it, the U.S.-built pier-and-sea route “is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.

Under the new sea route, humanitarian aid is dropped off in Cyprus where it will undergo inspection and security checks at Larnaca port. It is then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast.

There, the pallets are transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army boats and then shuttled several miles (kilometers) to the causeway anchored to the beach. The trucks, which are being driven by personnel from another country, will go down the causeway into a secure area on land where they will drop off the aid and immediately turn around and return to the boats.

Aid groups will collect the supplies for distribution.

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Julia Frankel in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

“More people are now homeless; more people are now without their fathers, without their mothers; the children are dying,” he added.

Sabha started his second medical mission there on May 1, helping to treat wounds like burns and amputations.

“Many of them have passed since I first came,” he said.

He said the wounds that he treats often become infested with maggots, due to unsanitary conditions.

More than a million people had been sheltering in Rafah, once designated a safe zone by the Israeli military, with little to no food, clean water, or fuel.

“It’s very hard to treat them, and it’s very hard to see some of these patients… There’s almost nothing you can do for them, so it’s hard. It’s hard to psychologically keep going,” Sabha said.

Israel’s takeover of the Rafah crossing also means Sabha and at least 20 other American healthcare workers can’t get out.

“When we got confirmation, it was just a lot of shock, some denial,” said Sarah Mushtaq, Dr. Sabha’s sister-in-law.

She said the family realized on Saturday that their loved one would not be able to leave on Monday, as planned.

Mushtaq said it’s been difficult for her and her sister to keep a brave face for the kids while not knowing how or when Sabha will be able to come home.

Sabha has a 2-year-old daughter and a 6-month-old son.

“Trying to do that and then balancing your own emotions, it was just a lot of inner turmoil,” Mushtaq said.

Now, she’s helping her sister bring Sabha home, by starting an advocacy group and calling elected officials.

“I think we’re trying to put all of that grief we feel about the situation into action,” Mushtaq said.

The family is also calling for a safe humanitarian corridor.

“The supplies there are very limited. They haven’t gotten any food, water, medical supplies to do their jobs since the border closed. They’re actually depending on supplies they brought personally,” Mushtaq said.

They say the ultimate goal, though, is for a ceasefire.

“This has opened my eyes to how atrocious the conditions are in the hospitals there, how many people are suffering, and how we’re not going to rest fully until there’s a permanent ceasefire,” she said.

“This is a manmade catastrophe, and it is a shame on humanity. It’s a shame on those in power, and those that just don’t care,” Dr. Sabha said.

In a mindset perhaps indicative of a healthcare worker, Dr. Sabha said he’s not as worried about himself as he is about others.

“I’m worried about not being able to go. But I’m more worried that I will be able to go, and no one else will be able to come take my place,” he said.

He and many patients are worried that European Hospital will meet the same fate as Al-Shifa in the north.

Workers uncovered more than 400 bodies from the hospital and surrounding neighborhoods after the Israeli military’s brutal two-week raid.

“I don’t want to see images of this hospital burnt or empty,” Sabha said. “For some reason now hospitals are okay to come and invade and take over and burn. How did that happen? I’m not sure, but it’s not okay.”

He wants the world to have more empathy for the people he’s currently helping.

“These Palestinian lives are just as precious and beautiful as any other life here on earth,” he said.

In a pair of TV interviews, Blinken underscored that the United States believes Israeli forces should “get out of Gaza,” but also is waiting to see credible plans from Israel for security and governance in the territory after the war.

Hamas has reemerged in parts of Gaza, Blinken said, and that “heavy action” by Israeli forces in the southern city of Rafah risks leaving America’s closest Mideast ally “holding the bag on an enduring insurgency.”

He said the United States has worked with Arab countries and others for weeks on developing “credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding” in Gaza, but ”we haven’t seen that come from Israel. … We need to see that, too.”

Blinken also said that as Israel pushes deeper in Rafah in the south, where Israel says Hamas has four battalions and where more than 1 million civilians have massed, a military operation may “have some initial success” but risks “terrible harm” to the population without solving a problem “that both of us want to solve, which is making sure Hamas cannot again govern Gaza.”

Israel’s conduct of the war, he said, has put the country “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy, and probably refilled by Hamas. We’ve been talking to them about a much better way of getting an enduring result, enduring security.”

US & World

Israel-Hamas War May 12

Israel pushes deeper into Rafah and battles a regrouping Hamas in northern Gaza

Israel-Hamas War May 10

Biden administration says Israel is not violating US weapons terms

Israel-Hamas War May 8

Biden says US won't supply weapons for Israel to attack Rafah, in warning to ally

Blinken also echoed for the first time publicly by a U.S. official the findings of a new Biden administration report to Congress on Friday that said Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law. The report also said wartime conditions prevented American officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.

“When it comes to the use of weapons, concerns about incidents where given the totality of the damage that’s been done to children, women, men, it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law,” Blinken said. He cited “the horrible loss of life of innocent civilians.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in a call Sunday with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, raised concerns about a military ground operation in Rafah and discussed “alternative courses of action” that would ensure Hamas is defeated “everywhere in Gaza,” according to a White House summary of the conversation. Hanegbi “confirmed that Israel is taking U.S. concerns into account,” the White House said.

The war began on Oct. 7 after an attack against Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. About 250 people were taken hostage. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since Oct. 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza.

Tensions between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how the war, as well as domestic tensions about U.S. support for Israel with protests on U.S. college campuses and many Republican lawmakers saying that Biden needs to give Israel whatever it needs. The issue could play a major role in the outcome of November’s presidential election.

Biden said in an interview last week with CNN that his administration would not provide weapons that Israel could use for an all-out assault in Rafah.

Blinken appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Warnings continued against the growing offensive in Rafah, considered the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million civilians as well as Hamas’ last stronghold. Some 300,000 people have fled Rafah following evacuation orders from Israel, which says it must invade to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack against Israel that sparked the war.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated opposition to a major military assault on Rafah, telling CBS that Israel would “be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency” without an exit from Gaza and postwar governance plan.

The expanding Rafah operation has drawn warnings from neighboring Egypt, whose foreign ministry said it intends to formally join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, which Israel rejects. The statement cited “the worsening severity and scope of the Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians.”

“A full-scale offensive on Rafah cannot take place,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement, adding he cannot see how it can be reconciled with international humanitarian law.

Gaza has been left without a functioning government, leading to a breakdown in public order and allowing Hamas’ armed wing to reconstitute itself in even the hardest-hit areas. Israel has yet to offer a detailed plan for postwar governance in Gaza, saying only that it will maintain open-ended security control over the coastal enclave home to about 2.3 million Palestinians.

US & World

Israel-Hamas War May 10

Biden administration says Israel is not violating US weapons terms

Israel-Hamas War May 8

Biden says US won't supply weapons for Israel to attack Rafah, in warning to ally

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Memorial Day speech vowed to continue fighting until victory in memory of those killed in the war.

Netanyahu has rejected postwar plans proposed by the United States for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to govern Gaza with support from Arab and Muslim countries. Those plans depend on progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu’s government opposes.

The Oct. 7 attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Militants still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30. Internationally mediated talks over a cease-fire and hostage release appear to be at a standstill.

Israel’s air, land and sea offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Israel says it has killed over 13,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas in northern Gaza, which has suffered widespread devastation and been largely isolated by Israeli forces for months. U.N. officials say there is a “full-blown famine” there.

Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery struck across the camp and the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, where troops have battled militants for over a week. They have called on tens of thousands of people to relocate to nearby areas.

“It was a very difficult night,” said Abdel-Kareem Radwan, a 48-year-old from Jabaliya. He said they could hear intense and constant bombing since midday Saturday. “This is madness.”

First responders with the Palestinian Civil Defense said they were unable to respond to multiple calls for help from both areas, as well as from Rafah.

In the News

news May 7

Student protesters facing disciplinary action may also deal with financial setbacks

Joe Biden May 7

Biden condemns antisemitism in Holocaust remembrance speech amid college protests and Gaza war

Israel-Hamas War May 6

Hamas accepts Gaza cease-fire; Israel says it will continue talks but presses on with Rafah attacks

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top Israeli military spokesman, said forces were also operating in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. The two towns near Gaza’s northern border with Israel were heavily bombed in the opening days of the war.

“Hamas’ regime cannot be toppled without preparing an alternative to that regime,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel’s Maariv daily, channeling the growing frustration felt by many Israelis more than seven months into the war. “The only people who can govern Gaza after the war are Gazans, with a lot of support and help from the outside.”

The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, the main provider of aid in Gaza, said 300,000 people have fled Rafah since the operation began there. Most are heading to the heavily damaged nearby city of Khan Younis or Mawasi, a tent camp on the coast where some 450,000 people are already living in squalid conditions.

Rafah was sheltering some 1.3 million Palestinians before the Israeli operation began, most of whom had fled fighting elsewhere.

Israel has now evacuated the eastern third of Rafah, and Hagari said dozens of militants had been killed there as “targeted operations continued.” The United Nations has warned that a planned full-scale Rafah invasion would further cripple humanitarian operations and cause a surge in civilian deaths.

Rafah borders Egypt near the main aid entry points, which are already affected. Israeli troops have captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, forcing it to shut down. Egypt has refused to coordinate with Israel on the delivery of aid though the crossing because of “the unacceptable Israeli escalation,” the state-owned Al Qahera News television channel reported.

A senior Egyptian official told The Associated Press that Cairo has lodged protests with Israel, the United States and European governments, saying the offensive has put its decades-old peace treaty with Israel — a cornerstone of regional stability — at high risk. The official was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said he won’t provide offensive weapons to Israel for Rafah. On Friday, his administration said there was “reasonable” evidence that Israel had breached international law protecting civilians — Washington’s strongest statement yet on the matter.

Israel rejects those allegations, saying it tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames Hamas for the high toll because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. But the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

Krauss reported from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo.

Fighting is escalating across the enclave with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of Rafah, leaving the crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and forcing more than 110,000 people to flee north.

Israel’s move into Rafah has so far been short of the full-scale invasion that it has planned.

The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israeli assault on Rafah, which borders Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties. More than 1.4 million Palestinians — half of Gaza’s population— have been sheltering in Rafah, most after fleeing Israel’s offensives elsewhere.

Army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, told Palestinians in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya cities and the surrounding areas to leave their homes and head to shelters in the west of Gaza City, warning that people were in “a dangerous combat zone” and that Israel was going to strike with “great force.”

Heavy fighting is underway in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults. Battles erupted this week in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City, in the northern part of the territory. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive. Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas in the area.

At least 19 people, including eight women and eight children, were killed overnight in Central Gaza in three different strikes that hit the towns of Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al Balah, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah and an Associated Press journalist who counted the bodies.

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Much of Gaza has been destroyed and some 80% of Gaza’s population has been driven from their homes.

__

Mednick reporter from Tel Aviv and Magdy reported from Cairo

In a report to Congress, the State Department said it hasn’t verified specific instances that would justify withholding military aid.

The report said that Israel has “the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations,” but noted that results in the field, “including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” about whether the Israel Defense Forces are “using them effectively in all cases.”

The report also pointed to limitations as far as U.S. access to information from Israel. While Israel provided some information “on request” about specific incidents related to targeting decisions and battled damage assessments, more details are needed, the report said.

“Although we have gained insight into Israel’s procedures and rules, we do not have complete information on how these processes are implemented,” the report said. “Israel has not shared complete information to verify” whether certain weapons provided by the U.S. had been used in incidents that allegedly violated international humanitarian law.

The report said that Israel had identified several domestic accountability mechanisms focused on investigating and addressing any potential law violations, and that the country had confirmed opening “a number of criminal investigations” into possible violations of Israeli law or international humanitarian law but the State Department was unaware of any prosecutions.

The report did not find that the Israeli government is blocking the transport or delivery of humanitarian assistance.

“While the U.S. has had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed significantly to a lack of sustained and predictable delivery of needed assistance at scale, and the overall level reaching Palestinian civilians — while improved — remains insufficient, we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance” under the Foreign Assistance Act, the report said.

The State Department will continue to monitor and respond to challenges regarding the delivery of aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“If not for sustained engagement by the United States with the Israeli government at the highest levels, the humanitarian crisis that has persisted for the past several months would have been even more dire,” the report said.

The U.S. believes the assurances given by Israel are reliable and credible, a senior State Department official told NBC News on Friday, but said the administration’s assessment of its compliance with international humanitarian law is ongoing.

President Joe Biden in February issued a national security memorandum that required the secretary of state to obtain certain written assurances from foreign governments receiving U.S. weapons, and for the secretaries of state and defense to provide periodic congressional reports on the matter.

After the report’s release, the Senate Republican Conference began circulating an internal messaging document to Senate GOP offices. The document, obtained by NBC News, blasts the State Department’s findings as “yet another unnecessary report meant to appease Democrats anti-Semitic base.”

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Biden administration “has given Israel a politically damaging assessment” and that the president aimed to “placate voters on the far left at the expense of a close ally in the midst of its justified war with Hamas terrorists.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, separately said the report “serves no purpose other than to provide political cover to the president with his base.”

Biden has also faced criticism from some Democrats over his handling of weapons transfers related to the Israel-Gaza war.

Senior administration officials previously told NBC News that the U.S. halted a large shipment of offensive weapons to Israel last week over fears that they would be used to invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people are sheltering. Biden later said on CNN that the U.S. would not provide Israel with certain weapons and artillery shells if it launches a ground offensive in Rafah.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Hawaii’s governor says most residents displaced by wildfire now have long-term housing
• Ex-Venezuelan diplomat ‘never’ considered being president but will launch campaign this month
• Social Security Administration to expand access to certain benefits through several upcoming changes

Biden, in an interview with CNN, said the U.S. was still committed to Israel’s defense and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms, but that if Israel goes into Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used, that have been used.”

The interview marked Biden’s toughest public comments yet about the potential Israeli military operation and followed his decision to pause a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel last week over concerns that the U.S. ally was moving closer to an attack on Rafah despite public and private warnings from his administration.

The Biden administration paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that the country was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the United States, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.

The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. The focus of U.S. concern was the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting like Rafah where more than 1 million civilians are sheltering after evacuating other parts of Gaza amid Israel’s war on Hamas, which came after the militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Austin confirmed the weapons delay, telling the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense that the U.S. paused “one shipment of high payload munitions.”

Israel-Hamas War May 8

US pauses Israel arms shipment over Rafah assault fears as Biden pushes for a cease-fire

Israel-Hamas War May 7

Israel seizes Gaza's vital Rafah crossing, but the US says it isn't the full invasion many fear

“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Austin said. “But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.”

The U.S. has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid to Israel. That has only accelerated in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 in Israel and led to about 250 being taken captive by militants. The pausing of the aid shipment is the most striking manifestation of the growing daylight between Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, which has called on Israel to do far more to protect the lives of innocent civilians in Gaza.

It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war. A decision against Israel would further add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.

Biden signed off on the pause in an order conveyed last week to the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment on the matter. The White House National Security Council sought to keep the decision out of the public eye for several days until it had a better understanding of the scope of Israel’s intensified military operations in Rafah and until Biden could deliver a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.

U.S. officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described U.S. support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to square the arms holdup with Biden’s rhetoric in support of Israel, saying only, “Two things could be true.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV news, said the decision to pause the shipment was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.” He suggested the move stemmed from political pressure on Biden from Congress, the U.S. campus protests and the upcoming election.

The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works. The Republicans called on Biden in a letter to swiftly end the blockage, saying it “risks emboldening Israel’s enemies,” and to brief lawmakers on the nature of the policy reviews.

Biden has faced pressure from some on the left — and condemnation from the critics on the right who say Biden has moderated his support for an essential Mideast ally.

“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., his voice rising in anger during an exchange with Austin. “This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose.”

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Biden ally, said in a statement the pause on big bombs must be a “first step.”

“Our leverage is clear,” Sanders said. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”

Austin, meanwhile, told lawmakers that “it’s about having the right kinds of weapons for the task at hand.”

“A small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, that’s very useful in a dense, built-up environment,” he said, “but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral damage.” He said the U.S. wants to see Israel do “more precise” operations.

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as “targeted strikes” on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Privately, concern has mounted inside the White House about what’s unfolding in Rafah, but publicly administration officials have stressed that they did not think the operations had defied Biden’s warnings against a widescale operation in the city.

The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.

The U.S. dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State militant group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. Experts say the use of the weapon, in part, has helped drive the enormous Palestinian casualty count that the Hamas-run health ministry puts at more than 34,000 dead, though it doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has been close through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But there have been other moments of deep tension since Israel’s founding in which U.S. leaders have threatened to hold up aid in attempt to sway Israeli leadership.

President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel with the threat of sanctions into withdrawing from the Sinai in 1957 in the midst of the Suez Crisis. Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of F16 fighter jets to Israel at a time of escalating violence in the Middle East. President George H.W. Bush held up $10 billion in loan guarantees to force the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

__

Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.