The conflict is more dangerous than ever a year after Hamas attacked Israel
Hamas and Lebanon: Syrians, Palestinians and U.S. efforts to end the War on Hezbollah in the Gaza Strip
Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza that was at the heart of obstacles to a cease-fire deal. The military told people in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to go to Muwasi, a coastal area it has designated a humanitarian zone.
According to the civil defense first responders’ group that works under the Hamas-run government there was an Israeli airstrike that killed two children.
The consequences for Palestinian civilians have been dire, as a result of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Israel launched its limited ground operation into Lebanon last week after a series of attacks killed Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and others. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. There have been nine Israeli soldiers who have died in the fighting with Hezbollah.
Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.
There were many Syrians who were in Lebanon and were on the road for two days. The roads were very congested and difficult to navigate. We almost died getting here.” Some children cried.
Associated Press journalists saw hundreds continuing to cross the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot, crunching over the rubble after Israeli airstrikes left huge craters in the road leading to it on Thursday. Much of Hezbollah’s weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.
The military of Israel said about 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon. There were several that fell in the town of Deir al-Asad, but no one was hurt.
In late September, Secretary of State Antony Blinken summed up the U.S. position, saying, “Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism. The way it does is important.
Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Damascus that he was trying to reach a cease-fire in Lebanon and Gaza. Some countries outside the Middle East and regional states are putting forward initiatives according to the minister.
Israel’s military said it had hit targets in Lebanon and that around thirty projectiles had crossed into Israeli territory.
Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began , in addition to most of the top leadership of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah as fighting has sharply escalated.
The strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport, and another building formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar. According to reports on social media, one of the strikes hit an oxygen tank storage facility, but the owner of the company denied this.
The strong explosions began late Saturday night and continued into Sunday after Israel’s military urged people to evacuate Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite suburb on the southern edge of the city. The southern suburbs have a strong presence of Hezbollah. The day started off with a flurry of strikes, followed by a buzz of drones.
Palestinians and other people continued to flee the conflict in the region, while rallies took place around the world to commemorate the anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.
A year since the murderous Oct. 7 Hamas attack set off the war in Gaza, Israel is sinking deeper into an existential crisis. It is a small country with tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from northern towns and kibbutzim due to the multi front war that is only intensifying. And, in addition to having to cope throughout the year with loss, shock, rocket fire and overwhelming fear for their safety from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran itself, that anxiety is compounded by turmoil from within.
In Israeli history, it was the deadliest day. It sparked the deadliest war in Palestinian history. The war grew into a regional conflict one year later. Every day we are surprised.
Iran tells a story, what is it? That it has some right under the U.N. Charter to help create failed states in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq so it can cultivate proxies inside them for the purpose of destroying Israel? And by what right has Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into a war with Israel that the Lebanese people and government had no say in and are now paying a huge price for?
Thousands of Israelis left after the Sept. 7 attacks to vote for a new Israeli government: Why Israel is going through such a difficult time?
Thousands of Israelis with the means to do so have chosen to leave Israel since Oct. 7; others are considering or planning emigrating. Thousands of people have taken to the streets a week after the attacks to take part in acts of civil disobedience in order to get the attention of the Netanyahu government. There were pictures of the former Israeli army chief of staff being forcibly removed by the police from the street at a sit-in in front of the private residence of the prime minister.
The messages put a spotlight on a question that many Israelis are curious about: If you don’t save the lives of your civilians, what is the value of your Jewish homeland? Will I ever feel safe again? And what kind of future do I have here if the only vision our leaders are offering is endless war?
At one of the recent mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for a hostage deal and for early elections to replace the Israeli government, one protester held up a sign reading: “Who are we without them?” referring to the hostages. Another placard read: “Give me one reason to raise kids here.”
The sister of a former Israeli prime minister has counselled kibbutz members all year long, and she says the questions from the fire were really.
Silence is what helped keep the survivors of this small community alive the day of the attack. They hid from their hiding places along the Gaza border to the hotel on the Dead Sea, which took them in.
The Israeli village grieving the biggest loss from Oct. 7-kibbutz-beeri-hamas attack-anniversary
“I’m so exhausted after every funeral that we have to deal with again,” said Gal Cohen, the head of the kibbutz. We cry again because it brings back everything.
This tight-knit Israeli community near the Gaza border is digging up its dead from temporary graves further away and reburying them back home, where it is safer to gather now, a year into the Gaza war.
Then she saw the man she had heard all day loading gun cartridges in her home. She claimed that he was stripped naked and guarded by an Israeli soldier, while sitting outside.
When she was finally rescued that night, and led out of her safe room, she found her living room floor covered in rows of grenades, gas canisters, explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and rifles. She understood: The home had been turned into the attack headquarters. Neighbors all around her were gunned down.
But he says others who survived the attack are taking sleeping pills to cope with the trauma and cannot bear seeing the destroyed homes. “I believe we’ll have to take them all down in the end.”
A short walk away, though, are the homes that were attacked last year. There are bullet holes, shattered windows, and a pair of children’s shoes.
Living on the kibbutz Be’eri: The last reburial left by a mother and a young son
The families have moved back to Kibbutz Be’eri. Cohen, the head of the community, is overseeing an ambitious project to bring the residents back within two and a half years.
“I said to myself, what do you want? To continue living? I can also not. I really thought about it. She says that she decided that she wanted to live. “I have a family, I have children, I have grandchildren. I draw. I’m learning to kayak, to deal with all my fears. I do everything to give some meaning to life now that they’re gone.”
She wanted to be with his body at the moment it was unearthed. She had not lived on the kibbutz any longer and felt guilty she wasn’t with her brother and family in their worst moment on Oct. 7.
The funeral was attended by Batya Ofir. She exhumed her brother’s partially decomposing body to rebury her family in the cemetery.
At Kibbutz Be’eri, one recent afternoon, teens and parents walked quietly out of the neighborhood cemetery after a funeral for a mother and her 15-year-old son — two of the many reburials of recent months.
The suicide of a boy and his family in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, as described by the survivors of the Dead Sea hotel basement
“When I gave guidelines to the therapists in Be’eri at the beginning, I said, smile and say, how are you? The people don’t know that it still matters. You have to show them that their wellbeing is still relevant. The life instinct wanted to see that person call him back.
“They are extremely anxious about the future of this place. They leave the country. Because their parents told them that in the Holocaust, those who didn’t leave, died,” she says. Hopelessness and helplessness are very strong. The trauma is national.”
“For instance, there is a boy in the kibbutz who lost four members of his family, two parents and two siblings. Do we tell him about each individually or are we telling him all of them together? She said so.
Roth has also counseled former hostages who returned from Hamas captivity in Gaza, families whose loved ones were killed in captivity, and Israelis who didn’t experience a personal loss but still suffer from sleeping difficulties, anxiety attacks and depression.
It took many weeks to account for everyone: who was dead, who was captive in Gaza. Roth sat with the survivors of Kibbutz Be’eri in the Dead Sea hotel basement as the village secretary read the names of 27 identified bodies and 108 people unaccounted for.
When the Israeli military eventually published its investigation into the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, it found about 340 attackers had infiltrated the community and that it had taken about seven hours for significant numbers of Israeli forces to arrive to fight off the invasion there.
Up First Newsletter: Israel-Hamas war disrupts lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters : Anas Baba’s story of a colorblind girl
Good morning. You’re reading a newsletter. For all the news you need to start the day, subscribe here and listen to the Up First podcast.
He often meets a young girl named Habiba at the hospital in central Gaza. She’s been colorblind since birth. One day, she told Anas she saw a man drowning with water coming out of his nose. Blood was what it was, not water.
Our colleague Anas Baba in Gaza has been reporting for NPR in Gaza all year. Again and again, he has videotaped bodies brought into the morgue after Israeli airstrikes. He has a camera that he trains on young kids and always watches the bodies being placed in the mortuary.
I think about Batya Ofir, a woman my colleague Itay Stern and I met the other day at Kibbutz Be’eri, the Israeli village that suffered the greatest loss — 102 people there were killed. Her brother was killed with his family. She felt survivor’s guilt, and she told us she asked herself whether she wanted to keep on living.
Source: How a year of Israel-Hamas war disrupted lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters
How a Year of Israel-Hamas War Disrupted Lives. Key Factors that Decide which Way to Win the White House
Michigan, a “blue wall” state, is part of Vice President Harris’ clearest path to the White House. It will be difficult to win the victory. There is still a close battle going on between Harris and Trump. Here are key factors that could decide which way Michigan swings:
People in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank describe how a year of war has altered their lives. For more coverage marking this anniversary, check out NPR’s special series page.
There’s a conflict in the Middle East that’s personal in Michigan. The GOP and Democrats are focused on the Arab and Muslim American voting bloc, and the state has the largest Lebanese American population in the country. Many in the state have families living in the areas of Lebanon that are being bombed right now.
A new report has found that both Harris’ and Trump’s economic plans would increase the national debt. Over the next decade, the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget said, Trump’s plan would add an estimated $7.5 trillion to the nation’s debt, while Harris’ proposal would cost the government an estimated $3.5 trillion. The committee has cautioned that there could be a future fiscal crisis if politicians do not take more decisive action on the national debt. Let’s take a closer look at the details of both economic plans.
Source: How a year of Israel-Hamas war disrupted lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters
Israeli-Jaforse War in the Gaza Strip: The Rise of the Hamas Regime in the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians
NPR is visiting six key swing states that will likely decide this year’s historic election. This week, Morning Edition is in Michigan to listen to voters about what matters to them and how that will affect their vote.
Israel continues its military campaign in the Gaza Strip one year after the Hamas attack, but operations in the West Bank have expanded significantly.
Although Israel and Hamas managed a brief cease-fire in November that allowed for the exchange of more than 100 hostages for nearly 250 Palestinian prisoners, the truce lasted just a week. Hamas did unilaterally release four hostages, and eight others were rescued by Israeli forces. Several hostages were recovered by Israel’s military.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came under pressure to stop the fighting in Gaza and free the hostages because of the intelligence failures that preceded the surprise attack.
In the aftermath of the Hamas attack, as Israelis mourned those killed, they also feared for the safety of the hostages. A central plaza in downtown Tel Aviv, unofficially dubbed Hostages Square, was quickly transformed into a gathering place for the families, friends and supporters of the captives. Posters depicting the faces and names of hostages became ubiquitous, and the cry “Bring them home now!” emerged as a potent rallying cry. Many Israelis began wearing special necklaces, bracelets and T-shirts to show their support for the captives. Large numbers of people attend the daily vigils in Hostages Square.
The UN Secretary-General has decried the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a “moral stain on us all.” According to Refugees International, Israel’s military response has caused disproportionate death and suffering among civilians in Gaza.
Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which Israeli authorities considered to be a Hamas stronghold, experienced some of the most intense bombardment of the conflict.
International relief organizations are carrying the food, water and materials needed for temporary shelters in short supply. People in Gaza are down to one meal every other day, and an estimated 50,000 children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years are in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition.
The U.S. tried to speed up aid to Gaza. The joint logistics over-the-Shore system (JLOTS), a special floating pier, only operated intermittently due to damage from high winds and rough seas in the eastern Mediterranean.
There was a brief cease fire to facilitate a swap for hostages, but it did not make much of a difference. Deep-seated animosities and the fragmented nature of the Palestinian leadership have played a part in preventing any lasting peace deal.
The US has tried to balance its support of Israel and its desire to alleviate suffering in Gaza with the need to contain the war that has dragged Iran and Israel into direct conflict.
Meanwhile, public opinion in the U.S. has been split largely along partisan lines, with conservatives showing support for Israel, but some people, younger and more liberal, turning out for pro-Palestinian rallies on college campuses.
A Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll released last week revealed that more than half of Democrats think Israel bears a lot of responsibility for the continuation of the war in Gaza.
That political dichotomy could influence the outcome of a likely tight U.S. presidential race, with some Democrats suggesting that Netanyahu is ignoring the Biden administration’s peace entreaties in an effort to tip the election toward former President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, voters in key battleground states give Trump higher marks than his opponent, Vice President Harris, on foreign policy matters, according to a recent poll by the New York-based Institute for Global Affairs.
Israel and Hamas in Gaza – What Have We Learned in the Last Three Days of the Israeli-Palestinian War?
Last month was fast-forward to. More than a dozen people, including two children, were killed and thousands were wounded when electronic pagers belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon over the course of two days.
Multiple residential buildings in southern Lebanon were demolished by Israeli jets days later. On Sept. 27, Israel announced that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who led the militant group for more than three decades, was killed in one of the strikes. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.
Hamas, which was designated a terrorist by the U.S. and many other nations, has lost control over territory in Gaza in the past year leaving a political and logistical vacuum for international aid groups.
Cease-fire talks between Hamas and Israel, brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, are on hold, so for civilians in Gaza, the forced displacement that for many began last October, still has no end in sight.
The father of seven comes from the same area of northern Gaza where civilians were once again ordered to evacuate Monday, and he’s been displaced four times in the last year.
More than 1,200 people were killed and about 250 hostages were taken when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel a year ago. Musleh was on his way to school.
He told NPR on Monday he feels empathy for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas — but he blames Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the suffering both sides have endured, and he insists peace will only be possible if Israeli citizens oust their premier.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, violence has worsened in the past year between Palestinian militants belonging to Hamas and other armed groups, and Israeli settlers and the Israeli military, which oversees the occupied territory with a vast network of checkpoints and military outposts.
Dozens of Palestinians waving their flag and carrying anti-occupied signs gathered in the main square of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
Basma Abu Sway said last October 7 was the most important day in Palestinian history because of the war in Gaza.
Israeli forces have arrested 45 people in Ramallah, the West Bank, according to a statement by the Palestinian advocacy group Rima Nazzal
Israeli military forces have arrested 45 people in the West Bank since Sunday night, according to a statement by the Palestinian advocacy group.
Rima Nazzal was also in Ramallah’s Manara Square Monday, and said she felt concern and fear — worried that Israel’s occupation of Palestinians would grow stronger as a result of the its military’s actions after Oct. 7 last year.
