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An Israeli ground assault in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes and shelters, many for a third time or more, even as the United States and some Arab allies pressed both Israel and Hamas to restart peace talks. Between 60,000 and 70,000 people had fled by Thursday evening after the Israeli military ordered people in the city of Khan Younis to leave, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. More continued to flee into the night and into Friday. The Israeli military said its troops were “engaged in combat both above and below-ground” in the Khan Younis area, in an attack involving ground troops, fighter jets, helicopter gunships and paratroopers, and that the air force had struck more than 30 targets. Some were in tears.

Persons: Khan Younis, “, Younis Organizations: United Nations Locations: Gaza, United States, Israel

☆ Despite Park Fire’s Rapid Spread, Some Residents Are Determined to Stay Put
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-27 | by ( Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As California’s biggest fire of the year raced toward his neighborhood and the police ordered residents to evacuate, Justin Freese decided he was going nowhere. Instead, he calmly unfurled his 300 feet of fire hose, readying his generators and surveyed the fire’s progress. “I live up here — I’ve gotta be prepared,” Mr. Freese, 40, said Friday, as he paced his property set amid the conifer forests a 20-minute drive outside the city of Chico. A tower of wildfire smoke — streaked orange, red and black — soared into the sky as the Park fire tore through the valley below. By Saturday morning, it had consumed more than 300,000 acres of land, making it the largest active fire in the country, and it was still zero percent contained.

Persons: Justin Freese, Freese, “, Mr Locations: Forest, Chico

☆ California Wildfire Races Through a Forest Community, in a Haunting Reminder
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-26 | by ( Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ryan Kendall’s crew of firefighters arrived too late to save the house on Dear Abby Road. All that was left on Friday, amid the thick forests that surrounded it, was a jumble of smoking household appliances licked by hissing flames. The plastic from the home’s giant water storage tanks was fully ignited and dripping fire onto the forest floor. Dear Abby Road is in a neighborhood, Forest Ranch, that is hauntingly similar to the community that was decimated six years ago in the town of Paradise. As the crow flies, Forest Ranch is just 10 miles and a few gullies away, built into the evergreen forest on steep hillsides.

Persons: Ryan Kendall’s, Abby, ”, Kendall Locations: Los Angeles, California, Forest, Paradise

The two main rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint statement in Beijing on Tuesday that endorsed, in concept, a temporary government for the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in a grand show of unity brokered by China’s foreign ministry. Smaller Palestinian groups also signed the statement. For China, the agreement represents an opportunity to promote an image of Beijing as a peace broker and an important player in the Middle East. Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy leader of Fatah, showered praise on China for standing beside the Palestinian people. Both men posed for photos with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, in an ornate hall in Beijing.

Persons: Fatah, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Mahmoud al, Wang Yi Organizations: Gaza, West Bank, Hamas Locations: Beijing, China

Israel and Egypt have privately discussed a possible withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza’s border with Egypt, according to two Israeli officials and a senior Western diplomat, a shift that could remove one of the main obstacles to a cease-fire deal with Hamas. After more than nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, the discussions between Israel and Egypt are among a flurry of diplomatic actions on multiple continents aimed at achieving a truce and putting the enclave on a path toward postwar governance. Officials from both Hamas, which ruled Gaza before the war, and Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, said Monday that China will host meetings with them next week in an effort to bridge gaps between the rival Palestinian groups. And Israel is dispatching its national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, to Washington this week for meetings at the White House, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Persons: Fatah, Tzachi Organizations: Hamas, Palestinian Authority, White Locations: Israel, Egypt, Gaza’s, Western, Gaza, China, Washington

After two weeks of intense battles between Hamas militants and Israeli troops in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiye, residents and rescue workers combed through the wreckage on Friday, a landscape of flattened buildings strewed with dozens of bodies. “The scale of destruction is immense.”More than nine months into the war in Gaza, Israeli troops are returning to areas they had previously conquered and encountering strong resistance from Hamas fighters. The offensive in Shajaiye was part of a wider Israeli effort to clamp down on a renewed Hamas insurgency in Gaza City, the military said. And Israel said on Friday that it had “eliminated” the deputy commander of Hamas’s Shajaiye Battalion, Ayman Showadeh. He had been “a key operative” at the group’s operations headquarters and had been involved in directing the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that set off the war in Gaza, Israel said.

Persons: ”, Karam Hassan, Israel, Hamas’s, Ayman Showadeh Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza City, Shajaiye, Gaza, Israel

☆ Many in Gaza City Ignore Israeli Military’s Calls to Evacuate
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-11 | by ( Raja Abdulrahim | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

During nine months of war, Amani Zanin’s extended family has fled from place to place, escaping the Israeli bombardments that have flattened many neighborhoods in northern Gaza. But this week, when the Israeli military issued repeated calls for Palestinians to clear out of Gaza City, the Zanin family and many others decided not to leave. “The road is not safe,” said Ms. Zanin, whose family is now sheltering in a school building. Exhausted by the constant threat of bombardment and encircled by death and decimation, families in the northern Gaza Strip who heeded earlier warnings to flee are now taking the risk of staying put. Fliers dropped by the Israeli military over parts of Gaza City and posted on social media laid out four “safe corridors” Palestinians could use to get to central Gaza “quickly and without inspection.”

Persons: Amani Zanin’s, ”, Zanin Organizations: Gaza Locations: Gaza, Gaza City

☆ Carnage at Gaza School Compound Adds to Mounting Death Toll at U.N. Buildings
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-10 | by ( Raja Abdulrahim | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The soccer ball went out of bounds and the goalkeeper was lofting it toward his teammates as dozens of people looked on from the sidelines of the courtyard. It was a moment of respite in the Gaza Strip — but it did not last. Before the ball reached the ground, a large boom shook the yard, sending players and spectators fleeing in frenzied panic. The Gazan authorities say that at least 27 people were killed on Tuesday in that explosion, which was caused by an Israeli airstrike near the entrance to a school turned shelter on the outskirts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Persons: Khan Younis Locations: Gaza, Khan

☆ Israel Kills a Top Commander of Hezbollah, Which Replies With a Rocket Barrage
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-03 | by ( Euan Ward | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Wednesday in a drone strike in southern Lebanon, prompting the Lebanese militia to retaliate with a heavy rocket barrage across the border. The flare-up came as Western diplomats worked to avoid a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, a danger that appears to have grown in recent weeks. Cross-border exchanges of fire have intensified, and Israeli officials have publicly spoken of shifting their military focus from Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and potent threat. Jean-Yves Le Drian, President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to Lebanon, was among the people with whom he met, according to a person close to the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. He said Mr. Nasser had led Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, one of the group’s main fighting forces along the Lebanese border.

Persons: Amos Hochstein, Jean, Yves Le Drian, Emmanuel Macron’s, Mohammad Naameh Nasser, Abu Naameh, Mr, Nasser, Hezbollah’s Aziz Organizations: Hezbollah, White, U.S, French Locations: Lebanon, Western, Israel, Gaza, tamping, Paris, Lebanese

Israel released the chief of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital on Monday after more than seven months of detention, Palestinian health officials said, a move that drew an immediate outcry in Israel even though no charges against him have been made public. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was taken into custody in late November as he took part in an effort to evacuate patients from the hospital, which at the time was under siege by the Israeli military. The military said he was taken for questioning about Hamas operations at the hospital. Reaction to Dr. Abu Salmiya’s release underlined divergent views of the war both inside and outside Israel. Speaking at a news conference at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after his release, Dr. Abu Salmiya, visibly frail, said that he had been released and returned to Gaza along with nearly 50 other Palestinian detainees, including other doctors and health ministry staff members.

Persons: Israel, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, Abu Salmiya’s, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, Khan Younis, Abu Salmiya Organizations: Al, Shifa, Nasser Hospital Locations: Gaza, Israel, Gaza City, Khan

☆ China’s Lust for Durian Is Creating Fortunes in Southeast Asia
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-16 | by ( Thomas Fuller | Gabriela Bhaskar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before he started a company 15 years ago selling the world’s smelliest fruit, Eric Chan had a well-paying job writing code for satellites and robots. The fruit, durian, has long been a cherished part of local cultures in Southeast Asia, where it is grown in abundance. When Mr. Chan began his start-up in his native Malaysia, durians were cheap and often sold from the back of trucks. Last year, the value of durian exports from Southeast Asia to China was $6.7 billion, a twelvefold increase from $550 million in 2017. China buys virtually all of the world’s exported durians, according to United Nations data.

Persons: Eric Chan, Chan Organizations: China, United Nations Locations: Southeast Asia, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Vietnam

A day after the United Nations Security Council endorsed a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal for the Gaza Strip, the focus shifted on Tuesday to the willingness of Israel and Hamas, under growing international pressure to end the war, to make a deal. Each side made positive but vague statements about the cease-fire plan and blamed the other for prolonging a war that has devastated Gaza. But neither said it would formally embrace the proposal, which was outlined last month in a speech by President Biden and was the basis of the 14-0 vote in the Security Council on Monday. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, touring the region for the eighth time since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, said on Tuesday that the fate of the cease-fire proposal rested with Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, countered that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was “the sole obstacle to reaching an agreement that would end the war.”

Persons: Biden, Antony J, Yahya Sinwar, Husam, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, ” Organizations: United Nations Security, Security, Hamas Locations: U.S, Gaza, Israel

The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a U.S.-backed cease-fire plan for the Gaza Strip with only Russia abstaining, a sign of the growing frustration among the world’s major powers over the war and the desire to bring it to an end. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told members of the Security Council that Israel had already agreed to the deal laid out in the resolution — although Israel has so far resisted taking a public position on it — and she urged Hamas “to do the same.”“Hamas can now see that the international community is united, united behind a deal that will save lives and help Palestinian civilians in Gaza start to rebuild and heal,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said. The 14-0 vote may strengthen the hand of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who returned to the Middle East on Monday to press Hamas and Israel to agree to a cease-fire.

Persons: Linda Thomas, Greenfield, Israel, “, ”, Ms, Thomas, Antony J, Blinken Organizations: United Nations Security, United Nations, Security Council Locations: U.S, Gaza, Russia, Israel

☆ Egypt Faces Hard Choices After Israeli Seizure of Gaza’s Southern Border
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Aaron Boxerman | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced plans late last year to occupy a sensitive corridor of land in the Gaza Strip, along the border with Egypt, the response from Cairo was public, explicit and ominous. Egypt said that an Israeli military presence there would violate the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries. This week, the Israeli military announced that it had seized “tactical control” of the corridor. Yet despite the Egyptian government facing domestic pressure to take a harsher stance on Israel following its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, there has been no public Egyptian comment on the seizure of the corridor. The silence may be a reflection of the dilemma Egypt finds itself in after nearly eight months of war in Gaza.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu Organizations: Israel Locations: Gaza, Egypt, Cairo, Israel, Rafah

Israel’s national security adviser said Wednesday that he expected military operations in Gaza to continue through at least the end of the year, appearing to dismiss the idea that the war could come to an end after the military offensive against Hamas in Rafah. “We expect another seven months of combat in order to shore up our achievement and realize what we define as the destruction of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s military and governing capabilities,” Tzachi Hanegbi, the national security adviser, said in a radio interview with Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster. The Israeli military also said Wednesday that it had seized “operational control” over a buffer strip along the southern edge of Gaza to prevent cross-border smuggling with Egypt that would allow Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups to rearm. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that controlling the corridor is critical for Israeli security in postwar Gaza. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said the zone was “Hamas’s oxygen tube” and had been used by the Palestinian armed group for “smuggling munitions into Gazan territory on a regular basis.” He said that Hamas had also built tunnels near the Egyptian border, calculating that Israel would not dare strike so close to Egyptian territory.

Persons: Tzachi Hanegbi, Kan, Benjamin Netanyahu, Daniel Hagari Organizations: Hamas, Islamic Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Egypt, Palestinian, Israel

Israel’s military said it was pressing on with its ground assault in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday despite mounting international outrage over its operations there, including an airstrike over the weekend that killed dozens of civilians. The military said its troops were engaging in close-quarters combat with Hamas fighters and that it had deployed an additional “combat team” to Rafah, without specifying how many more soldiers were sent to the southern city. The military has said that its strike on Rafah on Sunday — which ignited a deadly fire that killed at least 45 people — targeted a Hamas compound. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said it was a “tragic accident” that civilians in the camp, many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza, had been killed.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza, Rafah

Israel said on Thursday that it would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas. The announcement signaled that Israel intends to press deeper into Rafah despite international concerns about the threat to civilians from a full-scale invasion of the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering. “Hundreds of targets have already been attacked,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said after meeting with commanders in the Rafah area. “This operation will continue.”For the past week Israel has described its offensive as a limited military operation, but satellite imagery and Mr. Gallant’s comments on Thursday suggested that a more significant incursion was already underway.

Persons: Israel, ” Yoav Gallant, Gallant’s Organizations: Hamas Locations: Rafah, Gaza, Israel, “

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Wednesday that recent gains in getting desperately needed humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip risked being undone by the fighting in southern Gaza. The border crossing in the southern city of Rafah has been closed since Israel began what it describes as a limited military operation against Hamas fighters in the town, on the border with Egypt. The United Nations said on Wednesday that 600,000 people had fled Rafah since Israel’s ground assault started there. “At the very time when Israel was taking important and much needed steps to improve the provision of humanitarian assistance,” Mr. Blinken said to reporters in Kyiv, Ukraine, “we’ve seen a negative impact on the fact that we have this active, very active conflict in the Rafah area.”Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, said in a statement that Israel needed to end its Rafah operation “immediately,” warning that extending it “would inevitably put a heavy strain on the E.U.’s relationship with Israel.”

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, Israel, ” Mr, “ we’ve, ” Josep Borrell Fontelles, ” Organizations: Israel, Hamas, United Nations Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Egypt, Kyiv, Ukraine, “, Israel

Israelis gathered across the country on Monday for the first national day of mourning since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, with protesters disrupting several ceremonies as they demanded that government ministers do more to secure the release of hostages. Israel’s Memorial Day is normally one of the most somber on the country’s calendar, a date when Israelis put aside their differences to grieve fellow citizens killed in war or terrorist attacks. But the protests on Monday underscored how feelings of wartime unity have given way to deep disputes over the war in the Gaza Strip, the fate of hostages taken on Oct. 7 and domestic politics. Critics heckled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he attended a memorial at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the site of Israel’s national cemetery. One person was heard shouting, “Garbage.” Another said, “You took my children.”At a ceremony in Ashdod, on the Mediterranean coast, bystanders shouted at the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, calling him a “criminal,” before his supporters tried to drown them out.

Persons: Israel’s, Critics, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mount, “, ”, Itamar Ben Locations: Gaza, Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Ashdod

Turkey said on Friday that it would suspend all trade with Israel until there was a “permanent cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip, the latest international sanction against Israel and one that underscores the mounting global pressure to end the war in the territory. Turkey’s announcement built on statements the previous day that it had halted all trade with Israel until “uninterrupted and adequate humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza.” But even as Turkey announced the measures, Israel continued its repeated warnings that it was preparing for an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that the United Nations said on Friday could result in a “slaughter” in Gaza. In announcing the trade suspension, the Turkish trade minister, Omer Bolat, spoke of Israel’s “uncompromising attitude.” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told a business association on Friday that he anticipated backlash from Western countries but that Turkey had decided to “stand side by side with the persecuted.”

Persons: Israel, Omer Bolat, Israel’s, ”, Recep Tayyip Erdogan Organizations: Israel, United Nations Locations: Turkey, Israel, Gaza, Rafah

A Hamas leader said Thursday that the group would soon send a delegation to Cairo to “complete ongoing discussions” on a cease-fire deal for the war in the Gaza Strip, raising hopes of progress in the stalled efforts for a truce. The latest cease-fire proposal, which has been forcefully pushed by the Biden administration in recent days, comes after nearly seven devastating months of war. The deal would include a weekslong temporary truce — the exact duration is unclear — and the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. It would also allow the return of civilians to the largely depopulated northern part of Gaza, and enable increased delivery of aid to the territory. Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, said the group was studying the latest proposal from Israel, which includes some Israeli concessions, with a “positive spirit.” A Hamas delegation will go to Egypt soon to seek a deal that “realizes our people’s demands and ends the aggression,” according to a statement by the group.

Persons: Biden, Ismail Haniyeh, ”, “ Locations: Cairo, “, Gaza, Israel, Egypt

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered twin messages to Hamas and Israel on Wednesday, pressing Hamas to accept a cease-fire proposal while at the same time urging Israeli leaders to put off a major ground invasion into the thickly populated southern Gaza city of Rafah. On the last day of a Middle East trip, his seventh visit to the region since the war began in October, Mr. Blinken tried to turn up the pressure on Hamas. “We are determined to get a cease-fire that brings the hostages home and to get it now, and the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” Mr. Blinken said at the start of a meeting in Tel Aviv with Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel. “There is a proposal on the table, and as we’ve said: No delays, no excuses. The time is now.”The proposed agreement calls for the release of 33 hostages in the initial stage of a cease-fire, and would lead to the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, “, wouldn’t, ” Mr, Isaac Herzog, Israel, we’ve Organizations: Israel, Mr Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Tel Aviv, Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel vowed anew on Tuesday to launch an invasion into the southern Gaza Strip, even as a renewed push for a cease-fire agreement was showing glimmers of a potential breakthrough. After seven months of an Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the United States, Qatar and several other countries have been hoping to broker a cease-fire, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is visiting the Middle East to press for an agreement. But with Hamas arguing that any agreement should include an end to the war, and with right-wing politicians in Israel threatening to leave the government coalition if the long-planned incursion into the southern Gazan city of Rafah is delayed, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel reserved the right to keep fighting.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Antony J, Blinken, Netanyahu Locations: Gaza, Israel, United States, Qatar, Gazan, Rafah

American intelligence analysts and officials said on Friday that they expected Iran to strike multiple targets inside Israel within the next few days in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in the Syrian capital on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders. The United States, Israel’s pre-eminent ally, has military forces in several places across the Middle East. Any Iranian strike inside Israel would be a watershed moment in the decades of hostilities between the two nations that would most likely open a volatile new chapter in the region. And an Iranian attack would heighten the risk of a wider conflict that could drag in multiple countries, including the United States. In remarks to reporters on Friday, President Biden said that he expected a military attack against Israel “sooner rather than later,” and that his message to Iran was “don’t.”

Persons: Israel’s, Biden, Israel “, “, ” Locations: Iran, Israel, United States

An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday killed three sons of one of the most senior leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who said the strike would not weaken the group’s negotiating position or its resolve in its fight against Israel. Mr. Haniyeh, who leads the Hamas political bureau from exile, is a longstanding leader of the group. He is also engaged in the stalled negotiations with Israel through international mediators who are seeking to broker a cease-fire and secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “The enemy is delusional if it thinks that by killing my children, we will change our positions,” Mr. Haniyeh said in a statement. “We shall not give in, no matter the sacrifices.”

Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh, ” Mr, ” Organizations: Israel Locations: Israel, Gaza

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