Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes
Palestinians search under the rubble of a house destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 8. (Reuters/File)
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Updated 04 October 2024
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Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

WASHINGTON: As Israel pounded northern Gaza with air strikes last October and ordered the evacuation of more than a million Palestinians from the area, a senior Pentagon official delivered a blunt warning to the White House.
The mass evacuation would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law, leading to war crime charges against Israel, Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, wrote in an Oct. 13 email to senior aides to President Joe Biden. Stroul was relaying an assessment by the International Committee of the Red Cross that had left her “chilled to the bone,” she wrote.
As the Gaza war nears its first anniversary and the Middle East teeters on the brink of a wider war, Stroul’s email and other previously unreported communications show the Biden administration’s struggle to balance internal concerns over rising deaths in Gaza with its public support for Jerusalem following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people.
Reuters reviewed three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated Oct. 11 to 14, just days into the crisis. The fighting has led to more than 40,000 deaths in Gaza and spurred US protests led by Arab-Americans and Muslim activists.
The emails, which haven’t been reported before, reveal alarm early on in the State Department and Pentagon that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize US ties in the Arab world. The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
A ceasefire deal remains elusive, despite months of US-brokered negotiations. Much of Gaza is now a wasteland. And the risk of a regional war with Iran looms after Israel’s attacks on military targets in Lebanon and last week’s assassination of Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Top Biden administration officials say they believe White House pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in those early days made a difference, preventing an even worse disaster. In private talks, the White House asked Israel to delay its ground offensive to give more time for aid groups to prepare help for displaced people and to give Israel more time to strike a deal with Hamas, administration officials told reporters in background briefings at the time.
But Washington was slow to address the suffering of Palestinians, said three senior US officials involved in the decision-making process. And while the ground invasion was ultimately delayed by about 10 days, the three officials attributed the pause more to operational preparations by the Israeli military than US pressure.
After publication of this story, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said the emails show that “unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza was painfully clear from the earliest days of the war, with key experts warning that international standards were being violated” and that “valid concerns” were overridden by the White House.
In response to questions about the emails, the White House said, “The US has been leading international efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza” and “this is and will continue to be a top priority.” It added that before US “engagement, there was no food, water, or medicine getting into Gaza.”
Both Israeli and Hamas leaders are being investigated for alleged war crimes in the wake of the Hamas attacks. In June, a UN commission concluded there was credible evidence that Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups committed war crimes including torture and taking hostages. The commission also found evidence of Israeli war crimes from the country’s use of massive explosives in Gaza in the first months of the war.
The Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign remain caught between two powerful constituencies – pro-Israel Democrats and younger, pro-Palestinian progressives. Harris’ Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, says he would “settle” the war “fast” if he wins November’s presidential election, without detailing how. But foreign policy analysts say the election is unlikely to alter US policy toward Israel significantly, given both parties’ long support for the country.
The emails reviewed by Reuters show a scramble inside the Biden administration to warn the White House of the impending crisis – and the White House’s initial resistance to a ceasefire in the early, chaotic days of war. The three sets of email exchanges began on Oct. 11, during Israel’s fifth day of air strikes after the Hamas incursion.

“LOSING CREDIBILITY”
Early on, concerns grew inside the administration about America’s image with its Arab allies.
After Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza’s hospitals, schools and mosques, the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior State officials that Washington was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not directly addressing the humanitarian crisis, according to an Oct. 11 email. Gaza’s health authorities reported that day a death toll of about 1,200.
As Israel defended the strikes, saying Hamas was using civilian buildings for military purposes, Russo wrote that US diplomats in the Middle East were monitoring Arab media reports that accused Israel of waging a “genocide” and Washington of complicity in war crimes.
“The US’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.
At the time, emergency workers were struggling to save people buried under rubble from Israel airstrikes and the world’s sympathies were beginning to shift from murdered Israelis to besieged Palestinian civilians.
Addressing State Department leaders, Russo urged quick action to shift the administration’s public stance of unqualified support for Israel and its military operation in Gaza. “If this course is not quickly reversed by not only messaging, but action, it risks damaging our stance in the region for years to come,” he wrote. Russo resigned in March, citing personal reasons. He declined to comment.
The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, forwarded Russo’s email to White House officials including Brett McGurk, Biden’s top adviser for Middle East affairs. She warned that the relationship with Washington’s “otherwise would-be stalwart” Arab partners was at risk due to the kinds of concerns raised by Russo.
McGurk replied that if the question was whether the administration should call for a ceasefire, the answer was “No.” He added, however, that Washington was “100 pct” in favor of supporting humanitarian corridors and protecting civilians. McGurk and Leaf declined to comment for this story.
Following Russo’s email, the public US stance remained largely unchanged for the next two days, a review of public comments shows. US officials continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself and plans to provide Jerusalem with military aid.

“PUMP THE BREAKS”
On Oct. 13, two days after Russo’s email, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over northern Gaza, warning one million residents to leave their homes. Netanyahu gave residents 24 hours to flee as Israeli troops backed by tanks began a ground assault inside the Hamas-run territory of 2.3 million people. He vowed to annihilate Hamas for its attack.
The evacuation order alarmed aid agencies and the United Nations. By then, Israel’s air strikes had razed entire districts. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva issued a statement saying Israel’s order was “not compatible with international humanitarian law” because it would cut off food, water and other basic needs in Gaza. Privately, in a phone conversation that day with Stroul, ICRC Middle East director Fabrizio Carboni was more pointed, the emails show.
“ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes,” Stroul said in her Oct. 13 email, describing the conversation. Her email was addressed to senior White House officials including McGurk, along with senior State and Pentagon officials. “Their main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast,” Stroul wrote. One US official on the email chain said it would be impossible to carry out such an evacuation without creating a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Asked about Carboni’s phone call with Stroul, the ICRC said it “constantly works with parties to armed conflicts and those who have influence with them to increase the respect for the laws of war in order to prevent civilian suffering in conflict. We consider such conversations to be strictly confidential.”
Publicly, the White House was expressing measured support for Israel’s plans. A White House spokesperson told reporters that such a huge evacuation was a “tall order” but that Washington would not second-guess Israel. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said US military aid would continue flowing to Israel.
Privately, some senior US officials were concerned there was no safe way out of densely populated Gaza, several senior US officials told Reuters. Israel had imposed a blockade. Its southern neighbor, Egypt, would not open its borders as part of its long-standing policy to prevent a mass resettlement of Palestinians. Some Palestinians who fled northern Gaza were killed when Israel bombed cars and trucks.
In an email replying to Stroul, McGurk said Washington might be able to persuade Israel to extend the deadline for Palestinians to evacuate beyond 24 hours, saying the administration “can buy some time.” But the Red Cross, the UN and aid agencies should work with Egypt and Israel to prepare for the evacuation, he wrote.
McGurk, a long-time Iraq expert, likened the situation to the US-led military operation against Daesh militants in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, an assault that left the Iraqi city in ruins. He said the military and humanitarian strategy in the Mosul assault had been planned hand in hand. Two officials on the email chain replied that it would be impossible to put in place the necessary infrastructure with so little time. One reminded McGurk that the Mosul operation was the result of much longer planning. Humanitarian groups had months to set up and provide support for displaced civilians.
“Our assessment is that there’s simply no way to have this scale of a displacement without creating a humanitarian catastrophe,” Paula Tufro, a senior White House official in charge of humanitarian response, wrote in the email. It would take “months” to get structures in place to provide “basic services” to more than a million people. She asked that the White House tell Israel to slow its offensive.
“We need GOI (Government of Israel) to pump the brakes in pushing people south,” Tufro wrote.
Andrew Miller, then the deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, urged his colleagues to act fast.
“If we’re inclined to weigh in with the Israelis to dissuade them from seeking mass evacuations, we will have to do it soon, at a high level and at multiple touch points,” Miller wrote. He resigned in June, citing family reasons.
Biden’s public comments on Gaza had largely given Netanyahu a free hand against Hamas. At the time, Biden faced only scattered protests from the left wing of the Democratic Party over his support for Israel’s counterattack. Israel’s likening of the Hamas assault to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington resonated widely in the US
The administration’s public stance began to change on Oct. 13. At a news conference in Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the first time publicly recognized the “suffering of Palestinian families in Gaza.” Washington was in constant talks with the Israelis and aid groups to help civilians in Gaza, he said.
The next day, Oct. 14, Biden’s rhetoric shifted. He said in a speech that he was urgently prioritizing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and directed his team to help surge relief into the war zone. It is unclear if the emails by Russo and others influenced the statements from Blinken and Biden.
Although Israel began sending infantry into Gaza on Oct. 13, a large-scale ground invasion didn’t begin until Oct. 27. Sources familiar with the matter said at the time that Washington advised Israel to hold off, mainly to give time for diplomacy to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
From the early days of the conflict, the US stressed that Israel has a right to defend itself but that how it does so matters, a State Department spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. “Israel has a moral imperative to mitigate the harm of its operations to civilians, something we have emphasized both publicly and privately,” the spokesperson said.
Stroul and Tuffro declined to comment. In a statement, Miller said the administration was “concerned about the humanitarian implications of a mass evacuation.” He added that “Israeli military plans were very inchoate at that stage and we were trying to develop a better understanding” of Israel’s “strategy and objectives.”

WEAPONS EXPEDITED
As US officials assessed the humanitarian crisis, Israel pressed Washington for more arms.
On Oct. 14, a senior Israeli Embassy official in Washington urged the State Department to accelerate shipment of 20,000 automatic rifles for the Israeli National Police, according to the emails.
Israeli senior defense adviser Ori Katzav apologized in an Oct. 14 email to his State Department counterpart for disturbing her on the weekend but said the rifle shipment was “very urgent” and needed US approval. Christine Minarich – an official at the State Department division that approves arms sales, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls – told Katzav the rifles would not be approved in the next 24 to 48 hours. Such large weapons shipments can take time, requiring State Department approval and notification to Congress.
Katzav and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
Jessica Lewis, then the assistant US secretary for political and military affairs, forwarded Minarich’s email and Israel’s request for the rifles to the State Department’s Democracy, Labor and Human Rights (DRL) bureau. DRL reviews potential US weapon sales to ensure they aren’t sent to militaries involved in rights abuses.
Lewis asked the bureau to expedite its review and “urgently” explain any opposition to specific arms packages for Israel, according to the emails. Lewis resigned in July.
Christopher Le Mon, deputy assistant secretary at DRL, recommended denying more than a dozen arms packages, including grenade launchers, gun parts, rifles and spare rifle parts. In a reply to Lewis, he cited concerns about the “conduct” of specific Israeli National Police units, including the elite Yamam border patrol unit.
Le Mon wrote that there were “numerous reports” of Yamam’s involvement in “gross violations of human rights.” DRL raised objections against 16 separate arms packages for Israel, according to the email and a source familiar with the matter. Nearly all the shipments went ahead despite the bureau’s objections, the source said. Yamam’s missions eventually included a June 8 rescue of four Israeli hostages that Gaza health officials say killed more than 200 Palestinians.
Minarich, Le Mon, Lewis and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
Washington has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions since the Gaza war began, according to several US officials with knowledge of the matter, including thousands of precision-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs that can devastate densely populated areas and have been used to collapse tunnels and bunkers.
Some rights groups blame the use of those weapons for civilian deaths. Amnesty International cited at least three incidents from Oct. 10 to January 2024 involving US-supplied weapons that it said killed civilians, including women and children, in “serious violations” of international humanitarian law. In July, it warned of US complicity in what it said was Israel’s unlawful use of US weapons to commit war crimes – an accusation the US has rejected.
A State Department report in May said Israel may be violating international law using US weapons, but said it could not say so definitively due to the chaos of war and challenges in collecting data.
An Israeli Embassy spokesperson rejected accusations that Israel has targeted civilians. “Israel is a democracy that adheres to international law,” the spokesperson said.


Iran president says potential ceasefire ‘could affect’ response to Israel

Iran president says potential ceasefire ‘could affect’ response to Israel
Updated 7 sec ago
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Iran president says potential ceasefire ‘could affect’ response to Israel

Iran president says potential ceasefire ‘could affect’ response to Israel
  • Since the strikes last month, Israel has warned Iran against retaliating
  • Supreme Leader said the Islamic republic would retaliate

TEHRAN: Iran’s president said Sunday a potential ceasefire between its allies and Israel “could affect the intensity” of Tehran’s response to Israel’s recent strikes on Iranian military sites.
“If they (the Israelis) reconsider their behavior, accept a ceasefire and stop massacring the oppressed and innocent people of the region, it could affect the intensity and type of our response,” Masoud Pezeshkian said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.
He added that Iran “will not leave unanswered any aggression against its sovereignty and security,” according to the news agency.
Israeli warplanes carried out the Oct. 26 strikes in what Israel said was retaliation for Tehran’s October 1 missile barrage.
Iran had in turn described that attack as a reprisal for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.
Since the strikes last month, Israel has warned Iran against retaliating, while Tehran vowed to respond.
On Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of the state, said the Islamic republic would retaliate.
“The enemies, both the USA and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing against Iran, the Iranian nation, and the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a speech to students in Tehran.
He was referring to the alliance of Tehran-backed armed groups that include Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
After the strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they “hit Iran’s defense capabilities and missile production.”
Iran’s armed forces said the attack killed four military personnel and caused “limited damage” to a few radar systems. Iranian media said a civilian was also killed.


Jordan to host inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference

Jordan to host inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference
Updated 5 min 37 sec ago
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Jordan to host inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference

Jordan to host inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference
  • JCC’s President Khalil Haj Tawfiq speaks of collaborative spirit of event

LONDON: The Jordan Chamber of Commerce will host the inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference on Dec. 4, the Jordan News Agency reported on Sunday.

Held in alignment with Jordan’s Economic Modernization Vision, the event is the latest bid to boost economic cooperation between Jordan and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) in conjunction with the Gulf-Jordanian Economic Forum, which held its third edition in 2023.

The conference will coincide with the 65th meeting of the Federation of Chambers of the GCC’s Board of Directors — the first such gathering held outside the GCC states.

The JCC President Khalil Haj Tawfiq told of the collaborative spirit of the conference in a statement on Sunday.

He said: “Through this conference we aspire to establish an integrated economic framework that will strengthen trade and investment cooperation, allowing us to better navigate global economic challenges and attract further investment.”

Key figures expected at the conference include the Secretary-General of the GCC Jasem Al-Budaiwi, leaders of Gulf chambers, board members, prominent Gulf investors, and representatives of economic and financial institutions from Jordan and the Gulf region.

The agenda will feature in-depth discussions on investment opportunities, success stories of Gulf investments in Jordan, and sector-focused dialogues with Jordanian ministers.

Priority sectors include energy, mining, transportation, logistics, tourism investment, food security, agricultural production, information technology, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Tawfiq highlighted the timeliness of the event, given the current economic challenges facing the region.

He praised King Abdullah II for fostering stability and creating an investor-friendly environment, adding: “This conference is pivotal for Gulf-Jordanian economic integration, especially as global economic crises continue to affect us all.”


Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families

Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families
Updated 27 min 57 sec ago
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Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families

Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families
  • Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: After over a year of war in Gaza, Palestinian fishermen gather along the coastline, desperately casting their nets in hopes of catching enough for their families amid widespread hunger.
Since Israel began a military onslaught in Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack, Israeli restrictions in the waters off the enclave have made life almost impossible for fishermen, who no longer sail out to sea and instead must stay by the shore.
In Khan Younis, Ibrahim Ghurab, 71, and Waseem Al Masry, 24, fish for sardines from the shoreline in front of a encampment of tents and makeshift shelters for those displaced by the war.
“Life is difficult,” Ghurab said. “One tries to secure food. There is no aid, we don’t receive anything anymore. In the beginning there was some (humanitarian) aid, very little, but now there is no more.”
Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families. There is rarely any fish left over from a daily haul to be sold to others.
Fishing was an important part of daily life in Gaza before the war, helping people eke out a living by selling their daily hauls in the market and feed the population.
But scant aid is reaching Gaza amid Israeli restrictions and frequent fighting, and many people have no income. The price of simple goods are largely out of reach for most.
“We have to come here and risk our lives,” Al Masry said, describing shootings by the Israeli military from the sea that he accused of targeting fisherman on the beach in Khan Younis.
Ghurab similarly said that Israeli military boats had fired upon fisherman at Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the claims the military had shot at fishermen.
Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas for the Islamist militant group’s deadly, cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023 has devastated densely populated Gaza and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.


Israel says nabbed Syrian spy working for Iran

This picture shows a crater caused by an Israeli strike on the road leading to Syria's Jousieh border crossing with Lebanon.
This picture shows a crater caused by an Israeli strike on the road leading to Syria's Jousieh border crossing with Lebanon.
Updated 51 min 39 sec ago
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Israel says nabbed Syrian spy working for Iran

This picture shows a crater caused by an Israeli strike on the road leading to Syria's Jousieh border crossing with Lebanon.
  • The military named the “Iranian terror network operative” as Ali Soleiman Al-Assi, a Syrian citizen living in the area of the southern village of Saida

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Sunday it had captured a Syrian spy for Iran in recent months, thwarting a planned attack by what it described as Iranian terror networks.
The military named the “Iranian terror network operative” as Ali Soleiman Al-Assi, a Syrian citizen living in the area of the southern village of Saida.
“His activities included gathering intelligence on IDF (Israeli military) troops in the border area for future terror activity of the network,” it said in a statement.
The military said the operation took place “in recent months,” adding that the Syrian citizen “was detained and transferred for interrogation in Israel.”
The operation “prevented a future attack and led to the exposure of the operational methods of Iranian terror networks located near the (occupied) Golan Heights.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, had previously reported that Israel had seized a Syrian man on July 19.
“Israeli forces detained a citizen who worked as a driver to transport milk to the capital Damascus,” the war monitor said in July.
It added that the Syrian was detained in the village of Al-Razatiya, in a southern province bordering the Golan Heights annexed by Israel.
“An Israeli military force of three cars and an armored vehicle crossed the border, entered the village and took the man to the occupied Golan Heights,” the observatory said.
Since late September Israel has been engaged in full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began launching cross-border attacks last year, saying it was acting in support of Palestinian militants Hamas, whose unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
Iran-aligned groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria have also been drawn into the fighting, and Iran and Israel have themselves attacked each other, heightening fears of even wider conflict.


Israeli authorities probe suspected Gaza intelligence leak by Netanyahu aide

The father of hostage Idan Shtivi and the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker hug following a court ruling.
The father of hostage Idan Shtivi and the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker hug following a court ruling.
Updated 03 November 2024
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Israeli authorities probe suspected Gaza intelligence leak by Netanyahu aide

The father of hostage Idan Shtivi and the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker hug following a court ruling.
  • On Friday, court confirmed that suspects had been arrested as part of probe into suspected “security breach caused by the illegal provision of classified information”

RISHON LE-ZION, Israel: A suspected leak of classified Gaza documents involving an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has jolted Israeli politics and outraged the families of hostages held by Hamas who have been pushing for a deal to get their loved ones home.
Details of the case have been trickling out only slowly because of a gag order.
But a court ruling partially lifting the order has provided an initial glimpse of the case which the court said had compromised security sources and may have harmed Israel’s war effort.
On Friday, the magistrates’ court confirmed that a number of suspects had been arrested as part of the probe into a suspected “security breach caused by the illegal provision of classified information.”
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing by his office staffers and said in a statement on Saturday that he was only made aware of the leaked document by the media. The suspects could not be reached for comment.
Details from the document in question were published by the German Bild newspaper on Sept. 6, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, one of the media outlets that had appealed the court to lift the gag order.
The article, labelled as an exclusive, purportedly outlined the negotiation strategy of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group which Israel has been fighting in Gaza for more than a year.
Around that time, the United States, Qatar and Egypt were mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, that were to include a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.
But the talks faltered with Israel and Hamas trading blame for the deadlock. The article in question largely corresponded with Netanyahu’s allegations against Hamas over the impasse.
It was published days after six Israeli hostages were found executed in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their killing sparked mass protests in Israel and outraged hostage families, who accused Netanyahu of torpedoing the ceasefire talks for political reasons.
On Saturday, some of the families joined the Israeli journalists’ appeal to lift the gag order.
“These people have been living on a rollercoaster of rumors and half-truths,” said their lawyer, Dana Pugach.
“For the last year they have been waiting to hear any intelligence or any information about negotiations for the release of those hostages. If some of that information had been stolen from army sources then we think that the families have the right to learn about any relevant detail,” she added.
In another session on Sunday about the investigation by the Shin Bet domestic security service, police and the military, the court ordered one suspect be released, while keeping others in remand, according to Israeli Channel 13 News.
Asked about the investigation, Bild said that it does not comment on its sources. “The authenticity of the document known to us was confirmed by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) immediately after publication,” it said.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.