Palestinians run for cover during an Israeli military strike on a building in Gaza City, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

File picture of U.S. President Joe Biden on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Wednesday (October 9, 2024) to stay in “close contact” as Israel mulls its response to Iran, with the U.S. President also urging the Israeli premier to “minimise” harm to civilians in Lebanon, the White House said.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu’s call was their first in nearly two months and came amid mounting pressure from Washington not to strike Iran’s oil or nuclear facilities less than four weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

A White House readout of the call did not directly mention possible retaliation for an Iranian missile strike on Israel last week but said Mr. Biden had condemned Tehran’s attack “unequivocally” and pledged “ironclad” support for Israel.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu “agreed to remain in close contact over the coming days, both directly and through their national security teams,” the readout said, adding that Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris also joined the call.

The call came as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had been due to discuss Israel’s response in Washington on Wednesday before the last-minute postponement of his visit by Mr. Netanyahu, pledged on Wednesday: “Our attack on Iran will be deadly, precise and surprising.”

Offensive against Hezbollah

Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu also discussed Israel’s offensive against Iranian ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, the White House said.

The U.S. president “reaffirmed” Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah rocket attacks “while emphasising the need to minimise harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut,” it said.

Mr. Netanyahu had warned earlier Wednesday that Lebanon faced “destruction” like that in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, which has been under relentless bombardment since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Hostages in Gaza

On Gaza, the two leaders also “discussed the urgent need to renew diplomacy to release the hostages held by Hamas.”

The White House had earlier described the call lasting around 30 minutes as “direct,” “honest” and “productive.”

“The U.S. and the Israeli government have had discussions since last week since after the Iran attack. Those discussions continued with the president and the prime minister,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

“We’re going to continue to have those discussions with Israel on how they’re going to respond.”

Ms. Jean-Pierre also reacted to Mr. Netanyahu’s comments on Lebanon, saying: “We cannot and will not see Lebanon turn into another Gaza.”

But she would not comment on a new book by veteran U.S. journalist Bob Woodward detailing growing tensions between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu.

Mr. Biden had told Mr. Netanyahu in July that “the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state, a rogue actor,” The New York Times reported the book as saying.

Gaza City:

White body bags littered the floor and mourning filled the air after a school housing displaced Palestinians was struck with Israeli missiles Saturday — a horrific and increasingly common sight in the Gaza war.

Dawn prayers were shattered by the early morning triple air strike from Israeli warplanes, which gutted Al-Tabieen religious school and mosque in Gaza City.

In the hellish aftermath, body parts were strewn around the rubble and charred, bloodied bodies slumped in the wreckage of the two-storey complex.

Grim-faced volunteers piled corpses in blood-stained blankets into an ambulance, as seriously wounded men lay groaning on the ground.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 people were killed, 17 of them women and children, making it one of the war’s deadliest strikes.

Israel’s military disputed the death toll, saying the school was targeted with “precision munitions” because it “served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility”.

Such incidents have become a pattern in recent weeks. According to an AFP tally, at least 14 schools sheltering Gaza’s displaced have been hit since July 6, killing more than 280 people.

“Peaceful people — women, children, and youths — were performing the Fajr prayer as usual when suddenly a missile hit them,” said Abu Wassim, who lives nearby and came to survey the scene.

“They were reduced to remains. Children were torn apart, and women were burned. What can we say or do? What is in our power?”

– ‘They were just praying’ –

As the sun climbed and mourners gathered, one man stroked the face of a dead child shrouded in a plastic body bag.

“They dropped a missile on them while they were just praying. Fear God, people! Fear God, Arabs!” a woman wailed over the body.

Another man looked lost as he held a small corpse wrapped in a blanket. Nearby, six body bags lay on the ground, three of them children. Tattered Korans were piled on a window ledge.

“We woke up before dawn to the sound of a strike,” said Sakr, a resident from the neighbourhood who gave just one name.

“We headed to the site and found body remains of civilians who were peacefully performing prayers. We found bodies of children scattered in the street.”

Another man said: “You can’t even recognise the bodies, there were scattered remains.

“The ones who were struck are displaced people taking shelter in a school. What’s their fault? What have they done wrong?”

Mohammad Al-Mughayyir, director of the supply and equipment department of Gaza’s civil defence service, told AFP that six schools in Gaza City had been targeted in the past week alone.

Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani said that about 20 Hamas and Islamic militants were operating from the Al-Tabieen complex.

“The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” he posted on X.

Later on Saturday, Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists that the strike “directly targeted” two floors of the school.

The strike hit “the upper floor housing women and children and the ground floor that was used for prayers by the displaced people,” he said.

The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,790 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinian men walk along a narrow street past destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip
| Photo Credit: AFP

At least 39 people were killed by Israeli strikes across northern Gaza on Saturday, as rescue workers scrambled to find survivors beneath the rubble, according to Palestinian and hospital officials.

Fadel Naem, director of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that more than three dozen bodies arrived at the hospital. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency group active in Gaza, said its emergency workers were digging for survivors at the site of a strike in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City and that it had pulled several dozen bodies from a building hit by an Israeli strike in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City.

Israel said Saturday that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.

The deaths come a day after at least 25 people were killed in strikes on tent camps and 50 wounded near the southern city of Rafah. Israel said Saturday that it was continuing to operate in central and southern Gaza and has pushed ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water or medical supplies.

A separate Israeli strike Saturday in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, according to the group. The member was the seventh killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants who stormed southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage. Israel has responded by bombarding and invading the enclave, killing more than 37, 400 Palestinians there according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Also Saturday, Israel’s army said an Israeli man was fatally shot in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, where Israeli forces fatally shot two militants Friday, the latest flare of violence in the territory since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

At least 549 Palestinians in the territory have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. Over the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank have killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to U.N. data.

Israeli nationals are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank that fall under the under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

In April, the death of a 14-year-old Israeli settler sparked a series of settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the territory. The army said a Palestinian was later arrested in connection with the killing.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died from his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah last week. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces raided al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah to arrest a suspect Friday and then opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were pelting them with stones.

Israel said Saturday that it was investigating a separate incident into conduct of its soldiers after a video surfaced online showing an injured Palestinian being transported on the hood of an Israeli armored car in the northern West Bank. The army said the man in the video was a wanted suspect and injured during an exchange of fire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces near the city of Jenin. The man was being transported to a Red Crescent ambulance situated nearby, it said. The army said the conduct in the video didn’t “conform to the values” of the army.

Anger across the country is growing at the government’s handling of the war in Gaza and the hostage crisis.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for new elections and for the government to bring the hostages home. Among the families were the parents of Naama Levy, an Israeli soldier who marked her 20th birthday in captivity.

___

Jeffery reported from Ramallah and Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma’s wife Ritika Sajdeh was among those who shared the “All Eyes On Rafah” image in her Instagram Stories. The social media campaign, calling for attention to what’s happening in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, gained momentum after Israeli strikes on Sunday night killed 45 Palestinians at a camp.  

While Ms Sajdeh deleted the post within hours, several users accused her of being “selective” in speaking against oppression and atrocities. 

People have dropped comments on Ms Sajdeh’s birthday post for Rohit Sharma. The India opener turned 37 on April 30.

A person wrote, “Kyun madam? Palestinians se itni humdardi kyu (Why such sympathy with Palestinians, Madam?).”

“As a Rohit Sharma fan … I’m ashamed of you,” said another user.

However, there were a handful of people who lauded Ms Sajdeh for supporting Palestine.

“My respect for Hitman and you after the story,” read a comment.

A user said, “Thank you for supporting Palestine.”

“Respect for Rohit Sharma and his wife” was the sentiment online. 

What Is “All Eyes On Rafah” campaign

Celebs, human rights groups and common men and women have been sharing the “All Eyes On Rafah” image on their social media platforms to raise awareness about the ongoing Israeli onslaught in Gaza. On Monday, after the latest Israeli strikes killed 45 Palestinians at a tent camp, Bollywood celebs, including some A-listers, shared what’s become a global image now.

Among those who extended solidarity with the people of Palestine were Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Triptii Dimri, Samantha Prabhu, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Swara Bhasker, and Dia Mirza, among others.

Among international figures, Australian cricketer Travis Head, British singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, model Bella Hadid and actresses Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Susan Sarandon also drew attention to Rafah, where roughly 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge after fleeing Israeli bombings from other parts of Gaza.

Hamas’s armed wing said Sunday its fighters were engaged in “heavy fighting” with Israeli forces in Gaza after Israeli military deployed more ground forces across the Palestinian territory.

“Our fighters are currently engaged in heavy fighting with machine-guns and anti-tank weapons with the invading occupation (Israeli) forces in northwest Gaza,” the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

In an earlier statement the group said two Israeli tanks had caught fire after they were targeted by its fighters, a claim which the army has not confirmed.

Israeli forces continued to pound north Gaza with air and artillery shelling on Sunday evening.

The army said troops had “identified a number of terrorists exiting the shaft of a tunnel” near the Erez border crossing and “confronted the terrorists, killing and injuring them”.

Earlier on Sunday the army said it had increased the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip as it stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny coastal territory.

On Friday evening, Israeli armoured forces and infantry began operating inside Gaza in what Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called “a new phase” of the war on Hamas, triggered by deadly attacks on Israel on October 7.

Israeli forces had made several smaller-scale ground incursions inside Gaza before, but the current one has been their longest presence in the territory since the latest violence erupted.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In the latest war between Israel and Hamas, children were targets on both sides. Israel started its heavy bombardment of Gaza, a tiny Mediterranean land strip of 2.3 million people, on October 7 after Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs the enclave, carried out an unprecedented cross-border raid, killing at least 1,400 Israelis.

Of the victims, 447 were children and 248 were women, according to Israeli authorities. In retaliation, Israel has cut off food, fuel and power supplies to Gaza, laid siege to the enclave and started bombing it disproportionately. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog suggested there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. In the Israeli attacks, in 22 days, at least 7,700 people were killed, some 70% of them women and children.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the toll includes more than 3,500 minors. The Israeli attacks have also turned more than a million people refugees. Israel ordered one million people living in northern Gaza to move towards the south. Since children make up half of Gaza’s population, they are the hardest hit age category by the displacement as well.

Now that Israel launched its ground invasion, many more Palestinians will be killed, wounded and displaced, which means many more children would be victimised.

PM Narendra Modi has spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia.

After his telephonic conversation with Mr. Sisi, PM Modi said that “we share concerns regarding terrorism, violence and loss of civilian lives”.

In a post on X, PM Modi said on Sunday, “Yesterday, spoke with President @AlsisiOfficial. Exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia.” “We share concerns regarding terrorism, violence and loss of civilian lives. We agree on the need for early restoration of peace and stability and facilitating humanitarian assistance,” he said.

A statement issued by the Egyptian side said President El-Sisi received a phone call from Prime Minister Modi and the two leaders exchanged views on the latest developments in the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

They also discussed the gravity of the continuation of the current escalation, given its formidable impact on the lives of civilians and the threat it poses to the security of the entire region, the statement said.

Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency, Counselor Ahmed Fahmy, said President El-Sisi confirmed that Egypt is pursuing its endeavours to coordinate regional and international efforts to push towards reaching a ceasefire.

The President warned of the grievous humanitarian and security repercussions of a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, the statement said.

He underscored the critical need for unified international action to find a prompt solution at the diplomatic level, which stipulates reinforcing an immediate humanitarian truce that protects the lives of civilians and allows the instantaneous, sustainable and unfettered delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, in accordance with the resolution of the U.N. General Assembly in this regard, which was adopted on October 27, it said.

President El-Sisi and Prime Minister Modi expressed relief at the outstanding level of the two countries’ bilateral relations and strategic partnership, the statement said.

They stressed their determination to continue to lead the two countries’ institutions to further strengthen joint cooperation between Egypt and India, the statement issued by the Egyptian side said.

Israel calls for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ resignation after his remarks angered Israel, accusing him of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism

October 25, 2023 06:55 am | Updated 06:55 am IST

Rapidly expanding Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip has killed more than 700 people in the past day as medical facilities across the territory were forced to close because of bombing damage and a lack of power, health officials said on Tuesday.

The soaring death toll from Israel’s escalating bombardment was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It could signal an even greater loss of life in Gaza once Israeli ground forces backed by tanks and artillery launch an expected offensive into the territory aimed at crushing Hamas.

On Tuesday, Israel said it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, killing Hamas commanders, hitting militants as they were preparing to launch rockets into Israel and striking command centres and a Hamas tunnel shaft.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen, who participated in a Security Council ministerial meeting on the Israel-Gaza situation in United Nations, cancelled his meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and called for his resignation after his remarks angered Israel, accusing him of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism.

ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war, Day 18 updates

Addressing the council, Mr. Guterres said the situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour and the war in Gaza is raging and risks spiralling throughout the region. The U.N. chief said it is “important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.

Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been under increasing bombardment and running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the devastating October 7 attack by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said the attacks killed at least 704 people over the past day, including 305 children and 173 women. More than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors, the ministry said, without giving a detailed breakdown.

(With inputs from agencies)

Follow the live updates here:

People stand outside a mosque destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct.8, 2023. The Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and rampaged through nearby Israeli communities, taking captives, while Israel’s retaliation strikes levelled buildings in Gaza.
| Photo Credit: Yousef Masoud

Several Israeli media outlets reported on Sunday that the death toll from Hamas’ wide-ranging incursion into Israel has risen to 600.

Israeli soldiers battled Hamas fighters in the streets of southern Israel on Sunday and launched retaliation strikes that levelled buildings in Gaza, while in northern Israel a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group raised fears of a broader conflict.

There was still some fighting underway more than 24 hours after an unprecedented surprise attack from Gaza, in which Hamas militants, backed by a volley of thousands of rockets, broke through Israel’s security barrier and rampaged through nearby communities. They took captives back into the coastal Gaza enclave, including women, children and elderly, who they will likely try to trade for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

At least 600 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — including 44 soldiers — a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades. Officials in Gaza said 313 people had died in the territory. An Israeli official said security forces have killed 400 militants and captured dozens more. Civilians paid a staggering cost for the violence on both sides.

Chart 1 | The chart shows the number of Palestinians and Israelis who were killed since 2008 in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel in the context of the occupation and conflict. The latest attack is marked separately.

Charts appear incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

Chart 1 shows that this is by far the deadliest attack on Israel by a wide margin. It depicts that the number of Palestinians who died in the conflict far outnumber the deaths on the other side every year.

The Israeli military said it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza and was starting to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory. The Gaza Strip is an impoverished Palestinian enclave that has been under Israeli blockade since 2007. One of the most densely populated places on the planet, Gaza is home to over two million Palestinians living on a 362sq. km strip of land. It is ruled by Hamas, now at war with Israel for the fifth time in 15 years.

Volatile Gaza

Chart 2 | The chart shows the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed since 2008.

Gaza recorded the most deaths in the region. From Gaza, on Saturday, Hamas militants streamed into Israeli urban areas, including Ashkelon, Sderot, and Ofakim, which is about 22 km away from the city. The attack marked an unprecedented infiltration into Israel by an unknown number of Hamas gunmen crossing from the Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reported gun battles between bands of Palestinian fighters and security forces in towns in southern Israel. Israel’s police chief said there were “21 active scenes’’ in southern Israel.

Map 3 | The map shows the flashpoints of the ongoing conflict.

The UN agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, said over 20,000 people were sheltering in 44 of its schools around Gaza by Saturday evening. “The number (of displaced) is rapidly increasing, “ said Inas Hamdan, acting public information officer in Gaza. Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

Chart 4 | The chart shows the demolition of Palestinian-owned structures and the resulting displacement of people from their homes across the West Bank since 2009.

Source: United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Also read: Original sin: on the attack on Israel and the occupation of Palestine

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