Israeli ground forces are attacking Hamas militants and infrastructure in northern Gaza as warplanes strike across the sealed-off territory. Buoyed by the first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush the militant group’s ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel. More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients. The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 8,525, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 122 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them civilians slain in the initial Hamas rampage that started the fighting Oct. 7. In addition, 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group. One of the captives, a female Israeli soldier, was rescued in a special forces operation.
Quick Read
- Israeli ground forces are engaged in combat with Hamas militants in northern Gaza, with additional airstrikes happening across the region.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains firm against calls for a cease-fire after a successful rescue operation of a captive held by Hamas.
- Over half of Gaza’s population has been displaced due to the conflict, seeking shelter in U.N.-run schools and hospitals.
- The death toll in Gaza, as reported by the Hamas-run Health Ministry, is 8,525. In the occupied West Bank, 122 Palestinians have died, while Israel has reported over 1,400 deaths, mostly civilians.
- 240 hostages were taken into Gaza from Israel by Hamas. One female Israeli soldier was recently rescued by special forces.
- Houthi rebels from Yemen claim to have launched ballistic missiles and drones at Israel.
- The World Health Organization reports reduced services at a major Gaza hospital due to lack of power and supplies.
- Hezbollah has fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border.
- The Israeli ambassador to the U.N. wore a yellow Star of David patch during a Security Council address, drawing criticism from the chairman of Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
- U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken advocate for immediate aid to Israel and Ukraine in a Senate hearing.
- Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly calls for a humanitarian agreement to assist the people of Gaza.
- UNRWA’s commissioner-general emphasizes the need for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
- Israel has reconsidered its stance and is granting entry visas to U.N. officials, including Martin Griffiths, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Associated Press has the story:
Palestinian Health: 8,525 dead, including 3,542 children & 2,187 women
Newslooks- (AP)
GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY SAYS 219 PEOPLE DIED IN THE PAST DAY, BRINGING TOTAL TO 8,525
CAIRO — The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday it registered the deaths of at least 219 people in the past day, bringing the death toll to 8,525 since the war began.
Spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said in a televised news conference that the fatalities include 3,542 children and 2,187 women.
He said the main power generator in the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, has stopped working due to a lack of fuel.
He warned that more hospitals could go out of service in the coming days if fuel isn’t allowed into the besieged territory.
HOUTHI REBELS SAY THEY FIRED BALLISTIC MISSILES AND DRONES AT ISRAEL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen issued a video statement on Tuesday claiming to have fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, saying it was the third such operation. They threatened to carry out more strikes “until the Israeli aggression stops.”
The claims by the Houthis draw Iran closer into the ongoing Israel-Hamas war as Tehran remains a main sponsor.
Earlier this month, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones launched toward Israel by the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, including its capital, Sanaa. Mysterious projectiles have also struck inside Egypt, near the Israeli border.
Iran has long denied arming the Houthis even as it has been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Yemeni militia using sea routes. Independent experts, Western nations and United Nations experts have traced components seized aboard other detained vessels back to Iran.
A U.N. arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014, when Yemen’s civil war erupted.
There also has been at least one attack that the Houthis claimed where suspicion later fell fully on Iran. In 2019, cruise missiles and drones successfully penetrated Saudi Arabia and struck the heart of its oil industry in Abqaiq. That attack temporarily halved the kingdom’s production and spiked global energy prices by the biggest percentage since the 1991 Gulf War.
While the Houthis claimed the Abqaiq attack, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and analysts blamed Iran. U.N. experts similarly said it was “unlikely” the Houthis carried out the assault, though Tehran denied being involved.
WHO SAYS SERVICES AT HOSPITAL SEVERELY REDUCED DUE TO LACK OF POWER, SUPPLIES
CAIRO — The World Health Organization said services have been “severely reduced” at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the main facility treating cancer patients in Gaza, due to a lack of power and dwindling supplies.
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, the agency said reports of airstrikes in the hospital’s vicinity over the past two days were “extremely concerning.”
“Services have been severely reduced because of cut-off of electricity and restricted entry of medicines, other medical supplies, fuel and water,” the agency said.
HEZBOLLAH SAYS IT FIRED ANTI-TANK MISSILES AT ISRAELI FORCES
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says its fighters have fired anti-tank missiles toward an Israeli force along the border of the two countries.
Hezbollah said its fighters scored direct hits Tuesday on the Israeli force that was laying an ambush along the border.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been exchanging fire along the border following the Oct. 7 attack by the militant Hamas group on southern Israel.
UN HUMANITARIAN CHIEF SAYS HE FELT HELPLESS WHILE TALKING TO TRAPPED PALESTINIANS
CAIRO — The United Nations humanitarian chief said he felt helpless as he spoke by phone Tuesday with Palestinian families trapped in the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
“We don’t want to die,” Martin Griffiths quoted families telling him, adding that, “What they’ve endured since October 7 is beyond devastating,”
“And when an 8-year-old tells you that she doesn’t want to die, it’s hard not to feel helpless,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
On Monday, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told a U.N. emergency meeting that “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions” in Gaza.
ISRAELI AIRLINE EL AL CHANGES FLIGHT PATH TO THAILAND
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli airline El Al on Tuesday began flying an hours-longer route between Tel Aviv and Bangkok, Thailand, as Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip rages on.
El Al flight ELY 85 did not take the airline’s new route over Oman on Tuesday. Instead, it reverted to a longer route in which it first flew south over Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea before turning east over the Horn of Africa and heading into the Indian Ocean.
The route will keep El Al’s aircraft farther from Iran, which has backed Hamas.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL HEAD DERIDES AMBASSADOR FOR WEARING YELLOW STAR OF DAVID
JERUSALEM — The chairman of Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, derided Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations for putting on a yellow Star of David patch during his address to the Security Council on Monday, saying it “belittles both the victims of the Holocaust and the State of Israel.”
“The yellow patch symbolizes the helplessness of the Jewish people when it was at the mercy of others,” Dayan posted on X, formerly called Twitter. “Today we have an independent state and a strong army. We are masters of our fate. Today we put on our lapels the blue and white flag (of Israel), not a yellow patch.”
Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow six-pointed Star of David patches during the Holocaust.
Ambassador Gilad Erdan donned the patch during a council meeting on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where more than 8,300 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and food and basic supplies have dwindled sharply since Israel went to war against the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers.
Erdan told the Security Council that he would wear the patch, inscribed with the words “Never Again,” until the council condemns Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel, which touched off the war. More than 1,400 people were killed and about 240 taken hostage during the attack.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION URGES IMMEDIATE AID FOR ISRAEL AND UKRAINE
WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make the case Tuesday that the United States should immediately send aid to Israel and Ukraine, testifying at a Senate hearing as the administration’s massive $105 billion emergency aid request for conflicts in those countries and others has already hit roadblocks in the divided Congress.
President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretaries will be advocating for the foreign aid to a mostly friendly audience in the Senate, where majority Democrats and many Republicans support tying aid for the two countries together. But it faces much deeper problems in the Republican-led House, where new Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed cutting out the Ukraine aid and focusing on Israel alone, and cutting money for the Internal Revenue Service to pay for it.
The drastically narrowed House proposal, which would cost more than $14 billion, faced immediate resistance among Senate Democrats — and put pressure on Senate Republicans who support the Ukraine aid but are conscious of growing concerns about it within their party. The differing approaches signal problems ahead for the aid as both countries engage in long-simmering, defining conflicts that Biden and many U.S. lawmakers say could have fundamental ramifications for the rest of the world.
CANADA SAYS HUMANITARIAN ACCORD URGENTLY NEEDED
TORONTO — Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Monday that a humanitarian agreement is urgently needed to help people in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to the Economic Club of Canada, Joly called for a temporary pause in hostilities in the Israel-Hamas war to allow more aid to get into Gaza.
“The humanitarian situation facing the Palestinian people, facing Palestinian women and children, is dire,” she said.
Joly reiterated Canada’s unequivocal condemnation of Hamas for its attacks on Israelis and said Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism “in accordance with international law.″ She also criticized attacks by extremist Israelis on Palestinians in the West Bank.
UNWRA HEAD SAYS CIVIL ORDER BREAKDOWN ENDANGERS AGENCY’S OPERATIONS
UNITED NATIONS — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is warning that “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” stressing that “the present and future of Palestinians and Israelis depend on it.”
Philippe Lazzarini warned during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday that a further breakdown of civil order, following the recent break-ins at the agency’s warehouses by panicked Palestinians searching for food and other aid, will make it extremely difficult for the largest U.N. agency in Gaza to continue operating.
He said in a virtual briefing that he is worried about a spillover of the conflict and urged all 193 U.N. member nations “to change the trajectory of this crisis.”
The commissioner-general of the agency known as UNRWA, also said 64 of its staff have been killed in just over three weeks — the latest only two hours prior when UNRWA’s head of security in mid-Gaza was killed with his wife and eight children.
Lazzarini said most Palestinians in Gaza “feel trapped in a war they have nothing to do with” and “they feel the world is equating all of them to Hamas.” He stressed that the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities in Israel don’t absolve Israel from its obligations under international humanitarian law, starting with the protection of civilians.
