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      On Social Media, Gazans Share Advice for Those Under Fire in Lebanon

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      Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon has forced thousands of people there to grapple with some urgent questions: What should I pack before I evacuate? What should stay behind? And where can I go that might be safe?Gazans have some hard-won answers, and some are sharing them on social media.One of them is Hala Bassam Al-Akhsam, better known as Chef Hala, a Gazan TV and social media personality with 20,000 followers on TikTok. Ms. Al-Akhsam has evacuated from her home in Gaza City three times since Israel invaded Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack last Oct. 7, so she has plenty of experience.In a recent post, she advised Lebanese evacuees to start with a lightweight pouch for valuables and important documents — gold, cash, diplomas and birth certificates. Make one member of the family responsible for holding onto it at all times. Everyone should have their own small bag of clothes, books, hygiene products and a reusable water bottle. And make sure everyone has a coat, she says, because “winter is coming.”Once a prolific poster of cooking hacks and recipes, Ms. Al-Akhsam now uploads scenes of the war’s devastation alongside practical advice for staying safe and sane amid chaos. “Have a predetermined safe location in mind,” she said. “A house or an area to move to, without losing time deciding.”Israeli airstrikes, raids and evacuation warnings have sent hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fleeing their homes, with no certainty of when they would be able to return or what might remain when they do. For the uprooted and those who soon might be, Ms. Al-Akhsam’s displacement tutorials have become a source of solace and solidarity.Lebanese viewers have reached out with thanks on public forums, and private requests for more specific advice. In one recent video, she obliged with a packing list of essential medicines. “I have faced starvation, famine, and extreme pollution,” Ms. Al-Akhsam explained in an interview. “My struggle throughout this war has inspired me to share with the people of Lebanon what to expect.”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 Steps Up Attacks in Lebanon as Fighting Spreads

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      With the region on edge about a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran, U.S. Central Command hit targets in Yemen, and Israel ordered evacuations in Gaza.As Israel escalated its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday, much of the Middle East was on edge, with many expecting an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran as payback for its missile barrage on Israel earlier this week.Fighting expanded across the region, with the United States Central Command striking Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and Israeli forces warning residents in two areas in the central Gaza Strip to evacuate, presumably in preparation for stepped up military action there.In Lebanon, a huge strike earlier in the week reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was recently assassinated by Israel. It was not clear whether Mr. Safieddine had been killed.Israeli strikes appeared to hit the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut, where Hezbollah holds sway and where the Israeli military late on Friday again issued evacuation warnings for civilians. At least four hospitals across southern Lebanon are now out of service as a result of Israel’s bombardment, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The Saint Therese Medical Center near the Dahiya has also suspended services, saying that Israeli strikes inflicted “huge damage.”Hezbollah on Saturday fired more rockets into northern Israel, though most seem to have been intercepted by Israel’s air-defense system.Concern has been building over whether the broadening war would further draw in Iran, which supports both Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that Iran could carry out additional attacks on Israel “if necessary.”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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      Kamala Harris Meets With Arab and Muslim Leaders in Michigan

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      Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday met with Arab and Muslim leaders while campaigning in Michigan, a crucial battleground state where roiling discontent over the United States’ backing of Israel’s war in Gaza and its escalating attacks in Lebanon could threaten her support.“The big takeaway was that she fully understands the severity of the situation, she absolutely understands the impact this has had on our communities, and the potential impact this could have on voters,” said Wa’el Alzayat, the chief executive of Emgage Action, a group that mobilizes Muslim American voters and has endorsed Ms. Harris.During the meeting, which took place backstage at a rally in Flint, Mich., Muslim and Arab leaders pressed Ms. Harris to work toward ending the war in Gaza, expressed concerns about the civilian casualties and about tens of thousands of people being displaced in Lebanon, Mr. Alzayat said.He added that Ms. Harris, who was joined by her campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, said she understood the frustrations in the community and was committed to finding a path to peace. The meeting was originally scheduled for 10 minutes but ran for 20, sending a strong message about “the gravity of the current moment we’re in,” he said.Ms. Harris’s campaign said in a statement that she expressed her concern for the “scale of suffering in Gaza,” and outlined her goal to end the war in Gaza, which started after Hamas attacked Israel nearly one year ago, on Oct. 7. The vice president also expressed her desire to secure the release of hostages taken during the attack, and continue to ensure Israel’s security while also seeing to it that Palestinian people can “realize their right to dignity, freedom, self-determination.”Ms. Harris also expressed her concern about civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, and reiterated the Biden administration’s desire for a diplomatic solution and preventing a regional war, the campaign said.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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      Macron Calls for Halting Weapons to Israel for Gaza Conflict

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      President Emmanuel Macron of France called for an “immediate and lasting” cease-fire in Lebanon and said countries should stop shipping weapons to Israel for use in Gaza, adding to international pressure on Israel to do more to protect civilians and work toward an end to fighting in the region.“The priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering arms for fighting in Gaza,” Mr. Macron said on the French radio show “Etcetera” during an episode that was recorded earlier in the week and that aired Saturday. France is not currently delivering any weapons to Israel, he said.“I think we are not being heard,” he said of calls for a cease-fire, adding “and I consider it a mistake, also for Israel’s security.”Later on Saturday, at a summit of French-speaking countries, Mr. Macron announced that 88 Francophone countries voted unanimously to call for a cease-fire in Lebanon as part of a commitment to de-escalate tensions in the region. The United States, Egypt, Qatar and other countries have spent months trying to cobble together a cease-fire in Gaza, but they haven’t been able to get Hamas and Israel to agree. A U.S. and French-led effort to establish a temporary cease-fire in Lebanon stalled as well.In a statement late Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel dismissed France’s call to stop selling Israel weapons for the war in Gaza.“Shame on them,” he said, pointing to both France and other Western nations who have called for arms embargoes against Israel. He added, “Let me tell you this, Israel will win with or without their support.”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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      Yazidi Woman Taken Captive by ISIS Has Been Rescued in Gaza, Israel Says

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      The Israeli military said on Thursday that it rescued a 21-year-old Yazidi woman who had been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip after being captured by ISIS in Iraq as a child more than a decade ago, describing the operation as a “complex operation” involving the United States, Jordan and others.The woman, Fawzia Amin Sido, appeared to be “more or less” in fine physical shape but was “not in a good mental situation,” said Brig. Gen. Elad Goren, who leads the Israeli military’s humanitarian-civilian effort in the Gaza Strip, in a briefing with reporters on Thursday. He said that she had endured significant trauma over a long period, including rape and abuse. She received food and basic treatment in Israel, he said, and U.S. officials then escorted her to Jordan by car, from which she was returned to her family in Iraq. An Israeli diplomat, David Saranga, posted a video on social media showing Ms. Sido’s return, and said her captor was “a Palestinian Hamas-ISIS member.” The New York Times has not verified the video.Ms. Sido and her family could not be contacted for comment. A screen grab from a video posted on Thursday on the X account of an Israeli diplomat, showing Fawzia Amin Sido, 21, reuniting with her family in Iraq.via ReutersGeneral Goren said that the Israeli military had learned about her situation based on intelligence, and that the Israeli authorities engaged the United States for more information. Israel and the United States then began planning the operation, which added the cooperation of Jordan, and other unnamed international partners, he said. Ms. Sido was sold by an ISIS operative more than 10 years ago to a member of Hamas who took her to the Gaza Strip, possibly through the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian border, General Goren said. That timing suggests she was initially captured when ISIS overran northern Iraq in 2014 and carried out what the United Nations has deemed a genocide against the Yazidi, an ethno-religious minority. Her captor in Gaza was killed, General Goren said, likely by an Israeli airstrike, and Ms. Sido fled and hid. He did not specify when that occurred, but said that it was at that point that the Israeli authorities learned of her existence, confirmed it with Americans and planned the rescue operation. She was taken out of Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, another entry point at Gaza’s southern border. The Yazidis were targeted by the Islamic State, or ISIS, in August 2014, when ISIS captured about one-third of northern Iraq and large swaths of territory in neighboring Syria. Up to 10,000 Yazidis were killed; about 400,000 were displaced from their homes in Iraq’s remote, mountainous Sinjar district; and more than 6,000 were enslaved, most of them women and children, according to Yazda, a nonprofit group created in the wake of the onslaught to aid Yazidis.Many of the enslaved Yazidis were sold in slave markets in Syrian cities, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian agency.In 2015, Sinjar was captured from ISIS by Kurdish forces and Yazidi fighters with the backing of American air power. Rawan Sheikh Ahmad More

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      Israeli Strikes on Gaza Schools and an Orphanage Kill Scores of Palestinians

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      Israeli forces stepped up their attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, killing scores of people at several schools and homes across the enclave and at an orphanage sheltering displaced civilians, local officials and the Gaza Health Ministry said.An Israeli military operation that began in several parts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, early on Wednesday morning killed at least 51 people and injured 82 by midafternoon, the Health Ministry said. Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that the operation had included an incursion by Israeli ground troops as well as intense airstrikes, and that several women and children were among the dead.In the north, near Gaza City, at least eight people were killed and several others injured by Israeli bombardment of an orphanage building owned by al-Amal Institute for Orphans where hundreds of displaced civilians were staying, the institute said in a statement. A majority of those sheltering in the building, which was heavily damaged by the attack, were women and children, the institute said.An injured man comforting a woman during a funeral for victims killed by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on Wednesday.Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd across the enclave, the Israeli military said it had bombed four school buildings during the day. The strikes killed at least 17 people at a school east of Gaza City, and at least five people at a school sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, the Palestinian Civil Defense said.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the locations of the other two schools. The military said, without providing evidence, that all four schools were being used as Hamas command and control centers — a claim it has repeatedly made to justify increasingly frequent strikes on school buildings in Gaza.The strikes on the schools and orphanage on Wednesday were condemned by the French Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that the Israeli forces had “repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure where people are seeking refuge.” Action on Armed Violence, an advocacy group that focuses on the effect that conflict has on civilians, said in a new analysis on Tuesday that, on average, explosive Israeli weapons had hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza every three hours since the war began. More

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      Saudi Arabia Pledges to Send Financial Aid to Palestine

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      Saudi Arabia has pledged to send financial aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, reversing a decision made during the Trump administration to slash funding to the governing body that administers some areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.The promise of a cash infusion won’t resolve the authority’s financial woes, but it reflects the improved relationship between Saudi Arabia and Palestinian leaders, which frayed during the Trump era. It is also a sign that the kingdom is strengthening its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state at a time when the Saudis appear to have shifted their tone on normalizing relations with Israel.For months, the Biden administration and its allies have warned that the Palestinian Authority’s dire financial straits could foreshadow another escalation in the West Bank. Israeli forces have been stepping up raids targeting militants in which they ripped up roads and wrecked shops and homes in the territory.The Saudi foreign ministry announced on Sunday night that it would send a monthly aid package to the country’s “brothers in Palestine” to alleviate the “humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its surrounding areas,” without specifying the amount or intended recipients. The commitment was made during a recent visit by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Saudi Arabia, according to one of his aides.“Prince Mohammed affirmed to the president, Abu Mazen, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinian people politically and materially,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas. Mr. al-Habbash was referring to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Mr. Abbas, using his nickname.Saudi Arabia has agreed to deliver $60 million to the Palestinian Authority in six installments, with the first payment expected in the coming days, according to a senior Palestinian Authority official.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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      A Strike in Central Beirut Damages a Building

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      If the explosion is confirmed to be an Israeli attack, it would be the first Israeli strike within the Lebanese capital since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.Footage showed emergency personnel responding to the strike on the Cola neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon.Fadel Itani/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEmergency crews in Beirut were working early Monday in an area of the city where an apparent Israeli airstrike damaged a residential building, The Associated Press reported.If Israel is confirmed to be behind the attack, it would be the first known Israeli strike within Beirut since Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, a militia backed by Iran. Israel has been stepping up its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two weeks, killing its leader and striking targets nearly daily.The A.P. released videos from the Lebanese capital on Monday that showed people and emergency workers gathering below a damaged multistory building in the largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Cola. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.A militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that three of its members had been killed in the strike in Cola. That claim by the group, which is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago, could not be independently verified.The intensifying cadence of Israeli strikes has stretched deep into Lebanon. Israel has said that most have been directed at Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed late Friday by Israeli bombs. But the military has also hit other groups, including a strike against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.Euan Ward More