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      Gazans Flee Jabaliya as Israel’s Military Launches New Offensive

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      The northern town of Jabaliya had already come under fierce attacks from the Israeli military earlier in the war, killing many civilians and demolishing large parts of the suburb. So, as Israeli ground forces moved to other parts of the Gaza Strip and military strikes focused elsewhere, residents thought they had experienced their worst days.But last week, the Israeli military dropped leaflets again over Jabaliya, where tens of thousands of people are living, ordering them to leave as it prepared to launch a renewed offensive.“When the Israelis dropped the leaflets, people were terrified, especially given what they experienced previously,” said Iman Abu Jalhum, 23, who graduated from medical school two months before the war began and has been volunteering in hospitals treating the wounded. “We thought given that we have already been attacked that we were safe; the Israelis have already been here.”Soon after the leaflets dropped, so too did the bombs, she said. Ms. Abu Jalhum, her 16-year-old sister and her parents fled their home under bombardment. She only had time to throw a few items of clothing into a bag and put on her prayer shawl.Her father, who has back issues, struggled to walk along the road. Eventually, they found a donkey cart to take him the rest of the way, a few miles south.Israel said it had renewed the offensive in Jabaliya on May 11 because Hamas was trying to reassemble its infrastructure and operatives in the area. Hamas accused Israel of “escalating its aggression against civilians all across Gaza” and vowed to continue fighting. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel’s Wartime Government Frays as Frustration with Netanyahu Grows

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      Benny Gantz, a centrist member of leadership, presented the prime minister with an ultimatum that demanded a plan for the future of Israel’s war.Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he would leave the government if it did not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza.While Mr. Gantz’s departure would not topple the country’s emergency wartime government, the move would further strain a fragile coalition that has provided Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right government with a boost of international legitimacy, and it would make the prime minister even more reliant on his hard-line partners.“If you choose the path of zealots, dragging the country into the abyss, we will be forced to leave the government,” Mr. Gantz said in a televised news conference. “We will turn to the people and build a government that will earn the people’s trust.”Mr. Gantz, who leads the National Unity party, said he would give Mr. Netanyahu until June 8 — three weeks’ time — to develop a plan that would aim to secure the release of hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, address the future governance of the territory, return displaced Israelis to their homes and advance normalization with Saudi Arabia, among other issues.Mr. Gantz’s ultimatum was the latest sign of pressure building on Mr. Netanyahu to develop a postwar plan. The prime minister is increasingly being squeezed — externally from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, and from within his own War Cabinet — to clarify a strategy for Gaza. Just days earlier, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said the government was charting “a dangerous course” and demanded that Mr. Netanyahu immediately pledge not to establish an Israeli military government in Gaza.In a response to Mr. Gantz’s ultimatum, Mr. Netanyahu accused the former military chief of staff and a longtime political rival of calling for “Israeli defeat” by effectively allowing Hamas to remain in power.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Sending More Troops to Rafah Amid Warnings of Famine in Gaza

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      Fighting in Rafah has closed off a vital border crossing in southern Gaza, forced hundreds of thousands to flee and cut off humanitarian aid.Israel said on Thursday that it would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas.The announcement signaled that Israel intends to press deeper into Rafah despite international concerns about the threat to civilians from a full-scale invasion of the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering.“Hundreds of targets have already been attacked,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said after meeting with commanders in the Rafah area. “This operation will continue.”For the past week Israel has described its offensive as a limited military operation, but satellite imagery and Mr. Gallant’s comments on Thursday suggested that a more significant incursion was already underway.Rafah is the most important logistics hub in the Gaza Strip, the crucial gateway for most of the food, medicine and other aid that has entered the enclave of 2.2 million people. The fighting has led to the closure of a border crossing between Rafah and Egypt and, for a time, greatly reduced traffic at one between Rafah and Israel at Kerem Shalom.“The threat of famine in Gaza never loomed larger,” the United Nations’ World Food Program warned this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fighting Flares Anew in Gaza as Hamas Reconstitutes

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      The U.S. secretary of state warned that Israel’s victories over Hamas may not be “sustainable.”As the Israeli military stepped up pressure on what it calls Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza, fighting elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave on Sunday led to warnings that the militants might remain a force for a long time to come.Close-quarters ground combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza over the weekend, both sides said on Sunday, even as the world’s attention was largely focused on the southern city of Rafah, where Israel escalated military operations last week.It has become a familiar scenario in the Gaza Strip over the course of the seven-month war: After pitched battles, Israel declares an area clear of Hamas, only to return after the militants reconstitute their forces.On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was concerned that Israel’s failure to lay down a template for the governance of Gaza meant that its victories might not be “sustainable” and would be followed by “chaos, by anarchy and ultimately by Hamas again.”Mr. Blinken’s warning came as the Israeli military said its soldiers had “eliminated a number” of fighters in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun. In nearby Jabaliya, where civilians were ordered to evacuate on Saturday, troops went in overnight after fighter jets struck more than two dozen targets, the military said. The operation, it said, was “based on intelligence information regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble.”Hamas said on Sunday that its fighters were engaged in “fierce clashes” with Israeli soldiers near Jabaliya and that the fighters had fired heavy-caliber mortar shells at Israeli forces in Zeitoun.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      About 300,000 Gazans Have Fled Rafah, U.N. Says

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      The main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza said early Sunday that about 300,000 people had fled over the past week from Rafah, the city in the enclave’s southernmost tip where more than a million displaced Gazans had sought shelter from Israeli bombardments elsewhere over the past seven months.The U.N. agency, known as UNRWA, made the announcement on social media hours after the Israeli government issued new evacuation orders in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza, deepening fears that the Israeli military was preparing to invade the city despite international warnings.The World Food Program echoed those warnings on Sunday, expressing concern about displacement of civilians and saying that a full-scale invasion of Rafah would be “catastrophic.”“Families are once again on the move, searching for shelter, food, water — but with fewer resources,” it wrote on social media.Paltel, the Gaza Strip’s largest telecommunications company, said on Sunday that internet service was down in parts of southern Gaza because of Israeli military operations and that crews were working to restore services “as quickly as possible.”Doctors Without Borders, an aid group whose staff members have been working in Gaza during the war, also said on social media that it had started to refer the last 22 patients at one hospital, the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital, to other facilities because it could “no longer guarantee their safety.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On a Day of Graduations, Berkeley’s Protests Stand Out

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      At the University of California, Berkeley, hundreds of soon-to-be graduates rose from their seats in protest, chanting and disrupting their commencement. At Virginia Commonwealth University, about 60 graduates in caps and gowns walked out during Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s speech. At the University of Wisconsin, a handful of graduates stood with their backs to their chancellor as she spoke.After weeks of tumult on college campuses over pro-Palestinian protests, many administrators prepared themselves for disruptions at graduations on Saturday. And while there were demonstrations — most noisily, perhaps, at U.C. Berkeley — ceremonies at several universities unfolded without major incident. Many students who protested did so silently.Anticipating possible disruptions, university administrators had increased their security or taken various measures, including dismantling encampments, setting aside free speech zones, canceling student speeches and issuing admission tickets.Some administrators also tried to reach agreements with encampment organizers. The University of Wisconsin said it had reached a deal with protesters to clear the encampment in return for a meeting to discuss the university’s investments.Some students, too, were on edge about their big day — many missed their high school graduations four years ago because of the pandemic and did not want to repeat the experience.In 2020, David Emuze and his mother had watched his high school graduation “ceremony,” a parade of senior photos set to music on Zoom, from their living room in Springfield, Ill. This time, he and his classmates at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign heard that other schools, like the University of Southern California and Columbia University, had canceled their main-stage commencements altogether because of campus unrest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Israel Steps Up Attacks, 300,000 Gazans Are on the Move

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      Many say there is nowhere to go, and even the “humanitarian zone” recommended by Israel is neither safe nor equipped to handle all of them, the U.N. says.Around 300,000 Palestinians in southern and northern Gaza are being forced to flee once again, the United Nations says, as Israel issued new and expanded evacuation orders on Saturday. But many are unsure where to find secure shelter in a place devastated by war.The expanded evacuation orders apply to the city of Rafah at Gaza’s southernmost tip, where more than a million Gazans have gathered after fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere over the past seven months. They have deepened fears that the Israeli military is set to proceed with an invasion of Rafah, which Israeli leaders have long promised, a prospect that international aid groups and many countries have condemned.Some 150,000 people have already fled Rafah over the past six days, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians.“It’s such a difficult situation — the number of people displaced is very high, and none of them know where to go, but they leave and try to get as far away as possible,” said Mohammad al-Masri, a 31-year-old accountant who is sheltering with his family in a tent in Rafah. “Fear, confusion, oppression, anxiety is eating away at people.”Charles Michel, president of the European Council, criticized the expanded evacuation order on Saturday on social media, saying, “Evacuation orders for civilians trapped in Rafah to unsafe zones are unacceptable.”Israel seized control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday in what it called a “limited operation,” and stepped-up bombardment and fighting have continued in and around the city since then.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Long, Tortured Road to Biden’s Clash With Netanyahu Over Gaza War

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      The president offered strong support to Israel after Oct. 7 but has grown increasingly frustrated over the conduct of the war. “He has just gotten to a point where enough is enough,” a friend says.President Biden laid it out for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel long before letting the public know. In a conversation bristling with tension on Feb. 11, the president warned the prime minister against a major assault on the Gaza city of Rafah — and suggested that continued U.S. support would depend on how Israel proceeded.It was an extraordinary moment. For the first time, the president who had so strongly backed Israel’s war against Hamas was essentially threatening to change course. The White House, however, kept the threat secret, making no mention of it in the official statement it released about the call. And indeed, the private warning, perhaps too subtle, fell on deaf ears.Six days later, on Feb. 17, Mr. Biden heard from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. The president’s chief diplomat was calling from his blue-and-white government plane as he was flying home from a security conference in Munich. Despite the president’s warning, Mr. Blinken reported that momentum for an invasion of Rafah was building. It could result in a humanitarian catastrophe, he feared. They had to draw a line.At that point, the president headed down a road that would lead to the most serious collision between the United States and Israel in a generation. Three months later, the president has decided to follow through on his warning, leaving the two sides in a dramatic standoff. Mr. Biden has paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs and vowed to block the delivery of other offensive arms if Israel mounts a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah over his objections. Mr. Netanyahu responded defiantly, vowing to act even “if we need to stand alone.”Mr. Biden’s journey to this moment of confrontation has been a long and tortured one, the culmination of a seven-month evolution — from a president who was so appalled by the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 that he pledged “rock solid and unwavering” support for Israel to an angry and exasperated president who has finally had it with an Israeli leadership that he believes is not listening to him.“He has just gotten to a point where enough is enough,” said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a onetime Republican senator from Nebraska and a friend of Mr. Biden’s from their days together in Congress and President Barack Obama’s administration. “I think he felt he had to say something. He had to do something. He had to show some sign that he wasn’t going to continue this.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More