IDF troops in the 'heart' of Gaza City

The Jewish Federations of North America announced its "March for Israel" will take place on the National Mall in Washington on Tuesday.

"The March will be an opportunity for all Americans to come together in solidarity with the people of Israel, to demonstrate our commitment to America’s most important ally in the Middle East, to condemn the rising trend of antisemitic violence and harassment, and to demand that every hostage be immediately and safely released," the group said in a news release.

The Jewish Federations of North America aims to help Jewish communities at home and abroad.

Republican presidential candidates competed with one another to show the most support for Israel, draw the hardest line on Iran and speak out the most aggressively about antisemitism at tonight's GOP presidential debate while downplaying what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called “so-called Islamophobia.”

All five candidates at the NBC News debate in Miami said they fully supported Israel’s military campaign against Hamas and would not do anything to rein in its bombing of Gaza, which has led to a worsening humanitarian crisis for Palestinian civilians.

None of the candidates spoke about the plight of Palestinian civilians caught in the war between Israel and Hamas. Nor did any rule out putting U.S. troops on the ground in the Middle East if the conflict escalates. 

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The U.N. says no bakeries were active yesterday in the north of Gaza because they are without fuel, water and wheat flour and have been damaged. U.N. partners have been unable to deliver assistance in the north for the past week.

The U.N. also said the 81 aid trucks that entered Gaza yesterday, adding to a total of 650 trucks since Oct. 21, are only a small fraction of what the civilian population needs.

"The drinking water being brought in serves only 4% of Gaza’s residents, and there is still no delivery of desperately needed fuel," said Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the secretary-general.

At the end of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Quds force of the Iranian armed forces built up Shia proxies in the region. Their goal was to eject U.S. troops, liberate Jerusalem and cause harm to Israel.

One of those proxies, Hezbollah, became the model for the militias growing in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, all with unwavering loyalty to the Islamic Republic.

Iran started to fund and train Hamas, accelerating the support once Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. Although Hamas, a Sunni organization, was not ideologically aligned with the Shiite leaders of Iran, it tactically ignored the differences and focused on its shared goal of expelling U.S. troops and destroying Israel.

New York City police recorded 69 anti-Jewish bias incidents in October, compared to 22 during the same period last year — an increase of 214% — according to statistics released today.

The spike in anti-Jewish incidents helped drive up the total number of bias incidents investigated by the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force in October, with 101 incidents reported to authorities. The number was 45 in October 2022.

New York City police also logged eight anti-Muslim bias incidents in October; none were reported during the same period last year, according to the department statistics.

A group of senators who recently traveled to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden tonight, according to three sources familiar with the planning.

The trip by the congressional delegation was led by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Ben Cardin, D-Md. Those invited to the White House include Graham and Cardin, as well as Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Katie Britt, R-Ala.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Chris Coons, D-Del.; Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; and John Thune, R-S.D.

It’s unclear whether all will attend the meeting with Biden, first reported by Punchbowl News, or whether they will speak to reporters afterward.

The Nasser medical complex in Gaza City was struck Sunday, the Gaza Ministry of Health said, killing eight people, some of whom were at a pediatric hospital. Pictures provided by the ministry showed holes in the walls of buildings and equipment destroyed or covered in dust.

NBC News has not independently verified the incident or the deaths.

Many people have turned to hospitals for shelter amid Israel's aerial bombardment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at a meeting with members of his war Cabinet: "There will be no cease-fire without the release of our hostages. Everything else is false."

Meeting with local leaders from the West Bank, Netanyahu outlined three objectives for the IDF: stepping up counterterrorism, preventing the opening of a second front in the West Bank, and stopping extremist Israeli settlers from stirring up violence.

The Biden administration has pressed Netanyahu on reports of Palestinians killed by settlers in the West Bank. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN, "Prime Minister Netanyahu does have a responsibility to rein in the extremist settlers on the West Bank who are, as President Biden put it a few days ago, pouring fuel on the fire."

Netanyahu acknowledged that "there is a tiny handful of people that do not represent this public and that take the law into their own hands. We are not prepared to tolerate this. We are not prepared to accept this. We will take all action against them."

Abu Shadi was famous for selling the sweet pastry kunafa and other assorted desserts in Gaza City. His wife, Rwaida, assisted with preparing it at home for his namesake shop.

Most remarkable was his choice to sell the dessert for one shekel, a little over 25 U.S. cents, even though it is typically sold for much more. This inspired the nickname “the poor’s kunafa.”

Abu Shadi, also known as Masoud al-Qtati, his wife, their children and grandchildren are among those killed in Gaza, according to his relative Abdalhadi Alijla.

Alijla, 39, said by phone from Stockholm that he first learned about their deaths from his brother in Gaza.

“We do not know exactly when they were killed. There were no communications and we got info days after. They were under rubble and still,” Alijla told NBC News.

In a past interview, Abu Shadi spoke about how he educated all of his children, a teacher and an engineer among them, and shared why he sold his pastry at a low price. “I don’t want to go high. I don’t wish to ride jeeps or airplanes or anything,” he said, adding, “Praise be to Allah. We are living, and everyone is living.”

Alijla remembered Abu Shadi’s laughter surrounded by family when he last saw him over a decade ago. Along with his belief that “everybody has a right to eat,” Alijla said he was known for helping in other ways.

“He used to have a car and he used to take everyone in the car. He was the taxi driver for everybody,” he said.

Thousands of civilians headed toward southern Gaza after Israel warned residents to leave the north, particularly Gaza City, which the IDF says it has encircled. The U.N. estimates that at least 15,000 people have heeded the Israeli military’s warnings.

Demolition has begun on the family home of 14-year-old Mohammad Zalbani, who earlier this year was accused of stabbing border patrol officer Maj. Gen. Asil Suaed at the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Israeli police said today.

Early this morning, hundreds of soldiers from the Border Guard, Jerusalem District Police and IDF entered the camp with the intent of destroying the teen's home. On Feb. 13, during a routine security check on a bus arriving at the border, Zalbani allegedly pulled out a knife and attacked the soldier, stabbing him in the head. He was then arrested for questioning and indicted for terrorist-motivated murder.

Maj. Gen. Peka’ar signed an order to demolish the home of the terrorist’s family in July. A petition was submitted against the order to the High Court and was rejected in August. In this ruling, the court noted: “Unfortunately, the execution of terrorist attacks by minors is not a rare sight either. This reality requires measures to be taken to protect the public and prevent additional victims, despite the victim’s young age.”

TEL AVIV — After days of deadlock, there are signs that there may be some progress in the hostage talks as NBC News, along with several other news outlets, reports that a dayslong pause in fighting could be tied to the release of multiple people held captive by Hamas.  

It’s worth remembering, we’ve been here before. Two weeks ago, diplomats were saying that the talks were looking positive, only for diplomacy to stall. Then Israel launched its ground offensive on Gaza. 

Although it is under pressure to end the fighting both abroad and at home, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is worried that if it stops the military operation, it may be hard to restart. It also fears Hamas will use a longer pause to regroup.

With very little trust on either side, the negotiations are fraught and fragile. They may not produce results.

During a State Department news briefing today, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt remains closed due to a security circumstance, but added that the U.S. is working to reopen it. The number of Americans that have departed Gaza remains at more than 400, he also said.

The Palestinian General Authority's Facebook page for borders and crossings posts regular lists indicating which foreign nationals are eligible to leave Rafah, Patel said. In the case of Americans, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the State Department then contact the evacuees and assist them as they exit Gaza.

When asked about reports that aid entering Gaza has not been enough to sustain the area's civilian population, Patel reiterated that the State Department is working to secure the delivery of more supplies. He said Urza Zeya, the State Department's undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, is headed to Paris this week to represent the U.S. in a conference about providing more humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Over the decades, Iran has built a network of militia proxies that have grown to form a web of lethal force across the Middle East. It all started with Hezbollah, created to resist the occupation of southern Lebanon.

Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, said Brazilian authorities thwarted terrorist attacks aimed at Jewish targets in the South American country. The attacks were planned by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, it said.

Mossad thanked Brazilian security services for arresting members of the Hezbollah terrorist cell involved, which it alleged was directed and financed by the Iranian regime.

"Given the backdrop of the war in Gaza against the Hamas terrorist organization, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime are continuing to operate around the world in order to attack Israeli, Jewish and Western targets," Mossad said in a news release.

A synagogue and a Jewish community center in Montreal were targets this week of attempted firebomb attacks, community groups said, as tensions rise across North America in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a group that represents Jewish groups across Canada, said in a post on X that it was aware of an attempted firebombing at a center in West Island and at Congregation Beth Tikvah overnight Monday.

No one was hurt in either attack, which took place in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, a mostly English-speaking suburb of Montreal.

Read here for the full story

The judicial prosecutor in Paris, Laure Beccuau, confirmed that it has opened an investigation into the tagged Stars of David spray-painted in blue with stencils throughout Paris. The inquiries so far have led authorities to two couples with possible links to a Russian man who offered to pay them to tag buildings with the Jewish motif.

On Oct. 31, about 60 Stars of David were found spray-painted in blue on buildings throughout Paris. On the same night, identical stars were sprayed on the department walls of Seine Saint-Denis and the Hauts-de-Seine.

The individuals were later arrested in Paris and declared that they acted in cooperation with a third individual, who authorities say has links to Russia.

At this stage, it is not confirmed that the markings of the blue stars of David in the Parisian region were produced at the explicit request of a person living abroad.  

Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City will be curtailing most of its operations so that it has enough fuel to ensure a minimum level of services over the coming days, according to a news release from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

The hospital, which is expected to run out of fuel today, shut down its surgical ward, oxygen generation plant and MRI ward. With its main generator turned off, the hospital is relying on a smaller generator and rationing electricity to only two hours per day after 5 p.m., according to the release.

Humanitarian convoys from the International Red Cross have come under fire from the IDF, so medical supplies have yet to reach the hospital, the release also said.PRCS added that 14,000 displaced people are sheltering in the hospital, many of whom have run out of food, milk and baby formula.

The secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, warned of a "complete explosion of the situation in the West Bank" due to the IDF's tightening siege on the population and the arming of settlers, according to a news release from the organization.

"Settler violence against the Palestinian population in large areas of the West Bank has reached unprecedented levels and cannot be tolerated," Gheit's spokesperson said, adding that 163 Palestinians have died in the West Bank since Oct. 7.

Gheit also accused the Israeli right-wing government of being led by settlers, which he said encourages a "culture of impunity" around killing and forcibly displacing Palestinians. Israeli authorities have arrested more than 2,000 Palestinians in the area, according to the news release.

The Arab League is an inter-governmental organization which includes Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Gheit stressed his full solidarity with Jordan in standing against the annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah said IDF soldiers were injured after it attacked an infantry near the border between Israel and Lebanon today.

Hezbollah fighters attacked "in the vicinity of the Shomera Base," which is in northern Israel near the border, according to a statement from the group.

The IDF said Hezbollah launched an anti-tank missile at the IDF and the military responded with artillery fire. Soldiers also struck "a number of anti-tank missile launching posts," the IDF said.

"Two IDF soldiers were injured — one lightly and the other moderately — and have been evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment," the IDF said in a statement to NBC News.

The names of the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack are inscribed on a wall in Buenos Aires.

Israeli troops are only a few miles from where Fares Abu Fares, a 53-year-old volunteer with the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, is residing right now near Gaza City.

Fares is Palestinian American and lives in the United States with his wife and children. He was visiting family in Gaza when the war broke out and has remained there with his mother and brothers.

"I am not leaving. I'm going to stay with my family. It's not safe," Fares told NBC News. "Yesterday was one of my worst days. I’m so lucky my house is in one piece. My whole neighborhood is gone almost."

The IDF warnings have not convinced Fares to move south, even as troops encircle Gaza City.

“I can’t trust those people. If the international community or the Red Cross says so, then I’ll move. If only by the IDF army, no, I’m not moving,” he said, explaining that he fears he could be killed on his way south.

Food and water have been hard to find, Fares added.

“Earlier I was helping to distribute water or food to my people so I refused to leave. But now there’s no food left to distribute either,” Fares said. " We are on the verge of starving."

Palestinians banded together today in the southern Gazan city of Rafah to make sure their neighbors had something to eat. Children and adults queued up with bowls, buckets and cups to receive a portion of food at a makeshift charity kitchen.

At least six pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted the start of testimony at a House Judiciary Committee hearing concerning free speech on college campuses and the rise in antisemitism.

The protesters were seated in the audience and rose from their seats one by one. They shouted slogans — "End the occupation," "Cease-fire now" — and condemned the House committee for not inviting any Palestinian college students to testify.

"Palestinian students deserve to speak on the genocide of their families," one of the protesters said. "Stop silencing Palestinian students."

In the last month, since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, students across the U.S. have described a sharp uptick in antisemitism and Islamophobia on campuses, and some universities have confronted violent threats.

In the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinians gathered to inspect the rubble after a mosque was leveled in an airstrike. Khan Younis is in the region of Gaza the Israeli government told Palestinians to evacuate to for their own safety.

HEBRON, West Bank — A Palestinian man who was shot by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank last month told NBC News that he’s lucky to be alive.

“Thank God, because of his will and the help of doctors, I am recovering little by little,” Zakaria Adra, 28, said from his hospital bed in Hebron.

The Oct. 13 attack was caught on camera: Graphic footage reviewed by NBC News, some of which came from the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, shows a man with a rifle emerging from behind a rock in the Palestinian village of At-Tawani. The man moves toward Adra, then appears to shove him with his rifle before shooting him at close range.

Adra said he was trying to tell the man, who had stormed into the village, to leave.

“I said to him, ‘Why are you coming here? Go back to your house.’ Then he said, ‘You go back. You have nothing,’” Adra, a father of four, said.

The Israeli police told NBC News that someone was questioned and released and that a weapon was confiscated.

Basem Natsheh, a spokesperson at the Al-Ahli Hospital, said Adra underwent at least four surgeries and had parts of his spleen, pancreas and bowels removed. He will likely have to receive care at the hospital for another two weeks, Natsheh added.

In the video of the attack, a person dressed as a soldier can also be seen but does not appear to get involved. The IDF said that when Israelis violate the law, Israeli police are mainly responsible, but that soldiers who encounter violations are required to act. Soldiers who fail to adhere to IDF orders may face disciplinary action, it said.

Adra said it was not the first time his community has been targeted by settlers. Violence has escalated in the West Bank since Oct. 7, though it was already at its highest in two decades.

As displaced Palestinians in Gaza evacuate the enclave's north, many on foot, several have documented their journeys on social media.

Videos posted on Facebook yesterday by a user named Adam Fayez show people walking down the road with minimal belongings, some holding children, others pushing people in wheelchairs. Fayez said there were tanks on the sides of the roads but no soldiers visible.

"This is the last checkpoint. The Jews are about 20 or 30 meters behind me," Fayez says in Arabic in one of his videos. "All the people entered safely. All the rumors that were talking about the Jews searching people, and taking their belongings, money and luggage, this is all not true."

In another video, Fayaz asks others walking about their journeys, and they describe seeing decomposing corpses but say they are grateful that the road is secure.

The IDF has permitted safe passage along a main road south for a short window each day for the last five days. Today, travelers were told to move between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Israeli time, then the window was extended by an hour.

Italy will send a hospital ship near the coast of Gaza to help treat victims of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said today.

The ship is leaving today from the western Italian port of Civitavecchia with 170 staff, including 30 people trained for medical emergencies, the minister said, adding that Italy was also working to send a field hospital to Gaza.

Crosetto suggested that two Italian naval vessels already sent to the region were likely to remain in place.

“We will evaluate whether to keep them in the area but I prefer to keep three ships there and not to have any regrets,” he told reporters.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine has evacuated 43 of its nationals from the Gaza Strip and helped 36 Moldovan citizens reach safety in Egypt, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian diplomats helped the two groups get out of the war zone, he said today on X.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was working with its embassies in Israel and Egypt to get more of its citizens out of Gaza.

Yad Vashem, the global Holocaust remembrance center that runs Israel's main Holocaust museum, has called on world leaders to declare war on antisemitism.

The organization released a statement responding to what it described as an alarming surge in antisemitism in the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel.

"There is a dangerous trend within Western society, especially on campuses, to legitimize terrorism by focusing upon supposedly mitigating circumstances for barbarous acts that can have no moral justification," the statement said.

The center also called out groups who “embrace terrorist organizations that supposedly are in line with a cause they support, while completely ignoring the ruthless beliefs espoused.”

“While we have been seeing an ongoing outbreak and mainstreaming of neo-Nazi and White Supremacist antisemitism in many places for several years, we now face an existential threat to the Jewish people,” Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said.

With fuel running out amid Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, 18 hospitals there are out of service, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said in a statement.

"Secondary electrical generators represent the last artery in the functioning of hospitals, and if they stop during the coming hours, hundreds of wounded and sick people will be killed," said the statement from Dr. Ahraf Al-Qudra.

Almost 200 health personnel have been killed, he added.

The ministry said that almost half of the people who've been killed in Gaza in the past few hours were in the southern part of the enclave, which it suggested negates Israel's characterization of the region as safer than the north.

The total death toll in Gaza since the war began has surpassed 10,500, according to the ministry. NBC News was unable to independently verify the ministry's numbers, however.

A member of the Palestinian civil defense in Gaza uses a sledgehammer to break open a hole in the concrete surface of a building today, while searching for survivors of an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis.

A Red Cross convoy transporting medical supplies came under fire from Israeli forces in Gaza City yesterday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X.

The five trucks were carrying supplies to health facilities, including the Al-Quds Hospital, when it was struck, the statement said. "Two trucks were damaged, and a driver was lightly wounded," it said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was "deeply troubled" by the incident, though it did not identify the source of the strike.

"These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work," said William Schomburg, head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza.

The IDF told NBC News that its strikes are done after taking "feasible precautions and after an assessment that the expected incidental damage to civilians and civilian property is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage from the attack."

NBC News was unable to independently verify IDF's claims.

A smoke plume rises from a position along the border between southern Israel and the Gaza Strip this morning.

Israeli forces have reopened the humanitarian corridor along which civilians can flee to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the IDF said today.

The passage, which follows a major road, will be open from 10 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) to 2 p.m. (7 a.m. ET), IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X in Arabic. He added that northern Gaza was a "fierce combat zone" and "time is running out."

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the corridor has been open for limited windows of time each day for the past four days. 

"Thousands of residents from the north of the Gaza Strip responded to the calls of the IDF and at this time are making their way to the south," IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari wrote in a post on X, which showed video of crowds walking.

Despite Israel's repeated warnings to Gaza residents that they should leave the north, southern Gaza has faced relentless bombing, which has hit residential areas and refugee camps.

The lack of fuel, water and flour in northern Gaza has forced all bakeries there to go out of service, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said today. Desperate people broke into the last three remaining bakeries and stole about 41 tons of flour, it said in a statement.

"Access to bread in the south is also challenging," the statement added, noting that the only operating mill in Gaza is unable to grind wheat because of the lack of fuel and electricity.

Eleven bakeries have been destroyed since the war began Oct 7., the U.N. said.

JERUSALEM – Gaza's Rafah border crossing is open again today for foreign passport holders, Gaza's border authority said.

More than 700 people are eligible to cross, according to a list of approved travelers obtained by NBC News.

The list includes around 100 Americans, along with nationals from Canada, Egypt, Germany, the Philippines, Romania and Ukraine.

An image released by the Israeli military today shows its soldiers taking a position by the side of a road as a building is demolished during ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

TOKYO — The United States opposes any Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, Blinken said this morning, following comments from Netanyahu that his country will have “overall security responsibility” for the Palestinian enclave after the war.

Speaking at the G7 meeting in Tokyo, Blinken said it was clear that “Gaza cannot be continued to be run by Hamas,” but that “it’s also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza.”

He said there may need to be some kind of transition period at the end of the conflict, but that the Palestinian people would have to play a central role in their governance in both Gaza and West Bank.

More people in Gaza are moving south along a "humanitarian corridor" that Israel has opened for limited windows of time, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said today. It estimated that 15,000 people traveled yesterday from northern Gaza to the southern half of the enclave, which the IDF have said is the safer place for civilians. That's three times the figure estimated the day before.

"The majority, including children, elderly people and people with disabilities, arrived on foot with minimal belongings," the U.N. said in a statement, adding that some displaced people have reported that they crossed Israeli checkpoints and "witnessed arrests by Israeli forces."

The corridor, which follows a major traffic route, has been open for four hours per day for the last four days, according to the U.N.

It estimated that 1.5 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip. About half of them are living in U.N. shelters, the statement said. The shelters in the south, however, are no longer able to accommodate new arrivals; at the most overcrowded one, the U.N. said, each toilet is being shared by at least 600 people.

The Israeli military said this morning it killed a senior Hamas "weapons developer" as its forces continued aerial and ground operations in Gaza.

"Mohsen Abu Zina served as one of Hamas’ leading weapons developers and was an expert in developing strategic weapons and rockets," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, adding a fighter jet had killed him.

Israel's aerial forces also killed a group of militants who were planning to "fire anti-tank missiles at the forces," it said.

NBC News has not independently verified the claims.

TOKYO — Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven developed economies called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid into the Gaza Strip but not a full cease-fire, in a joint statement at a meeting in Tokyo today.

“We support humanitarian pauses and corridors to facilitate urgently needed assistance, civilian movement, and the release of hostages,” said the statement from the group, which includes the United States. 

The G7 condemned the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and the continuing rocket attacks against Israel: “We emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself and its people, in accordance with international law, as it seeks to prevent a recurrence.” It also said the rise in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank was “unacceptable” and undermined security.

“Israelis and Palestinians have an equal right to live in safety, dignity, and peace,” the statement said. “We reject antisemitism and Islamophobia in any form in our own societies and anywhere in the world.”

The statement added that a two-state solution “remains the only path to a just, lasting, and secure peace.”

SINGAPORE — Saudi Arabia will host summits of Arab, Islamic and African nations in coming days to discuss the Israel-Hamas war, the kingdom’s investment minister said today.

“We will see, this week, in the next few days Saudi Arabia convening an emergency Arab summit in Riyadh,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.

“You will see Saudi Arabia convening an Africa-Saudi summit in Riyadh, and in a few days you will see Saudi Arabia convening an Islamic summit,” he said.

“In the short term, the objective of bringing these three summits and other gatherings under the leadership of Saudi Arabia would be to drive towards peaceful resolution of the conflict.”

Images released by Maxar Technologies yesterday show a number of fires burning across the city, as plumes of smoke trail from burning buildings amid continued heavy shelling by Israel. Vegetation appears in shades of blue while active fires/thermal hot spots show up as an orange/yellow bloom. 

The war between Israel and Hamas could shake up the 2024 U.S. presidential race in Michigan, a key battleground state that President Joe Biden reclaimed for the Democrats in 2020.

The Detroit area has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, but many now say they’re turning against Biden. Arab American voters there say they feel betrayed by the president’s refusal to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, which health officials in Gaza say has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people since the start of the conflict a month ago.

• House censures Rep. Rashida Tlaib over Israel remarks
• Jewish man who died after dueling protests wasn’t afraid to make his voice heard
• White House condemns demonstrators ripping down posters of Israeli hostages
• Israeli rocket alert apps surge as more Jewish Americans seek a window on the war
• In tensions over Israel-Hamas war, college campuses confront violent threats
• Iran-backed groups threaten to expand Gaza war as they step up attacks on Israel and the U.S.