At least 79 Americans have exited into Egypt as Biden calls for 'pause' to get hostages out of Gaza

WASHINGTON — As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and the death toll among Palestinian civilians continues to rise, there is growing concern among top Biden administration officials, according to two current and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the internal discussions.

The concerns deal with how Israel is waging the war and uncertainty about whether they can be reined in, the officials said.

Biden and his top aides have in the past week adjusted the administration’s public message to emphasize concern for Palestinian civilians and U.S. efforts to get them humanitarian relief.

“If this really goes bad, we want to be able to point to our past statements,” a senior U.S. official said.

 The official said the administration is particularly worried about a narrative taking hold that Biden supports all Israeli military actions and that U.S.-provided weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children.

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Residents dug through the rubble searching for survivors after an apparent airstrike destroyed buildings at the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Thirteen Democrats in the Senate on Thursday night called for “a short-term cessation of hostilities that pose high-risk to civilians, aid workers and humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza.”

President Biden on Wednesday said there should be a “pause” in order to allow more time to try and get hostages freed and out of Gaza.

The U.S. is not calling for a full-scale cease-fire at this time, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said. Kirby said a cease-fire benefits Hamas. Israel has rejected calls for a cease-fire.

Kirby said today that they do advocate for localized pauses to get Americans out of Gaza or to get aid in.

The letter from the 13 Democratic senators identified three reasons for pauses, including delivering aid, focusing on hostages, and “opportunity for broader discussion amongst Israeli and Palestinian leadership” about long-term strategies for peace.

“The failure to adequately protect non-combatant civilians risks dramatic escalation of the conflict in the region and imposes severe damage on prospects for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians," they said in the letter.

“Based on the consensus opinion of U.S. and international aid officials, it is nearly impossible to deliver sufficient humanitarian aid to protect civilian life under current conditions,” the letter reads.

More than 70 Palestinian Americans passed through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt today as many U.S. citizens are still trapped in Gaza while Israel continues its ground offensive targeting Hamas.

The director general of the World Health Organization said today that the horror unfolding in Gaza is reaching a point where it is hard to describe, and he said there needs to be at least a humanitarian pause in fighting.

“We’re running out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing.

He said that 14 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are nonfunctional, that patients are crammed in hallways and that doctors are performing surgery without anesthesia.

Tedros said there needs to be hundreds of trucks entering Gaza every day to support humanitarian needs. Around 500 trucks entered Gaza every day before the war, but since Oct. 7 there have been just 217, he said.

“It’s too late to help the dead now. But we can help the living,” he said.

“At the very least, we need a humanitarian pause in the fighting, and ideally a cease-fire,” he said.

Israel has rejected calls for a cease-fire. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said the U.S. believes a cease-fire only benefits Hamas, but he has said localized pauses, such as to get humanitarian aid in or hostages out, should be explored.

Hezbollah said that today it attacked “nineteen Zionist military sites and points with guided missiles, artillery shells, and direct weapons, and they achieved direct hits.”

Hezbollah, the militant group in Lebanon to Israel’s north, made the claim through its military media.

The Israel Defense Forces said that it does not comment on foreign reports.

The IDF said on social media earlier today that there had been a number of launches from Lebanon at Israeli territory, adding, “In response, the IDF is currently striking a series of Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon.”

The U.S. military is flying unarmed drone flights over Gaza to help with hostage recovery, two U.S. officials said. 

The MQ-9 Reaper drones have been flying since after the Oct. 7 attacks, the officials said. The officials were not aware of any previous times U.S. military drones have flown missions over Gaza. 

The officials would not say where the drones are flying out of, citing operational security. 

The New York Times first reported the use of drones.

A video appears to show a group of Palestinian men being abused by Israeli soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces told NBC News that the conduct is “deplorable” and that it is investigating.

It's not clear when or where the incident took place.

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians is sharply increasing after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7.

Four of its shelters were hit in the last 24 hours, the UNRWA says, causing several deaths and injuries.

“Today, a school-turned shelter was damaged at the Jabalia Refugee Camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip, reportedly killing at least 20 people and injuring five," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in a statement.

"Earlier today, another school at Beach Refugee Camp was also damaged, with a child reportedly killed. Both locations are in the north of the Gaza Strip," the statement continued.

“Further south, two schools-turned-shelters in the Al Bureij Refugee Camp were hit. Two people were reportedly killed and 31 injured," it said.

Altogether, the shelters hosted nearly 20,000 refugees, according to recent UNRWA estimates.