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      Gaza Debate Reopens Divisions Between Left-Wing Workers and Union Leaders

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      Last week’s Democratic National Convention surfaced differences over the war in Gaza that could widen fissures between labor activists and union officials.When members of the Chicago Teachers Union showed up to march at the Democratic National Convention last week, many expressed two distinct frustrations.The first was over the war in Gaza, which they blamed for chewing up billions of dollars in aid to Israel that they said could be better spent on students, in addition to a staggering loss of life. The second was disappointment with their parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, which they felt should go further in pressuring the Biden administration to rein in Israel’s military campaign.“I was disappointed in the resolution on Israel and Palestine because it didn’t call for an end to armed shipments,” said Kirstin Roberts, a preschool teacher who attended the protest, alluding to a statement that the parent union endorsed at its convention in July.Since last fall, many rank-and-file union members have been outspoken in their criticism of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,000 people and took about 250 hostages. The leaders of many national unions have appeared more cautious, at times emphasizing the precipitating role of Hamas.“We were very careful about what a moral stance was and also what the implications of every word we wrote was,” the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said of the resolution her union recently adopted.In some ways, this divide reflects tensions over Israel and Gaza that exist within many institutions — like academia, the media and government.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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      Jenin, a Target of Israeli Raids, Is a Symbol of Rebellion for Palestinians

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      Jenin, a focal point of Israel’s wide-ranging raid into the West Bank on Wednesday, is a potent symbol of rebellion and militancy for Palestinians after decades of fighting against occupying powers.That history dates back to British rule of Palestine during what was known as the Arab Revolt of the 1930s, and through the 1948 Arab-Israeli war surrounding the creation of the modern Israel and triggered the flight or expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.But Jenin’s resonance today, both for Palestinians and Israelis, largely stems from the second intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation in the early 2000s.Israelis remember Jenin, which sits in the rolling hillsides of the northern West Bank, as a source of dozens of suicide bombers sent into Israel at that time.Palestinians remember a 10-day battle, known as the Battle of Jenin, in 2002 between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. Israel killed 52 people, of which up to half may have been civilians, according to the United Nations in a report on the event. The fighting killed 23 Israeli soldiers.Yasir Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, dubbed the camp “Jeningrad,” a reference to the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.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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      Hostage Rescued in Gaza as Israeli Airstrikes Kill Scores of Palestinians

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      A Bedouin Arab citizen of Israel was rescued after Israeli commandos found him alone in an underground warren, apparently abandoned by his captors.An elite Israeli military unit rescued a frail and gaunt hostage from a tunnel deep beneath the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the eighth living captive to be freed by Israeli troops in nearly 11 months of war and the first to be found alive in the subterranean labyrinth used by Hamas.The rescue came amid Israeli airstrikes across Gaza that Palestinian emergency services said killed at least 20 people. At one of the bombing sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, emergency crews frantically searched for survivors trapped under a collapsed building.The rescued hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, 52, a member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority, was freed by commandos without a fight after being discovered in a room roughly 25 yards underground, Israeli officials said. More than 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom are now presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, portrayed the operation to rescue Mr. al-Qadi, as “complex and brave.” He said the soldiers reached him after “precise intelligence” was collected by Israel’s security services.But that account was at odds with details provided by two senior Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. al-Qadi, the Israeli officials said, was found by chance during an operation to capture a Hamas tunnel network. A team led by Flotilla 13, Israel’s equivalent to the U.S. Navy SEALs, were combing the tunnels for signs of Hamas when, to the forces’ surprise, they found Mr. al-Qadi on his own, without guards, the officials 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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      As Polio Vaccines Arrive in Gaza, Distributing Them Is the Next Challenge

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      Polio vaccines arrived in Gaza on Monday, kicking off an expansive effort to vaccinate more than 640,000 Palestinian children and curb a potential outbreak, the United Nations, Israel and health authorities in Gaza said, after the first confirmed case of the disease in the territory in 25 years.The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, said it was bringing in 1.2 million doses of polio vaccine for children in Gaza in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, and other groups.The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed on Monday that the vaccines had reached Gaza and that preparations to launch the vaccination campaign for children under 10 were underway. It was not immediately clear how quickly the vaccines could be distributed to vaccination centers in Gaza, where continued hostilities and bombardment have hindered humanitarian efforts during 10 months of war.The ministry warned that inoculations alone could not be effective, amid a lack of clean water and personal hygiene supplies, and issues with sewage and waste collection in overcrowded areas where displaced families were sheltering. It said medical teams would need to spread out across the territory, “which requires an urgent cease-fire.”Children walking near garbage and raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al Balah in central Gaza this month.Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe W.H.O. chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement on Thursday that a 10-month-old child in Gaza had contracted polio and become paralyzed in one leg. The virus had been found last month in wastewater samples, but this was the first confirmed case in Gaza in a quarter-century.COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry’s agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement on Monday that the vaccines had been delivered to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. The agency added that the campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses” that it observes, which it said would allow Palestinians to reach vaccination centers.In June, Israel announced that it would observe partial daily suspensions of its military activity in areas of Gaza, calling them humanitarian pauses, saying they were aimed at making it safer for humanitarian groups to deliver aid in the territory. According to UNICEF, at least 95 percent of children will need to receive both doses of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of its re-emergence, “given the severely disrupted health, water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip.”UNICEF and the W.H.O. in a statement called on “all parties to the conflict” to implement a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow “children and families to safely reach health facilities” for the doses. The statement added that “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”Philippe Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA, said on Friday that the agency’s medical teams would distribute the vaccines at its clinics and through its mobile health teams. He added that “delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children.”Rawan Sheikh Ahmad More

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      Blinken Travels to Israel Amid Push for Gaza Cease-Fire

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautioned that the negotiations were “very complex,” as the secretary of state flew to Israel to try to clinch a deal. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was heading to Israel on Sunday to try to clinch a deal that could end the war in Gaza, even as the Middle East remained on edge amid the looming threat of wider regional conflict.The visit, part of an intensive diplomatic campaign led by the Biden administration, comes days after Israel’s negotiating team held talks in Qatar with senior American officials, as well as Qatari and Egyptian representatives who are mediating between Israel and Hamas.Those talks ended without a major breakthrough, but the White House said on Friday that the United States had put forward a “bridging proposal,” with Egyptian and Qatari support, aimed at closing the remaining gaps between the sides. It said that teams would continue to hash out details and that senior negotiators hoped to reconvene in Cairo before the end of this week to finalize an agreement.While the Biden administration had suggested that the process was “now in the end game,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel cautioned on Sunday that the negotiations were “very complex” and called his approach to the talks one of give and take — “not give and give.” “There are things we can be flexible about, and there are things we cannot be flexible about,” he said in remarks recorded at the beginning of his weekly cabinet meeting.“We know very well how to distinguish between the two,” Mr. Netanyahu added, saying that he was insisting on certain principles that he considered vital for Israel’s security.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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      U.S., Egypt and Qatar Say Gaza Cease-Fire Talks Will Resume Next Week

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      Top officials from the U.S., Israel, Egypt and Qatar ended two days of talks in Doha aimed at trying to resolve remaining disagreements between Israel and Hamas.High-level talks to halt the war in Gaza ended without an immediate breakthrough on Friday, but the United States, Egypt and Qatar said the negotiations would continue next week as mediators raced to secure a truce that they hope will avert a wider regional conflagration.The announcement came after top American, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials ended two days of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, aimed at trying to resolve remaining disagreements between Israel and Hamas. U.S. and regional officials hope that movement in the negotiations will blunt or stop a widely anticipated Iranian-led retaliation for the killing of senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, militant groups backed by Iran.U.S., Iranian and Israeli officials said on Friday said that Iran had decided to delay its reprisal against Israel to allow the mediators to continue working toward a cease-fire in Gaza.After the first day of talks ended on Thursday night, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, called the acting Iranian foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, to encourage Iran to refrain from any escalation given the cease-fire talks in Doha, according to two Iranian officials and three other officials familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Mr. Al Thani spoke with Mr. Bagheri Kani again on Friday, and both officials “stressed the need for calm and de-escalation in the region,” according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Mr. Bagheri Kani said in a statement that the Qatari prime minister had described the cease-fire negotiations on Thursday as being at a “sensitive” phase.On Friday, Egypt, Qatar and the United States said in a joint statement that the mediators had presented Israel and Hamas with “a bridging proposal” consistent with the terms laid out by President Biden on May 31 and later endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.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 Criticized After Strike Kills Scores in Gaza

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      Israeli officials defended the attack on a former school compound, saying Hamas was using it as a base for military operations in Gaza City.An Israeli airstrike early Saturday hit a school compound in northern Gaza where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing dozens of people, according to Gazan officials.The Israeli military acknowledged the attack, but said Hamas and another armed Palestinian group were using the facility for military operations and attacks on Israel.The strike in Gaza City, the latest in a string of attacks on schools turned into shelters, drew strong condemnation from the European Union and the United Nations, with Josep Borrell Fontelles, the top E.U. diplomat, saying, “There’s no justification for these massacres.”The strikes have taken place alongside mounting international pressure on Israel to conclude a deal for a cease-fire and an exchange of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian detainees, with President Biden and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar saying this week that “the time has come.”The Gaza Civil Defense emergency service said more than 90 people were killed. But that number could not be confirmed, and two doctors at a hospital in the area gave slightly lower totals. Gaza health officials do not distinguish between civilians and combatants when reporting casualties.The Israeli military did not provide a death toll. But it questioned the Gaza authorities’ statements, saying that its own assessment of the incident was at odds with the reported death toll, and that more than a dozen militants were killed in the strike.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 Launches Another Offensive in Gaza’s South Amid Push for Truce

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      The United States, Egypt and Qatar are trying to restart peace talks between Hamas and Israel, while Israel carries on its operation in Gaza and braces for attacks by Iran and Hezbollah.An Israeli ground assault in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes and shelters, many for a third time or more, even as the United States and some Arab allies pressed both Israel and Hamas to restart peace talks.Between 60,000 and 70,000 people had fled by Thursday evening after the Israeli military ordered people in the city of Khan Younis to leave, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. More continued to flee into the night and into Friday.The Israeli military said its troops were “engaged in combat both above and below-ground” in the Khan Younis area, in an attack involving ground troops, fighter jets, helicopter gunships and paratroopers, and that the air force had struck more than 30 targets. The assault, the military said, was “part of the effort to degrade” Hamas’ capabilities “as they attempt to regroup.”Under a blazing sun, women carrying babies and blankets, men pushing carts and wheelchairs over sandy roads and young children carrying suitcases and backpacks have walked away from homes and shelters and toward unknown destinations. Some were in tears.“People are sleeping in the streets. Children and women are on the ground without mattresses,” Yafa Abu Aker, a resident of Khan Younis and an independent journalist, told The New York Times in a text message.“Death is better,” an older woman said on Thursday, in video from the Reuters news agency. “We’re fed up. We’ve already died. We’re dead.”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