Israel’s defense minister has said that the country’s military has eliminated half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon. But analysts doubt whether Israel’s increasing use of targeted killings would weaken the militant group. Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and is Iran’s most powerful regional proxy, has had intense cross-border clashes with Israeli forces ever […]
Read MoreTag: Civilian Casualties
Gaza Authorities Say More Bodies Were Discovered in Mass Grave
Palestinian officials in Gaza on Thursday increased the tally of bodies discovered in a mass grave on the grounds of a hospital to 392 from 283, amid conflicting accounts between Israel and the Gazan authorities over how and when some of the bodies were buried. “This is the biggest mass grave since the beginning of […]
Read MorePalestinian Baby Delivered After Mother Killed in Israeli Strike
Doctors in Gaza delivered a baby on Sunday from a Palestinian woman who had been killed alongside her husband and daughter in an Israeli strike in the city of Rafah, where more than one million people have fled during Israel’s war in Gaza. The birth of the child was captured on video by a journalist […]
Read MoreThe Stark Reality of Israel’s Fight in Gaza
Israel’s military operations in Gaza have weakened Hamas. Most Hamas battalions have been degraded and are scattered. Thousands of its members have been killed, and at least one senior military leader has been eliminated. Yet Israel has not achieved its primary goals of the war: freeing hostages and fully destroying Hamas. The war and the […]
Read MoreIsrael’s Strike on Iran Highlights Its Ability to Evade Tehran’s Air Defenses
An Israeli airstrike on Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, in an attack calculated to deliver a message that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems undetected and paralyze them. The strike damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the […]
Read MoreLiberal Democrats Urge ‘No’ Vote on Israel Aid to Pressure Biden on Gaza
A group of left-leaning House Democrats is urging its colleagues to oppose the $26 billion aid package for Israel expected to pass on Saturday, hoping to maximize the number of “no” votes from the party in a bid to send a warning to President Biden about the depth of discontent in his political coalition over […]
Read MoreUkrainians Wait, Nervously, to See if U.S. Will Provide Critical Aid
From the bloody trenches of the battlefield to crowded cities battered by Russian bombardments, millions of Ukrainians waited in nervous anticipation as the United States Congress prepared, after months of delay, to decide if America will resume providing their country with critical military support. Private Pavlo Kaliuk, who has been fighting to slow the Russian […]
Read MoreGaza Is Biden’s War Now
During the Darfur genocide and humanitarian crisis two decades ago, then-Senator Joe Biden passionately denounced then-President George W. Bush for failing to act decisively to ease suffering. Biden expressed outrage at China for selling weapons used to kill and maim civilians, and he urged me to write columns demanding the White House end needless wretchedness. […]
Read MorePentagon Reviews Events Before Attack That Killed 13 U.S. Troops in Kabul
A new Pentagon review of the events leading up to the bombing that killed 13 American service members at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021, has reaffirmed earlier findings that U.S. troops could not have prevented the deadly violence. The review’s conclusions focus on the final days and hours at Abbey Gate before […]
Read MoreAfter Bondi Stabbing Rampage, Australia Asks How and Why
It was a perfect mid-autumn day with blue skies and temperatures approaching nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the kind of weather that has made Bondi on Australia’s eastern coast one of the most sought after addresses in the world. But by the end of the day, any sense of normalcy had been shattered. At a shopping […]
Read MoreStabbing Attack in Sydney Kills At Least 6
A man killed at least six people and injured at least two others during a stabbing rampage at a popular shopping mall in Sydney, Australia on Saturday afternoon, in one of the country’s deadliest acts of mass violence in recent decades. The authorities said a man wielding a knife entered the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping […]
Read MoreMilitary Aid to Israel Cannot Be Unconditional
The suffering of civilians in Gaza — tens of thousands dead, many of them children; hundreds of thousands homeless, many at risk of starvation — has become more than a growing number of Americans can abide. And yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his ultranationalist allies in government have defied American calls for […]
Read MoreRoxane Gay on the Open Letter
Once upon a time, it is often suggested, people with starkly different viewpoints were able to convene and compromise and find hallowed common ground. This all happened in a “better time,” one invoked in fraught political discussions in which the discourse is not happening in exactly the way the invoker prefers. If only we could […]
Read MoreU.S. Targets May Not Be on List in Possible Iran Attack, Officials Say
American intelligence analysts and officials said on Friday that they expected Iran to strike multiple targets inside Israel within the next few days in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in the Syrian capital on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders. The United States, Israel’s pre-eminent ally, has military forces in several places across […]
Read MoreWhat War by A.I. Actually Looks Like
In November the left-wing Israeli outlets +972 magazine and Local Call published a disturbing investigation by the journalist Yuval Abraham into the Israel Defense Forces’ use of an artificial intelligence system for identifying targets in Gaza — which one former intelligence official described as a “mass assassination factory.” Toward the end of a year clouded […]
Read MoreIsrael: Cease-Fire, Get Hostages, Leave Gaza, Rethink Everything
Israel today is at a strategic point in its war in Gaza, and there is every indication that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to choose the wrong path — and take the Biden administration along for a very dangerous and troubling ride. It is so dangerous and troubling that Israel’s best option, when all […]
Read MoreGermany Rebuffs Claim Its Arms Sales to Israel Abet Genocide in Gaza
Germany on Tuesday defended itself against accusations that its arms sales to Israel were abetting genocide in Gaza, arguing at the International Court of Justice that most of the equipment it has supplied since Oct. 7 was nonlethal and that it has also been one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. […]
Read MoreActive Fighting Subsides in Gaza, but the War Is Not Over, Officials Say
The Israeli military’s departure from southern Gaza over the weekend has left the devastated territory in a state of suspense as active fighting there receded on Monday to its lowest ebb since a brief truce with Hamas in November. But even as some observers hoped Israel’s withdrawal from the area might portend a new cease-fire, […]
Read MoreIsrael’s Account of World Central Kitchen Strike Raises Wider Legal Questions, Experts Say
Israel’s account of its attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy raises significant legal questions even if the strike was the result of a series of mistakes, experts say. The Israeli military announced on Friday that its preliminary investigation had revealed a string of errors that led to the deaths of seven aid workers. It […]
Read MoreIn Threatening Israel, Biden Hopes to Avoid a Rupture
By the time President Biden hung up the phone, he had finally delivered the threat he had refused to make for months: Israel had to change course, he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or the United States would take action. But as the conversation ended on Thursday, aides to Mr. Biden said, the president had […]
Read MoreBlinken Presses Israel Over Its Announcement of New Aid Routes Into Gaza
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that the United States was looking for “results” in response to news that Israel would open up more routes for aid to flow into Gaza. The Israeli decision to allow aid to enter through new routes came after President Biden made it clear in a call with the […]
Read MoreOutrage Over Slain Aid Workers Deepens Democratic Resistance to Arming Israel
Outrage over a strike by the Israel Defense Forces that killed seven aid workers in Gaza has supercharged resistance among congressional Democrats to sending arms and fresh military funding to Israel. The mounting concern has added uncertainty to a pending foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel that has been stalled in the House for […]
Read MoreIsraeli Military Says Series of Failures Led to World Central Kitchen Attack
A series of failures, including a breakdown in communication and violations of the rules of engagement, led to the deadly Israeli strikes that killed seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza this week, senior Israeli military officials said on Friday. The military officials said that the officers who ordered the strikes on the aid convoy had […]
Read MoreWill Israel Finally Listen to Biden?
April 2, 2024, 5:16 p.m. ET April 2, 2024, 5:16 p.m. ET It is a rare thing in our rapidly secularizing country to be confronted with piety and devotion in popular culture. So it was a surprise, and a balm, to watch a man who prays daily and talks openly about his devout faith storm […]
Read MoreBiden Is ‘Outraged.’ But Is He Willing to Use America’s Leverage With Israel?
When President Biden said he was “outraged and heartbroken” about the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, his forceful language raised a natural question: Would this strike, even if a tragic error, lead him to put conditions on the weapons he sends to Israel? So far, the White House has been […]
Read MoreWorld Central Kitchen Workers Delivered Aid. Then Their Convoy Was Hit.
Lalzawmi Frankcom’s text message was short and sweet: a heart emoji reply at 10:38 p.m. on Sunday to her friend Josh Phelps, who had sent along photos of their humanitarian work together on a reservation in South Dakota. Ms. Frankcom, an Australian known as Zomi, had a big day ahead on Monday. She and her […]
Read MoreWorld Central Kitchen Workers Delivered Aid. Then Their Convoy Was Hit.
Lalzawmi Frankcom’s text message was short and sweet: a heart emoji reply at 10:38 p.m. on Sunday to her friend Josh Phelps, who had sent along photos of their humanitarian work together on a reservation in South Dakota. Ms. Frankcom, an Australian known as Zomi, had a big day ahead on Monday. She and her […]
Read MoreJosé Andrés: Let People Eat
In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always. The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not […]
Read MoreIsraeli Strikes Kill 7 Aid Workers in Gaza
Israeli strikes on an aid convoy run by the charity group World Central Kitchen killed seven of its workers in the Gaza Strip, setting off international outrage and underscoring the risks to humanitarian workers trying to alleviate a looming famine. The aid workers — a Palestinian, an Australian, a Pole, three Britons and a dual […]
Read MoreIsraeli Army Withdraws From Major Gaza Hospital, Leaving Behind a Wasteland
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, once the fulcrum of Gaza’s health system and now an emblem of its destruction, stood in ruins on Sunday, as if a tsunami had surged through it followed by a tornado. The emergency department was a tidy, off-white building until Israeli troops returned there in March. Two weeks later, it […]
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