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- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] More than 200 aid workers have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the United Nations. Weeks before the World Central Kitchen strike, a logistics coordinator for another American aid group called ANERA returned home after distributing supplies. Mousa Shawa was still wearing his ANERA vest when an Israeli strike hit the house, killing him; his 6-year-old son, Kareem; and several neighbors. “We’ve seen tracers going towards the sea.” At this shelter on January 8, the aid group said a projectile was fired through the building, killing a 5-year-old girl. What went wrong in the deconfliction system is still not clear to the aid group.
Persons: , misclassification, It’s, ANERA, Shawa, Kareem, Mousa, Dua, they’d, they’ve, , ” Israel, Israel Organizations: Central Kitchen, Washington , D.C, Israel Defense Forces, United Nations, The Times, Hamas, Times, Munitions, Sky News, International Rescue Committee, Aid, Locations: Washington ,, Gaza, Israel, Israeli, ANERA, British, U.S
Pentagon officials refused to specify the exact number of long-range systems that have been sent to Ukraine. The Biden administration sent the longer-range ATACMS secretly, to avoid alerting the Russians. President Biden’s decision in February to send more than 100 of the longer-range systems to Ukraine was a major policy shift. But more than two years into Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine, Mr. Biden’s calculus has changed, administration officials said. As Congress spent months considering another aid package for Ukraine, its troops ran out of ammunition and equipment and lost territory to a slow but steady Russian advance.
Persons: Biden, ATACMS, Volodymyr Zelensky, Gen, Oleksandr Syrsky, they’ve, Charles Q, Brown Jr, Biden’s Organizations: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Georgetown University Institute of Politics, Service Locations: Ukraine, Berdiansk, U.S, Dzhankoi, Crimea, Russia
The construction is meant to allow humanitarian aid to bypass Israeli restrictions on land convoys into the besieged strip. The facility is meant to include an offshore platform to transfer aid from ships, and a floating pier to bring the aid to shore. But aid workers say, and defense officials have acknowledged, that the maritime project is not an adequate substitute for land convoys. The floating pier is being built alongside an Army ship off the Gaza coast. Army ships are large, lumbering vessels, so they have armed escorts, particularly as they get within range of Gaza’s coast, defense officials have said.
Persons: Patrick S, Ryder, General Ryder, Biden Organizations: Defense, Pentagon, ., U.S, Army Locations: Gaza, U.S
About 90,000 NATO troops have been training in Europe this spring for the Great Power war that most hope will never come: a clash between Russia and the West with potentially catastrophic consequences. In Estonia, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Liberty, N.C., jumped out of planes alongside soldiers from Colchester Garrison in Essex, Britain, for “forcible entry” operations. In Lithuania, German soldiers arrived as a brigade stationed outside Germany on a permanent basis for the first time since World War II. And on the A4 autobahn in eastern Germany, a U.S. Army captain and his Macedonian counterpart rushed toward the Suwalki Gap — the place many war planners predict will be the flashpoint for a NATO war with Russia — hoping the overheated radiator on their Stryker armored combat vehicle wouldn’t kill the engine.
Persons: Russia — Organizations: NATO, Great, 82nd Airborne, Colchester Garrison, U.S . Army, Macedonian Locations: Europe, Russia, Estonia, Fort Liberty, N.C, Essex, Britain, Lithuania, Germany
Iran’s much-anticipated retaliation for Israel’s killing of senior military leaders produced a fiery aerial display in the skies over Israel and the West Bank. But in important ways, military analysts say, it was just that: a highly choreographed spectacle. Just as they did back in 2020 when retaliating for the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iranian leaders this weekend gave plenty of warning that they were launching strikes. The result: a lot of bang, but relatively little destruction on the ground. Few of Iran’s drones and missiles found their intended targets, an inaccuracy level that military experts and defense officials say was probably by design.
Persons: retaliating, Qassim Suleimani Organizations: West Bank, Jordanian, Iranian Embassy Locations: Israel, Gen, Iran, Iranian, Syria
Landing is even harder. The pilot has to line up with the runway, lower the tailhook and come in at the right angle, with fractions of seconds to catch one of four arresting wires. Once the wheels hit the deck, the pilot pushes the aircraft to full throttle, just in case the tailhook hasn’t caught the wire and the plane has to take off again.
Persons: hasn’t
The Senate passed an emergency aid bill including $60.1 billion for Ukraine. But the measure faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives, where Republican leaders have refused to put the measure to a vote. The American political paralysis has led, Pentagon officials said, to critical shortages on the battlefields of Ukraine. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has sent more than $75 billion in cash and equipment to the country for its defense. Most of the aid has gone to Ukraine’s military operations, keeping its government running and addressing its humanitarian needs.
Persons: Mike Johnson, Biden Organizations: Representatives, Republican, Republican Party, Pentagon Locations: Ukraine, Louisiana
The U.S. military said on Sunday that a ship had set sail carrying equipment to build a floating pier on Gaza’s coast, part of a Biden administration effort to deliver aid to the enclave by sea and help ease its hunger crisis. The administration’s plan for a pier and causeway, announced last week, could eventually help deliver as many as two million meals a day for residents of Gaza. On Sunday, the U.S. military said that an Army ship, the General Frank S. Besson, had set sail from a base near Norfolk, Va., a day earlier. The Israeli military will help coordinate the installation of the pier, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said on Saturday. They are trying to deliver the first sea shipment of food and humanitarian supplies to Gaza.
Persons: Biden, Frank S, Besson, “ Besson, Daniel Hagari, José Andrés, Helene Cooper, Gaya Gupta, Aaron Boxerman Organizations: U.S, Pentagon, Army, Seventh Transportation Brigade, United Nations, Aid, European Union, United Arab, United Locations: Gaza, Norfolk, Va, U.S, Israel, Britain, United Arab Emirates, Spanish, Cyprus, Larnaca
The United States has a history of using its military to get food, water and other humanitarian relief to civilians during wars or natural disasters. But it is rare for the United States to try to provide such services for people who are being bombed with tacit U.S. support. President Biden’s decision to order the U.S. military to build a floating pier off the Gaza Strip that would allow aid to be delivered by sea puts American service members in a new phase of their humanitarian aid history. The floating pier idea came a week after Mr. Biden authorized humanitarian airdrops for Gaza, which relief experts criticized as inadequate. Even the floating pier, aid experts say, will not do enough to alleviate the suffering in the territory, where residents are on the brink of starvation.
Persons: Biden’s, Biden Organizations: Pentagon Locations: States, Haiti, Liberia, Indonesia, United States, Gaza, Israel
Israelis largely welcomed a U.N. report that supported allegations of sexual violence during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, even as a top Israeli official accused the United Nations of not doing enough to address the findings — a sign of the rising tensions between them. The U.N. report, released on Monday, found both “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence against multiple people had occurred in at least three locations in Israel, and “clear and convincing information” that hostages taken to Gaza on Oct. 7 had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape. On Tuesday, President Isaac Herzog of Israel said on X that the report was “of immense importance,” and he lauded it for its “moral clarity and integrity.”But Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, accused the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, in a social media post of making a concerted effort to “forget the report and avoid making the necessary decisions.” In protest, Mr. Katz recalled Israel’s representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, for consultations — a step short of withdrawing the ambassador for a longer term. Mr. Erdan was on a plane back to Israel on Tuesday, he said.
Persons: , Isaac Herzog of Israel, Israel Katz, António Guterres, Katz, Israel’s, Gilad Erdan, Erdan Organizations: United Nations Locations: Israel, Gaza
Few expected the Pentagon’s internal review of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s failure to tell President Biden and other senior leaders that he was in the hospital to amount to much. And indeed, it did not. The unclassified version of the review was released on Monday. The review instead retreats behind paragraphs of heavy legalese that do little to disguise the lack of accountability. It is a strange document, with recommendations signed by Mr. Austin himself.
Persons: Lloyd J, Austin III’s, Biden, Austin, Walter Reed Organizations: Defense Department, White, Walter Reed National Military Medical, Mr Locations: Bethesda, Md
Houthi militants have launched attack drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The United States and Britain carried out another round of large-scale military strikes Saturday against multiple sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, U.S. officials said. On Monday, Houthi militants fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a cargo ship, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The ship, called the Sea Champion, continued on to its destination at the port of Aden in Yemen, the statement added. The American-led retaliatory air and naval strikes against Houthi targets began last month.
Persons: , Houthi, Mason, Lloyd J, Austin III Organizations: Houthi, British, Defense Department, Associated Press, , Yemeni Armed Forces, U.S ., U.S . Central Command, Central Command, Command, Iranian Locations: Aden, The United States, Britain, Yemen, Iran, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, “ U.S, U.S, Red Sea, Palau, Gaza, Israel, United States, Africa, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia
The United States and Britain carried out another round of large-scale military strikes Saturday against multiple sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, U.S. officials said. The strikes were intended to degrade the Iran-backed militants’ ability to attack ships in sea lanes that are critical for global trade, a campaign they have carried out for almost four months. American and British warplanes hit missile systems and launchers and other targets, the officials said. Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand provided support for the operation, according to a joint statement from the countries involved that was emailed to reporters by the Defense Department. The strikes, which the statement called “necessary and proportionate,” hit 18 targets across eight locations in Yemen associated with Houthi underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter.
Persons: Organizations: Houthi, British, Defense Department Locations: States, Britain, Yemen, Iran, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand
A U.S. retaliatory strike in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday killed a senior leader of a militia that U.S. officials blame for recent attacks on American personnel, the Pentagon said, following up on President Biden’s promise that the response to a slew of attacks by Shiite militias would continue. The Pentagon said the man was a leader of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the militia that officials have said was responsible for the drone attack in Jordan last month that killed three American service members and injured more than 40 more. A U.S. official said that the strike was a “dynamic” hit on the militia commander, whom American intelligence officials had been tracking for some time. A second official said the United States reserved the right to strike other Shiite militia leaders and commanders.
Persons: Biden’s, Kata’ib Organizations: Wednesday, Pentagon, Kata’ib Hezbollah, U.S Locations: Jordan, United States
The United States and Britain carried out large-scale military strikes on Saturday against multiple sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, according to a statement from the two countries and six allies, as the Biden administration continued its reprisal campaign in the Middle East targeting Iran-backed militias. The attacks against 36 Houthi targets at 13 sites in northern Yemen came barely 24 hours after the United States carried out a series of military strikes against Iranian forces and the militias they support at seven sites in Syria and Iraq. American and British warplanes, as well as Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, hit deeply buried weapons storage facilities; missile systems and launchers; air defense systems; and radars in Yemen, the statement said. Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand provided support, which officials said included intelligence and logistics assistance. “These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing Houthi actions since previous coalition strikes,” the statement said, referring to major attacks by the United States and Britain last month.
Persons: Biden Organizations: Houthi, Iranian, British, Navy Locations: States, Britain, Yemen, Iran, United States, Syria, Iraq, Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand
Roughly 40,000 American troops are stationed across the Middle East, mostly in countries with close ties to the United States. There were more than 160,000 American troops in Iraq alone in 2007, during the war that followed the U.S. invasion. Image Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq in 2019. Credit... Nasser Nasser/Associated PressWhy are so many troops there? A military coalition led by the United States, including forces in Syria and Iraq, defeated it. President Biden has retaliated with attacks on Iran-aligned militants, hitting groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Persons: Jan, Al, Nasser Nasser, Biden, Israel —, Al Tanf, ” Gen, Hossein Organizations: U.S, Al Asad, Al Asad Air Base, Hezbollah, Army, Air Force, Washington, Operations, Navy’s, U.S . Central Command, Associated, Islamic, U.S ., Pentagon, , Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Locations: Jordan, Iraq, United States, State, U.S, Al Asad Air, Iraq’s, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Azraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Gaza, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, China, American, Islamic State, Mosul, Raqqa, Israel, Yemen
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III stopped short on Thursday of blaming Iran for attacks that killed three U.S. service members on Sunday in Jordan but said that Tehran trained and funded the militia groups that have targeted American troops and commercial shipping in the Middle East. Mr. Austin, in a rare show of bravado, continued the Biden administration’s promises of retribution. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Ga.; Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Ga.; and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Ga. The Pentagon says that 40 American troops were injured. Biden administration officials say that the drone strike crossed a red line and that there is no way the president will not respond.
Persons: Lloyd J, Austin III, Austin, Biden, , William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders, Breonna Alexsondria Moffett Organizations: , Pentagon Locations: Iran, Jordan, Tehran, United States, Carrollton , Ga, Waycross, Savannah, Ga
He expressed “outrage and sorrow for the death of three brave U.S. troops in Jordan, and for the other troops who were wounded” and added that “we will take all necessary action to defend the U.S. and our troops.”Mr. Austin said he was “glad to be back at the Pentagon. I feel good and am recovering well, but still recovering.”The House Armed Services Committee has asked Mr. Austin to testify next month about why he and his aides kept his illness secret. Mr. Austin, 70, has long been known as an intensely private man who eschews the limelight and dislikes talking to the news media — qualities that Mr. Biden was fine with, his aides said, when he appointed the 40-year Army officer to be his defense secretary. But in keeping secret his hospitalization, Mr. Austin attracted more attention to himself than at any point in his long career. He also drew scrutiny and criticism of Mr. Biden’s national security team during a period when it was dealing with multiple crises around the world, including wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Persons: , Mr, Austin, Mike D, Rogers, ” Mr, Biden Organizations: U.S, Pentagon, House Armed, Republican, Army Locations: Jordan, Alabama, Gaza, Ukraine
For years, the scrappy Iran-backed Yemeni rebels known as the Houthis did such a good job of bedeviling American partners in the Middle East that Pentagon war planners started copying some of their tactics. Noting that the Houthis had managed to weaponize commercial radar systems that are commonly available in boating stores and make them more portable, a senior U.S. commander challenged his Marines to figure out something similar. By September 2022, Marines in the Baltic Sea were adapting Houthi-inspired mobile radar systems. So senior Pentagon officials knew as soon as the Houthis started attacking ships in the Red Sea that they would be hard to tame. As the Biden administration approaches its third week of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, the Pentagon is trying to thread an impossibly tiny needle: making a dent in the Houthis’ ability to hit commercial and Navy vessels without dragging the United States into a prolonged war.
Persons: Biden Organizations: Marines, Pentagon Locations: Iran, East, U.S, Baltic, Yemen, United States
For three years, President Biden has been just fine with the private nature of his media-shy, introverted defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III. He has also drawn scrutiny and criticism to Mr. Biden’s national security team during a period when it is managing multiple crises around the world. Asked about Mr. Austin on Friday, Mr. Biden said he retained confidence in him. But the president gave a pointed, one-syllable answer when asked if it was a lapse in judgment for Mr. Austin not to have informed him that he had been out of commission at times in recent weeks. The entire incident has exposed Mr. Austin as that rarest of creatures in Washington: an intensely private person in a relentlessly public job.
Persons: Biden, Lloyd J, Austin III, Austin, , Organizations: Mr Locations: Washington
It was the second straight day that the U.S. military fired on a Houthi target, after an American-led barrage of military strikes early Friday local time that was aimed at securing critical shipping routes between Europe and Asia. The strikes come amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. The strike, carried out at 3:45 a.m. Saturday local time by the U.S.S. Carney using Tomahawk missiles, was “a follow-on action on a specific military target,” the Central Command said in a statement posted on social media. A Pentagon official said on Friday night that the strike was meant to further the job begun by the widespread coordinated air and naval assault on a number of Houthi targets in Yemen the night before.
Persons: Carney Organizations: U.S . Central Command, ., Tomahawk, Central Command, Pentagon Locations: States, Yemen, Iran, American, Europe, Asia, United States, Britain, Red, Israel
A U.S. Navy destroyer shot down three drones during a sustained attack in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said, in what could signal another escalation in the tit-for-tat attacks between the American military and Iranian-backed militants. The destroyer intercepted three drones during the attack, United States Central Command said in a statement, including one that was headed in the direction of the Carney. In the statement, Central Command said the attacks originated from areas in Yemen that are controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. In October, the Carney shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel. In its statement, Central Command said “we have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran.
Persons: Carney, Yahya Sarea, Biden, , ” Shuaib Almosawa Organizations: U.S . Navy, Pentagon, United States Central Command, Central Command, Hamas, Command Locations: Yemen, Iranian, Israel, Red, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Syria, United States
Neither Washington nor Tehran wants the conflict in the Gaza Strip to trigger a wider war in the region, officials in both capitals say. But in the seven weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Iranian-backed militias have launched more than 70 rocket and drone attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon, for its part, has responded with four rounds of airstrikes, killing as many as 15 people, U.S. officials say. So far, none of the U.S. reprisal attacks have provoked an escalation, even the one last week in Iraq that killed several militants with Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group. The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the attacks had subsided at least temporarily — the most recent being on Nov. 23, the day before an operational pause in the Gaza war began.
Organizations: U.S, Pentagon, Hezbollah Locations: Washington, Tehran, Gaza, Israel, Iranian, Iraq, Syria, United States, East, South Asia
Israel is trying to produce solid evidence for its assertion that Hamas has been using tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza as a command center. But an Israeli military-led tour of the hospital grounds with journalists Thursday night showed directly only a shaft in the ground with a staircase, which did not settle the issue. Thursday night’s Israeli military tour showed that the shaft had electrical wiring, along with a metal staircase. In the darkness, it was unclear where the shaft led or how deep it went. Israel has also released a pair of videos from inside Gaza’s main children’s hospital that Israel said showed weapons and explosives found in the medical center, and a room where the military said hostages were kept.
Persons: Biden, Israel Organizations: Shifa Locations: Israel, Al, Gaza, Gaza’s
President Biden’s top military adviser has told China that the United States is open to resuming military-to-military communication that Beijing suspended last year to protest then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. U.S. officials are hoping the two leaders will announce a resumption of military dialogue there. General Brown, who is traveling in the region this week, said that the reopening of the communications channel was important to prevent misunderstandings that could cascade into crises. “Just to ensure that there’s no miscalculation in that dialogue, to me, is hugely important,” he said during a briefing with reporters.
Persons: Biden’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, Charles Q, Brown Jr, Biden, Liu Zhenli, , ” General Brown, China’s, Xi Jinping, General Brown, Organizations: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Economic Cooperation Locations: China, United States, Beijing, Taiwan, Asia
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