Israel-Gaza War (2023- )

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      Outside Israel’s Parliament, Protesters Explain Why Netanyahu Must Go

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      Hundreds of small silver tents were clustered on the pavement outside Israel’s Parliament in Jerusalem on Monday, stretching at least a city block. Many had Israeli flags taped to their roofs, along with stickers bearing slogans. “There is no greater mitzvah than the reception of captives,” reads one. Another is more to the point, saying simply: “ELECTIONS.”The tents are temporary homes for some of the thousands of Israelis who began a four-day protest on Sunday night calling for early elections to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many of them believe he has put his political survival ahead of the broader interests of the Israeli people.Another night of protest was not long off, and the encamped demonstrators were resting and preparing. Some dozed in tents or relaxed in the shade of trees.When asked why he had camped out overnight, Haggai Schwartz, 47, said there were “too many issues” with the current Israeli government. And the events of Oct. 7 — a date emblazoned on his black T-shirt, above a large drop of blood — made the need for change all the more urgent, he said.“The government of Israel’s first responsibility is for the security of its citizens,” he said. “And they failed — completely failed.”Mr. Schwartz said he wanted the government to take responsibility for those failures. “So far they don’t,” he said. “So we call for elections.”Ronen Raz, 66, said he was tired of protests — “but there’s no other choice.”Sitting in the shade at a bus stop next to an empty coffee cup, Mr. Raz said he had been protesting against the government since 2020 and would stay through this protest — “or until Bibi falls down.”Sunday night’s protest was one of the largest since the start of the war, but appeared smaller than the demonstrations at the peak of a wave of anti-government demonstrations last year, a wave that Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition survived.On Monday afternoon, Lee Nevo, 45, crouched with a paintbrush over a long white banner spread on the ground. Bubble letters spelled out “IMAGINING PEACE” in Hebrew, and she was filling in a letter with purple paint. She said she was inspired by the crowds on Sunday night.“It gives us hope that something is going to change actually,” Ms. Nevo said.The first thing that needs to change, she said, is the government — and Oct. 7 made clear that this could not wait. Behind her, posters with the names and photos of hostages held in Gaza hung along the metal fence: Arbel Yehoud, 28; Karina Ariev, 19; Dror Or, 48; Yoram Metzger, 80. “We have to bring them back,” she said.“Out there nobody cares about the hostages,” Ms. Nevo added, gesturing to the Knesset, the Parliament building, behind her. “The only thing they care about is staying in the government.”Gabby Sobelman More

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      Israeli Protests Against Netanyahu Intensify as Cease-Fire Talks Resume

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      Thousands have taken to the streets of Israel to demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be replaced.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced growing challenges to power on Sunday as thousands gathered outside Parliament to call for early elections in what were shaping up to be one of the largest demonstrations against the government in Israel since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip.Some protesters carried signs calling for Mr. Netanyahu’s “immediate removal.” Others wielded posters calling for elections, saying “those who destroyed can’t be the ones to fix.”The protest came a day after thousands took to the streets of Tel Aviv, waving flags and carrying pictures of the Israeli hostages with signs reading “Hostage deal now.”Elad Dreifuss, a 25-year-old university student demonstrating in Jerusalem on Sunday, said that protesting against the government at a time of war was a difficult decision, but that “if the government can’t live up to its responsibility, something has to change.”Protesters rallying in front of Israel’s Parliament called for early elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.Ilan Rosenberg/ReutersThe protests in Jerusalem, which were planned to continue through Wednesday, came as in-person talks resumed in Cairo concerning a possible cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Bassem Naim, a spokesman for Hamas, said the group had not sent a delegation there.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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      Palestinian Christians Mark Easter in Gaza’s Only Catholic Church

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      The only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip held somber Easter celebrations on Sunday for hundreds of displaced Palestinian Christians who have been sheltering within its compound since the war began nearly six months ago.The Holy Family Church is in Gaza City, in the northern part of the strip, an area that has suffered some of the heaviest Israeli bombardment since October and where the global authority on food security says a full-scale famine is imminent.Children ride their bikes past the Holy Family church compound on Sunday. Church officials said Israeli rockets hit a convent on the compound in December and rendered it uninhabitable.Mohamed Hajjar/EPA, via ShutterstockThe families who have taken refuge at the church have been “scraping to get by” for months with limited food and “almost nonexistent” medical supplies — the same as all Palestinians in northern Gaza, including Muslims celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, said Father Davide Meli, the chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. “It’s a high holiday for all of us,” he said.The priest of the Holy Family parish, Father Gabriel Romanelli, was in Bethlehem when the war began on Oct. 7, and Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied him permission to return to Gaza, according to Father Meli.The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA nun prays during Easter Mass at the Holy Family Church.Dawoud Abu Alkas/ReutersMore than 500 people are sheltering at the Holy Family Church and approximately 300 others are at the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church nearby, Father Meli said. Together, he added, they make up the vast majority of Gaza’s tiny and tight-knit Christian population.Both churches have been attacked during the war. An Israeli airstrike killed 18 people at the Saint Porphyrius church in October, according to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack as a war crime. The Israeli military later said it was targeting a nearby building.Hundreds of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter at the church in northern Gaza.Mohamed Hajjar/EPA, via ShutterstockAt the Holy Family Church in December, Israeli snipers killed a mother and daughter inside the church compound and injured seven others who rushed to help them, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Church officials said Israeli rockets also hit a convent within the compound earlier that day, destroying the building’s sole generator and leaving some of the dozens of disabled people living there without working respirators that they needed to survive.The Israeli military denied knowledge of the incident, which Pope Francis condemned as an attack on a church “where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters.” He called for an immediate cease-fire in his Easter address on Sunday. More

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      Rep. Tim Walberg Says Gaza ‘Should Be Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’

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      A Republican House member from Michigan openly mused during a town hall last week about wiping out Gaza, telling his constituents that “it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”“Get it over quick,” Representative Tim Walberg said, according to a video that emerged online from the March 25 event in Dundee, Mich.His remarks, invoking the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan during World War II while discussing his opposition to U.S. humanitarian aid for Gaza, drew swift condemnation, including at least one call for his resignation. He said that his remarks were taken out of context and that the clip showed only part of his response.Justin Amash, a former House G.O.P. colleague in Michigan and a Palestinian American, denounced Mr. Walberg for his comments, writing on X on Saturday that they “evince an utter indifference to human suffering.“The people of Gaza are our fellow human beings — many of them children trapped in horrific circumstances beyond their individual control,” Mr. Amash wrote. “For him to suggest that hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians should be obliterated, including my own relatives sheltering at an Orthodox Christian church, is reprehensible and indefensible.”Mr. Amash, the only sitting Republican member of Congress to support President Trump’s first impeachment, left the Republican Party in 2019 while facing attacks by Mr. Trump. Mr. Amash is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan.In a post on X on Sunday morning, Mr. Walberg, 72, a former pastor and a longtime House member who represents southern Michigan, sought to clean up his remarks and accused his critics of twisting his words.“As a child who grew up in the Cold War Era, the last thing I’d advocate for would be the use of nuclear weapons,” he wrote. “In a shortened clip, I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm’s way.”Mr. Walberg’s office also provided an audio recording and a transcript of the exchange that prompted his remarks. He had been asked why the United States was spending money to build a pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.“We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said, according to the recording. “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick. The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick. Instead of 80 percent of our funding for Ukraine being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80 percent, 100 percent to wipe out Russian forces, if that’s what we want to do.” More

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      Pope Francis, in Easter Message, Calls for Gaza Cease-Fire

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      Pope Francis’ decisions to reduce his participation in two major Holy Week events had raised fears about his health.Amid renewed concerns about his health, Pope Francis presided over Easter Sunday Mass, and with a hoarse but strong voice, he delivered a major annual message that touched on conflicts across the globe, with explicit appeals for peace in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine.The appearance came after the pope decided to reduce his participation in two major Holy Week events, seemingly at the last minute.Those decisions seemed to represent a new phase in a more than 11-year papacy throughout which Francis has made the acceptance of the limits that challenge and shape humanity a constant theme. Now, he seems to have entered a period in which he is himself scaling back to observe, and highlight, the limits imposed by his own health constraints, and to conserve strength for the most critical moments.On Sunday after the Mass, Francis took a prolonged spin in his popemobile around St. Peter’s Square before ascending to a balcony overlooking it to deliver his traditional Easter message.“Let us not allow the strengthening winds of war to blow on Europe and the Mediterranean,” he said to the tens of thousands of faithful, dignitaries, Swiss Guards and clergy filling the square.Priests attending the Easter Mass.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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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      Netanyahu to Undergo Hernia Surgery at Critical Moment

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will undergo surgery on Sunday night to treat a hernia, his office said in a statement.The operation comes at a time when Mr. Netanyahu is under mounting pressure as the war in Gaza drags on and international calls for a cease-fire grow louder.Mr. Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with a hernia during a “routine examination” on Saturday night. The prime minister decided in consultation with his doctors to have an operation, it said in a statement, adding that the surgery would take place on Sunday evening “under full anesthesia.”“Justice Minister Yariv Levin will be temporarily taking over his duties,” the statement said. Mr. Levin is a longtime stalwart in the prime minister’s Likud party.Mr. Netanyahu has come under increasing criticism both on the world stage and at home over how Israel is prosecuting the war in the Gaza Strip. Key allies like the United States have criticized the high civilian death toll and have called on Israel to urgently allow more aid into the enclave.In Israel, protesters have been demanding that Mr. Netanyahu prioritize the release of hostages held in Gaza and strike a deal for a cease-fire. Israel’s war cabinet is expected to convene later on Sunday to discuss issues around the latest cease-fire negotiations; it was not immediately clear if Mr. Netanyahu would be able to attend.But just hours before his scheduled surgery, Mr. Netanyahu met in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon with families of soldiers held captive in Gaza, according to his office.Mr. Netanyahu is also facing sharp criticism from his far-right coalition partners over any indication that he is hesitating in the war against Hamas or in the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. More

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      What a New York Times Photographer Saw on a Gaza Airdrop

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      The huge rear gate of the Jordanian air force cargo plane slowly lowers like a stiff iron jaw, revealing a hazy blue sky and, far below, the battered landscape of northern Gaza.Inside the plane’s cavernous hold, the aid being delivered by the crew is lined up in neat rows: chest-high bundles of boxes stacked atop wooden pallets, each one bound by shrink-wrap and heavy straps and marked with images of Jordan’s flag.Now, as the light and the sound rush in, the bundles slide down rollers in the floor and disappear out the door, floating down under billowing parachutes as a silent, and most likely inadequate, offering to the desperate population below.With humanitarian groups and others sounding the alarm over a looming famine in northern Gaza and hunger widespread throughout the territory, airdrops are playing a prominent role in efforts to deliver food, water and urgent supplies to Palestinians.On Thursday, the Jordanian air force allowed a photographer for The New York Times on one of its planes to observe the airdrop of bundles of aid across northern Gaza. The trip, taking off and returning from Jordan’s King Abdullah II air base, east of Amman, took several hours.A member of Jordan’s air force checking aid packages.Pallets of relief supplies, marked with Jordan’s flag, ready to be loaded.A Jordanian soldier heading toward the plane before the air drop.An aid package starting to fall from the plane, with its attached parachute beginning to open.Countries including Jordan, the United States, Britain and France say the drops are helping compensate for a steep fall in the amount of aid entering Gaza by truck since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel, and Israel responded with a monthslong military assault.The United Nations and aid groups have complained that deliveries by truck are being slowed by Israel’s insistence on inspecting all supplies going into Gaza. Most aid trucks have been allowed in through just two border crossings — one from Egypt and one from Israel — in southern Gaza.Israel has maintained that disorganization among aid groups is responsible for slow deliveries of aid to Palestinians and that much of the aid is diverted to Hamas or the black market, though it is not possible to verify those claims.One of the few alternatives is dropping supplies from the sky, a process that takes only minutes in the air but extensive bureaucracy and hours of preparation on the ground.The dozens of pallets pushed out of the planes on Thursday included thousands of meals, the Jordanians said. But airdrops are inefficient and expensive, humanitarian officials say, with even big military cargo planes delivering less than a single convoy of trucks could.And the airdrops can be dangerous: This week, Gazan authorities said 12 people drowned while trying to retrieve assistance that had fallen into the ocean. Part of northern Gaza, as seen from the Jordanian military plane. More

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      Germany, a Loyal Israel Ally, Begins to Shift Tone as Gaza Toll Mounts

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      Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany, but the worsening crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far.Days after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv. Standing beside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that Germany had “only one place — and it is alongside Israel.”That place now feels increasingly awkward for Germany, Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, and a nation whose leadership calls support for the country a “Staatsraison,” a national reason for existence, as a way of atoning for the Holocaust.Last week, with Israel’s deadly offensive continuing in Gaza, the chancellor again stood next to Mr. Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, and struck a different tone. “No matter how important the goal,” he asked, “can it justify such terribly high costs?”With international outrage growing over a death toll that Gazan health authorities say exceeds 32,000, and the looming prospect of famine in the enclave, German officials have begun to question whether their country’s support has gone too far.“What changed for Germany is that it’s untenable, this unconditional support for Israel,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “In sticking to this notion of Staatsraison, they gave the false impression that Germany actually offered carte blanche to Netanyahu.”Standing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu days after the Oct. 7. attacks, Mr. Scholz declared that Germany had “only one place — and it is alongside Israel.”Pool photo by Maya AlleruzzoWe 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