‘We’re closing in on them’: Israel rejects Biden’s request for pause in war. Live updates
By Christopher CannJorge L. Ortiz
Israel once again rejected calls for a humanitarian pause in the war with Hamas on Monday − including one from President Joe Biden − as it battered northern Gaza in preparation for an imminent ground incursion into Gaza City.
“We’re closing in on them,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman. “We’ve completed our encirclement, separating Hamas strongholds in the north from the south.”
The White House said Biden spoke Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but could not get him to agree to a halt in the military offensive that began after Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also failed in a similar effort over the weekend. The U.S. will “continue to advocate for temporary, localized pauses in the fighting,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
The Israeli military said it hit more than 450 “Hamas targets” in the previous 24 hours and killed a militant commander.
But the overnight barrages also struck the roof of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing several displaced people seeking shelter and destroying solar panels that kept the power on, according to Mohamed Zaqout, general manager of all hospitals in Gaza. The bombing also demolished homes in the densely populated Shati refugee camp just outside Gaza City, Palestinians who fled south Monday said.
“The buildings of the al-Shifa hospital were shaking all night, and we started getting the bodies and the wounded,” surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta said. “It was horrendous.”
Developments:
∎ More than 10,000 Palestinians – including 4,100 children and 2,640 women – have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 1,400 Israelis have died, including 340 soldiers, the vast majority in Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion into Israel. Since the beginning of ground operations, 29 Israeli soldiers have been killed, the U.N. reported.
∎ Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who gained fame as a teenager when she spent eight months in prison for slapping a soldier, was arrested Monday in the occupied West Bank for alleged terrorist activity and incitement, Israel said.
∎ The IDF said Monday that it was responding to about 30 rockets that were launched from Lebanon and targeting northern Israel. The IDF said it would fire artillery “toward the origin of the launches.”
∎ An estimated 2,260 people, including 1,270 children, are reported missing in Gaza, and most are presumed to be trapped under rubble, according to the U.N.
∎ Miami Beach, Florida, is sending eight firefighters to Israel to help fill the void left by firefighters called up for duty in the war against Hamas. Capt. Adonis Garcia, the union president who came up with the idea, said most of the volunteers heading to Israel are not Jewish.
Jewish man dies during California rally due to ‘possible hate crime’
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office is holding a 10 a.m. press conference Tuesday to address questions about the death of 69-year-old Paul Kessler, who died of injuries he suffered Sunday during pro-Israel and pro-Hamas rallies in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Witnesses reported that Kessler was involved in a “physical altercation with counter-protestors” and that he fell backwards and hit his head on the ground, according to the sheriff’s office. He died Monday.
“The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident and has not ruled out the possibility of a hate crime,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
The statement added that the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be blunt force head injury and the manner of death to be homicide.
Israel attacking Hamas ‘below and above ground’
The Israeli military said its latest barrage killed Jamal Mussa, describing him as being in charge of special security operations for Hamas.
Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that by splitting the Gaza Strip in half, Israel has reached a “significant stage” in the war. Hagari said Israeli military forces were carrying out “a large attack on terrorist infrastructure both below and above ground.”
Israeli media reported troops are expected to enter Gaza City either Monday or Tuesday. Israel has repeatedly urged residents of the Gaza Strip to get out of the north, where much of the Hamas infrastructure and weaponry are believed to be located, and seek refuge in the south.
However, Israeli forces have frequently pounded the southern half of Gaza, purported to be a safe zone, with airstrikes. The Israeli Defense Forces on Monday said a one-way corridor was reopened for civilians to escape south.
On Monday, at least two people were killed when an airstrike razed a building in the al-Amal district of Khan Younis city in southern Gaza.
UN says Gaza is turning into a ‘graveyard for children’
United Nations head Antonio Guterres turned up the volume on his assessment of the Israel-Hamas war on Monday, warning Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children” while again appealing for an immediate cease-fire.
The U.N. says a “major humanitarian crisis has unfolded” in Gaza, where the Health Ministry says 4,100 children are among the more than 10,000 people who have been killed by Israel’s offensive in response to Hamas’ initial attack.
“Ground operations by the Israel Defense Forces and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and U.N. facilities – including shelters. No one is safe,” Guterres said. “At the same time, Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields and continue to launch rockets indiscriminately towards Israel.”
The secretary-general also called for the unconditional release of the approximately 240 hostages Hamas holds captive, and for a stop to the escalation of hostilities occurring from the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen.
Rafah crossing reopens following two-day halt
The Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt reopened Monday after a two-day closing, Reuters reported, saying approximately 80 foreign passport holders and 17 critically injured patients had made it through by early evening. In addition, 48 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered into Gaza, nearly twice the total from the previous day.
A convoy of four ambulances transporting seven severely wounded patients from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City traveled to the crossing, the International Committee of the Red Cross told the Associated Press. The patients were evacuated from Gaza for treatment in Egyptian hospitals as part of a deal among Egypt, Israel and Hamas, AP reported.
The crossing closed Saturday and Sunday after an Israeli airstrike struck an ambulance near a hospital. Israeli military officials said the ambulance was “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell.”
About 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since it opened Wednesday, including more than 300 American citizens, permanent residents and their relatives, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters target U.S. supply ship
For the second time in four days, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the West Coast protested the presence of a U.S. Navy supply ship Monday, this time blocking traffic as they called for a cease-fire in the war and carried signs with messages such as, “No Aid For Israel.”
Organizers of a protest that drew hundreds of supporters to the Port of Tacoma, Washington, on Monday said they had confidential information the newly arrived Cape Orlando was to be loaded with weapons for Israel. The Department of Defense declined to provide information about the ship’s transit or cargo.
The Cape Orlando drew similar protests in Oakland, California, on Friday before sailing to Tacoma. About 300 protesters delayed its departure, and the U.S. Coast Guard detained three people who climbed onto the vessel.
Multiple media outlets reported Monday the Biden administration plans to transfer $320 million worth of precision bombs to Israel.
Blinken calls talks on Gaza with Turkish minister ‘productive’
Blinken told reporters just before departing from Turkey on Monday that he had a “productive conversation” with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on “the crisis in Gaza.”
The two touched on efforts to expand humanitarian assistance to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip, prevent the conflict from spreading to other regions and find ways to set the conditions for a “sustainable, lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians,” Blinken said.
The top U.S. diplomat has not achieved concrete progress from his recent discussions on the war with leaders throughout the Middle East, apart from Israel’s pledge to address escalating violence by extremist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel has continued to reject requests of humanitarian pauses from U.S. officials, including Blinken and President Joe Biden.
“All of this is a work in progress,” he said. “We know the deep concern here for the terrible toll that Gaza is taking on … a concern that we share and that we’re working on every single day.”
Internet in Gaza Strip being restored after third outage
Internet service was gradually being brought back online in the Gaza Strip after communications went down Sunday for the third time in the war, according to Palestinian communications company Paltel.
In a Sunday post on X, formerly Twitter, UNRWA, a U.N. branch that aids Palestinian refugees, said it was “not able to get through to the vast majority of our team” and that “Gazans are completely cut off from their loved ones and the rest of the world.”
The outage affected “around 2.3 million Gaza civilians,” limiting their ability to “access emergency medical services,” said a statement from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, an independent humanitarian aid group.
The first Gaza outage lasted 36 hours, coinciding with the ground invasion in late October. The second outage lasted only a few hours.
Humanitarian, U.N. agencies demand cease-fire
Eighteen principal members of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the highest-level coordination platform of the U.N. system, signed a letter published Sunday calling for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war.
“It’s been 30 days,” the letter states. “Enough is enough. This must stop now.”
The letter – signed by Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program, and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization – calls for the release of civilian hostages, increased aid flow into the Gaza Strip, the protection of refugee camps and hospitals and “for the parties to respect all their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.”
“An entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship,” the letter says. “This is unacceptable.”
According to the letter, 88 UNRWA workers have been killed since Oct. 7, the highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict.
Source : The Associated Press
