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Editor’s note: This page reflects the news from the Israel-Hamas war from Friday, Oct. 13. For the latest news and updates on the conflict in Israel, read USA TODAY’s live coverage for Saturday, Oct. 14.
President Joe Biden on Friday said addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a top priority, as Palestinians began to evacuate by foot, car and donkey cart ahead of a planned Israeli ground operation.
As of Friday, the Israel Defense Forces said more than 1,300 Israelis have died and 3,200 were injured. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 1,799 people have died and 7,388 others were injured.
“We can’t lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do Hamas,” Biden said, speaking at an event in Philadelphia. “And they’re suffering as a result as well.”
He spoke Friday with family members of Americans missing in Israel in a meeting the White House described as “emotional.” Other Americans and transplants from the U.S. who made it through the initial Hamas attacks and out of danger described harrowing moments and journeys home.
Meanwhile, the world waits, uncertain about next steps as the war turns a week old and experts have said they expect Israel to continue pounding Gaza and possibly launch a ground invasion within hours.
Biden said he’s directed his team to work with the governments in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab nations and the United Nations to surge humanitarian relief to those impacted by the war.
Hamas staged a shocking and brutal attack on Israel nearly a week ago and has fired thousands of rockets since. Israel has responded with a heavy aerial bombardment and has sealed off the Gaza Strip, stopping all entry of food, water, medicine and fuel to its 2.3 million people.
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Developments:
∎ The number of Palestinians displaced increased by 25% over the past 24 hours, according to an early Friday update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. More than 423,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza and two-thirds are taking shelter at U.N. schools.
∎ Airstrikes have left cities and refugee camps in ruins. And Gaza has been experiencing a full electricity blackout amid Israel’s siege of the territory, “which has brought essential health, water and sanitation services to the brink of collapse, and exacerbated food insecurity,” according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz has said electricity, water and fuel will not be provided until Israeli hostages are returned.
∎ Public officials and law enforcement agencies across the United States have expressed concern over potential protests on Friday in response to Hamas leadership’s call for a global “Day of Rage.” The D.C. region has enhanced its security in the area, including in the U.S. Capitol complex, and other major cities have also been on alert.
∎ Hamas’ media office said about 70 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit cars full of people fleeing south from Gaza City on Friday. It was not immediately clear what the intended target was or whether militants were among the passengers hit.
‘Humanity on both sides’:A gulf of perspectives is growing among US millennials amid war in Israel
First charter flight evacuating Americans leaves Israel
The State Department’s first charter flight taking Americans out of Israel has landed in Athens, Greece, the State Department said Friday.
“The State Department will continue to organize these charter flights for as long as there is a demand from US citizens for departure assistance,” John Kirby, a White House spokesman on national security matters, said.
Americans who left Israel on the charter flights have to make their own travel arrangements to the U.S. once they make it to the safe locations, according to the State Department.
The American death toll from last week’s Hamas attack in Israel remains at 27, while 14 Americans are unaccounted for.
— Joey Garrison
President Biden speaks with families of Americans held hostage by Hamas
President Joe Biden met virtually Friday with the families of 14 Americans who remain unaccounted for since last weekend’s brutal attacks in Israel when Hamas militants took civilians hostage.
“The president conveyed directly to these families that they have been in his prayers and reaffirmed for them that the United States government is doing everything possible to locate and bring home their loved ones,” said John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications.
The White House said the Zoom call, which lasted over an hour, was “emotional.”
The White House believes a small number of the 14 unaccounted-for Americans are being held captive by Hamas as hostages, and officials are working to gather more information. At least 27 Americans were killed.
“I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what’s happening,” Biden said in an interview on “60 Minutes,” according to a clip released ahead of Sunday’s broadcast.
— Joey Garrison
Dining with Bruno Mars one day, hiding in stairwells the next
Kenneth Whalum, a Memphis pastor, arrived in Israel on Oct. 2 to watch his son perform a concert in Tel Aviv as a trombonist and singer in Bruno Mars’ band.
“The crowd was composed of Israelis and Palestinians, and they were all singing in unison with Bruno,” he told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. “It was unbelievable. It was surreal.”
On the night of Oct. 6, Whalum dined with the band and Mars at a five-star restaurant in Tel Aviv, before preparing to fly home the next day. But Saturday morning, the sirens started.
Whalum said he took shelter at different points along his journey out, first in his hotel where an employee barricaded the door with a steel bar, and later in stairwells with other passengers at the airport.
“I just had a sense… that God was going to get me out, and that he was going to get my son out,” he said. “I was not afraid.”
– John Klyce, Memphis Commercial Appeal
White House: No indication of threat to US after Hamas attack in Israel
The White House said Friday there’s no indication of a threat to the U.S. following last week’s surprise Hamas attack on Israel.
John Kirby, a White House spokesman on national security matters, said Biden met with his national security team in the White House Situation Room on Thursday to discuss “the current homeland threat environment” following the attack.
He said the president also discussed efforts to safeguard Jewish and Muslim communities and protect diplomatic facilities in eight U.S. cities: Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
“At this time, none of our intelligence agencies have any specific intelligence indicating a threat to the United States stemming from the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel,” Kirby said. “That said, we continue to remain vigilant.”
— Joey Garrison
UN agency condemns Israel’s evacuation order
Israel’s call for about a million people to move south within the Gaza Strip drew backlash from a United Nations agency and aid workers.
“The scale and speed of the unfolding humanitarian crisis is bone-chilling. Gaza is fast becoming a hell hole and is on the brink of collapse,” the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in a Friday statement. “The call from Israeli Forces to move more than 1,000,000 civilians living in northern Gaza within 24 hours is horrendous. This will only lead to unprecedented levels of misery and further push people in Gaza into the abyss.”
The evacuation order further alarmed civilians and aid workers. Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City, told The Associated Press through tears that there was no way 1 million people could evacuate that fast.
“Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel. The only concern now is just if you make it, if you’re going to live,” Farsakh said.
Palestinians rush to leave northern Gaza ahead of possible invasion
Palestinians fled by foot, car, truck and donkey cart after Israel’s forces warned about half the population of the Gaza Strip to go south. The United Nations agency said the warning could have disastrous effects amid a growing humanitarian crisis in the sealed-off territory.
“Conditions are very bad,” Yaser Betar, a Texas native, told USA TODAY.
Israel’s evacuation order for parts of Gaza came ahead of an expected ground offensive against Hamas militants. The order calls for people living in north Gaza to move south of the Wadi Gaza area, which is in the middle of the territory. The southern end of Gaza sits against the Egyptian border, which is closed. Hamas told residents to remain.
Families were streaming down a main road out of Gaza City, the biggest city, packed with blankets and possessions, even as Israeli strikes hammered neighborhoods in southern Gaza, the Associated Press reported. But many hesitated to leave amid uncertainty about safety anywhere in Gaza, as suffering has been rising in the territory.
“We’re waiting here. Hundreds of thousands of people are walking to leave Gaza City to go to the south border because they are preparing for a big invasion,” said Betar, who was visiting family when the conflict broke out.
Betar described the desperate rush to evacuate in a brief phone call with USA TODAY as horns honked and voices yelled in the background.
“They say if you stay in the city you will be killed,” Betar said. “Me and family, we’re just 15, 16 people, are leaving right now.”
Israeli forces, Palestinians clash in West Bank
Violent clashes broke out Friday between protesters and Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank after the leader of Hamas called for a “global day of rage” in support of Palestinians.
Hamas urged its supporters to confront Israeli Defense Forces in the West Bank, and confrontations were reported in several cities as thousands of people gathered to cheer Hamas.
The Palestinian health ministry has reported casualties as a result of confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians. It’s unclear if any of those occurred Friday.
– Rama Yousef and Michael Collins
Reuters journalist killed in shelling in Lebanon
The Reuters news agency on Friday confirmed the death of one of its journalists working in Lebanon during an exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border between Israeli troops and members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. Several other journalists were injured.
Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah had been providing live video feeds of military activity and had posted footage earlier Friday of bombings in the vicinity of Alma Al-Shaab, a village near the border.
The Associated Press reported that an Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border, killing Abdallah and wounding six other journalists.
Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV said two of its employees, Elie Brakhya and Carmen Joukhadar, were among the wounded. Reuters also said its journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh were injured and are seeking medical care.
The Lebanon-Israel border has seen sporadic acts of violence since Saturday’s attack on southern Israel by the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Journalists from around the world have been going to Lebanon with concerns that war might break out between Hezbollah and Israel, the AP said.
How many people live in the Gaza Strip?
About 2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s military has told some 1 million Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza and head to the southern part of the besieged territory.
Why can’t Gaza residents leave the area 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.
Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land,” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said on Thursday, the New York Times reported. “Egypt will not allow the Palestinian cause to be settled at the expense of other parties.”
What is Hamas ‘day of rage’
Israeli authorities warned Jews around the world of the potential for violence Friday on what they said Hamas had declared to be an international “day of rage.” Although little evidence of widespread violence materialized by midday Friday, police agencies across the United States and around the world braced for the possibility of localized violence, particularly directed at synagogues or during street protests.
“It is reasonable to assume that there will be protest events in various countries that are liable to turn violent,” reads the statement from Israel’s National Security Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What is Hamas?
Hamas – an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic resistance movement – was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by a Palestinian activist connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. The State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. Several other nations also consider it a terrorist organization.
In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, and in 2007 the group violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which was controlled by the rival Fatah movement that still governs the West Bank. There have been no elections since. The group calls for establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state that would replace the current state of Israel and believes in the use of violence to carry out the destruction of Israel.
Hamas receives financial, material and logistical support from Iran, though so far, international leaders, including in Israel, have said there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in Hamas’ attack.
What is the Gaza Strip?
Gaza, or the Gaza Strip, is a densely populated Palestinian exclave of about 2.3 million people. The narrow strip of land − about 150 square miles, or less than half the size of New York City − is about 25 miles long and six miles wide. Gaza shares a northern and eastern border with Israel and a southwestern border with Egypt while its western side abuts the Mediterranean Sea.
Who controls the Gaza Strip?
Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections and in 2007 seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. There have been no elections since. The Palestinian Authority, controlled by the rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas has fought four wars against Israel since taking power.
What is the IDF?
IDF stands for Israel Defense Forces, the umbrella name for the country’s air force, army and navy.
Under law, every Israeli citizen is required to serve a term in the military, with men typically serving 32 months and women serving 24 months.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS) Military Balance 2023, Israel has 169,500 active military personnel in the army, navy and paramilitary, along with about 465,000 in reserves.
The IDF has a modern military with multiple advanced American-made fighter jets.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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