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      Gov. Kathy Hochul Apologizes For Israel-Hamas Analogy to Canada

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      In remarks made at a Jewish philanthropy event, Gov. Kathy Hochul said that if Canada attacked the United States as Hamas did Israel, “there would be no Canada the next day.”Gov. Kathy Hochul apologized on Friday night for remarks she made at a Jewish philanthropy event in New York City that implied that Israel would be justified in destroying Gaza because of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.In a speech on Thursday at the event, for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, Ms. Hochul began by calling out Hamas for being a terrorist organization that “must be stopped,” saying that Israel could not continue to live with “that threat, that specter over them.” She then attempted to make an analogy to the United States, relating the war to her hometown, Buffalo.“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day,” Ms. Hochul said in a video of the speech posted on social media. “That is a natural reaction. You have a right to defend yourself and to make sure that it never happens again. And that is Israel’s right.”In a statement provided to The New York Times on Friday night, after the speech began circulating on social media, Ms. Hochul said that she regretted her “inappropriate analogy.” She apologized for her “poor choice of words.”“While I have been clear in my support of Israel’s right to self-defense, I have also repeatedly said and continue to believe that Palestinian civilian casualties should be avoided and that more humanitarian aid must go to the people of Gaza,” she said.In a post on X, Assemblyman Zohran Kwame Mamdani said: “Governor Hochul justifying genocide, while laughing. Disgusting.”The backlash to the governor’s comments represented new territory for Ms. Hochul, who has rarely courted controversy during her time in office, in stark contrast to her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo.Ms. Hochul had been addressing the annual U.J.A. lawyers division event at the Pierre Hotel. The event was geared toward supporting the foundation’s “critical work in response to mounting needs on the ground in Israel and ongoing needs in New York and around the world,” according to its website.The foundation posted about Ms. Hochul’s remarks later Thursday night on X, thanking her “for always standing with the Jewish community and against antisemitism and hate in New York.”The governor’s speech comes as the war in Gaza is escalating. Israel ramped up its military operations this week along the Gaza-Egypt border, where the vast majority of Gazans have fled during the war. International leaders have warned that the operation could end in catastrophe, with President Emmanuel Macron of France saying that the situation could become an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.” More

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      AME Church Leaders Call for End of U.S. Aid to Israel

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      The African African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishops Council says American financial assistance to help Israel fight its war in Gaza supports “mass genocide.”Leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the country’s oldest and most prominent Black Christian denominations, called this week for the United States to end its financial aid to Israel, saying the monthslong military campaign in Gaza amounted to “mass genocide.”The statement was issued by the church’s Council of Bishops, its executive branch, and signed by four senior bishops, including the council president, Bishop Stafford J. N. Wicker.Black churches and other faith groups have pushed for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war for months in advertisements, open letters and social media campaigns. Black faith leaders across denominations have amplified their calls as the number of dead rises. More than 28,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials there, many of them women and children.But the A.M.E. council’s statement goes further than a cease-fire demand, insisting that the United States immediately stop its financial support of Israel. It came as Israeli forces pushed into southern Gaza and prepared for a ground assault on Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are trapped.The latest war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7, after a Hamas attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. The conflict has been a point of tension between President Biden, who has stood by Israel during the war, and African Americans, many of whom have taken up the Palestinian cause.Several Black clergy members said the war could weaken an already fraught relationship between Mr. Biden and Black voters, Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc. The Black church is viewed as crucial to helping marshal support for Mr. Biden.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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      Netanyahu Condemns B’nei Re’em Shooting That Killed Two Israelis

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      At least two people were killed and four others wounded when a gunman opened fire at a bustling intersection in central Israel on Friday afternoon, the Israeli authorities said.Avi Bitton, an Israeli police commander, said that the attack took place at a bus stop near the town of B’nei Re’em at around 12:30 p.m. The gunman was shot by an armed civilian on the scene and appeared to have acted alone, the Israeli police said, calling it an act of terrorism.Six victims of the attack were taken to hospitals in central Israel where two of them were pronounced dead, according to the Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom.The Israeli authorities did not formally identify the attacker or comment on his condition. The Israeli news media reported that the gunman was a Palestinian from East Jerusalem.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel condemned the attack and extended his condolences to the victims.“This attack reminds us that the entire country is on the front line,” he said in a statement.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s shooting.Israel has been on high alert since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7. In late November, at least three people were killed when Palestinian gunmen who the Israeli authorities said were affiliated with Hamas’s armed wing opened fire at a Jerusalem bus stop.On Friday, Hamas praised the shooting near B’nei Re’em and called it “a natural response” to the war that Israel’s military is waging against the armed group in Gaza.Johnatan Reiss More

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      Palestinians Flee as Israeli Forces Raid Nasser Hospital in Gaza

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      Israel says Hamas routinely operates within — and beneath — places like Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, using them as shields, and has held Israeli hostages there. The group denies the charges.The Israeli military on Thursday raided the largest hospital still functioning in the Gaza Strip, in what it called a search for Hamas fighters and the bodies of hostages. Many people who had sought shelter there were forced to flee from combat once again. Explosions and gunfire rocked the hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the Nasser Medical Complex, before the predawn raid, killing and wounding several people including at least one doctor and a patient, according to a doctor there, as well as the charity Doctors Without Borders, which had staff members at the hospital, and Gaza health authorities. The specific casualty claims, like many assertions in the conflict, could not be immediately confirmed.Videos posted on social media on Thursday and voice messages sent by doctors during the night, both before and after Israeli forces smashed through the perimeter wall and entered the compound, depicted scenes of chaos and fear inside the damaged, smoke-filled hospital, punctuated by automatic gunfire, explosions and shouting.Health care workers shared videos of a chaotic scene at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops raided the hospital and ordered people to evacuate.Obtained by ReutersOne video, verified by The New York Times, showed damage to the hospital and injured people being rushed through a smoke-filled corridor among debris amid sounds of gunfire. Witnesses said people by the hundreds — possibly thousands — later stood in long lines as Israeli troops screened them, a few at a time, for evacuation.The Israeli military said it had detained dozens of people, but did not say who or why.“We have credible intelligence from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser hospital facility,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a video statement.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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      Egypt Warily Eyes Gaza as War Builds Pressure on Its Border

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      Egypt has reinforced its frontier with Gaza and warned Israel that any move that would send Gazans spilling into Egyptian territory could jeopardize their decades-old peace treaty.The pressure on Egypt is building.More than half of Gaza’s population is squeezed into miserable tent cities in Rafah, a small city along Egypt’s border, left with nowhere else to go by Israel’s military campaign. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has threatened to overrun the area, and on Friday, he directed his forces to plan the evacuation of civilians from Rafah to clear the way for a new offensive against Hamas. But it is not clear where those people could go.Rather than opening its border to give Palestinians a refuge from the onslaught, as it has done for people fleeing other conflicts in the region, Egypt has reinforced the frontier with Gaza and warned Israel that any move that would send Gazans spilling into its territory could jeopardize the decades-old Israel-Egypt peace treaty, an anchor of Middle East stability since 1979.Israel’s next steps in the war could force such a breaking point. More

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      Netanyahu Orders Military Evacuation Plan for Rafah in Gaza

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      Many civilians in Rafah are sheltering in rickety tents made of plastic and wood and say there is nowhere left in Gaza to avoid Israeli shelling.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to draw up plans to evacuate Rafah, a Gazan city packed with more than a million people, in advance of an expected ground offensive that has set off international alarm.In a statement announcing the orders on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not give any details of when the evacuations might be carried out, when the Israeli military might enter the city or where people might go. Many civilians in Rafah are sheltering in rickety tents made of plastic and wood and say there is nowhere left in Gaza to avoid Israeli shelling.Mr. Netanyahu’s office said it would be impossible to realize Israel’s goal of smashing Hamas’s rule in Gaza without destroying what it said were the group’s four battalions in Rafah, on Egypt’s border. The military’s “combined plan” would have to both “evacuate the civilian population and topple the battalions,” the statement said.“Any forceful action in Rafah would require the evacuation of the civilian population from combat zones,” it said.Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced the orders less than a day after President Biden issued some of his sharpest criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war, calling it “over the top” and saying the starvation, suffering and killing of civilians had “got to stop.” His criticism, which dominated Israeli news headlines, revealed growing frustration with Mr. Netanyahu as the death toll in Gaza has risen above 27,000, according to the territory’s health officials.After Mr. Netanyahu said this week that he had ordered troops to prepare to enter Rafah, aid agencies, the United Nations and U.S. officials said the prospect of an incursion there was particularly alarming.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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      Biden Calls Israel’s Response in Gaza ‘Over the Top’

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      President Biden criticized Israel’s response in the Gaza Strip as “over the top” on Thursday, while defending U.S. efforts to broker a cease-fire and increase the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the territory.In remarks that were overshadowed by questions over his memory and his mistakenly referring to the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, instead as the president of Mexico, Mr. Biden appeared to describe Israel’s war in Gaza as disproportionate.“A lot of innocent people starving, in trouble, dying,” he said at a news conference at the White House, where he answered questions about his age and memory. “And it’s got to stop.”Israel has signaled this week that its military is gearing up to push into Rafah, a sliver at the southern end of Gaza where hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing the violence have been crammed in. More than 27,000 people have been killed in Gaza four months of war, and most people are facing starvation and disease in addition to the continual airstrikes.The president has previously been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying in December that the country was engaged in “indiscriminate bombing” as the United States and other allies were pushing for more targeted approaches to limit civilian deaths. He said at the time that Israel’s conduct in the war was eroding international support for its position in the conflict.Those remarks, at a fund-raiser in Washington, also included assessments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader of “the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” showing growing rifts between Israel and its strongest ally.That gulf over a way out of the war was on full display this week, when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to the Middle East to push for a cease-fire deal.The Israeli prime minister pre-empted a joint news conference that would have been customary after his meeting with Mr. Blinken and instead met on his own with reporters to criticize the proposal the Americans saw as a potential opening to a solution. More

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      The 8 Days That Roiled the U.N.’s Top Agency in Gaza

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      The crisis that threatens the future of the main United Nations agency in Gaza, amid a humanitarian disaster, began at a routine meeting between diplomats in Tel Aviv.When a senior U.S. diplomat called the Israeli military last week to request further details about Israeli allegations against a United Nations agency in Gaza, military leaders were so surprised that they ordered an internal inquiry about how the information had reached the ears of foreign officials.The allegations were grave: 12 employees of the organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, were accused of joining Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel or its aftermath.The claims reinforced Israel’s decades-old narrative about UNRWA: that it is biased against Israel and influenced by Hamas and other armed groups, charges that the agency strongly rejects.But while most Israeli officials oppose UNRWA, some military leaders did not want to see it shuttered amid a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. In fact, it was not the military that disclosed the information to the United States but UNRWA itself.The sequence of events began on Jan. 18, when Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, met with a top Israeli diplomat in Tel Aviv. Mr. Lazzarini meets roughly once a month in Israel with the diplomat, Amir Weissbrod, a deputy director general at the Israeli Foreign Ministry who oversees relationships with U.N. agencies. This was meant to be a routine discussion about the delivery of food, fuel and other aid supplies to Gaza, according to a U.N. official briefed on the meeting.Instead, Mr. Weissbrod came supplied with the shocking intelligence about UNRWA, which had been given to him by officers in the military, according to four officials familiar with the situation.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