Israel-Hamas war live updates: U.S. chamber will rush through military aid to Israel; Iranian president warns war could expand

Palestinians who are foreign nationals will be allowed to cross the border into Egypt starting at 9 a.m. local time on Monday, according to a representative for the Embassy of Palestine. At the same time, humanitarian aid will also begin crossing into Gaza, Kamel Khatib, a representative for the Embassy of Palestine, told NBC News.

— Terri Cullen

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday that the senate would push through a military aid package to help Israel in its war against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

“We will work to move this aid through the senate ASAP, and the Israeli leaders made it clear to us they need the aid quickly,” said Schumer during a trip to Israel.

He said among Israel’s requests are additional interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system, which has been operating non-stop shooting down Hamas rockets from Gaza, and precision munitions.

— Reuters

The death toll in Israel from a surprise Hamas attack on Oct. 7 is now more than 1,400, the Israel Defense Forces told CNN on Sunday.

— Annie Nova

FBI officials say they’ve noticed an increase in threatening rhetoric targeting both the Jewish and Muslim communities in the week since the brutal Hamas attacks in Israel.

Director Chris Wray said on a call with reporters Sunday that the FBI is moving quickly to mitigate the threats and that the FBI does not discount the possibility that Hamas and other groups could exploit the conflict in the Middle East to call for or plot attacks in the United States.

A senior FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the bureau said the majority of the threats that the FBI has responded to were not judged to be credible. But the official said the FBI takes them all seriously nonetheless.

The official also said that agents have been encouraged to be “aggressive” and proactive in communicating over the last week with faith-based leaders. The official said the purpose of that outreach is not to make anyone feel targeted but rather to ask clerics and others to report to law enforcement anything that seems suspicious.

Besides responding to an escalating number of threats, Wray said the FBI was also working through its legal attache office in Tel Aviv to do what it can to locate and identify Americans who remain unaccounted for after last weekend’s attacks.

— Associated Press

The U.S. Department of State on Sunday announced that the charter flights out of Israel offered to American citizens will continue “on a rolling basis” on Monday and Tuesday.

The State Department set up the flights for U.S. citizens stranded in Israel, unable to leave due to the limited availability of commercial flights out of the country.

“We urge those wishing to leave to take advantage of these charters while they are available,” the department said in a statement.

Only U.S. citizens are eligible for the flights and must sign an agreement prior to departure that pledges to repay the U.S. government for the travel. The flights will leave from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

The department also provided details on how U.S. citizens in the Israeli city of Haifa can leave via a 10- to 12-hour ship ride to Cyprus on Monday. Those wishing to take the ship must arrive at Haifa port passenger terminal at 9 a.m. local time on Monday.

The U.S. government is still negotiating how to get American citizens in Gaza out of the region. It had secured a route of safe passage via the Rafah gate border crossing from Gaza to Egypt, but Americans trying to flee reportedly still have not been let through. In the meantime, the government is encouraging Americans in Gaza to fill out a crisis intake form in case they need to be contacted on short notice.

The State Department has issued a “Do Not Travel” advisory for Gaza and “Reconsider Travel” advisories for Israel and the West Bank.

— Rebecca Picciotto

The death toll in Gaza rose to 2,450 people and 9,200 injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said. More than half of those killed, or 52% of them, were women and children, according to the ministry.

— Annie Nova

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media that a bipartisan group of senators visiting Israel was rushed to a shelter in Tel Aviv on Sunday to wait out a rocket attack from Hamas. Schumer posted a photo of himself and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah in the shelter.

“It shows you what Israelis have to go through. We must provide Israel with the support required to defend itself,” Schumer said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, took the trip to show support for Israel ahead of an expected request from President Joe Biden for Congress to approve wartime funding for Israel as well as Ukraine. Schumer, a Democrat, has said he would also hold discussions with Israeli officials what kind of support the country would need for both military and humanitarian operations.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democratic Sens. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Mark Kelly of Arizona were also on the trip.

— Associated Press

Iran’s hard-line president spoke with France’s leader on Sunday, warning that war would expand if Israel’s siege of Gaza doesn’t stop, state-run media reported.

The official IRNA news agency said Ebrahim Raisi and Emmanuel Macron spoke over the phone. The Iranian president made no mention of the unprecedented Oct. 7 incursion by Gaza’s militant Hamas group into southern Israel that sparked the latest Hamas-Israel war. Iran has long been a supporter of Hamas.

“The situation will be complicated … if the crimes by the Zionist regime, including the killing of people and blockade of Gaza, are not stopped,” Raisi was quoted as saying, referring to Israel. IRNA did not provide further details.

Earlier, the Elysee Palace confirmed this weekend that Macron planned to talk to Raisi to urge Iran not to fuel tensions in the region or provide any operational support to Hamas.

Macron intended to press the argument that bringing the violence to a rapid end is in everyone’s interests, including Iran’s, the presidential office said. France feels that Iran can play a positive role in the crisis by simply not getting involved in it, either with “words that are unacceptable” or by supporting Hamas.

Over the weekend, Raisi also spoke with leaders of Arab nations of Iraq, Oman and Qatar and urged them to support Gaza’s Palestinians, Iranian media said.

He also accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” in Gaza and criticized the United States for its support of Israel.

— Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt on Sunday to discuss the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and how to keep civilians safe amid the violence and lack of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

In the meeting, Blinken brought up the ongoing efforts to get American citizens in Gaza safely out of the region. The secretary had been trying to find a way for Americans to exit Gaza via the Rafah gate into Egypt, but those trying to leave have reported that the border crossing has remained closed.

“Secretary Blinken reiterated to President El-Sisi the importance of facilitating the safe passage of American citizens and family members from Gaza,” a spokesperson for Blinken said.

Over the past week, Blinken has been on a Middle East tour, trying to prevent the conflict from spreading throughout the region and to rally humanitarian support for civilians caught in the crossfire of the war.

Blinken has met with officials in Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. The State Department announced that he will return to Israel on Monday.

— Rebecca Picciotto

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Israel has reactivated the water pipes in southern Gaza after several days of cutting off the water supply in response to the deadly attack Hamas launched last weekend.

“I have been in touch with my Israeli counterparts just within the last hour who reports to me that they have in fact turned the water pipe back on in southern Gaza,” Sullivan said Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“That has been the subject of discussion over the course of the past few days,” he added.

In a series of Sunday interviews, Sullivan reiterated the U.S. stance that all innocent civilians must be protected amid the violence of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

His comments come as many civilians remain trapped in Gaza without access to basic necessities like food, water, medicine and shelter.

“The many, many Palestinians who have had nothing to do with the brutal terrorist organization among us the vast majority of the population of Gaza. They deserve dignity. They deserve safety and security,” Sullivan said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Sullivan also said the White House is “working actively” to get Americans in Gaza access to safe passage to leave the region, though those evacuation efforts have been thwarted by Hamas.

“So far, we have not been able to get American citizens through the border crossing and I’m not aware of anyone else being able to get out at this time,” he said.

— Rebecca Picciotto

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said on Sunday the military plans to strike Hamas from the top through its institutions, “all the way down to the individuals that conducted the butchery of our babies.”

“We did not ask for this war, but we will win it,” Lerner said on “This Week” on ABC.

He said they’ve instructed Gazans to evacuate the north “to keep people out of harm’s way so that we can deal with Hamas.” But he said Hamas was trying to interfere with those efforts.

“They have no regard for human life, Israeli or Palestinian,” he said.

Lerner also said that some of its forces have dispersed to communities along the border with Lebanon “in anticipation for a potential uptick in violence with Hezbollah.”

— Annie Nova

The Israeli military said on Sunday it would continue to allow Gazans to evacuate south ahead of an expected ground assault by its forces on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for unprecedented attacks by Hamas militants eight days ago.

The army said hundreds of thousands had already moved south as Israel carried out the most intense bombardment the enclave has ever seen in response to the killing of 1,300 people in Israel, including 279 Israeli soldiers.

Authorities in Gaza said more than 2,300 people had been killed, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded so far. The enclave’s hospitals are running short of medical supplies and struggling to cope with the flow of injured.

— Reuters

The regional head of the World Health Organization told The Associated Press on Sunday that evacuating hospitals from the northern part of the Gaza Strip is “impossible” and said Israel’s demand for the evacuation of medical facilities there goes against international law.

Ahmed Al-Mandhari said 22 hospitals with 2,000 patients in northern Gaza managed to move “mobile patients” to the south over the past two days but most of the patients can’t be evacuated.

“It is really very risky, very dangerous if we push these hospitals to evacuate,” he said in Cairo.

Egypt has yet to reach an agreement with Israel and Hamas to reopen the Rafah border crossing to deliver medical supplies and other humanitarian aid territory to the besieged, Hamas-ruled strip.

Al-Mandhari urged for the reopening “immediately, with no delay.” The U.N. health agency has supplies waiting in Egypt, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Rafah crossing but cannot take them inside, he said.

Rafah was shuttered early on Tuesday after Israeli airstrikes hit close to Gaza’s side of the crossing.

— Associated Press

Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is in talks with international and regional partners to enable aid deliveries into Gaza and to de-escalate the fighting there, his office said on Sunday.

Israeli bombardments on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, the main crossing out of Gaza not controlled by Israel, have disrupted operations there.

Aid from several countries has been building up in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula due to a failure to reach a deal enabling its safe delivery to Gaza and enabling evacuations of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing into Egypt.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Saturday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “fast becoming untenable”.

The statement from Sisi’s office also said Egypt rejected any plan to displace Palestinians “to the detriment of other countries,” and said Egypt’s own security was a red line.

Sisi also proposed a summit to discuss the crisis, according to the statement.

— Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to Israel this week after completing a frantic six-country rush through Arab nations aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from igniting a broader regional conflict.

The U.S. State Department announced Blinken’s plan to travel Monday to Israel — his second visit in five days — as America’s top diplomat arrived in Cairo for talks Sunday with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It was the last of Blinken’s meetings with Arab leaders amid increasing fears that an impending Israeli ground offensive into Gaza could spark a wider war with devastating humanitarian consequences.

Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters traveling with Blinken that the secretary was returning to Tel Aviv “for further consultations with Israeli officials.” Miller did not elaborate.

Before landing in Egypt, Blinken met on Sunday morning with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. That meeting followed talks over the previous three days with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

— Associated Press

Pope Francis on Sunday renewed his call for the release of Israeli hostages held by Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers and called for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza.

“I continue to follow with much sorrow what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” Francis said during his Sunday’s Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square. “I think back to the many people, especially the little ones and the elderly.”

The Pope reiterated his appeal for the release of scores of Israeli hostages snatched during Hamas’ deadly incursion into southern Israel last weekend and taken to Gaza.

“I strongly ask that the children, the elderly, women and all civilians don’t become victims of the conflict,” Francis said. He added that humanitarian law must be respected, “especially in Gaza where there is an urgent need to guarantee humanitarian corridors and to rescue the entire population.”

The Pope appealed for the world not to “shed any more innocent blood, neither in the Holy Land, nor in Ukraine, nor anywhere else. Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always.”

— Associated Press

Thousands took the streets of the Moroccan capital on Sunday to rally in support of Palestinians in Gaza and denounce Israel’s actions in the latest war with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

Waving Palestinian flags, the rally also marked a major showing for the banned Islamist movement Al Adl Wa Ihssane, which supports Hamas. After Hamas’s unprecedented and deadly Oct. 7 incursion into Israel, Morocco issued a statement condemning the violence. Royal Air Maroc, temporarily cancelled flights from Casablanca to Tel Aviv — a route that began in 2021.

Demonstrators marched in central Rabat and threw smoke bombs and fireworks as riot police stood between them and the Parliament building and other landmarks.

Hassan Ait Amar, a 52-year-old from Casablanca, carried a sign demanding Morocco’s lawmakers revoke a normalization of ties with Israel.

“If they want peace, they (Israel) should respect Palestinians, international law and a two-state solution,” he said.

Israel and Morocco normalized relations as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of diplomatic agreements between Israel and four Arab countries brokered by then-President Donald Trump. Israel is home to a large community of Jews of Moroccan descent. Morocco and Israel have agreed to military cooperation and boosted trade.

— Associated Press

The European Union on Tuesday will hold an extraordinary meeting of its member states to discuss the fallout of the escalating Israel-Hamas conflict and the potential consequences for the bloc.

European Council President Charles Michel said in an invitation letter issued Saturday that it was of the “utmost importance” to establish a “clear unified course of action that reflects the complexity of the unfolding situation.”

“If we are not careful, it has the potential to exacerbate tensions between communities and feed extremism” in the European Union, Michel said.

“There is a major risk of migration and movements of a large number of people to neighboring countries which already have a significant number of refugees on their territory. If not handled carefully, there is a risk of onward migratory waves to Europe,” he added.

— Sam Meredith

Germany’s Foreign Office said Sunday that it had decided to issue a travel warning for Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.

“We urgently appeal to refrain from traveling to these countries and areas. In general, a travel warning is only issued if there is danger to life,” the German Foreign Office said in a post via X, formerly known as Twitter.

The ministry also urged people already in these areas to register themselves with the German government.

— Sam Meredith