Israel-Hamas War: Netanyahu calls Hamas 'new version' of Nazism, warns Iran and Hezbollah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the second time since the outbreak of the war. They are currently meeting with the streamlined War Cabinet – Minister Yoav Gallant, Minister Benny Gantz, Minister Gadi Eisenkot, Minister Ron Dermer and MK Aryeh Deri, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv.

Earlier, Prime Minister Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Blinken held an in-depth private meeting, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, during which National Security Council Director Tzahi Hanegbi and the Prime Minister's Military Secretary, Maj.-Gen. Avi Gil, participated at times.

(reported by Amit Palit)

The Pentagon has sent “prepare to deploy” orders to about 2,000 US troops to be ready to respond to the Israel-Hamas war, two US officials say, on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not been announced yet, The Times of Israel reports.

France will give 10 million euros — approximately $10.55 million — to United Nations agencies and humanitarian NGOs to help the population of Gaza, the French foreign minister told journalists Monday in Beirut, reports CNN.

"Many people around the world now understand who stands against Israel. They understand that Hamas is ISIS. They understand that Hamas is the new version of Nazism. Just as the world united to defeat the Nazis and ISIS, so too will it unite to defeat Hamas," said Netanyahu in his remarks on Monday's Knesset session

"Hamas is part of the axis of evil of Iran, Hezbollah and their minions. They seek to destroy Israel and murder us all. They want to return the Middle East to the abyss of the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages whereas we want to take the Middle East to the heights of progress," said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Knesset

Hospitals in Gaza faced collapse Monday as water, power and medicine neared depletion, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians searched for dwindling food supplies while Israel maintained punishing airstrikes in retaliation for last week’s deadly rampage by Hamas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken with Egyptian, Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian leaders, urging a quick end to the hostilities.

Israel's top domestic security official took responsibility Monday for the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 people, Cnn reported citing the country's Army Radio station.

At least six British citizens have been killed while 10 others remain missing following Hamas' attacks on Israel, CNN quoted UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as speaking on Monday. 

European Union leaders will hold an emergency summit on Tuesday as concern mounts that the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas could fuel inter-communal tensions in Europe and bring more refugees in search of sanctuary.

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says its fighters have targeted an Israeli position along the border directly hitting a Merkava tank.

Tal Heinrich, Spokesperson for Israeli PMO says, "I want to make this clear that Israel is at war with Hamas and not with the people of Palestine. For the past 96 hours, we have urged Palestinians in Gaza to move to the safer zones in the southern Gaza Strip. We see extensive evidence that Hamas is preventing them from moving and keeping them in harm's way. Innocent civilians should not be used as pawns in this war. It is worth reminding the world that innocent civilians in many places did not get any advanced notice before they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists. I was asked yesterday specifically about the state of hospitals in northern Gaza. You see, there are 20 hospitals in that area. The IDF says that six hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip had decided to independently evacuate. However, 14 did not. And I urge you to ask your sources in Gaza why Hamas is exploiting innocent Palestinians and is using them as human shields with zero regard for their safety."

US Embassy Cairo is tracking 253 US citizens, with 153 “associated family members,” requesting help to depart Gaza via the Rafah border crossing, according to an internal government memo obtained by CNN.

Across besieged Gaza, food shortages are causing desperation. With trucks full of humanitarian goods idling at the Rafah border, unable to get through, many in Gaza not only have no running water but also don’t have enough food, reported the Associated Press.

Iran threatens an “expansion of war fronts” if the war in Gaza doesn’t stop, its foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian says in an interview, reported The Times of Israel.

Incoming rocket sirens are sounding in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as terrorists in the Gaza Strip launch long-range rockets at Israel’s largest cities in possibly the largest barrage since the initial salvo on October 7, reported The Times of Israel. 

The rockets are launched during the opening session of the Knesset, sending lawmakers and other attendants to bomb shelter and delaying the session.

Another rocket barrage is launched by Gazan terrorists toward the area of Tel Aviv, with at least one interception reported, reported The Times of Israel. Hamas took responsibility for the earlier barrage toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Oil tankers bearing United Nations flags have crossed into Egypt from Gaza to pick up fuel supplies for the besieged enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns Iran and Hezbollah not to 'test us' in the north, reported the Associated Press.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel’s ongoing war against terror groups in the Gaza Strip is an existential battle against the forces of darkness, reported The Times of Israel.

At least five people were killed and 15 others were injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a multi-story house in Rafah in the southern Gaza strip, the Palestinian interior ministry said Monday, reports CNN.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday visited a Jewish school here and reiterated his government's commitment to protect Britain's Jews from antisemitic attacks amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday urged the United States and the international community to intervene to stop Israel’s airstrikes and blockade, CNN reported citing Palestinian media.

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the representative of Hamas in Lebanon, insisted Monday that the decision to launch the surprise Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel was made by Hamas leadership and not directed by Iran or any other outside party, but he said that in event of a ground invasion of Gaza, allied groups will intervene, reported the Associated Press.

A Royal Caribbean cruise ship carrying US nationals has departed the Israeli port of Haifa for Cyprus, CNN reported.

The Lebanese army says search operations have led to the discovery of 20 rocket launchers near the Lebanon-Israel border. The army says in a statement that four of the launchers discovered had rockets inside them and were ready to be fired at Israel, The Times of Israel reported.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Monday with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan about “diplomatic efforts to prevent the conflict from widening and to minimize the humanitarian costs of the war” in Israel, CNN quoted State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister says the country’s politically paralyzed government has been scrambling to ease tensions along its southern border with Israel and avoid dragging the tiny country into a new war.

Crowds of Palestinian dual nationals waited anxiously at the still-closed Rafah crossing on Monday, sitting on their suitcases or crouching on the floor, comforting crying infants and trying to entertain bored children.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said there has been no progress in efforts to open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Monday, CNN reported. "The Israeli government has not yet taken a position that would allow the crossing to be opened from the Gaza side, allowing the entry of aid or the exit of citizens from third countries," he said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that Hamas potentially was ready to release the nearly 200 hostages it is holding if Israel stops its campaign of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. The militant group hasn’t acknowledged making such an offer.

Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli says, "I want to tell the people of India - we share the same values, we cherish life, we cherish good...We believe in human values. I want to thank the leadership of India, the people of India for being with us shoulder-to-shoulder in this fight against brutal jihadist barbaric Islamist. This is not just our war, this is your war too and we will win it together with your support."

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1713852484320690294

"In the last few hours, dozens of operational headquarters and mortar bomb launching positions were destroyed. In addition, the military headquarters of Ali Qadhi, one of the commanders in the Nukhba force of the terrorist organization Hamas, who was eliminated a few days ago, was destroyed," said the Israeli Air Force

Israeli military airstrikes have killed at least 2,750 people and injured more than 9,700, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Monday, CNN reported.

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group has started destroying surveillance cameras on several Israeli army posts along the border with Lebanon.

European Union leaders will hold an emergency summit on Tuesday as concerns grow that the war between Israel and Hamas could fuel inter-communal tensions in Europe and bring more refugees in search of sanctuary.

The Israeli military says Hamas and other Palestinian militants are holding 199 hostages in Gaza, higher than previous estimates.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a military spokesman, said Monday that the families have been notified. He did not specify whether that number includes foreigners, or say who is holding them.

The World Health Organization said lifesaving assistance, including health supplies to serve 300,000 patients, is awaiting entry through the Rafah crossing into Gaza. The crossing was closed because of airstrikes earlier in the war, and the U.S. has been trying to broker a deal to reopen the crossing to allow foreigners to leave and allow in humanitarian aid amassed on the Egyptian side.

The Israeli military has ordered people living in 28 communities near the Lebanese border to evacuate. The order Monday comes as there’s been increasing cross-border fire between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah. The military order affects communities that are within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of the border. Hezbollah has said the increased strikes were a warning and do not mean Hezbollah has decided to enter the war.

A 71-year-old Illinois man fatally stabbed a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounded his 32-year-old mother on Sunday, which US President Joe Biden called a "heinous hate crime" and said, "This act of hate against a Palestinian Muslim family has no place in America." 

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 President Joe Biden on Saturday spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the leaders to allow humanitarian aid to the region and affirmed his support for efforts to protect civilians.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which has the largest UN footprint in the Gaza Strip, has warned that it is on the “verge of collapse” and was even running out of body bags amidst the raging conflict between Israel and the Hamas militants.

 More than a million people have fled their homes in the besieged Gaza Strip in the past week, ahead of the expected Israel invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas' leadership after its deadly attack.  The enclave's food and water supplies are dwindling, and its hospitals are warning that they are on the verge of collapse. Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region and the call-up of some 360,000 reservists, positioned themselves along Gaza's border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan responded to US President Joe Biden’s warning that occupying Gaza after destroying Hamas would be a “big mistake,” saying that Israel has “no interest” in ruling over 2 million Palestinians.

The IDF has published footage of some of the airstrikes carried out in the Gaza Strip against Hamas targets in the last 24 hours.

“I think it'd be a big mistake,” US President Joe Biden said in response to the upcoming IDF's ground operation inside the eGaza Strip. “Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas, and the extreme elements of Hamas don't represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.” Israel left Gaza in 2005; Hamas won the elections the next year. Still, Biden said, “taking out the extremists...is a necessary requirement”.

FBI officials say they’ve noticed an increase in threatening rhetoric targeting both the Jewish and Muslim communities in the week since the brutal Hamas attacks in Israel.
Director Chris Wray said on a call with reporters Sunday that the FBI is moving quickly to mitigate the threats and that the FBI does not discount the possibility that Hamas and other groups could exploit the conflict in the Middle East to call for or plot attacks in the United States.

In June, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the Palestinian president in Beijing and invited the Israeli prime minister for an official state visit. Benjamin Netanyahu accepted, and China was on track for a bigger role in the region.
Then came the Hamas attack against Israel, which has made Netanyahu’s late October trip uncertain and put Beijing’s Middle East approach to the test. China’s stated neutrality on the war has upset Israel, but Beijing may gain in the long run by forging closer ties with Arab countries, experts said.

Iran’s hard-line president spoke with France’s leader on Sunday, warning that war would expand if Israel’s siege of Gaza doesn’t stop, state-run media reported. The official IRNA news agency said Ebrahim Raisi and Emmanuel Macron spoke over the phone. The Iranian president made no mention of the unprecedented Oct. 7 incursion by Gaza’s militant Hamas group into southern Israel that sparked the latest Hamas-Israel war. Iran has long been a supporter of Hamas.

A rocket hit the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon in the coastal town of Naqoura as clashes between the militant Hezbollah group and its allies and the Israeli military escalated Sunday.

Medics in Gaza warned on Sunday that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people ran desperately low on fuel and basic supplies. Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave struggled to find food, water and safety ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive in the war sparked by Hamas' deadly attack. Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza's border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group. A week of blistering airstrikes has demolished entire neighbourhoods but failed to stem militant rocket fire into Israel.

 The fifth flight from Israel under 'Operation Ajay' carrying Indian passengers left the war-torn nation today. The Indian passengers said that the situation in Israel remains tense and thanked the Modi government for carrying out 'Operation Ajay' and evacuating the Indian citizens.

 An Israeli drone fired two missiles late Sunday evening at a hill west of the town of Kfar Kila in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported. There were no casualties reported in the strikes, which hit near a Lebanese army center.
The Israeli army said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it had hit Hezbollah targets but did not specify what they were.

A 71-year-old Illinois man was charged Sunday with a hate crime, accused of fatally stabbing a young boy and seriously wounding a woman because of their Islamic faith and the Israel-Hamas war, authorities said.
Officers found the 32-year-old woman and 6-year-old boy late Saturday morning at a home in an unincorporated area of Plainfield Township, southwest of Chicago, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on social media.

The U.S. State Department says the number of Americans killed since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas has risen to 30. “At this time, we can confirm the deaths of 30 U.S. citizens. We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected,” the State Department said in a statement released Sunday. The U.S. is also aware of 13 missing citizens and has been in contact with their families.

The U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency says Gaza “is being strangled” and the number of people seeking shelter at their schools and facilities in the south of the territory is overwhelming.
“If we look at the issue of water — we all know water is life — Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA at a press conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.

President Joe Biden is considering a trip to Israel in the coming days, but nothing has been finalized, a senior administration official said Sunday. A trip would send the strongest message yet that the U.S. is behind Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The administration has already pledged military support, sending U.S. aircraft carriers to the region as well as aid. Officials have said they would ask Congress for upward of $2 billion in aid for both Israel and Ukraine. The official could not publicly discuss internal deliberations about the potential presidential travel and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.