Israel-Palestine category, Page 15
Netanyahu acknowledges ‘tragic mistake’ after Rafah strike kills dozens of Palestinians
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Monday that a “tragic mistake” had been made after an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah set fire to a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians and, according to local officials, killed at least 45 people. The mistake...
Hamas rocket attack from Gaza sets off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv for the first time in months
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months on Sunday in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel’s massive air, sea and ground offensive....
Pro-Palestinian protesters leave after Drexel University decides to have police clear encampment
PHILADELPHIA — Protesters packed up their belongings and left a pro-Palestinian encampment at Drexel University on Thursday after the school announced a decision to have police clear the encampment. University President John Fry said in a statement that he decided to have campus police and public safety officers join Philadelphia...
How does this end? With Hamas holding firm and fighting back in Gaza, Israel faces only bad options
JERUSALEM — Diminished but not deterred, Hamas is still putting up a fight after seven brutal months of war with Israel, regrouping in some of the hardest-hit areas in northern Gaza and resuming rocket attacks into nearby Israeli communities. Israel initially made tactical advances against Hamas after a devastating aerial...
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claim they shot down another U.S. drone
CAIRO — The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed on Tuesday that they shot down an American drone over the country on the Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. military acknowledged reports about the downing but didn’t comment. If confirmed, it would be the second MQ-9 Reaper drone downed by the Houthis...
Israeli officials seize AP equipment and take down live shot of northern Gaza, citing new media law
JERUSALEM — Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, accusing the news organization of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera. The Qatari satellite channel is among thousands of clients that receive live video feeds...
Israel tries to contain the fallout after some allies support ICC prosecutor’s request for warrants
JERUSALEM — Israel sought Tuesday to contain the fallout from a request by the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, a move supported by three European countries, including key ally France. Belgium, Slovenia and France each said Monday they...
War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu
JERUSALEM — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war. While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent...
Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Drexel University
PHILADELPHIA — Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia over the weekend, prompting a lockdown of school buildings, a day after authorities thwarted an attempted occupation of a school building at the neighboring University of Pennsylvania campus. After several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia’s City...
Israeli army finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza killed at Oct. 7 music festival
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Friday its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages killed by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk. A photo of 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought...
Trucks are rolling across a new U.S. pier into Gaza. But challenges remain to getting enough aid in
WASHINGTON — Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built U.S. pier and into the besieged enclave for the first time Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hindered the delivery of food and other supplies. The shipment is the first...
Hezbollah introduces new weapons and tactics against Israel as war in Gaza drags on
BEIRUT — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military. Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past...
U.S. military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process...
Netanyahu fends off criticism at home and abroad over his lack of a postwar plan for Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday fended off criticism that he is not planning for a postwar reality in the Gaza Strip, saying it was impossible to prepare for any scenario in the embattled Palestinian enclave until Hamas is defeated. Netanyahu has faced increasing pressure from critics...
Palestinians across the Middle East mark their original ‘catastrophe’ with eyes on the war in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Palestinians across the Middle East on Wednesday are marking the anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel with protests and other events at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who...
Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Palestinians on Wednesday will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. But in many ways, that experience pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza. Palestinians refer to it...
Misery deepens in Gaza’s Rafah as Israeli troops press operation
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Aid workers struggled Monday to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by what Israel says is a limited military operation in Rafah, as the two main crossings near the southern Gaza city remained closed. The United Nations’ agency for...
Israel pushes deeper into Rafah and battles a regrouping Hamas in northern Gaza
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Sunday and battled Hamas in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago but where militants have regrouped. Warnings continued against the growing offensive in Rafah, considered the last...
Israel orders new evacuations in Gaza’s last refuge of Rafah as it expands military offensive
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its military operation closer to the heavily populated central area, in defiance of growing pressure amid the war from close ally...
Biden administration won’t conclude Israel violated terms of U.S. weapons agreement, AP sources say
WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be released Biden administration report does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for its use of U.S. weapons, according three people who have been briefed on the matter. The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel even though it didn’t conclude that Israel...
Heavy fighting in Gaza’s Rafah keeps aid crossings closed, sends 100,000 civilians fleeing
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and caused over 100,000 people to flee north, a United Nations official said Friday. Israel’s plans for a full-scale invasion of...
Netanyahu on U.S. threat to withhold arms: Israel will fight with its ‘fingernails’ if needed
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. threat to withhold some arms would not prevent Israel from continuing its offensive in Gaza, indicating it might proceed with an invasion of the packed city of Rafah against the wishes of its closest ally. President Joe Biden has...
Israel says it reopened a key Gaza crossing after a rocket attack but the UN says no aid has entered
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza after days of closure, but the U.N. said no humanitarian aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side after workers fled during Israel’s military incursion...
Biden says U.S. won’t supply weapons for Israel to attack Rafah, in warning to allyVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there. Biden, in...
From the Newsroom podcast: A look at the student protests at Pitt
Over the past few weeks, universities and colleges across the country have seen unrest tied to the growing public sympathy for Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war. The University of Pittsburgh also saw a version of this national protest with its own Schenley Plaza as the site of students’ pro-Palestine encampment....
