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Israel vows to ‘change security situation’ in the north as conflict with Lebanon escalates
Israeli artillery is striking targets in Lebanon in response to anti-tank missiles fired from the country, the Israel Defense Forces said today. Hezbollah said in a statement that it had fired rockets at Israeli infantry and achieved “direct hits” this morning.
Clashes between the Iran-backed militant group and the IDF have continued to intensify around the Israel-Lebanon border, and at least 58 Hezbollah fighters and 10 civilians have been reported dead.
“The IDF has operational plans for changing the security situation in the north,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing yesterday, adding that residents in the north do not feel safe returning to their homes.
On Saturday, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant suggested that Hezbollah was dragging Lebanon into a war. “What we are doing in Gaza we can do in Beirut,” he told IDF troops in the north.
Funeral for fallen soldier in Jerusalem
A family member grieves on the coffin of school principal and Sergeant Major Yossi Hershkovitz, who died at age 44, during his funeral in Jerusalem yesterday.
Aid organization says it’s not possible to safely move babies at Al-Shifa Hospital
Babies in the neonatal unit at Al-Shifa Hospital cannot be safely moved amid ongoing fighting in Gaza, the aid organization Medical Aid for Palestinians said on Sunday.
Israel said over the weekend that Al-Shifa staff had requested help evacuating at-risk babies from the facility to a safer location, and the Israel Defense Forces later announced the opening of evacuation routes from Al-Shifa and two other hospitals.
However, Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at Al-Shifa who also the head of international cooperation at the health ministry in Gaza, told NBC News that no evacuations had begun there.
The transfer of critically ill neonates is a “complex and technical process,” Medical Aid for Palestinians said in a post on X. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely.”
Doctors at Al-Shifa told NBC News that three babies died over the weekend, while 36 others are at risk of death after they had to be removed from incubators due to lack of power.
The only safe option to save the babies, Medical Aid for Palestinians said, would be for Israel to “cease its assault and besiegement of Al-Shifa, to allow fuel to reach the hospital, and to ensure that the surviving parents of these babies can be reunited with them.”
Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron makes surprise return as foreign minister
LONDON — David Cameron, the former prime minister who left politics after losing the Brexit referendum in 2016, has made a shocking return to the cabinet as foreign secretary.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed Cameron this morning after firing Suella Braverman, a controversial figure on the right of the ruling Conservative Party.
Cameron, who is strongly associated with losing the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union, has vast foreign policy experience from six years in Downing Street. He will immediately turn to managing the country’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Cameron is not a serving lawmaker so was swiftly made a lifelong member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the Houses of Parliament, by King Charles.
His return is hugely unexpected and caught British politics commentators and pundits unaware.
No babies have been evacuated from Al-Shifa hospital, surgeon says
TEL AVIV — None of the 36 babies who doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital say are at risk of dying were evacuated from the medical facility yesterday, a surgeon there told NBC News.
The IDF announced on Sunday that it was opening an evacuation route from Al-Shifa and two other hospitals, and said that Al-Shifa staff had requested help evacuating at-risk babies from the facility.
But Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at the hospital who also the head of international cooperation at the health ministry in Gaza, told NBC News that he is not aware of anyone coming in or out of the hospital that day.
Three babies at Al-Shifa died over the weekend, while 36 are desperately in need of care after they had to be removed from incubators due to lack of power, Abusada said.
“If they stay here in this condition in Shifa … they are going to die,” he said. “We don’t want our babies to die.”
Abusada said that he was open to the infants being transported to a hospital in Egypt that could provide care and safety for them. Failing that, he said, fuel should be delivered to the hospital to keep it running — the “easy solution” compared to evacuating babies from Al-Shifa.
Asked what happened with the evacuation route, a spokesperson for the IDF did not provide a direct response, saying that there were “intense battles” in the area surrounding Al-Shifa though not at the hospital itself.
The IDF also said it tried to deliver 300 liters of fuel to the hospital.
Abusada said that would not be enough to keep the hospital running for even a day: “It does nothing. It means nothing, 300 liters of fuel. It will run our generators for just half an hour.” He said the hospital needs at least 9,000 to 10,000 liters of fuel to run essential services in the hospital per day.
British P.M. fires senior minister for criticizing police over pro-Palestinian march
LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has fired the home secretary, Suella Braverman, NBC News’ partner Sky News reported.
The move came after Braverman used a newspaper article to refer to pro-Palestinian demonstrators as “hate marchers” and said police were “playing favorites” by not using tougher measures against them.
Opposition politicians and anti-extremism groups accused Braverman of firing up far-right counter-protesters who disrupted a ceremony to remember Britain’s war dead on Saturday, a traditional event held on Nov. 11 to coincide with the end of the First World War in 1918.
Police arrested 145 people on Saturday and have since charged seven with public disorder, including many counter-protestors who attempted to confront the main pro-Palestinian march. Police said 300,000 people attended the march but organizers claim it was closer to 800,000.
Braverman has been a controversial figure on the far right of the ruling Conservative Party. Her flagship policy was a plan to fly unauthorized migrants to Rwanda.
Biden holds call with Qatar leader, says 3-year-old American among Hamas hostages
President Joe Biden spoke with the leader of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, on Sunday to thank the country for its efforts to secure the release of Hamas hostages and its ongoing work to secure more, a readout released by the White House said.
Two American citizens have been released so far, but on the call, Biden acknowledged that a 3-year-old American toddler, whose parents were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, was among “many young children” still held hostage.
Hamas is believed to be holding as many as 239 people hostage inside Gaza, according to the latest numbers from Israeli officials. It’s not clear how many are still alive amid the fighting. Hamas has released four hostages in total since the war began.
The two leaders agreed that all hostages must be released without further delay, according to the readout.
Al-Shifa is ‘no longer functioning as a hospital,’ WHO chief says
TEL AVIV — The situation at Al-Shifa Hospital is “dire and perilous,” with the medical facility no longer “functioning as a hospital,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned.
Tedros said the WHO had managed to get in touch with health workers at the hospital and heard that the facility had gone for three days “without electricity, without water and with very poor internet, which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care.”
He said patient fatalities had increased significantly amid the spiraling humanitarian situation at the hospital, which has seen heavy bombardment and intense fighting outside the facility. “The constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already critical circumstances,” he said in a post on X yesterday.
Calling for a cease-fire, he said: “The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair.”
Surgery by spotlight as Gaza hospitals run out of fuel
A doctor applies stitches to the head of an injured civilian, using only the light from a cellphone, at the Indonesian Hospital outside Gaza City today.
Catch up with NBC News’ coverage of the Israel-Gaza war in the last 24 hours
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