Biden announces Gaza aid deal after Israel trip

‘Humanity must prevail’: Egyptian football star Mohamed Salah speaks out about Gaza

Egyptian footballer and Premier League star Mohamed Salah spoke out about the Hamas-Israel war on Wednesday, calling for all lives to be protected.

In a 51-second video message, Salah said there has been “too much violence and too much heartbreak and brutality.”

He called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately as the enclave faces the 11th day of a complete blockade by Israel, saying the people there are in a “terrible condition.”

“The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently,” Salah, who plays for the Liverpool Football Club in England, said. “I am calling on the world leaders to come together to prevent the further slaughter of innocent souls. Humanity must prevail.”

Children break the silence in Ashdod with laughter and playing

ASHDOD, Israel — Children have come out to play in Ashdod, where people have over the past couple of days appeared to start trickling out from their homes and into the streets.

The usually busy area was almost entirely empty in the days after Hamas’ deadly attack on Oct. 7, with rocket warnings also sounding in the days that followed. 

French officials suspect young people in rash of fake bomb threats

PARIS — France’s government is threatening prison terms and heavy fines for callers who make fake bomb threats after a rash of false alarms forced the evacuation of 15 airports and cancellation of 130 flights and shut the doors of Versailles Palace three times in five days.

French officials suggested young people and children may be responsible. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti blamed “little jokers, little clowns” and vowed, “They will be found, they will be punished.”

French law allows prank calls to be punished by up to 3 years’ imprisonment and fines of $47,000, the minister said. He said minors’ parents could be made to pay for damages.

“We don’t need this. We don’t need troublemakers, psychosis, at this moment,” he said Wednesday.

France has been on heightened alert since the fatal stabbing of a schoolteacher last week that was blamed on a suspected Islamic extremist who allegedly declared allegiance to the Islamic State group.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune said false threats were made against 17 airports on Wednesday, causing widespread disruption, the evacuation of 15 airports, cancellation of 130 flights and many flight delays.

“These false alerts are not bad jokes. They are crimes,” Beaune posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

U.S. ramping up security measures amid warnings of potential violence over Israel-Hamas war

Authorities in the U.S. are ramping up security amid warnings about potential violence mounting nationwide over the Israel-Hamas war. NBC News’ Maggie Vespa has more details on a Homeland Security official saying the DHS is monitoring a “heightened threat environment.” 

Senior State Department official resigns over ‘blind support’ of Israel

Josh Paul, a director at the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, publicly resigned from his position Wednesday, citing his opposition to the “continued lethal assistance” the U.S. government is providing to Israel.

Paul said in atwo-page letter on LinkedIn that it was his firm belief that third parties in conflicts such as this must choose the side of “the people caught in the middle, and that of generations yet to come.”

“The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides,” he wrote. “I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.”

Paul said in an interview with HuffPost that it was “clear that there’s no arguing with” this current policy. Before resigning, Paul supported U.S. security assistance, arms transfers, and global defense partnerships at the State Department, and previously worked with the U.S. and U.K. governments on development and security issues in Iraq and Palestine.

“Given that I couldn’t shift anything,”  Paul said, “I resigned.”

Hamas militants likely used some North Korean weapons in attack on Israel, evidence shows

SEOUL, South Korea — Hamas fighters most likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyang’s denials that it arms the militant group.

South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyang’s F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.

The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its own conventional and nuclear weapons programs.

Read the full story here.

Gaza needs 100 humanitarian aid trucks a day, U.N. aid chief says

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said Gaza needs to return to pre-war levels of humanitarian aid, calling for 100 trucks a day in assistance to sustain the needs of civilians caught in the crossfire between Hamas and Israel.

In his report to the U.N. Security Council yesterday night, Griffiths called for an urgent mechanism to allow for the regular provision of emergency assistance to Gaza, “up to what it was before these terrible weeks.”

“We need to get back to that level of ambition,” Griffiths said.

Pro-Palestinian protests renew across the Middle East and north Africa

Another night of protests swept the region last night, from Turkey to Morocco as civilians marched on embassies and expressed their ire at the Israeli siege on Gaza.

Overnight Turks marched with Palestinian flags and chanted slogans denouncing Israel in at least a dozen Turkish cities, including outside the Israeli embassy in the capital Ankara. Police used pepper spray and water cannon to disperse thousands of protesters who tried to enter the compound of Israel’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city.

The U.S. Consulate in Adana, Turkey, is closed until further notice as “large demonstrations” are expected throughout the next few weeks, it said. Personnel have also been advised to minimize their movements.

Security forces in contained thousands of protesters at the al-Kalouti Mosque in Amman, Jordan, and prevented them from marching on the Israeli embassy.

Jake Nelson, spokesperson for the U.S Embassy in Beirut, thanked Lebanese security forces for helping contain protests outside its building overnight.

“Unfortunately, violent protesters damaged private property in the surrounding neighborhood of the embassy, but embassy personnel and facilities remain secure and undamaged,” Nelson said.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, urged Americans to take caution and avoid large gatherings throughout the country.

“Even demonstrations or events intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence,” the embassy said.

China wants quick end to Israel-Hamas war, Xi says

China would like the Israel-Hamas war to end as soon as possible, and is willing to work with Arab countries to find a lasting solution to the conflict, President Xi Jinping said Thursday.

Xi said a cease-fire was a “top priority” to prevent the war from spreading to the broader region or spiraling out of control, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, quoted him as telling Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.

The remarks were among Xi’s first on the conflict since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Xi said China supports Egypt’s efforts to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, Xinhua reported. President Joe Biden announced the deal with Egypt, which will allow up to 20 trucks to enter the Palestinian enclave through the Rafah crossing, after he visited Israel on Wednesday.

Two missing Israelis have been found dead

The bodies of a 12-year-old girl and her 80-year-old grandmother have been found, almost two weeks after they were feared to have been taken hostage by Hamas fighters, a social media account run by Israel’s foreign ministry said.

The @Israel account on X said: “Our hearts are broken.”

Noya Dan and her grandmother, Carmela Dan, were reported to have hidden in a safe room in a kibbutz when Hamas fighters stormed through Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. No details were released on where the bodies were found or the apparent cause of death.

Relatives had been sharing a picture of Noya Dan dressed as a Hogwarts student from the Harry Potter book series, an appeal shared on social media by its author, J. K. Rowling.

World Food Programme bakery hit in Gaza, as organization says nearly 1,000 tons of emergency food on standby

The World Food Programme (WFP) said late Wednesday that another of its bakeries in Gaza was hit overnight. The bakery was distributing bread to displaced families in shelters.

“Of the 23 bakeries we work with, only 4 are operational today as most have run out of fuel,” Cindy McCain, WFP’s executive director, said on X, formerly Twitter.

Food, water, fuel and electricity are all running out in the enclave after it was completely blockaded by Israel last week, leaving its more than 2 million residents facing a humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, the WFP said today that it has 951 tons of emergency food supplies ready to deploy, awaiting clearance to enter from Egypt, just miles from the border with Gaza.

Middle East at the ‘brink of a deep and dangerous abyss’: U.N. envoy

The current war is at a“very real, and extremely dangerous” risk of expanding beyond Israel and Gaza, warned Tor Wennesland, the United Nations’ the Middle East Peace Process.

“I fear we are the brink of a deep and dangerous abyss that could change the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — if not the Middle East as a whole,” he said. “After more than a century of conflict, and over half a century of occupation, we, the international community, have failed.”

Wennesland made his remarks yesterday during a United Nations Security Council Briefing, urging that the current situation must not distract from the future. What happens “the day after” war is what the body must start working on immediately.

“What the people of Israel, Palestine and the region need, what we all need, what this Council’s mandate is in existence to secure, is for sanity and humanity to prevail, drawing on the provisions of international humanitarian law, and for urgent efforts to arrest any further descent into this brutal calamity,” he said.

Photo: Palestinian boy trapped under rubble talks with rescuers

Matt Nighswander

Palestinians work to rescue a boy trapped in the rubble today following an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

‘I grieve with you’: British PM visits Israel in show of solidarity

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel on Thursday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials.

Sunak’s trip follows that of President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Hundreds join protest in Chicago in support of Palestinians

Hundreds of protesters in Chicago marched on Wednesday evening, echoing demonstrations that erupted globally amid outrage over the deadly bombing of Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital.

Maryland resident’s 64-year-old brother dies from airstrike in Gaza

Shaaban Sawada was sitting in front of his house in Gaza’s Deir al Balah, when an Israeli strike bombed the house next door. He died on Tuesday from losing blood at the hospital after his leg was cutoff from the strike, his family said.

His brother, 54-year-old Maryland resident Adnan Sawada, told NBC News Wednesday, “I dropped everything and started crying like a baby. Every time I remember how he was treating my parents, he used to treat them like kids.”

Sawada regretted not helping his brother move out of Gaza and getting the U.S. citizenship.

“We are kind of like the ones who don’t have any strength or support. It’s just hopelessness. Israel gets supported from the United States, Iran gets support from Russia, we don’t get anything even though we are the occupied people for years,” he said.

‘We are afraid to sleep’ — Gaza charity worker at Egyptian border fears for life

At the Gazan side of the southern Rafah crossing between the embattled enclave and Egypt are hundreds of thousands of people. Some have been refugees for years; some had moved south after an Israeli warning.

“We are not sleeping. We are afraid to sleep,” said Allaaeldin Abusakar.

Abusakar, 30, is living with his family in Rafah and had just returned from Egypt after finishing his MBA. Now he’s leading a charity, the Palestine Charity Team, which is distributing almost 5,000 food baskets a day.

The population of the Rafah camp has doubled in the past few days, he said, with the density so high that “if they bomb one house, 10 houses will be destroyed.”

Biden returns from high-stakes Israel trip, promises trucks with aid to move into Gaza

President Joe Biden is back in the U.S. after visiting Israel on Wednesday, where he pledged to always stand by Israel after it was attacked by Hamas earlier this month.

In Israel, Biden met with Netanyahu, his war cabinet and Israeli families who lost loved ones in the Hamas assault.

His high-stakes trip was overshadowed by an explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, for which Israel and Hamas have blamed each other.

During a refueling stop at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany on his way home, Biden told reporters he spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and they agreed that Egypt will allow up to 20 trucks with humanitarian aid to go into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since the fighting between Hamas and Israel started. The United Nations is going to be on the other side, distributing the newly-delivered aid, Biden added.

“If Hamas confiscates it or does not let it get through or just confiscates it, then it is going to end,” Biden said. “Because we are not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if they’re going to be confiscating it. That’s the commitment that I’ve made.”

Palestinians search for survivors after strike in Gaza

Matt Nighswander

Israeli family of 5 killed together by Hamas laid to rest

Aviv and Livnat Kutz along with their three children were found in one another’s arms after being killed by Hamas militants in Kfar Azza.

Catch up with NBC News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war

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