Israel-Hamas war news: Israel warns of broad attack on Gaza City; US death toll rises
Editor's Note: For the latest news on the Israel-Hamas conflict, please see our live updates file here.
A week after Israel sustained a deadly surprise attack by Hamas, the nation's military said it would soon begin launching a widespread offensive in northern Gaza – a warning that comes about a day after Israel ordered roughly a million civilians to flee the area.
The sealed-off territory ruled by Hamas was in turmoil on Saturday amid the sweeping evacuation order that covered about half of Gaza's population. Gaza also faces a growing water crisis as Palestinians were struggling to evacuate northern Gaza by foot, car and donkey cart.
Humanitarian groups said the evacuees had nowhere to go. The other way of leaving Gaza, into Egypt, appeared to be sealed as well, amid confusion over whether the neighboring country would allow anyone to exit Gaza.
An offensive even more powerful than Israel's previous shelling of Gaza appeared imminent. “We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon,” Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a nationally broadcast address, without giving a timetable for the attack.
Over 2 million people live in the Gaza, an area of about 139 square miles. The northern part of territory includes Gaza City, the 63rd-most densely inhabited urban region in the world. Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip, stopping entry of food, and has said it would continue its siege until Hamas returned dozens of hostages taken last weekend.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday reiterated U.S. support for Israel's efforts to defend itself, while noting that care should be taken to protect civilians.
Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas official, said that “all the massacres” will not break the Palestinian people.
Attacks continued, with Hamas launching rockets into Israel and Israel carrying out strikes in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that roughly 1,800 people have been killed in the territory. The Israeli military said more than 1,300 people, including 222 soldiers, have been killed in Israel.
Latest developments:
∎ The number of U.S. citizens who have died amid the conflict has risen to 29, according to a Saturday statement from the State Department. That's up from the 22 people reported dead on Wednesday. Additionally, 15 U.S. citizens remained unaccounted for on Saturday, the statement says.
∎ The World Health Organization on Saturday condemned Israel's evacuation orders for 22 hospitals in northern Gaza, where over 2,000 patients are being treated. The WHO says forcing sick and injured patients to move "could be tantamount to a death sentence."
∎ Israel is "preparing to implement a wide range of offensive operative plans" in the Gaza strip involving air, ground and naval forces, its military said on Saturday.
∎ The Israeli military said its troops conducted temporary raids into Gaza on Friday to battle militants and hunted for traces of some 150 people – including men, women and children – who were abducted during Hamas’ shocking assault on southern Israel.
∎ Patients and medical staff of Al Awda Hospital in Gaza spent part of their night on the street “with bombs landing in close proximity,” following Israel’s orders to evacuate the facility, the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said.
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Second U.S aircraft carrier group sent to the region
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as tensions mounted ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of Gaza. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group will join the USS Gerald R. Ford and its associated warships. Earlier in the week, the Pentagon also deployed additional warplanes to the Middle East to deter adversaries such as Iran and its proxy force, Hezbollah, from widening the conflict that began last week after Hamas militants attacked Israel. “The increases to U.S. force posture signal the United States' ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war,” Austin said in a statement late Saturday.
-- Tom Vanden Brook
Iran's foreign minister warns Israel to stop Gaza attacks
Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, warning that the war might expand to other parts of the Middle East if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer “a huge earthquake.”
Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters in Beirut that he met Friday with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which is funded heavily by Iran and which Israel considers its most serious threat.
“I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” Amirabdollahian said. “Any step the resistance (Hezbollah) will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”
Amirabdollahian added: “I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it's too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in few hours.”
With an eye toward Hezbollah, President Joe Biden has warned other players in the Middle East not to join the conflict and has sent American warships to the region and vowed full support for Israel.
— The Associated Press
Hostages need medicine, say relatives of Israelis taken captive by Hamas
The relatives of Israelis taken captive by Hamas are demanding Saturday that the militant group allow in medicine to hostages who require it, saying their loved ones are suffering.
“Every day without her medication is torture. She’s being tortured,” said Yifat Zailer, who said her kidnapped 63-year-old aunt has Parkinson’s disease. She was taken along with several other family members, Zailer said.
In its assault on southern Israeli communities, Hamas militants captured dozens of Israelis and some foreign or dual nationals, including children, women and the elderly, dragging them into the Gaza Strip.
Israeli military spokesman Read Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday Israel had so far identified 126 captives. Their fate becomes more complicated as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza.
— The Associated Press
People in Gaza face growing crisis as taps run dry
Water had stopped coming out of taps altogether in some parts of Gaza. Amal Abu Yahia, a 25-year-old pregnant mother in the Jabaliya refugee camp, told the Associated Press she waits anxiously for the few minutes each day or every other day when contaminated water trickles from the pipes in her basement. She then rations it, prioritizing her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. She said she is drinking so little herself, she only urinates every other day.
Mohammed Ibrahim, 28, said his neighbors in Gaza City have been drinking the salt water coming out of the taps, contaminated with Mediterranean Sea water because of the lack of sanitation facilities.
Rami Swailem said he and a handful of other families in his building are staying in Gaza City: “We are rooted in our lands ... We prefer to die in dignity and face our destiny.”
Others looked desperately for a way out.
“What we know is that hundreds of thousands of people have fled. And that 1 million people have been displaced in total in one week,” Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said.
The agency said many people – particularly pregnant women, children, older people and people with disabilities – will not be able to flee the area. And UNICEF has called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access into Gaza, saying children and families in Gaza have practically run out of food, water, electricity, medicine and safe access to hospitals.
Tens of thousands seek shelter in Gaza City hospital
About 35,000 people have crammed into the grounds of Gaza City's main hospital ahead of the expected Israeli ground offensive, said Mohammad Abu Selim, general director of Shifa Hospital.
“People think this is the only safe space after their homes were destroyed and they were forced to flee,” said Dr. Medhat Abbas, a Health Ministry official. “Gaza City is a frightening scene of devastation.”
Blinken calls for protecting civilians
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday called for protecting civilians and expressed support for Israel's campaign to topple Hamas, whose fighters took more than 100 people hostage during last Saturday’s attack.
“As Israel pursues its legitimate right, to defending its people and to trying to ensure that this never happens again, it is vitally important that all of us look out for civilians, and we’re working together to do exactly that,” Blinken said.
A U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Associated Press Saturday that Washington stressed the importance of the safety of civilians as Israel moved to enforce evacuations, but did not ask Israel to slow or hold off the evacuations.
"None of us want to see suffering by civilians on any side, whether it’s in Israel, whether it’s in Gaza, whether it’s anywhere else," Blinken said.
Israeli-Palestinian crisis fuels disputes at US colleges
College campuses across the United States have hosted rallies and counterprotests, setting off tensions and some violence between factions with opposing views and prompting concerns about student safety.
This past week:
Drexel University in Pennsylvania is investigating reports that a Jewish student’s door was set on fire, according to NBC Philadelphia. No injuries were reported.
Columbia University temporarily restricted access to its Morningside Heights campus amid protests by student groups Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Supporting Israel. In an unrelated encounter, a 24-year-old Israeli student at the New York City campus was assaulted on Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
The parking lot for a Jewish group at University of Texas was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti the night before a 1,500-person rally in Austin, Texas, according to the group’s executive director Rabbi Stephanie Max. Students painted over the graffiti to create a peace wall with the message, “Let your love grow.”
Stanford University officials noted they’d seen a notable rise in antisemitism toward Jewish students and threatening calls and emails to Palestinian students. In a separate incident, an instructor was suspended after reports he separated Jewish students from their belongings to show what has been happening to Palestinians, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
A conservative media group drove a truck around Cambridge, Massachusetts showing images and names of students who were reportedly affiliated with groups that signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ attack. A Harvard University official condemned the move as intimidation and harassment and said the university has been in contact with students identified publicly.
— Krystal Nurse, USA TODAY, with contributions from Sarah Al-Arshani, USA TODAY; and Lily Kepner, Austin American-Statesman
Reuters journalist, killed in shelling in Lebanon, laid to rest
Issam Abdallah, a Reuters videographer who was killed while gathered with a group of international journalists along the Israel-Lebanon border during an exchange of fire, was laid to rest Saturday with a funeral procession that drew hundreds of mourners.
Several journalists were also injured on Friday, including two other Reuters journalists and two Al-Jazeera TV employees, the news agencies said. The Associated Press reported an Israeli shell struck the journalists.
Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry asked Beirut’s mission to the United Nations to file a complaint against Israel over Friday’s shelling calling it a “flagrant violation and a crime against freedom of opinion and press.” The statement was carried by the state-run National News Agency.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht did not confirm to the Associated Press in Jerusalem Saturday that the journalists were hit by an Israeli shell but said, “We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist and we are looking into it ... we're very sorry for his death."
Why can't people leave Gaza entirely?
The Gaza Strip is surrounded by blockades imposed by Israel and Egypt.
Egyptian officials have long tried to encourage Palestinians to remain in their territory, in part because accepting refugees could widen the longstanding regional conflict. Gaza was initially populated by Palestinians displaced from the land that became Israel in 1948.
Mass evacuation and blockade explained.
See a map of Israel and Gaza
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel-Hamas war news: US death toll; Gaza City attack warning
