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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:03:23 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden says hostages’ families ‘going through agony’Joe Biden said he had spoken earlier with the families of Americans held by Hamas in Gaza, and that they were “going through agony” not knowing the fate of their loved ones. The president was speaking just now at an event in Philadelphia, and prefaced comments on the US economy with an update on the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and strong words for Hamas: The more we learn about the attack, the more horrifying it becomes. With 1,000 innocent lives lost, including at least 27 Americans, these guys … are pure evil. I said from the beginning, the United States, make no mistake about it, stands with Israel.Biden said visits to the region by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, were “to make sure Israel has everything it needs to defend itself and respond to these attacks”. He said US teams were working with the governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations to address a looming humanitarian crisis. And he said he was on a Zoom call on Friday morning for more than an hour with families of Americans being held by Hamas: They’re going through agony not knowing what the status of their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, children. You know, it’s gut-wrenching.
I assured them of my personal commitment to do everything possible to return every missing American to their families. We’re working around the clock to secure the release of Americans held by Hamas, in close cooperation with Israel and our partners around the region.
We’re not going to stop until we bring them home.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:04:10 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Gaza death toll rises to 1,900, including 614 childrenAt least 1,900 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on Saturday, the Palestinian ministry of health said. The network said officials reported that the toll included 614 children and 370 women. An additional 7,696 people have been wounded, according to the ministry.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:04:31 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:05:11 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:07:13 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:08:20 GMT -5
(The Guardian) As US officials work to determine the whereabouts of 14 US citizens unaccounted for since last Saturday’s deadly Hamas assault on Israel, US families of the dead or missing are describing their loss. At least 22 Americans are known to have died in last Saturday’s attacks, and officials have said they are working to determine whether those missing have been killed or taken hostage. Jonathan Dekel-Chen has not heard from his 35-year-old son since Saturday morning, when Hamas gunmen stormed the Nir Oz kibbutz. There is currently no information on the whereabouts of Sagui, a dual Israeli-US citizen from Connecticut. -- He’s a loving guy, funny and charming, a deep thinker, a loving son and a beautiful father, an imaginative and creative doer of the things that get into his head.Dekel-Chen said he understands that at about 6am the kibbutz was overrun by around 100 Hamas militants. Sagui, he said, hurried to get families into bomb shelters as the men did their best to repel the attack. The Israeli army did not arrive until mid-afternoon. Of 400 people who lived in the village, 240 were dead or missing. Dekel-Chen said Hamas used stolen vehicles and tractors to transport a dozen people to Gaza. Some could be tracked on their cellphones but several dozen others have simply disappeared. Dekel-Chen said: Sagui is one of those people – he didn’t simply evaporate. We’ve had no word from the Israeli or US government.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:09:00 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Hayim Katsman, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was initially thought to have been taken to Gaza but was later found killed in his home in Kibbutz Holit. It is understood that Katsman, 32, shielded a neighbor from Hamas bullets, and that neighbor later saved two children. Katsman, whose grandmother fled Nazi Germany and whose grandfather survived the Holocaust, wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Washington on “Religious nationalism in Israel/Palestine”. Instead of staying in the US, Katsman moved to the kibbutz, where he worked as a landscaper. His mother, Hanna Katsman, who buried her son on Thursday evening, said: He was always in a good mood and really enjoyed being with people. It was honorable to me how he did his scholarship but he could also forget about it, hang out and play music.Katsman was involved in peace initiatives, including Mahsom Watch, which monitors the impact of government activity on Palestinian lives. His sister, Noy, an activist with the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots group Standing Together, told the Jewish Forward that her brother’s death should not be used to justify retribution, a view their mother shared: She said Hayim wouldn’t have wanted his death to be used against innocent people.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:10:04 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Rachel Goldberg last saw her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, at 11pm the night before the attack, when he left the house with his friend and some camping equipment to go to do “something fun”. Goldberg was at home in Jerusalem when she woke to the sound of rocket-warning sirens. When she turned on her phone, she saw two text messages from him that read “I love you” and “I’m sorry”. “I immediately know something horrible was happening,” said Goldberg. Her daughter searched online and saw the news that the Supernova music festival had come under attack. “So we knew immediately where he was but we couldn’t reach him,” she said. In the days since, his mother has tried to piece together some of what happened. Goldberg-Polin, she said, and three friends had got into a car to try to escape the massacre. -- Rockets started falling into the street. It was complete chaos. So they stopped and went into a roadside bomb shelter. Hamas terrorists came, threw in hand grenades and spraying it with machine-gun fire. A total horror.She said her son was trying to throw the grenades out as fast as they came in. After a lull, the terrorists came in and ordered the survivors to stand up. Most people were dead; some were alive but played dead and some were alive but badly wounded. Goldberg-Polin stood up. “The witness we spoke to said Hersh’s arm below the elbow had been blown off, and he’d taken off his shirt to make a tourniquet. He walked out and they put [him] in a pickup and [he was] taken to the Gaza border,” said Goldberg. His phone last pinged at 12.45pm on Saturday at the border. “We know nothing about him since, except that he has a critical wound that needs medical assistance immediately, if he is still alive,” said Goldberg. Asked if she was worried that Israel’s bombing of Gaza might diminish her son’s chance of survival, Goldberg said she was not thinking of that. “Right now, there is such horrible fighting going on down there, so we’re just trying get any help, clarity or answer that we can,” she said. The top floor of her home is filled with families whose children are fighting. The country is at war. It’s complete chaos and pandemonium, and it’s a terrible situation. I think this country’s life is at stake. My husband and I recognize that Hersh is the most important priority to us – he’s our world – but there’s a larger picture here, and we’re trying to be mindful of that.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 17:10:52 GMT -5
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip after the Israeli army issued an evacuation warning to a population of over 1 million in northern Gaza and Gaza City to seek refuge in the south ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion. Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP Israeli APCs head toward the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on Friday. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 19:59:50 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 20:05:19 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 7:01pm Summary--Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing their homes and moving south after Israel’s military delivered sweeping evacuation orders for almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people earlier on Friday ahead of a feared ground offensive. The UN said it was told by the Israeli military that about 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza should relocate to the enclave’s south within the next 24 hours. Hamas urged people to stay put and defy the Israeli military order to evacuate homes. --Israeli airstrikes on convoys fleeing Gaza City killed 70 people, mostly women and children, the press office of Hamas said. Hamas said the cars were struck in three places as they headed south from Gaza City on Friday. --Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “eradicate” Hamas and said Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza “is just the beginning”. Netanyahu, in televised remarks on Friday, said Israel was striking at its enemies “with unprecedented might”. “Our enemies have only started paying the price,” he said. --Israeli troops carried out local raids over the past day in the Gaza Strip, searching for hostages and collecting evidence to find people taken by Hamas, the Israel Defence Forces said on Friday. --The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, said the Israeli military’s evacuation order is “extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible”. The World Health Organization (WHO) said asking vulnerable patients to evacuate hospitals in Gaza amounted to a “death sentence”. Amnesty International said Israel’s evacuation order “cannot be considered an effective warning” and called for it to be rescinded immediately. --At least 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza from Israeli strikes, including 614 children and 370 women, according to Gaza’s health ministry on Friday. At least 16 Palestinians were shot and killed in the West Bank over the course of the day, the Palestinian health ministry said. --A journalist has been killed and six others injured after an Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon on Friday. Reuters confirmed that its videographer Issam Abdallah was killed. Meanwhile, the BBC said its journalists were assaulted and held at gunpoint after they were stopped by Israeli police in Tel Aviv. --The US president, Joe Biden, said he had spoken with the families of Americans held by Hamas in Gaza, and that they were “going through agony” not knowing the fate of their loved ones. He also said he was making a priority of urgently addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. --Israel Defense Forces ruled out a suspected armed infiltration near the Lebanese border, after warning residents of the village of Hanita earlier on Friday to hole up at home and lock doors. Violence between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces erupted in several areas of occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. --In France, the government raised its security alert to the highest level after a suspected radical Islamist killed a teacher and injured three others in the north of the country. Fifteen French nationals have been confirmed to have died from last weekend’s attacks by Hamas in Israel.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 20:05:57 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Thousands of people are expected to march in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London on Saturday, as police warn that anyone showing support for Hamas or deviating from the route could face arrest, PA home has reported. The Metropolitan Police Service will deploy more than 1,000 officers to police the demonstration, in which people will be marching in solidarity with Palestine and demanding Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian land. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the UK was doing “everything we can to ensure the security of British citizens” after the Defence Secretary said it seemed “very likely” that there are British hostages in Gaza. Three Britons are confirmed to have lost their lives during the weekend’s assault on Israel, but reports have suggested at least 17 could be among the casualties.
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 20:09:07 GMT -5
Palestine protestors march on October 13, 2023 in New York City. Across the country and around the world, people are holding rallies and vigils for both Palestinians and Israelis following the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7. The attack prompted retaliatory strikes on Gaza and a declaration of war by the Israeli prime minister. Photograph: Alex Kent/Getty Images Pro-Palestine protestors march on October 13, 2023 in New York City. Photograph: Alex Kent/Getty Images
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Post by Webster on Oct 13, 2023 20:09:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Tens of thousands of people in Gaza are believed to have fled their homes and moved south following Israel’s evacuation warning, according to estimates by the UN humanitarian office OCHA. Prior to the evacuation order, more than 400,000 Palestinians were already internally displaced, it said. Israel’s military has told about 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south ahead of an expected ground invasion. Hamas urged people to stay put and defy the Israeli military order to evacuate homes.
Nearly 240 Australians have landed in London on the first Australian-government backed repatriation flight from Israel, the foreign minister has confirmed. Penny Wong said on Saturday that the Qantas-operated flight from Tel Aviv landed earlier on Saturday carrying 238 people. Overall, about 825 Australians had departed Israel and the occupied territories, she said. “My department continues to assist a number of Australians seeking to leave Gaza, numbering about 20,” Wong said. A second repatriation flight is due to leave on Saturday from Tel Aviv to Dubai. The government announced on Friday it would arrange an extra two charter flights, taking the total number to four.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 1:08:51 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 11:38pm Summary--The Israeli military says it struck a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon in response to the “infiltration of unidentified aerial objects into Israel” and fire on an Israeli drone. The military intercepted the objects and the fire on its drone, it said. --Israeli troops carried out local raids on in the Gaza Strip, searching for hostages and collecting evidence to find people taken by Hamas, the Israel Defence Forces said on Friday. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “eradicate” Hamas and said Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza “is just the beginning”. --The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the situation in Gaza has reached “a dangerous new low”, and called for immediate humanitarian access to allow fuel, food and water to reach those in need. “Even wars have rules,” Guterres told reporters. The UN Security Council discussed the crisis at a meeting behind closed doors on Friday. --At least 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza from Israeli strikes, including 614 children and 370 women, according to Gaza’s health ministry on Friday. At least 16 Palestinians were shot and killed in the West Bank over the course of the day, the Palestinian health ministry said. --Israeli airstrikes on convoys fleeing Gaza City killed 70 people, mostly women and children, the press office of Hamas said. Hamas said the cars were struck in three places as they headed south from Gaza City on Friday. --The US president, Joe Biden, said he had spoken with the families of Americans held by Hamas in Gaza, and that they were “going through agony” not knowing the fate of their loved ones. He told CBS: “We’re going to do everything in our power to find them... we’re working like hell on it.” --Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied across the Middle East and in parts of Asia, Europe and the US in support of Palestinians and condemnation of Israel as it intensified its strikes on Gaza. --Jewish communities in the US, France and other countries also held rallies on Friday in solidarity with Israel. Some governments have stepped up security at synagogues and Jewish schools, fearing that protests could lead to violence. --A journalist has been killed and six others injured after an Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon on Friday. Reuters confirmed that its videographer Issam Abdallah was killed. Meanwhile, the BBC said its journalists were assaulted and held at gunpoint after they were stopped by Israeli police in Tel Aviv.
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