Tag: Civilian Casualties

Israel’s Claim of Killing ‘Half’ of Hezbollah Commanders in Lebanon Draws Skepticism

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 […]

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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 […]

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The 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 […]

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Israel’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 […]

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Liberal 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 […]

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Ukrainians 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 […]

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Gaza 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. […]

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Pentagon 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 […]

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After 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 […]

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Stabbing 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 […]

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Military 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 […]

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Roxane 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 […]

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U.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 […]

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What 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 […]

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Israel: 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 […]

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Germany 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. […]

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Active 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, […]

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Israel’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 […]

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In 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 […]

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Blinken 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 […]

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Outrage 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 […]

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Israeli 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 […]

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Will 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 […]

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Biden 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 […]

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World 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 […]

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World 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 […]

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Israeli 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 […]

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Israeli 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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