Israel-Gaza War (2023- )

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      Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel from Lebanon

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      Hamas’s military wing said on Monday that it had launched a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, an apparent attempt by the group to signal that it is still capable of striking within Israel’s borders even as it studies the latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said in a statement that it had targeted an Israeli military position in Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in Israel’s far north, with a “concentrated rocket barrage” from southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement that most of the roughly 20 launches that crossed the border had been intercepted, and that it had responded by striking the source of fire. There were no injuries or damage, the military said.Though Hamas is based in Gaza, many of its leaders are exiled in Lebanon, where the group has a sizable presence and operates largely out of Palestinian refugee camps. Since the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, Hamas has occasionally launched rocket attacks into northern Israel from within Lebanon’s borders, though its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has launched far more. Both groups are backed by Iran. Israel has also targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon in deadly strikes.Walid al Kilani, Hamas’s spokesman in Lebanon, said the attack was “the minimum duty” given Israel’s continued attacks in Gaza. “We know that Hezbollah is doing its duty and more, but the battlefield requires everyone to participate,” Mr. Kilani said.The launches on Monday, although muted in their impact, highlighted Hamas’s continuing ability to threaten Israel with rocket fire despite more than 200 days of a devastating Israeli air and ground offensive that has decimated the group’s military capabilities in Gaza. Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the attack was likely an attempt by Hamas to signal that it was “still part of the fight.” While it was largely symbolic, it could also be a means to apply pressure amid the Gaza cease-fire negotiations, he said.Data compiled by the online website Rocket Alert — which tracks warnings of rocket launches using Israeli military figures — shows that there were just 37 alerts in April in response to detected rocket fire from Gaza, compared to around 7,300 in October at the onset of the war. More than six months into the conflict, the data shows a significant drop-off in the number of warnings of rockets from Gaza.Alerts indicating rocket fire from Lebanon, however, have remained largely steady, the data shows. Most of those are launched by Hezbollah, but Hamas continues to launch attacks from Lebanon with Hezbollah’s blessing.Amin Hoteit, a military analyst and former brigadier general in the Lebanese army, said the latest attack was a sign of the “integrated front of operations” among Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in the region.Hwaida Saad More

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      PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.

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      All strong institutions stand to benefit from internal dissent and external pressures. But too often, recent efforts to reform institutions have meant reconstituting them in ways that distort or fundamentally undermine their core mission.Nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, university departments and cultural institutions have ousted leaders and sent their staffs into turmoil in pursuit of progressive political goals. In the wake of the 2016 election and the 2020 murder of George Floyd and in a rush to apply sweeping “In this house we believe” standards unilaterally, organizations have risked overt politicization, mission drift, irrelevance and even dissolution. And now the war in Gaza is ripping its way across American universities.The latest target is PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression by journalists and authors. Last week, after an increasingly aggressive boycott campaign by some of its members, PEN canceled its annual World Voices Festival, which was conceived by Salman Rushdie and was to mark its 20th anniversary in May. This followed a refusal by several writers to have their work considered for PEN’s annual literary awards. The ceremony awarding those prizes was also canceled.An open letter sent to PEN America’s board and trustees and republished on Literary Hub, now the de facto clearinghouse for pro-Palestinian literary-world sentiment, accused the organization of “implicit support of the Israeli occupation” and of “aiding and abetting genocide.” It demanded the resignation of PEN’s longtime C.E.O., Suzanne Nossel, and current president, Jennifer Finney Boylan. According to its 21 signatories, mostly up-and-coming authors, “among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”In response and in keeping with its mission of independence and free expression, PEN America accepted the writers’ willingness to voice their conscience. It has also made clear that there is room for more than one point of view on what constitutes genocide and on the current conflict in Gaza.“As an organization open to all writers, we see no alternative but to remain home to this diversity of opinions and perspectives, even if, for some, that very openness becomes reason to exit,” PEN America stated in an open letter to its community.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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      Israeli Officials Believe I.C.C. Is Preparing Arrest Warrants Over Hamas War

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      Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials.The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.The Israeli officials did not disclose the nature of the information that led them to be concerned about potential I.C.C. action, and the court did not comment on the matter.Arrest warrants from the court would probably be seen in much of the world as a humbling moral rebuke, particularly to Israel, which for months has faced international backlash over its conduct in Gaza, including from President Biden, who called it “over the top.”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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      With Israel Poised to Invade Rafah, Negotiators Try Again for Cease-Fire Deal

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      Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was headed to Saudi Arabia in search of an agreement that would pause the fighting and free hostages held by Hamas.As international diplomats converged in the Middle East on Sunday seeking a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, Israel wrestled with whether to go forward with a ground invasion of Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion in the enclave, according to Israeli officials and analysts.Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they plan to move into Rafah, but over the weekend, they made clear they were open to holding off if it meant they could secure the release of Israeli hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said Sunday that while “entering Rafah is important for the long battle against Hamas,” freeing the remaining hostages, whose number is estimated at about 100, “is urgent and much more important.”As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed for Saudi Arabia on Sunday to meet with officials from a half-dozen Arab nations, an American official said Mr. Blinken’s top priority was a cease-fire deal that would include the release of all hostages.“It would allow for all those hostages to get out,” John Kirby, the U.S. national security spokesman, said on the ABC News program “This Week.” “And to, of course, allow for easier aid access in places in Gaza, particularly in the north. So he’s going to be working at that very, very hard.”Israel has been under intense international pressure — including from the United States — not to invade Rafah, in Gaza’s south, where more than a million Palestinians have fled the war and are already living in dire conditions.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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      World Central Kitchen Will Resume Operations in Gaza

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      The World Central Kitchen said on Sunday that it would resume operations in Gaza with a local team of Palestinian aid workers, nearly a month after the Israeli military killed seven of the organization’s workers in targeted drone strikes on their convoy.Israeli military officials have said the attack was a “grave mistake” and cited a series of failures, including a breakdown in communication and violations of the military’s operating procedures.The Washington-based aid group said that it was still calling for an independent, international investigation into the April 1 attack and that it had received “no concrete assurances” that the Israeli military’s operational procedures had changed. But the “humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire,” the aid group’s chief operating officer, Erin Gore, said in a statement.“We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible,” she said.The aid group said it had distributed more than 43 million meals in Gaza so far and that it had trucks carrying the equivalent of nearly eight million meals waiting to enter the enclave through the Rafah crossing in the south. World Central Kitchen said it was also planning to send trucks to Gaza through Jordan and that it would open a kitchen in Al-Mawasi, a small seaside village that the Israeli military designated as a “humanitarian zone” safe for civilians, though attacks there have continued.Six of the seven workers killed on April 1 were from Western nations — three from Britain, one from Australia, one from Poland and one with dual citizenship of the United States and Canada. The seventh was Palestinian. They were killed in back-to-back Israeli drone strikes on their vehicles as they traveled toward Rafah after unloading food aid that had arrived by sea.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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      College Protests Over Gaza Deepen Democratic Rifts

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      Scenes of chaos unfolding on campuses across the country are stoking internal divisions and carry political risk as a major election year unfolds.Nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, the demonstrations convulsing college campuses nationwide are exposing fresh tensions within the Democratic Party over how to balance free speech protections and support for Gazans with concerns that some Jewish Americans are raising about antisemitism.From New York and Los Angeles to Atlanta and Austin, a surge in student activism has manifested in protest encampments and other demonstrations, drawing significant police crackdowns and sometimes appearing to attract outside agitators. The protests also have emerged as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war.As scenes of campus turmoil play out across the country in the final days of the school year, the moment also carries political risk for a party that has harnessed promises of stability and normalcy to win critical recent elections, and faces a challenging battle for control of the government in the fall.“The real question is, can the Democrats again portray themselves as the steady hand at the helm?” said Dan Sena, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Things that create national chaos like this make that harder to do.”Mr. Sena and other Democrats have argued that Americans have good reason to associate their opponents with chaos: Former President Donald J. Trump faces multiple criminal cases; the narrow, fractious House Republican majority has its own divisions concerning Israel and free speech; some Republicans have urged National Guard deployments to college campuses; and for years, Republicans have faced criticism over antisemitism in their own ranks.But since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military response that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to local authorities, the fight over American policy toward Israel has been especially pronounced on the left.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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      More Than 170 Protesters Arrested at Northeastern and Arizona State University

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      The police made arrests at Northeastern University, Arizona State and Indiana University on Saturday, as more schools move in on encampments protesting the war in Gaza.Nearly 200 protesters were arrested on Saturday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University, according to officials, as colleges across the country struggle to quell growing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on campus.More than 700 protesters have been arrested on U.S. campuses since April 18, when Columbia University had the New York Police Department clear a protest encampment there. In several cases, most of those who were arrested have been released. More

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      Blinken to Meet With Arab Officials in Saudi Arabia About Israel-Gaza War

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      The U.S. secretary of state plans to raise the issues of hostages held by Hamas, a potential cease-fire, humanitarian aid and a long-term political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday to speak with top Arab officials and try to figure out possible solutions for the thorniest issues of the Israel-Gaza war, including humanitarian aid, reconstruction and hostages, the State Department said on Saturday.One of Mr. Blinken’s priorities on Monday and Tuesday will be discussing “ongoing efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages,” a department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Blinken would underscore his belief that it is Hamas that stands in the way of a cease-fire for the Palestinian people, since the group is not budging on the hostage negotiations.Saudi Arabia is hosting a three-day meeting of the World Economic Forum, and top Arab officials, including Mr. Blinken’s diplomatic counterparts, are attending. They include senior ministers from Qatar and Egypt, which have been the two Arab mediators in multiple rounds of talks over a potential hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas.The forum’s website says Mr. Blinken will be in a half-hour public “conversation” starting at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, the final day of the conference.American officials are pushing for Hamas to release about 40 of the 100 or more hostages it is holding in exchange for the liberation of many more Palestinian prisoners and a six-week cease-fire. U.S. officials say that would be the first step in securing a permanent cease-fire, and Israel supports the proposal. However, Hamas has insisted on a commitment to a permanent cease-fire, and many Arab officials, including in Saudi Arabia, have been calling for the same; those officials say that such a cease-fire should take place immediately.Posters of hostages who were taken on Oct. 7 are displayed in Tel Aviv. American officials are pushing for Hamas to release about 40 of the 100 or more people it is still holding. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesWe 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