Biden orders Israel to change course on aid to Gaza
The Up First Podcast: Israel’s Plan to Expand Aid to Gaza in the Era of World War II. An Israeli Prime Minister Rejoinds Israel
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Biden told Israel’s leader that he needs to allow more humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. The US will change its approach to Israel if it doesn’t change how it wages the war. Within hours, Israel announced plans to expand aid deliveries to Gaza.
The No Labels group said yesterday it will not run a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. The organization said it would not put forth a Unity ticket because it couldn’t find a candidate. Bipartisan cooperation was fostered by No Labels in 2010.
The Border Patrol, La Chimera, and the Juvenile: A Brief History of the Future with Ari Wallach for a Hopeful Future
The judge in LA ruled that border officials are responsible for the well-being of children who are living on the California side of the US-Mexico border. Judge Dolly Gee said that even though the Border Patrol didn’t create the camps, the adults and minors there are still considered under Border Patrol custody because agents are monitoring them and telling them where to go.
Many on the far right are distrustful of traditional institutions. Now, some of them are trying to prop up a parallel economy with their own payment platforms, social media, and even computers. It’s a matter of survival according to many people. Supporters of this parallel economy are part of a subculture that brings together modern-day conspiracy theories about COVID-19, elections, and transgender visibility with conservative values and free speech absolutism.
Movies: If you’re looking for a movie with a magical ending that’s still tied to reality, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is a period film that’ll check all your boxes. It follows a tomb raider in 1980s Italy trying to find treasure — and himself.
Murdoch is an executive producer of the new PBS show A Brief History of the Future. Ari Wallach travels to meet people who are shaping a hopeful future.
One people’s tragedy that will be another person’s triumph: There’s always next year, and Gaza is going to be a dangerous place for Israel
Books: Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest book is all about the phrase “there’s always next year.” He explores the idea through triumphs and defeats of basketball.
Adriannelenker’s latest solo album, and a punk band from the Brooklyn area, are in contention for this year’s NPR Music Songs of the Year.
That was Arraf. I was at the southern Lebanese border one day watching a Lebanese man sitting in a plastic chair in the courtyard of his damaged home, surrounded by shattered glass, looking out across the Israeli border.
People in neighboring countries have always believed that anything they build would fall apart because of the instability. The attention given to this war has for the first time in decades spurred hope that there could be a Palestinian homeland.
The media coverage of this war is unprecedented. In past wars, journalists could usually go into Gaza. When journalists are escorted by the Israeli army, they are not allowed in. The number of journalists and media workers who have been killed has never been done before.
Estrin experienced one moment that sums up what being here feels like, when they learned about the rescue of the two Israeli hostages. Israeli airstrikes provided cover for the commandos and killed scores of Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Anas Baba, our producer in Gaza, recorded a woman wailing over her dead child. The Palestinian mother was screaming as an Israeli drove by on a motorcycle with a bumper sticker that said “Go IDF!” outside of Tel Aviv. a reference to the Israeli military, the Israel Defense Forces. One people’s tragedy is another people’s triumph. Israelis and Palestinians are in two completely different worlds.
Gaza was decimated in the aftermath of the Oct 7 attack by Israel. More Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than in any other in their history. Gaza health authorities said the figure had topped 33,000, and that two-thirds were thought to be civilians.
This was very bloody, but today the fighting is exponentially worse. Clearly there’s a need to stop the killing and ease the human suffering, though it’s also important to think about what comes next.
If Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages, and poses an ongoing danger to Israel, that is not going to be acceptable to Israel.
There’s not nearly enough food in Gaza, malnutrition is soaring, particularly among children, and the United Nations projects that a famine could be imminent in northern Gaza.
The U.S. and other countries are dropping aid by plane because of Israeli restrictions on aid going into Gaza. Israel cites security concerns.
The people of Gaza are buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes. Unless you have ties to a foreign government that has granted limited access to the territory, there’s no escaping the war.
In a territory with more than 2 million Palestinians, most homes, roads, water systems, health facilities and historical landmarks have been mostly damaged or destroyed.
A public opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza showed that 70% of the Palestinians supported the attack on Hamas. Many see it as a triumph of resistance to Israeli oppression. But only 1 in 5 Palestinians surveyed in the poll said they saw videos showing what Israelis endured the day of the Hamas assault.
But as Israel waged its aggressive air and ground campaign, and the civilian Palestinian death toll soared, we’ve seen unprecedented criticism of Israel, a country that has long received bipartisan backing in the U.S. Many members of the Biden’s Democratic Party have criticized him to the broader public. At the start of the fighting most Americans supported Israel. The way Israel is conducting the war has been found to be disapprove of by a majority of Americans.
Shortly after the war began, Biden proposed $14 billion in additional military assistance for Israel, which is already the leading recipient of such U.S. aid. The plan has been blocked in Congress, but is still on the table.
As long as that issue is not addressed, Jordan and other countries that have expressed concern about instability will be left with no choice. A peace treaty with Israel has resulted in tension in Jordan, where the death toll in Gaza has gone up.
There are a lot of protests near the Israeli Embassy in Amman. In Jordan, as the death toll in Gaza increases, it is being directed at the U.S., because it is the main military supplier to Israel.
Israel is trading attacks with Hezbollah on the southern border of Lebanon. Fear is growing that a war could start because of the presumed attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus.
Myre: The U.S. stepped up its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean as a show of force. Despite this, relatively small U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq came under fire from various militia groups, which led the U.S. to hit back. For the past month or so, those militia attacks have stopped.
The United States Navy is in the Red Sea trying to keep the rebels from firing missiles at ships. However, the Houthi attacks are still taking place on a regular basis.
The U.S. says Iran is stirring the pot, supporting proxy groups across the Middle East. The region has not yet boiled over and is still very tense.
The World Central Kitchen in Gaza was the site of the killing of a team of aid workers, including an American. What have the consequences been?
The Hamas-led attack on Israel was the worst assault against Jews since the Holocaust, with around 1,200 dead according to the Israeli government. The October attack was considered a “second Holocaust” by Israelis. People were at home when they were killed. Some were burned alive. Others were shot and killed in fields at a music festival. The United Nations documented gruesome acts of violence, including the decapitated and dismembered corpses. More than 250 hostages were taken to Gaza.
NPR Reports from the Tel Aviv/Monte Carlo Counties: The Israeli-Palestinian War in the Context of the Middle East
The three are Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv; Jane Arraf, who’s based in Amman, Jordan; and Greg Myre, who’s based in Washington and has been working in the region.
To look at how the war is reshaping the region, and where the war could be heading, a trio of NPR correspondents drew on their deep experience of reporting in the region, including the current conflict.
Hamas unleashed its early morning rampage in southern Israel six months ago this Sunday, igniting the deadliest war ever between Israelis and Palestinians.
