Gaza hospital blast likely a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket misfire, U.S. officials say

Biden is back in the U.S. after visiting Israel and affirming support for the country after it was attacked by Hamas.

Air Force One touched down at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, shortly after midnight Thursday morning ET.

In Israel, Biden met with Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. He also met with first responders, families who lost loved ones in the attack and families whose relatives Hamas may be holding hostage in Gaza.

While he was in Israel, he also announced $100 million in new U.S. funding for humanitarian aid in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

WASHINGTON — Top congressional lawmakers are beginning to receive details of a new funding package the Biden administration is expected to submit to Congress this week.

While it’s not yet finalized, the supplemental funding package is likely to seek $60 billion for Ukraine, a lawmaker and two sources with knowledge of the request said. The rest of the request will include roughly $40 billion to provide aid to Israel, Taiwan and the U.S.-Mexico border.

The total supplemental funding request, which is expected to be for the fiscal year that ends next September, will total around $100 billion, said four sources directly involved in the process.

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An Israeli family of five whose bodies were discovered in one another’s arms after being killed by Hamas militants were buried together in a funeral attended by hundreds of mourners.

Family and friends bade farewell yesterday to the Kotz family — a couple and their three children who were gunned down in their home at kibbutz Kfar Azza on Oct. 7. They were buried side by side in a graveyard 30 miles west of Jerusalem.

Aviv and Livnat Kotz, their daughter, Rotem, and sons, Yonatan and Yiftach, were found dead on a bed embracing one another, a family member said.

The family had moved to Israel from Boston and built the home four years ago at the kibbutz where Aviv grew up, his wife’s sister, Adi Levy Salma, told the Israeli news outlet Ynet.

“We told her it’s dangerous, but she did not want to move away, as it was her home for life,” Levy Salma said.

With Israel simultaneously in a state of war and mourning, the funeral was one of many being held.

More than 3,400 people have been killed on the Palestinian side, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and funerals there have been a fixture of daily life, with men running through streets carrying bodies in white sheets and shouting “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great.”

With more than 1,400 killed in Israel and many still unidentified, the funerals will continue for days or longer.

Adi Levy Salma said that on the day of the Hamas attacks, she texted her sister to see whether she was OK. But Livnat Kotz didn’t reply and didn’t answer phone calls. Levy Salma was more concerned when her niece, Rotem, didn’t respond.

“Then we started getting reports of terrorists who infiltrated the kibbutz,” Levy Salma said. “It was at that moment we realized something bad had happened. Their friends and neighbors picked up, but they didn’t. We were very worried.”

At the Kotz family’s funeral, soldiers and civilians sobbed. Graves were piled high with flowers.

Livnat died a week short of her 50th birthday, her sister said. She worked to popularize old crafts and incorporate them into the school system. Her husband was a vice president at Kafrit Industries, a plastics manufacturer, the company said.

Rotem was a military training instructor in the Israel Defense Forces. The boys played basketball at Hapoel Tel Aviv Youth Academy.

“Amazing children with enormous hearts,” Levy Salma said. “Their whole lives were ahead of them.”

Authorities in the U.S. are ramping up security amid warnings about potential violence mounting nationwide over the Israel-Hamas war. A Homeland Security official said DHS is monitoring a “heightened threat environment.”

In a video shared Monday on Instagram, children in vibrant outfits collect pieces of trash at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza. Then, in a circle, the kids follow along as Mohammed Sami, a sketch and acrylic artist, prompts them to hold hands and yell, “Yay!”

The scenes appear to have taken place less than a day before the deadly explosion at the hospital, which the Palestinian Health Ministry says killed 471 people.

Sami, 23, was among those who died in the blast, according to his cousin, Mohamed Osama Qriqea.

Qriqea, 25, said by phone from Istanbul that his brother is an independent journalist in Gaza who reported on the incident and found Sami dead. Several other family members were also among the dead, Qriqea said.

“Hours before his killing, he organized activities to help raise the children’s psychological state. They cleaned the hospital, and he played with the children,” Qriqea wrote in a post about Sami on Instagram.

"Mohamed was dreaming of a lot of things. He dreamed of a private art gallery in Gaza and in the world," Qriqea told NBC News.

Accompanying the video Sami shared Monday was the following message:

"Today while I was at the Arab Baptist Hospital, I saw families and their children in a state of fear and psychological pressure due to the continuous bombing of the Gaza Strip.  

I tried to relieve them of this fear and panic by asking for help from a team of civilian volunteers inside the hospital to change this situation into a state of playing, laughing, shouting loudly, and letting out what is inside them. This is like a first aid attempt for the children and families by creating a designated safe place for play and entertainment.  

What I did today was an attempt with simple means through which I was able to change the mood of everyone inside the hospital and move them to a state perhaps much better than what they were in.  

I will never forget the look and sounds of their laughter at this moment.  

We are all trying to be okay." 

Top U.S. law firm Davis Polk announced in an internal email that it had rescinded letters of employment for three law students at Harvard and Columbia universities who it believed were tied to organizational statements about Israel, one of the latest responses to open letters from university groups about the Israel-Hamas conflict that have roiled university donors, employers, alumni and students. 

“These statements are simply contrary to our firm’s values and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees,” said the email, signed by Neil Barr. 

The identities of the students were not revealed in the email, which also did not specify which statements the students allegedly signed.

A series of public statements supporting Palestinians and blaming Israel for the recent Israel-Hamas conflict has created a firestorm on college campuses and in corporate America since last week. The Harvard Crimson, a student-run publication, reported Oct. 10 that more than 30 Harvard student groups had signed on to a letter that said Israel was “entirely responsible” for “all unfolding violence.”

Read the full story here.

The children of Kibbutz Be’eri are trying to make sense of their new reality after their community came under attack by Hamas. Families open up about the impact of the trauma.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will arrive in Israel tomorrow Thursday and meet with Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog before he traveled on to other regional capitals, his office said.

Sunak will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the Hamas attack, his office said, and warn against further escalation of conflict in the region.

“Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas’ horrific act of terror,” Sunak said in a statement ahead of his visit.

He said a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital yesterday that killed hundreds of Palestinians should be “a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict,” pledging Britain would be at “the forefront of this effort.”

Sunak will also urge opening up a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible and to enable British nationals trapped in Gaza to leave.

At least seven British nationals have been killed, and at least nine are missing since the attack on Israel, Sunak’s spokesperson said earlier today.

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of people were arrested during protests today on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Capitol Police said they arrested "upwards of approximately 300" people at the Israel-Hamas war rally at the Cannon House Office Building.

The group was pushing lawmakers and the Biden administration to seek a cease-fire in Gaza.

A spokesperson said the police department does not yet have a final tally of arrests, adding that the number could change by morning.