[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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After Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution last week, the U.N. Security Council approved a new resolution today, demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends April 9.

The U.S. had warned the new resolution, which was backed by Russia and China, could hurt cease-fire negotiations, raising the possibility of another American veto. Instead, the U.S. abstained from voting. Israel believes the chances of a hostage deal in the near future are “50/50 right now,” an Israeli official told NBC News today. The official said Israel and the U.S. are waiting for Hamas to respond to a proposal hammered out in Qatar in recent days.

Israel cancels delegation after U.S. fails to veto cease-fire resolution
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a high-level delegation to the White House after the U.S. failed to veto a U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution.

Israel had been informed that the U.S. would support two resolutions calling for a cease-fire but not linked to a hostage release, an Israeli embassy spokesperson told NBC News.

Netanyahu's office threatened to withhold the delegation, which was to include Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and Israel’s national security advisor, and his office announced the cancellation after the U.S. abstained from the vote today.

"This withdrawal hurts both the war effort and the effort to release the abductees, because it gives Hamas hope that international pressure will allow them to get a ceasefire without the release of our abductees,” the prime minister’s office said.

The U.S. vetoed three prior cease-fire resolutions that did not tie a pause in hostilities with a hostage release. Last week, the U.S. resolution for a cease-fire was vetoed by Russia and China.

Israel's delegation had been due to arrive tomorrow. Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is already in Washington for Pentagon meetings.

The delegation was requested by President Joe Biden to discuss alternative ideas to a ground operation in Rafah. The administration has repeatedly expressed concern that an extensive ground invasion of Rafah would result in high civilian casualties.

Military draft bill creates rift in Israeli government
A member of Israel’s war Cabinet said yesterday he would quit the national emergency government should proposed legislation that continues to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jews from mandatory military service be passed into law.

“The nation cannot accept it,” said centrist Cabinet minister Benny Gantz, adding that the Knesset, or parliament, “must not vote for it.”

“My colleagues and I will not be members of the emergency government should such legislation pass in the Knesset,” said. “The conscription law being drawn up by the government is a serious moral failure that will create a deep rift within us at a time when we need to fight together against our enemies,” he added.

Gantz, a former military chief who has more support than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu according recent opinion polls, joined the unity government to help manage the war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack.

Members of an emergency medical team that has treated patients at a hospital in southern Gaza in recent weeks said Monday that the horrors they've witnessed there are "unimaginable," from worsening malnutrition to deadly infections stemming from lack of healthcare equipment.

The team formed by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) has been working at the European Hospital near Khan Younis, a city decimated by Israeli bombing. At least two hospitals in the city are currently under siege by Israeli forces, which have killed more than 32,000 Gazans and injured tens of thousands more in less than six months.

"The situation we're facing is beyond comprehension," said Arvind Das, IRC's Gaza team lead. "Continuous Israeli military operations near hospitals are making an already tense situation even worse for those seeking shelter or medical help, pushing the healthcare system to the brink of collapse."

"Despite the relentless efforts of our medical teams, the infrastructure necessary to deliver optimal medical care has been severely compromised by bombing, stringent restrictions on the entry of aid including medical supplies, and the overwhelming surge in needs," Das added. "We're doing everything we can, navigating through critical shortages and working with very limited resources, to save lives amidst this dire situation."

Not a single hospital in the Gaza Strip is fully functional after months of Israeli attacks, and the dozen that are partially operating are well beyond capacity, with patients and displaced people filling the hallways and outskirts of the facilities. The United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to health has accused Israel's military of waging an "unrelenting war" on Gaza's medical system.

Dr. Konstantina Ilia Karydi, an anesthetist with the emergency medical team, said Monday that the European Hospital "had an original capacity of just 200 beds, and at the moment it has expanded to 1,000 beds."

"There are around 22,000 people that have been displaced from other parts of Gaza sheltering in the corridors and in tents inside the hospital, because people feel that it's safer to be here than anywhere else," said Karydi.

MAP said in a statement that the medical team's surgeons "completed successful complex vascular and orthopedic surgeries on patients" at the hospital, but some "later died due to infections in the hospitals and the inability to provide post-operative care."

"This is due to the intense security situation that forced healthcare workers to evacuate hospitals and hindered their access," said MAP. "Moreover, significant damage to hospital infrastructure and facilities, coupled with a complete shortage of equipment and medicine—largely due to Israel's restrictions on medical aid entry into Gaza—severely impacted the ability to provide necessary care."

Dr. Husam Basheer, an orthopedic surgeon with the emergency medical team, stressed that healthcare workers in the territory are "managing with the bare minimum of resources," lacking even basic supplies such as gauze.

"We worked around the challenges we faced and managed in a different way," said Basheer, "but the staff here are overwhelmed."

The medical team's report added to the abundance of harrowing accounts from healthcare personnel on the devastating conditions inside Gaza's hospitals, many of which have been shelled and raided—in some cases repeatedly—by Israeli forces.

Al Jezeera reported Monday that the Israeli military has "surrounded the al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in southern Gaza, while pressing on with their siege of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the strip."

"Military vehicles, tanks, and attack drones are encircling these two facilities," Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported. "They're also blocking the entrance with piles of sand, preventing medical staff, patients, and injured people inside from leaving safely and constantly failing to provide a safe corridor for people and evacuees trapped inside the hospital."

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, responded with alarm Monday to reports that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian Red Crescent Society volunteer and a displaced person sheltering at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

A public spat breaks out between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war cabinet minister — and erstwhile political rival — Benny Gantz in the wake of the former’s decision to cancel a trip for his top aides to Washington, DC, after the Biden administration declined to veto a problematic UN Security Council resolution.

Gantz says not only should the delegation set out for the US, but “it would have been good if the prime minister would travel to the US himself, and hold a direct dialogue with President Biden and senior officials.”

Netanyahu responds in a statement panning Gantz for suggesting the trip take place, especially after Hamas praised the UN Security Council vote calling for a ceasefire without conditioning it on the release of the hostages.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected the suggestion,” says his office.

For the first time in two months, rockets were fired from Gaza at Ashdod and Ashkelon, two coastal Israeli cities south of Tel Aviv which were the major targets of hundreds of rocket attacks during the Hamas attack on October 7 and in the months following. After Israel launched its ground maneuver in Gaza in late October however, the rocket fire reduced.

In the last two months, rocket fire from Gaza has been reduced to near-zero in terms of daily launches. The last large barrages were on new years day just after midnight and again in mid-January when a barrage of fifty rockets targeted the southern Israeli city of Netivot. The IDF has reduced the time necessary to find and destroy rocket launchers and the perpetrators behind the launches. This has been made possible by IDF operations in various parts of Gaza wherein IDF forces essentially halved the strip into two by controlling a road across Gaza. It has also been made possible by a shift in tactics to target the launchers and close the loop on perpetrators. After the Netivot attack in January for example, the IDF found the rocket launcher within a day.

The rocket launches on March 25 came as the IDF continued to operate around the Shifa hospital complex. The IDF’s 162nd division has been controlling the Shifa sector since the IDF raid began the evening of March 17 and has cleared several buildings in the area. The Nahal brigade’s reconnaissance unit was used in the clearing, and they “located many weapons that were hidden inside the various medical devices in the MRI complex as well as on the rooftop of the hospital,” the IDF said. In total, the IDF has detained around 800 suspects in the area, with 500 of them identified as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members. Moreover, up to 180 terrorists have been eliminated in gunfights near the hospital, the IDF said in a briefing on March 25.

The renewed rocket fire suggests that Hamas is trying to reconstitute itself, and the Shifa raid shows that Hamas is concentrating commanders in northern Gaza after suffering losses in November. Meanwhile, the IDF continues operations in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, having carried out dozens of strikes on targets.

In an interview with KAN to promote his new book, Ilan Kfir claimed that Hamas had an operative plan to reach the heart of Tel Aviv on October 7, but was ultimately thwarted. The veteran journalist published "Gaza Division Conquered," in March, the first book published in Hebrew about the October 7 massacre.

"Today the picture is much clearer than it was on October 7. Hamas was not satisfied with the phase one plan - but the test was if the phase one plan was successful, they would go on to phase two - and it was prepared with large forces ready on standby and prepared to set off at noon. At the heart of the plan was a breach in two areas, in the north as well as in the south and east, towards Dimona, which was singled out by the group as a very central target. The goal of the operation would have been a raid on Tel Aviv. They marked several focal points in the city that were expected to be crowded in the afternoon and evening in order to carry out a mass massacre in the city," the author stated.

“Whoever from Hamas was planning to arrive in Tel Aviv and the north would have been forces with the mental willingness to commit suicide, because they knew they had no chance of returning from there. It was a plan that was formulated and in very advanced stages," Kfir said.

Hamas sought to initiate second phase on October 7
"Towards noon on October 7, when Sinwar and his central command realized that they had achieved success above and beyond what was expected, an order was given to the forces of phase two to set off. Here, they encountered a big surprise because unlike in the morning - when the fence was broken and there was minimal IDF presence in the area - there was already an assessment and a huge influx of forces into the Nevatim area where a large blockade was carried out. There is no doubt that if Hamas had carried out its second phase, the trauma and disaster on October 7 would have been doubled."

Kfir hypothesized that had "Sinwar believed that if an attack on Tel Aviv and Dimona were reported in the news, Hezbollah in the north and the other terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria would also attack. This is a diabolical plan, and if it had succeeded, the reality would have been many times worse."

He also said that "maps found with terrorists indicated that they intended to reach Kiryat Gat. After that, a plan was discovered by a certain force to attack Shikma Prison in Ashkelon and release terrorists. Another plan was to attack the Hatzerim air base. All this testified to Sinwar's pretensions of carrying out something that had never before been done."

As tensions rise between the two countries, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on Tuesday, a day after the United States abstained in a United Nations Security Council vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

After the historic abstention by one of its closest allies, Israel abruptly canceled the visit of a high-level delegation to Washington this week. But Gallant, who arrived in the U.S. on Monday, stayed on in the capital and met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Top of the agenda is Israel’s plans to launch an offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1 million people displaced from elsewhere in the strip have sought shelter.

Struggling to keep afloat his governing coalition, the most right-wing government in the country’s history, and with members of the Cabinet pushing for an even more aggressive approach in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated his determination to launch a military operation in the city in spite of repeated American warnings against it. He has said that Hamas cannot be defeated unless Israel takes out four battalions, made up of thousands of fighters, which he says are sheltering there.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is facing growing political pressure of his own at home and abroad to do more to help lessen Palestinian suffering and deaths, even as the U.S. continues to supply Israel with military hardware.

Ahead of the meeting between Austin and Gallant, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that U.S. officials had been discussing “ways to go about addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety.”

“A lot of those are from our own lessons [learned] conducting operations in urban environments,” he said. “I would expect the conversations to cover those kinds of things.”

In a poll released conducted earlier this month and released Tuesday by the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, 57% of participants in Israel rated Netanyahu’s performance since Oct. 7 as “poor or very poor,” compared with 28% who deemed his performance “good or excellent” and 14% who said it was “so-so.”

Video seen by New York Times undermines account of unnamed military paramedic whose testimony was key part of its own report alleging sexual assault in Kibbutz Be'eri

The New York Times has cast doubt on its own reporting of an alleged episode of sexual assault during the 7 October Hamas-led attacks by admitting that new video footage appears to contradict the account of an Israeli paramedic quoted by the newspaper.

Footage taken from an Israeli soldier who was in Kibbutz Be'eri, where the alleged assault was supposed to have taken place, shows the bodies of three female victims, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of sexual violence, according to the US paper.

The bodies are reportedly shown at a home where many of Be'eri's residents had believed the assaults occurred.

On 28 December, the New York Times published an article headlined, "'Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7," in which an unnamed paramedic, part of an Israeli commando unit, said that he had discovered the bodies of two partially clothed teenage girls who had been sexually assaulted.

The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post were among several media outlets to publish similar accounts sourced to an anonymous military paramedic.

Earlier this month, Michal Paikin, a spokesperson for the Kibbutz Be'eri, denied that two of the girls, who were sisters, had been sexually assaulted.

"You're talking about the Sharabi girls?" he told The Intercept. "No, they… were shot and were not subjected to sexual abuse."

Gillian Brisley, the girls' grandmother, also denied the allegations. "They were just shot, nothing else had been done to them," she told Israel's Channel 12.

Responding to the new video footage, residents of the kibbutz told the New York Times that there was only one home in Be'eri in which two teenage girls had been killed, and that because of this they had concluded that the girls had not been sexually assaulted.

"This story is false," said Nili Bar Sinai, a member of the kibbutz group that investigated claims of sexual assault at the house, said.

The unnamed paramedic, whose testimony formed a core part of the 28 December New York Times story, declined to tell the US paper whether he still stood by his account.

Later, an Israeli military spokesman said that the medic did stand by his testimony, but that he might have misremembered the place where he saw the teenage girls.

Anat Schwartz, one of the report's authors, is being investigated by the paper after it emerged that she had liked a social media post calling for Gaza to be turned into a "slaughterhouse".

Schwartz, who worked on the story with her 24-year-old nephew Adam Sella and veteran New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, also reportedly liked social media posts calling on Israel to execute Palestinians if hostages in Gaza were not released, and said that westerners had to be "scared" into believing Hamas was like the Islamic State group.

New video contradicts Israeli medic's account of 7 October sexual assault, report says



Note that this doesn't mean zero instances of SA occurred on October 7th, only that this widely publicized incident doesn't appear to have. Other alleged instances should have their evidence evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Netanyahu, Gantz spar over canceled DC trip; premier ‘rejects suggestion’ to visit US

United Nations expert told the global body's Human Rights Council on Tuesday that she believed that Israel's military campaign in Gaza since Oct. 7 amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.

Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected her findings.

"It is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings," Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, told the U.N. rights body in Geneva, presenting a report called "The Anatomy of a Genocide".

"I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met," she said, citing more than 30,000 Palestinians killed among other acts.

"I implore member states to abide by their obligations, which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself," she said, prompting a burst of applause.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Gulf nations such as Qatar, as well as African countries including Algeria and Mauritania, voiced support for Albanese's findings and alarm at the humanitarian situation.

The seats for Israel's ally the United States were left empty. Washington has previously accused the council of a chronic anti-Israel bias.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on specific themes and crises. Her views do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.

In the past, her comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict have drawn scrutiny, including from a U.S. ambassador in Geneva who said she has a history of using "antisemitic tropes".

Within Israel, the lingerie posts have attracted little attention, said Oren Persico of the Seventh Eye, a website covering Israeli media.

Israeli soldiers have been posting photos and videos of themselves toying with lingerie found in Palestinian homes, creating a dissonant visual record of the war in Gaza as a looming famine intensifies world scrutiny of Israel's offensive.

In one video, an Israeli soldier sits in an armchair in a room in Gaza grinning, with a gun in one hand and dangling white satin underwear from the other over the open mouth of a comrade lying on a sofa.

Elsewhere, another soldier sits atop a tank holding a female mannequin dressed in a black bra and helmet and says: "I found a beautiful wife, serious relationship in Gaza, great woman."

The two videos shot by Israeli soldiers are among dozens of posts in which troops in Gaza are shown displaying lingerie, mannequins, and in some cases both. The lingerie images have been viewed tens of thousands of times - nearly half a million in one case - after being reposted by Younis Tirawi, who describes himself as a Palestinian reporter.

Approached about images he reposted to his more than 100,000 followers on X between Feb. 23 and March 1, Tirawi provided links to the original posts by IDF soldiers. Reuters then independently verified eight posted on Instagram or YouTube.

Reuters sent details of the eight verified posts on YouTube or Instagram to the IDF, requesting comment.

In response, a spokesperson sent a statement saying the IDF investigates incidents that deviate from the orders and expected values of IDF soldiers, as well as reports of videos uploaded to social networks.

"In cases where suspicion of a criminal offense arises that justifies opening an investigation, an investigation is opened by the Military Police," it said.

Mannequins and underwear
The authenticated posts include a photo of a soldier holding a bare female mannequin from behind with his hands on its breasts and one of a soldier handling a half-naked doll.
One photo shows a soldier posing with his gun, making a thumbs-up gesture, in front of a double bed strewn with packets of women's underwear.

YouTube said it had removed a video flagged by Reuters for violating the platform's harassment policies, which prohibit content that reveals someone's personally identifiable information. Instagram did not comment.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza was launched in response to an attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Oct. 7 in which terrorists killed about 1,200 people and took 253 hostage, according to Israel.

The posts come at a time when Hamas and Israel are both being accused of grave war crimes. A team of UN experts said this month in a report that there were reasonable grounds to believe sexual violence, including rapes and gang rapes, occurred at several locations during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

The experts also said there was convincing information that some Israeli hostages taken to Gaza had been subjected to sexual violence which may still be ongoing.

Israel stands accused of pushing Gaza towards famine. The team of UN experts also said in its recent report that it had received information from institutional and civil society sources and direct interviews in the West Bank about sexual violence against Palestinians by the IDF.

Ardi Imseis, an assistant professor of law at Queen's University in Canada, said the posts violated article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians in wartime.
Article 27 says civilians are entitled to respect for their honor, family rights, manners and customs, and must be protected against insults and public curiosity, and that women must be especially protected against any attack on their honor.

Within Israel, the lingerie posts have attracted little attention, said Oren Persico of the Seventh Eye, a website covering Israeli media. By contrast, he said, posts showing weapons or Hamas flags said to have been found in Gazan homes have been circulating widely.

The Syrian army says Israeli airstrikes early Friday near the northern city of Aleppo killed or wounded “a number of” people and caused damage. An opposition war monitor said the strikes killed 42, most of them Syrian troops.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Israeli strikes hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near the Aleppo International Airport, and the nearby town of Safira, home to a sprawling military facility.

The Observatory said 36 Syrian troops and six Hezbollah fighters died, and dozens of people were wounded, calling it the deadliest such attack in years.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes.

Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.

An Israeli army air strike in Lebanon killed the deputy head of Hezbollah's rocket unit on Friday, the army said, the latest deadly cross-border violence since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

The strike in south Lebanon's Bazuriyeh killed Ali Abdel Hassan Naim, "one of the leaders for heavy-warhead rocket fire and responsible for conducting and planning attacks against Israeli civilian," the Israeli military said.

The United States in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel even as it publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated military offensive in Rafah, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Citing Pentagon and State Department officials, the daily said the new arms package includes 1,800 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK-82 500-pound bombs, along with 25 F-35s that were initially approved as part of a larger package by Congress in 2008. Israel requested the third squadron of 25 F-35s last July, which when delivered will bring the total size of the fleet to 75.

Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The US has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel as it fights against Hamas in Gaza, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, and called for leveraging military aid.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” a White House official told The Washington Post. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

The US recently deemed Israel to be in compliance with a new national security memorandum after it received a written assurance from Jerusalem that it is using American weapons in line with international law and is not blocking humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

This assurance came last week via a “credible high-level official who has the ability and authority to make decisions and commitments about the issues at the heart of the assurances,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday, referring to the letter sent by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“These assurances are prospective, but of course, our view of them is informed by our ongoing assessments of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza,” Miller said during a press briefing.

“We’ve had ongoing assessments of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law. We have not found them to be in violation, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or the provision of humanitarian assistance. We view those assurances through that ongoing work we have done,” he said.

The State Department has until May 8 to provide Congress with a report on Israel’s compliance with the memo.

The announcement came on the same day that the US abstained from a vote at the United Nations Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages taken on October 7, without linking the two issues.

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medical aid sat idle on the roads heading into Gaza recently as a senior humanitarian official accused the Israeli government of blocking lifesaving supplies from reaching the devastated enclave.

“They limit the number of trucks that can pass,” Mohamed Nossair, head of operations at the Egyptian Red Crescent, said of Israeli officials and soldiers charged with inspecting aid destined for Gaza. “The problem is also they reject these items ... that are very essential.”

Oxygen canisters, water filters, metal forks, over-the-counter painkillers and generators were among the items that Nossair said had prevented trucks from entering Gaza, where a vast majority of the people are displaced and more than 32,000 have been killed, according to local health officials.

“If I have a truck with rejected items, they reject all the truck,” Nossair said during an interview with NBC News.

On Thursday, the United Nations’ highest court reinforced Nossair’s statements, ordering Israel to open more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza.

Israeli officials have been imposing an opaque and cumbersome process and worsening the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, Nossair and other aid officials charge. These accusations, which come amid warnings of an “imminent” famine inside Gaza, have brought increased criticism of Israel’s government and triggered a blame game with aid agencies.

Israeli officials have repeatedly denied obstructing aid from entering Gaza, and instead blame the U.N. for acute shortages of lifesaving supplies in the strip — particularly the north.

Members of an NBC News team in Rafah saw hundreds of vehicles on the road, as well as some in a parking area and more at a tunnel crossing in Ismailia, roughly four hours and 125 miles from the border crossing. Satellite images from the last week also show trucks on the road and parked near the crossing.

According to Nossair, at the time, roughly 100 to 120 trucks enter Gaza per day — about half the number able to be processed by Israel, and a fraction of prewar levels. (Aid agencies and the U.N. say Gaza needs between 500 and 600 trucks a day carrying both humanitarian aid and commercial goods.)

Unclear restrictions imposed by Israel have resulted in an average of 20 to 25 trucks turned away every day, about a fifth of the number that end up crossing into Gaza, he said.

Supplies taken in wooden crates are rejected outright regardless of what is inside, Nossair said. If pallets of aid don’t fit the exact dimensions approved by the Israeli government, he says, those trucks are also rejected.

The Israeli government agency responsible for allowing aid into Gaza, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, told NBC News that 99% of the aid trucks are approved after being screened.

A recent NBC News request for permission to travel to the Kerem Shalom border crossing to report on this story has been refused by Israeli officials. Both Kerem Shalom and Rafah in Egypt are restricted areas that require permission to access.

Israeli officials have also blamed the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) for a failure to distribute aid. According to COGAT, UNRWA has not requested convoys north for six weeks.

The problem with freezers
Sometimes the issue is not the item itself, but what it is stored in, Nossair said.

For example, he said, Israeli officials have turned back insulin because it is kept in freezers.

COGAT has a list of what it considers “dual-use” items that are subject to stricter scrutiny, which mostly include chemical products, cement, metal and construction items. The list does not include coolers, painkillers, anesthetics or medical equipment, yet Nossair said everything from anesthesia to paracetamol is rejected.

Dual-use items are not under a blanket prohibition, COGAT said.

“They are subjected to security screening, since the Hamas terrorist organization cynically uses these means for the advancement of its terrorist objectives,” COGAT said in a statement when asked why certain items, and thus whole truckloads of aid, were sometimes denied entry and sometimes not.

Distribution of aid within Gaza is also a struggle, particularly in the northern area of the strip, where aid has been inconsistent. The World Food Programme has described convoy journeys to the north as dangerous due to desperate crowds and checkpoint delays that often leave teams open to violence. And even when convoys do make it to the area, they can be denied access by the Israeli military.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Sunday that Israel will no longer approve the agency’s convoys to travel to the northern area of Gaza.

“This is outrageous & makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man made famine,” Lazzarini said in a post on X. “These restrictions must be lifted.”

COGAT responded to Lazzarini on social media, saying Israel facilitated more than 350 trucks of aid to northern Gaza in the last month. It also invoked Israel’s allegations that UNRWA workers had ties to terrorism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an Israeli delegation approval on Friday to resume indirect negotiations with Hamas in the coming days for a truce and hostage deal.

Israel will send Shin Bet and Mossad officials to conduct the negotiations in Cairo, an Israeli official said, clarifying that Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar are not expected to attend the talks, but may join subsequent consultations in Doha later on, an Israeli official said.

According to a statement from his office announcing the decision, Netanyahu gave the security chiefs “room to operate” in their negotiations

On Monday, Hamas rejected compromises hammered out between Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the United States in Doha, causing Jerusalem to recall most of its negotiating team.

Several news outlets reported that a small Mossad team remained in Qatar to continue talks.

Hamas said on Monday night that it had informed mediators that it has returned to its original demands for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a return of displaced Palestinians and a “real” exchange of “prisoners” — demands Israel has repeatedly rejected as delusional.

On Wednesday, Barnea reportedly informed the war cabinet that a hostage deal was still possible if Israel would be willing to be more lenient regarding the return of Gazans to their home in the northern part of the Strip. Israel has largely rejected the idea, as it seeks to prevent a resurgence of Hamas activity in areas that it has already cleared of the terror group.

Besides Barnea, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz and war cabinet observers Gadi Eisenkot and Ron Dermer supported the Mossad chief’s stance, according to Channel 12.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi opposed Barnea’s approach, saying that now is not the time to be lenient in negotiations. Instead, the pair argued that the IDF should prepare for an invasion of Rafah, but do so quietly to afford the US an opportunity to broker a deal.

Netanyahu also rejected Barnea’s proposal and supported publicly declaring that the IDF is preparing to invade Rafah.

Another cabinet meeting on the matter was supposed to take place Friday, but ministers received word of Netanyahu’s decision via the media, where the premier was quoted as saying during a Thursday meeting with hostage families: “We’re preparing for Rafah, and I am handling the negotiations myself.”

The premier’s office issued a statement Friday night denying reports that he was in the minority in opposing the Mossad-Shin Bet-led negotiating team’s proposal to allow the unvetted return of Palestinians to northern Gaza.

Relatedly, the Axios news site reported that several hostage relatives at the Thursday meeting castigated Netanyahu for his treatment of them, asserting that US President Joe Biden has shown the abductees’ families more respect than he has.

A relative of one of the dual US-Israeli national hostages told Netanyahu that the White House both embraces the hostage families, but more critically, keeps them informed regarding the status of negotiations — things the premier has largely failed to do, Axios said.

The compromise proposal Israel accepted on Sunday reportedly would’ve seen Jerusalem release twice as many Palestinian security prisoners as it had initially offered in exchange for 40 hostages — women, children, the sick and elderly — in the first phase of a 6-week truce deal.

According to a Channel 12 report, Israel is now willing to release as many as 800 prisoners, including 100 inmates convicted of murder. Other Hebrew media reports suggested Israel was prepared to release 700 security prisoners in return for the 40.

Some 130 hostages — not all of them alive — are believed to remain in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw terrorists kill some 1,200 people and abduct another 253, mostly civilians. Dozens of hostages were released under a previous truce deal in November, and some others were freed by Israel.

The IDF admitted to killing two Palestinian men and burying their bodies with a bulldozer after Al Jazeera published a video claiming to show the incident, according to an IDF statement to CNN on Saturday.

The IDF claimed that the men approached the operational area in central Gaza in a "suspicious manner" and didn't respond to warning shots.

After they were killed, their bodies were buried using a bulldozer due to the fear of hidden explosives.

The video, filmed from a distance and heavily edited, was released by Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
In the video, you can see two men walking along a beach in Gaza, waving white flags, as they approach a wall of rubble dividing the beach, where Israeli soldiers are stationed.

As one crosses the barrier, he waves at troops stationed there and is allowed to approach them. He then passes out of view of the camera, and what happens is unclear.

The second man turns away from the barrier and begins walking away quickly from the barrier while being followed by an Israeli armored vehicle. He starts waving at the vehicle once he notices it following him but suddenly falls and crumples over, apparently shot.
The video cuts to a close-up of an Israeli military bulldozer coming to pick up two corpses. The bulldozer picks up the bodies, burying them under sand and debris.

CNN could not confirm
CNN could not confirm if the two shots were of the same people and whether they were in the exact location, but Al Jazeera claims that it shows the same event.

Al Jazeera also accused the Israeli soldiers of trying to cover up the "executions."

CNN was able to confirm that the first shot had occurred near Al Rashid Street in central Gaza, using visual evidence, including satellite imagery and videos. They also confirmed that Israeli engineering vehicles had been deployed to that area at the time.

The IDF told CNN that the edited video "represents two different incidents."

"The first incident occurred in the southern part of the corridor. After the suspect did not respond to a warning shot, the (force) fired in his direction, and he was shot and slightly wounded."

Three United Nations observers and their Lebanese translator were wounded today when a shell exploded near them as they were carrying out a foot patrol in southern Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping mission says, adding it’s still investigating the origin of the blast.

The UNIFIL statement says the targeting of peacekeepers is “unacceptable.” Two security sources had told Reuters the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike but the Israeli military denied striking in the area.

The Palestine Red Crescent says five people were killed and dozens wounded by gunfire and a stampede during an aid delivery today in Gaza.

AFP video footage shows a convoy of trucks moving quickly past burning debris near the distribution point in pre-dawn darkness as people shout and gunfire echoes — some of which were warning shots, according to unnamed witnesses quoted by the French news agency.

The Red Crescent says it happened after thousands of people gathered for the arrival of around 15 trucks of flour and other food, which were supposed to be handed out at Gaza City’s Kuwait roundabout, in the territory’s north.

The roundabout has been the scene of several chaotic and deadly aid distribution incidents, including a deadly incident on March 23 that drew intense international scrutiny.

The Red Crescent says three of the five killed earlier today were shot.

Eyewitnesses tell AFP that Gazans overseeing the aid delivery shot in the air, but Israeli troops in the area also opened fire and some moving trucks hit people trying to get the food.

A video has surfaced from last week’s deadly shooting of a Palestinian convert to Judaism that shows the victim raising his hands in compliance with orders from an IDF reservist who opened fire on the 63-year-old anyway.

The video shows the soldier approaching Sameh Muhammad Abd al-Rai Zaytoun — who went by David Ben Avraham since converting to Judaism several years ago — with his gun aimed at him after he exited a Palestinian taxi at a bus station near the settlement of Elazar, south of Jerusalem.

The soldier aggressively asks Ben Avraham if he is Jewish, to which he responds that he is. Seemingly doubting him, the soldier asks him for his name and Ben Avraham responds, “David Ben Avraham, idiot.”

He then reaches for his bag before the soldier stops him, saying, “Touch that and I’ll kill you, do you understand me?” The reservist then tells him to put his hands up.

Ben Avraham complies, stepping away from his bag and putting his hands on his head.

“I want you to shut your mouth and not move,” the soldier then says before derisively saying, “Jew,” seemingly still doubting Ben Avraham’s Judaism.

A separate surveillance video from the scene shows Ben Avraham standing with his hands on his head for a few seconds before the soldier shoots him.

A small knife was later found in Avraham’s bag, but the videos from the scene show that he was not a threat when he was shot. The IDF subsequently launched an investigation into what it branded as a “grave” incident.

The reservist’s attorneys, Cpt. (res.) Maya Katz and Lt. Yasmin Yonas, said in a statement that the soldier “just recently was honored for his bravery in thwarting the ramming attack that took place about three weeks ago in Gush Etzion.”

Ben Avraham sought to obtain Israeli citizenship for years after converting to Judaism but was rebuffed by authorities, ostensibly due to his Palestinian heritage.

On Friday, Interior Minister Moshe Arbel posthumously approved Israeli residency status for Ben Avraham.

The last few days on the Israeli border with Lebanon can be defined as violence-heavy. Both sides are on an escalatory ladder, and both are climbing it, trying to stay on top — while avoiding stepping too high.

A symmetry of sorts has taken shape in the north over the last five months, as Hezbollah has maintained its near-daily attacks on Israel and the Jewish state has responded in kind, a symmetry reflected not just in strikes but in the civilian toll as well. Just as Israel felt compelled to establish a kind of “security zone” in the north, evacuating tens of thousands of residents from towns near the border, similar action has been taken in south Lebanon. Some 80,000 residents of northern Israel have been forced to leave their homes amid the hostilities. According to Israeli estimates, more than 120,000 Lebanese have become internally displaced by the fighting.

In certain south Lebanese villages where Israel has intelligence on a major Hezbollah presence, the IDF’s fire policy is strict: Anyone defined as a suspect is attacked.

Amid the daily cross-border attacks, Wednesday’s Israeli strike in Lebanon — in which seven members of the Jamaa al-Islamiya terror group planning to carry out an infiltration attack on the border were killed — was different from what we’ve seen so far, both in scope and in the identity of those killed.

The terror cell in question was made up of Palestinians active in an extremist Sunni Islamist organization centered in the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon, who were eliminated far from their normal area of operations. They appeared to choose the Mount Dov area for their planned attack, with the lack of a border fence making it relatively easier to infiltrate into Israeli territory.

Interestingly, throughout the months-long conflict, Hezbollah has chosen to send Palestinian groups rather than its own people to carry out such infiltration attempts. The organization appears to be doing this in order to be able to portray the acts as ostensibly tied to the defense of Gaza, rather than unprovoked aggression.

The escalation in cross-border fire came at the end of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to Washington, where he met with the US special envoy to the region Amos Hochstein, who has been leading efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Israel-Hezbollah standoff.

Despite the latest Israeli fatality caused by Hezbollah, Israel is committed to staying the course with Hochstein as he tries to find a way out of the crisis.

Israel’s Archimedean point is unchanged for now: Gaza comes first. Everything else will wait for a time when conditions are right.

But that doesn’t mean Israel isn’t preparing for an expanded conflict on the northern front.

Drilling for a short war; watching a ‘considerable’ retreat
On Wednesday, battalion commanders in the IDF completed a seminar organized by the 36th Division in preparation for a possible offensive in Lebanon. The division, which was stationed in Gaza for more than three months at the start of the war, shared its lessons from the fighting and how they may be implemented in Lebanon.

And on Thursday the IDF said it carried out a surprise exercise aimed at preparing the military for war in the north. The drill, led by the Operations Division, involved all the IDF’s commands, wings and directorates, as well as the General Staff.

Still, as far as the IDF is concerned, the current situation in southern Lebanon with regard to Hezbollah’s deployment is fundamentally different from that of Hamas in Gaza on October 7.

Practically, we aren’t that far from [UN Resolution] 1701, in terms of Hezbollah presence,” a senior security official said, referring to the motion that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and which mandated that Hezbollah forces retreat kilometers from the border — a resolution the terror group has patently ignored for many years.

“The organization has retreated considerably [in recent weeks], including the Radwan forces that had been deployed along the border in the last year,” he said, referring to the elite commandos seen as a particular threat by Israel. “So the threat of a raid is significantly decreased.”

This raises the question of whether residents of evacuated northern communities should be able to return home. After all, the threat of a Hamas-esque invasion was the chief reason for the rapid evacuation of northern border communities at the start of the war in Gaza.

Such a decision can only be made by political leaders, and until they do decide, official policy remains the same — residents will only be allowed to return after Hezbollah is removed from the border, peacefully or otherwise.

Hitting ‘Hezbollah’ or ‘Lebanon’
The next Lebanon war, whenever it breaks out, will be shorter than we think, especially because of the issue of international legitimacy,” a diplomatic source told The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site Zman Yisrael.

“International scrutiny of events in Lebanon is different from that in Gaza,” the source said. “There are many Western nations and international bodies involved in Lebanon, and therefore the time Israel would have to operate against Hezbollah in Lebanon would be far less than that afforded to it in Gaza.”

This means Israel will need to prepare a lethal plan of action, one that will bring about the desired goals in a very short time. Israel has not specified what that will look like, but it’s clear that a war would be a matter of weeks and not longer.

Some in the IDF hold an optimistic view on the prospects for such action and have presented their position to political leaders. The latter will no doubt examine it carefully, for fear an operation could stall and fizzle out as in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, dealing a heavy blow to Israeli deterrence.

The intensity of such a war must be taken into account — both in the damage Israel will suffer and that caused to Lebanon. The ferocity of such a war, particularly when taking into account Hezbollah’s massive stock of missiles and rockets, only underlines the need for a swift, decisive campaign.

Nearly six months into the conflict, Israel is still finding it difficult to define when the Rubicon will be crossed — when it would have to move from harming strictly Hezbollah to the Lebanese state itself.

An adherence to the principle of not harming Lebanese state assets could in the end mean a longer war, and severe damage to the projection of Israeli power and its regional deterrence.

Al-Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-affiliated network, reported on Saturday that "Palestinian factions" in Syria rejected the proposal to establish a multi-national military force of Arab countries with the backing of the US. This force would be responsible for controlling law and order in Gaza and escorting humanitarian aid convoys.

"Arab countries, together with the US, are trying to rescue the IDF from the situation it has found itself in Gaza. The Palestinian people are capable of choosing their leaders and institutions that will manage the Strip," the report stated.

It was previously reported that Israel is interested in the advancement of an Arab force to both solve the issue of the looting of humanitarian aid convoys and prevent widespread hunger in Gaza. It would also to enable the creation of a Palestinian alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza.

Arab nations propose creating force for West Bank
In another development, there are reports that senior officials of Arab nations have proposed a deployment of Arab forces not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank, KAN News reported on Saturday.

This proposal was brought up in a meeting last week between ministers of Arab countries and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo, where these leaders put forward such a proposal to station Arab forces in the Gaza Strip and regions in the West Bank. The force would also reportedly see the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates met with Blinken to propose this plan.

An Arab diplomat, who was aware of the meeting, told KAN that Arab leaders expressed willingness to deploy forces in the West Bank "to launch a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, and to implement the two-state solution."

This source told KAN that Arab states fear that Israel will treat this solution as tactical and temporary, such as distributing humanitarian aid, rather than a comprehensive and strategic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is something the Arab states would want to see through.

Additionally, the source added that Arab states put this proposal on the table to prove their commitment to the peace process and their willingness to engage in security arrangements related to the establishment of a Palestinian state - not just by helping the IDF achieve its goals in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of people turned out for mass protests across Israel on Saturday night, and the weekly demonstrations in Tel Aviv by the hostages’ families took a dramatic turn after speakers called on attendees to “take to the streets” and join the anti-government protesters in the heart of the city, announcing an apparent discontinuation of the separate gathering.

Eli Albag, father of Hamas-held hostage Liri Albag, said there would be no more separate protests at Hostages Square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

“This is the last Shabbat that we will be here,” he said. “We won’t meet here anymore, we will be in the streets… this is the moment where we turn off the lights.”

“The rallies are over, the protests have just begun,” tweeted Hostages and Missing Families Forum spokesman Haim Rubinstein soon after the announcement from the stage.

Clashes with police were also recorded in Jerusalem, where some 200 protesters burst through a set of police barriers to demonstrate about 100 yards from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Azza Street, and in Caesarea where police detained protesters who blocked roads near Netanyahu’s private residence and chanted for him to resign.

Protesters also gathered in Sderot, Or Akiva, and Beersheba, in the wake of a public statement by hostage family members calling the longtime prime minister an “obstacle to a deal” to release the hostages.

The protests were among the largest since the war broke out on October 7

Einav Zangauker, the mother of Hamas captive Matan Zangauker, called Netanyahu’s handling of the hostage issue “incomprehensible and criminal,” in a speech on Saturday night in Jerusalem.

Earlier in the evening, an anti-government rally on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street kicked off with a lineup of speakers calling for new elections and Netanyahu’s ouster.

Yehuda Cohen, father of Nimrod Cohen, a soldier taken hostage on October 7, spoke to the Kaplan crowd, saying that he had talked with Netanyahu this week as part of a wider group of parents of abducted IDF soldiers and asked him what price Israel was willing to pay to return his son. He said that he never received an answer.

Cohen added that if Netanyahu cannot bring his son home, he should resign and let someone else try.

After the anti-government rally dispersed on Kaplan and participants in the hostage families’ protest left Hostages Square, a mass of demonstrators from both events converged at the nearby Begin Street, where Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a reservist group that was among the leaders of last year’s anti-judicial overhaul protests, called for the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Hadas Calderon, whose two children were released from Gaza while their father, Ofer Calderon, remains there, stressed to the crowd below that her children were released only through negotiations and that a deal must be made to release the rest of the hostages.

Early on in the protest on Begin Street, police commander Menashe Mansour declared the rally for a hostage deal illegal and urged protesters to disperse, setting off a series of skirmishes between demonstrators and officers. Though this is a weekly occurrence, an announcement had come at a much later stage on previous Saturday nights.

A group of protesters also managed to block part of Ayalon Highway and marched southward before police managed to disperse them with water cannons.

Police said they made 16 arrests overall in Tel Aviv and gave fines to nine people for disturbances and blocking traffic.

‘The excuses have run out’
Before the lights went out at Hostages’ Square, two former Hamas hostages who were freed during the truce deal in November spoke harshly about Netanyahu’s conduct, marking a change in tone for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum rallies whose speakers — until this week — made an effort to abstain from overt condemnation of the current government.

Aviva Siegel, whose husband Keith Siegel remains in captivity, called on Netanyahu and other members of the government to stop treating hostage negotiations “as if they are a children’s game.”

“You cannot bring back the delegation from Qatar without a deal,” she said onstage, referring to ongoing indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Doha.

Raz Ben Ami, a freed hostage who was also released in November and whose husband is also still a hostage in Gaza, joined Siegel in urging the government to strike a deal with Hamas.

“They [the hostages] won’t last there, no one can survive what they go through there. Believe me,” said Ben Ami at the weekly Hostages and Missing Families forum protest in Tel Aviv’s Hostages’ Square.

Shira Albag, hostage Liri’s mother, called on protesters to take up the struggle “against indifference, and in support of life.”

“It’s been 176 days that I haven’t turned a blind eye to the thoughts and fear of what Liri and the other abductees are going through,” she said. “The people of Israel won’t forget or forgive anyone who prevents a deal that would bring them [the hostages] back to us. After 176 days, 4,224 hours, the excuses have run out“.

’Increasing the pressure’ on Netanyahu’
At the weekly Jerusalem protest, Udi Goren, cousin of Tal Haimi who was killed while defending Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on October 7, said that his cousin’s new baby is about to be born.

“Listen to me, they’re coming home, until the very last one. It’s on us to make sure it happens as quickly as possible,” he said, listing the names of the hostages. “Bibi, listen, you’re right, the victory is in our hands, let the nation of Israel win and bring the hostages home.”

In Caesarea, a local protester named Hannah Zissel told The Times of Israel that the rallies are designed to “increase the pressure on him [Netanyahu] so he goes to a new election.”

Amos Malka, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate, kicked off the speaker’s portion of the rally with an address in which he accused Netanyahu of “abandoning the hostages” that Hamas is holding in Gaza.

“If the families knew how small the gap is, which Netanyahu is refusing to close” in negotiations with Hamas, “they would explode,” said Malka. “This is more evidence of his unsuitability to serve.”

Speaking to The Times of Israel, Malka, a leader of the protest movement against Netanyahu’s government, clarified that “the failures leading up to October 7 are shared among many, across the defense and establishment community. But what happened since” — that’s on Netanyahu.

Toxic Patriotism.

Or more accurately, toxic Iranian-influence.

Sounds like Hamas (who are talking in the name of Palestinians) care more in scoring stupid stances rather than doing anything to stop the genocide.

An Israeli airstrike hit a tent camp in the courtyard of a crowded hospital in central Gaza on Sunday, killing two Palestinians and wounding another 15, including journalists working nearby.

An Associated Press reporter filmed the strike and aftermath at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where thousands of people have sheltered after fleeing their homes elsewhere in the war-ravaged territory. People including women and children scattered and cried out.

The Israeli military said it struck a command center of the Islamic Jihad militant group and claimed the hospital’s functioning was not affected.

Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in Gaza’s hospitals since the start of the war nearly six months ago, viewing them as relatively safe from airstrikes. Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of operating in and around medical facilities, and troops have raided a number of hospitals.

Israeli troops have been raiding Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, for nearly two weeks and say they have fought heavy battles with militants in and around the medical compound. The military says it has killed scores of fighters, including senior Hamas operatives. It said Sunday it had found numerous weapons hidden there.

Palestinian families who fled from the area, including many who had been displaced earlier in the war, say they were ordered to march south by Israeli soldiers after days of heavy fighting.

Only a third of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functioning, while Israeli strikes kill and wound scores of people every day. Doctors say they are often forced to treat patients on hospital floors because all the beds are taken, and to operate without anesthetic and other crucial medical supplies.

Those wounded in Sunday’s strike lay on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital floor and gasped while being treated, one clutching at the underside of a stretcher that held someone else.

An international team of doctors who recently visited the hospital said they were horrified by the war’s gruesome impact on Palestinian children. The World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says around 9,000 patients urgently need to be evacuated abroad for lifesaving care.

The head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, told CBS on Sunday that WFP was able to get just nine trucks into Gaza on Saturday. “That’s nothing. We just cannot continue this way,” she said, calling for unrestricted access. “People are going to die otherwise, and they already are dying.”