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☆ Earthquake Rattles New York and New Jersey, but Does Little Damage
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

At a general store in New Jersey, near the epicenter of the earthquake, the sound was so loud that the staff thought a truck had crashed into the building. Five miles away, at some riding stables, the ground shook so forcefully that it sent three horses galloping around the ring. Within hours, a custom T-shirt shop in Manhattan was already selling a souvenir: a shirt emblazoned with, “I Survived The N.Y.C. Earthquake, April 5th, 2024.”For most of the millions of people who felt the magnitude-4.8 earthquake that sent tremors from Philadelphia to Boston on Friday morning, it was a harmless novelty in a part of the country unaccustomed to seismic shaking.

Persons: “ Locations: New Jersey, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Boston

The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip during the remaining weeks of Ramadan, breaking a five-month impasse during which the United States vetoed three calls for a halt to the fighting. The resolution passed with 14 votes in favor and the United States abstaining, which U.S. officials said they did in part because the resolution did not condemn Hamas. President Biden had requested those meetings to discuss alternatives to a planned Israeli offensive into Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where more than a million people have sought refuge. American officials have said such an operation would create a humanitarian disaster. Mr. Netanyahu’s office called the U.S. abstention from the vote a “clear departure from the consistent U.S. position in the Security Council since the beginning of the war,” and said it “harms both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages.”

Persons: ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Biden Organizations: United Nations Security, United States, ”, U.S, Security Locations: Gaza, United, States, United States, Washington, Israel, Rafah

A U.S. bid to have the U.N. Security Council call for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip failed on Friday, after Russia and China vetoed the American resolution that included some of Washington’s strongest language since the start of the war. The resolution reflected the Biden administration’s growing frustration both with the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s conduct in a war that has killed about 30,000 people and reduced much of the enclave to ruins. But international frictions, including over Washington’s previous use of its veto power in the Security Council and its refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire, doomed the resolution. Eleven members voted in favor of the resolution, but Russia and China — permanent members — voted against it, as did Algeria. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who was traveling in Israel on Friday, expressed disappointment that the resolution failed.

Persons: —, Antony J, Blinken Organizations: U.S, . Security, Biden, Security Council Locations: Gaza, Russia, China, Israel, Gazan, Rafah, Algeria, Guyana

The acute food shortage in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip has become so severe that “famine is imminent” and the enclave is on the verge of a “major acceleration of deaths and malnutrition,” a report from a global authority on food security and nutrition said on Monday. The group, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative, which was set up in 2004 by U.N. agencies and international relief groups, has sounded the alarm about famine only twice before: in Somalia in 2011 and in South Sudan in 2017. The warning came as Israeli forces again raided Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the enclave on Monday, in an operation that they said had been aimed at senior Hamas officials who had regrouped on the premises, setting off an hourslong battle that both sides said had resulted in casualties. The raid at Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, raised questions about the level of control that Israeli forces have over northern Gaza. In December, the Israeli military said it was nearing “full operational control” there.

Persons: ” Organizations: Integrated, U.N, Shifa Locations: Gaza, Somalia, South Sudan, Al, Gaza City

☆ How Does Paris Stay Paris? By Pouring Billions Into Public Housing
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-17 | by ( Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The two-bedroom penthouse comes with sweeping views of the Eiffel Tower and just about every other monument across the Paris skyline. The rent, at 600 euros a month, is a steal. Marine Vallery-Radot, 51, the apartment’s tenant, said she cried when she got the call last summer that hers was among 253 lower-income families chosen for a spot in the l’Îlot Saint-Germain, a new public-housing complex a short walk from the Musée d’Orsay, the National Assembly and Napoleon’s tomb. “We were very lucky to get this place,” said Ms. Vallery-Radot, a single mother who lives here with her 12-year-old son, as she gazed out of bedroom windows overlooking the Latin Quarter. “This is what I see when I wake up.”

Persons: Germain, ” Organizations: Eiffel, National Assembly Locations: Paris

A day after President Biden announced plans for maritime aid delivery to the Gaza Strip, European leaders said Friday they would deliver aid by ship as early as the weekend. But aid groups and Gaza officials criticized shipments by air or sea as too cumbersome, urging that vastly more food and medicine be supplied by trucks. The complications of delivering aid to the hungry residents of Gaza were underlined on Friday when the authorities in Gaza said at least five Palestinians were killed and several others were wounded after they were struck by packages of humanitarian aid that were dropped from an aircraft. Israel insists on inspecting all supplies going into Gaza, and aid trucks have been allowed in through just two border crossings — one from Egypt and one from Israel — in southern Gaza. President Biden on Thursday night outlined a U.S. military plan to build a floating pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to supply food, water, medicine and other necessities to civilians, saying the operation would “enable a massive increase” in the assistance entering the territory.

Persons: Biden, Israel Organizations: United Nations Locations: Gaza, Egypt, Israel, U.S

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

☆ Israeli Forces Will Move Into Rafah, Cease-Fire Deal or Not, Netanyahu Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-25 | by ( Thomas Fuller | Isabel Kershner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces would push into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah regardless of the outcome of talks to pause the fighting that appear to have been making some progress in recent days. “It has to be done,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Because total victory is our goal, and total victory is within reach.”Mr. Netanyahu did say that if a cease-fire deal was reached, the move into Rafah, which during 20 weeks of war has served as a last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Gazan families forced from their homes, would be “delayed somewhat.”The push toward Rafah has drawn warnings from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, because of the potential for mass civilian casualties beyond the nearly 30,000 Gazans who have already been reported killed in the war, more than half of whom are women and children.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr, Netanyahu Organizations: Sunday Locations: Gaza, Rafah, United States

☆ Netanyahu Issues First Plan for Postwar Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released on Friday his most detailed proposal yet for a postwar Gaza, pledging to retain indefinite military control over the enclave, while ceding the administration of civilian life to Gazans without links to Hamas. The plan, if realized, would make it almost impossible to establish a Palestinian state including Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least in the short term. The blueprint for Gaza comes after nearly 20 weeks of war in the territory and a death toll approaching 30,000 people, at least half of them women and children, according to Gazan authorities. Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal for postwar Gaza was circulated to cabinet ministers and journalists early on Friday. He has laid out most of the terms of the proposal in previous public statements, but this was the first time they had been collected in a single document.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Organizations: West Bank Locations: Gaza, Israel, United States

☆ Israel Steps Up Attacks in Gaza Amid Cease-Fire Talks
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Hiba Yazbek | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Intense bombardment of a Gaza Strip city filled with refugees flattened a large mosque and killed or wounded scores of people on Thursday as Israel repeated its intention to push into the area with ground forces if Hamas does not release hostages before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Nearly 100 people were killed across the enclave from Israeli strikes over the past day, the Gazan health authorities said Thursday, bringing the total death toll after almost 20 weeks of war to nearly 30,000. Around half of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million people are crammed into the southern city of Rafah along the border with Egypt, where the strike on the mosque occurred Thursday. Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that at least seven Palestinians had been killed overnight in Rafah and dozens more wounded. Israel’s preparations for an invasion of that area come as diplomats raced to forestall it, with Ramadan set to begin around March 10.

Persons: Israel, Wafa, Ramadan Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Egypt

The United States on Tuesday cast the sole vote against a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, saying it feared it could disrupt hostage negotiations. It was the third time Washington wielded its veto to block a resolution demanding a stop to fighting in Gaza, underlining America’s isolation in its continued, forceful backing of Israel. Over four months of war, Israel has come under increasing international pressure over the scope and intensity of its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with many leaders decrying the high civilian death toll. Algeria’s U.N. ambassador, Amar Bendjama, lashed out at the United States on Tuesday, telling the Council that the veto “implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon” the Palestinians. He said “silence is not a viable option, now is the time for action and the time for truth.”

Persons: U.N, Amar Bendjama, ” Organizations: United Nations Security, Israel, Hamas Locations: States, Gaza, Washington, Israel, United States

Israel’s defense minister has signaled that ground forces will advance toward the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, which has become a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians pushed from their homes by nearly 13 weeks of war. Rafah, which has also been a gateway for humanitarian aid, is a sprawl of tents and makeshift shelters crammed against the border with Egypt. About half of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have piled into and around the city, where about 200,000 people lived before the war, the United Nations said on Friday. The city is one of the last in southern Gaza that Israeli ground forces, which have been fighting house-to-house battles in nearby Khan Younis, have not yet reached.

Persons: Khan Younis Organizations: United Nations Locations: Rafah, Gaza, Egypt, Khan

After days of sharply criticizing the U.N. agency charged with assisting Palestinian civilians, donor countries signaled on Wednesday that they would continue to support the organization under the right conditions and stressed its essential role in delivering lifesaving aid as widespread starvation and disease loom in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. At least 12 countries, including the United States and Germany, the two biggest donors, have temporarily suspended funding after the Israeli government circulated allegations that employees of the group, known as UNRWA, participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stressed on Wednesday that the funding pause for the agency was temporary and praised the agency’s work, comments that suggested an appetite could exist among donors to resolve the funding crisis. “We know that this agency provides lifesaving services under incredibly challenging circumstances in Gaza and it contributes to regional stability and security,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday afternoon.

Persons: Linda Thomas, Greenfield, Ms, Thomas Organizations: United Nations, . Security Locations: Gaza, United States, Germany, U.S

After nearly 15 weeks of war, sharp divisions within Israel over the path forward in the Gaza Strip are increasingly coming into the open. A member of Israel’s war cabinet, a general who lost a son in the conflict, urged in a television interview broadcast late Thursday that the country pursue an extended cease-fire with Hamas to free the remaining hostages, a rebuke of the “total victory” being pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And in a sign of the growing exasperation among parts of the Israeli public over the government’s failure to free the hostages, relatives and supporters of the captives partially blocked traffic on a major highway in Tel Aviv before dawn on Friday, prompting the police to briefly detain seven for having “participated in disorderly conduct and unlawful behavior.”Israel’s emergency governing coalition is under intense and competing pressures as the war drags on. Right-wing politicians are urging the military to act more aggressively in Gaza, even while Israel is contending with outrage across the globe over the carnage and decimation of so much of the territory. At the same time, the families of hostages are urging concessions to secure their return.

Persons: ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, “ Locations: Israel, Gaza, Tel Aviv

Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have launched a fresh round of attacks in shipping lanes critical for global trade, damaging a U.S.-owned commercial ship on Monday after attempting to hit an American warship the day before. The strikes came just days after the U.S. and British militaries unleashed a powerful barrage on militant sites in Yemen, and the Houthi response made clear how difficult it might prove to remove the threat posed to shipping in and around the Red Sea. U.S. forces are bracing for a much larger retaliatory attacks from the Houthis, who began targeting ships after the war in the Gaza Strip began and are preparing escalating responses, senior U.S. military officials said. After the United States and Britain hit more than 60 Houthi targets last week with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, U.S. officials said the militants still retained about three-quarters of their ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea. Many of their weapons systems are on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden, the officials said.

Organizations: U.S Locations: Yemen, U.S, American, Sea . U.S, Gaza, United States, Britain

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

Amid a barrage of airstrikes, Israel sharply expanded its evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in preparation for an expected ground invasion in the southern part of the territory. The new orders, coming three days after the collapse of a weeklong truce, sowed confusion and fear among Gaza residents, some of whom have already been displaced at least once before. Images from Gaza on Sunday showed plumes of dark smoke rising above a rubble-covered landscape and bloodied children wailing in dust-covered hospital wards. Mourners stood beside rows of bodies wrapped in white sheets. Late Sunday night, a military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel “continues and expands its ground operations against Hamas strongholds all across the Gaza Strip,” but did not elaborate.

Persons: Daniel Hagari, Israel “ Locations: Israel, Gaza

A weeklong cease-fire in the Gaza Strip collapsed on Friday morning, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the breakdown of a truce that had allowed for the exchange of hundreds of hostages and prisoners, and that had briefly raised hopes for a more lasting halt to the fighting. The Israeli military said it had launched 200 strikes since the resumption of fighting, some of which the country’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, witnessed from a seat in an Israeli attack helicopter flying over Gaza. “This morning we returned to hitting Hamas with full force,” he wrote on the social media platform X. “The results are impressive.”“Hamas only understands force,” he added. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that Israel was “committed to achieving the war aims — freeing our hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel.” For days, he and other Israeli leaders had sought to quash any notion of extending the truce indefinitely, despite growing international pressure, stating repeatedly that even if the pause continued for a few more days, Israel’s offensive would resume.

Persons: Yoav Gallant, ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, “ Locations: Gaza, Israel

Thirty Palestinian women and minors were released from Israeli prisons on Tuesday as part of the agreement, according to an official list. It was the fifth exchange of hostages and prisoners since Friday. Since Friday, when a cease-fire deal covering hostages, Palestinian prisoners and aid for Gaza went into effect, Hamas has released more than 60 hostages seized in its Oct. 7 raid in Israel that set off the war. Egypt, Israel and the United States dispatched their top intelligence officials to Qatar to negotiate further exchanges. director, joined David Barnea, the head of the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, and Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s spy chief, for meetings with Qatari officials, including the prime minister.

Persons: Israel, William J, Burns, David Barnea, Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s Organizations: Hamas, United Locations: Gaza, United States, Israel, Egypt, Qatar

☆ America’s Wildfire Fighters
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Thomas Fuller | More About Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a relatively quiet wildfire season in the U.S. But there is no summer vacation for the Tallac Hotshots, a federal firefighting crew based near Lake Tahoe in California. The crew members spent early July in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days. “It’s really physical, but it’s extremely mental, too,” said Kyle Betty, the superintendent of the Tallac Hotshots, who has been a federal firefighter for 22 years. “The things that you see, the things that you face — every day you have to get up and do it again.”

Persons: ”, Kyle Betty Organizations: Klamath National Locations: U.S, Lake Tahoe, California, Arizona, Oregon, Klamath, Klamath National Forest, Northern California, Tennessee

Early this summer, while many Americans were gathering for Fourth of July barbecues, the Tallac Hotshots were in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days and sleeping on the ground next to their trucks. The federal firefighting crew had only three days off before darting to a fire raging in a thickly wooded evergreen forest in Oregon. They then decamped to the Klamath National Forest across the border in California, working overnight in dense and steep terrain filled with poison oak. After a few days of rest, they were dropped by helicopter in early September into some of the most remote wilderness in Northern California to battle a fire blazing despite near-freezing temperatures.

Organizations: Klamath National Forest Locations: Arizona, Oregon, Klamath, California, Northern California

Colonel Tsury acknowledged the pressure on Israel to show evidence of Hamas activity at the hospital, but said it might be days before troops descended into the shaft. Another military official said Israeli troops had captured and interrogated a Hamas operative at the hospital, but offered no further detail. Israel has the backing of the Biden administration in its assertion that Hamas is operating under the Al-Shifa complex. At the same time, the Biden administration has cautioned Israel not to conduct airstrikes against Gaza’s hospitals, where thousands of Palestinians continue to take refuge. Amid pressure from European allies and a resolution by the U.N. Security Council calling for greater aid to civilians in Gaza, Israel on Friday agreed to permit two tankers of fuel to enter the Gaza Strip on a daily basis.

Persons: Tsury, Biden, Israel, Tzachi, Mr, Hanegbi, —, Abeer, ” Organizations: Shifa, Senior U.S, . Security, United Nations, Food, “ Locations: Al, Israel, Gaza

Israeli tanks and troops have surrounded several hospitals in Gaza, hospital administrators and the Gazan Health Ministry said on Friday. A spokesman for the Israeli military said of the hospitals, “we’re slowly closing in on them” and urged people to leave them. Israel has long maintained that Hamas uses the hospitals as shields, operating from within them, while thousands of Palestinian civilians have taken refuge on their grounds. The chief of Al Shifa Hospital said it was struck four times on Friday, killing seven people, with several others wounded. And we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.”

Persons: we’re, Al Shifa, Antony J, Blinken, ”, Israel’s, ” Mr Organizations: Gazan Health, Al Locations: Gaza, Israel, New Delhi, Eastern

Former President Donald J. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta on Thursday and was booked on 13 felony charges for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia. It was an extraordinary scene: a former U.S. president who flew on his own jet to Atlanta and surrendered at a jail compound surrounded by concertina wire and signs that directed visitors to the “prisoner intake” area. As Mr. Trump’s motorcade of black S.U.V.s drove to the jail through cleared streets, preceded by more than a dozen police motorcycles — a trip captured by news helicopters and broadcast live on national television — two worlds collided in ways never before seen in American political history. The nation’s former commander in chief walked into a notorious jail, one that has been cited in rap lyrics and is the subject of a Department of Justice investigation into unsanitary and unsafe conditions, including allegations that an “incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth.”The case is the fourth brought against Mr. Trump this year, but Thursday was the first time that he was booked at a jail.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Trump’s, S.U.V.s Organizations: Department of Justice, Mr Locations: Fulton, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S

As sunshine returned to Southern California on Monday, residents and officials said the region had avoided catastrophic damage from Tropical Storm Hilary, which broke records for August rainfall as it passed into California on Sunday but was much diminished from the fearsome Category 4 hurricane that had alarmed meteorologists days earlier when it was over the Pacific Ocean. Under sheets of rain, some neighborhoods in the desert cities east of Los Angeles became a soupy mess and at one point on Monday the mayor of Palm Springs said the city was cut off by road closures. In San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, videos showed creek beds filled with sludge-colored torrents that ominously carried boulders and tree trunks. Yet in one of the most heavily populated parts of the country — Los Angeles and San Diego Counties alone have a combined population of more than 13 million — there were no reports of deaths related to the storm as of Monday afternoon.

Persons: Hilary Organizations: Riverside Counties, San Locations: Southern California, California, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Bernardino, San Diego

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