Grim update: 1,400 Israelis dead, 30 abductees are kids
About two weeks into the Israeli-Hamas war, the Israeli Prime Minister's office has released some grim new arithmetic: 1,400 Israelis dead, 4,800 injured, and "at least 30 of the abductees are children under the age of 16."
"Two weeks have passed since the attack on the seventh of October," the briefing began. "Israel demands the release of the abductees without conditions. We want our children at home."
The Israeli Defense Force has also confirmed that 10 to 20 of the 203 kidnapped Israelis are 60 years old or older, the prime minister's office said. And it said some 7,380 missiles "have been launched towards Israel."
In retaliation, the prime minister's office said "over 100 targets in Gaza were attacked during the night, including underground tunnels and Hamas headquarters. A senior Hamas operative was eliminated."
It did not identify the operative by name. And it warned Hezbollah, Hamas’ allies in Lebanon, not to "try us." "Israel fought on several fronts in the past and won them," the prime minister's office said.
As for the badly needed Palestinian aid that is currently stuck at the Rafah Crossing, the prime minister's office said that "humanitarian aid will be possible in the south of the Gaza Strip, where the civilian population in Gaza has been asked to evacuate."
"The aid will include water, food and medicine," the office said. "And this is on the condition that this aid does not reach Hamas. We will not allow this aid to feed the Hamas war machine."
Eight-year-old Hamas hostage could be blind to terror around him
JERUSALEM — Ohad Munder-Zichri’s family doesn’t know if he has his glasses.
It may seem like a small thing given the situation — the 8-year-old is believed to be among the roughly 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. But in the long nights of waiting for news, the thought of Ohad being unable to see is a source of sharp pain for his loved ones.
“He cannot manage without his glasses,” his cousin, Osnat Meiri, told NBC News Thursday at her mother’s home in Jerusalem. “This is something that weighs a lot on his father. He always talks about, ‘What about his glasses?’ I hope they let him keep it.”
Ohad, who turns 9 on Monday, was at a family gathering at the kibbutz Nir Oz when Hamas terrorists burst through the Gaza border fence on Oct. 7, said Meiri, 53.
Read more: Israeli family fears child may spend his 9th birthday as a hostage of Hamas
Photo: Navigating debris in Gaza
A Palestinian man walks Friday next to buildings destroyed in the Israeli bombardment of al-Zahra, on the outskirts of Gaza City.
Israel aims to end its 'responsibility for life' in Gaza Strip, defense minister says
The last phase of Israel's military campaign against Hamas will involve the "removal of Israel’s responsibility for life" in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a "new security reality for the citizens of Israel," Israel's defense minister said Friday.
In a briefing of parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said there will be three stages of Israel's drive against Hamas, consisting of a military campaign that currently includes strikes, and will later include maneuvering to neutralize Hamas. The second stage will involve eliminating what Gallant called "pockets of resistance" among the militants.
"The third phase will require the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza strip, and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel," Gallant said in a statement from his office.
Gaza has no access to the outside world except through Israel, which controls 90% of its land and sea boundaries, and Egypt, which has a narrow land border to the south.
Israel has enforced a rigid blockade on the enclave since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007, imposing comprehensive curbs on exports and imports, and severely restricting who could enter or leave.
Photo: Mother comforts wounded child in Gaza
A mother comforts her child, who was wounded in an airstrike, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday.
Analysis: Biden's message welcome but risks confusing some
Most people in the Arab world were asleep when President Joe Biden addressed America last night. This morning, one observer, who knows many Gulf leaders well, gave the president’s message a cautious welcome.
“Just mentioning the Palestinians and humanizing them is new,” said Mamoun Fandy, the president of the London Global Strategy Institute, a think tank based in the British capital. “Obviously Biden is backpedaling.”
In his address to the nation last night, Biden said: “We must without equivocation denounce antisemitism. We must also without equivocation denounce Islamophobia.”
But Fandy, who in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks worked with Congress on how to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world, said many would view his speech as paying "lip service" to a two-state solution and noticed he has not attempted to "convene a peace conference."
He added that "putting Ukraine and Gaza in the same speech" was confusing and by equating Putin and Hamas he might risk oversimplifying the global picture. Russia’s relationship with Iran, which supports Hamas, is not straight forward and when an American president presents them as one and the same it could help unite them, he said.
Photo: Soldier's kiss at the border
An Israeli soldier is kissed by his partner as she visits him near the border with the Gaza Strip, southern Israel, on Friday.
IDF denies Orthodox church in Gaza was target of Israeli strike
The Israeli military said today that a Greek Orthodox church in the Gaza Strip, which was sheltering displaced Palestinian families, was not the target of an Israeli air strike.
Parts of the church collapsed in an explosion late Thursday, leaving 18 people dead and dozens remain under the rubble, Palestinian health officials said.
The IDF said in a statement that its fighter jets targeted the command and control center belonging to Hamas, involved in the launching of rockets and mortars toward Israel.
As a result of a strike, a wall of a church in the area of the center was damaged, the statement said, and it was aware of reports of casualties.
"The IDF can unequivocally state that the church was not the target of the strike," the statement added.
But the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced what it described as “the Israeli bombing that targeted one of its church buildings in Gaza City” in a statement.
NBC News has not independently verified either side's claims.
Aerial view shows flattened Gaza buildings
New aerial images show destroyed buildings in al-Zahra, south of Gaza City, today, following overnight Israeli bombardment.
Gaza aid stuck at Rafah border crossing as Israeli bombardment continues
Humanitarian aid is still held up at the Rafah border crossing amid Israel’s bombardments in southern Gaza. NBC News’ Jay Gary reports on the latest aid situation and the purported Israeli airstrike on a Greek Orthodox church.