Gaza City hospitals raise alarm as Israeli forces near

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the resilience of communities near the Gaza strip that were targeted in deadly attacks by Hamas last month, and renewed a vow to neutralize the Palestinian militant group.

At a meeting with community leaders from the region Friday, Netanyahu said: “First of all (our priority is) to restore security — to make sure that there is no Hamas and that Hamas does not return — but also to make sure that there will be a strong life afterward.”

A Palestinian-American family trapped in Gaza for a month as Israeli forces showered the enclave with munitions expressed gratitude for home after returning to Massachusetts on Monday.

Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their 1-year-old son, Yousef Okal, were visiting relatives in northern Gaza when Hamas militants attacked Israel, sparking retaliatory waves of shelling and leaving them trapped in Gaza.

For the next 27 days they prayed for their survival. "Our biggest hope was that this is a nightmare that we wake up from," Abood Okal said.

A top U.S. official at the United Nations told the U.N. Security Council today that the U.S. has been working to help get fuel to hospitals in Gaza.

“We know that hospitals are in desperate need of fuel. The United States has been working tirelessly to put in place mechanisms to enable the fuel to reach hospitals and to meet other urgent needs in the south,” said Robert Wood, a U.S. representative in the United Nations. “But I also want to make clear that we share Israel’s concerns about Hamas’ hoarding and siphoning of fuel in northern Gaza. This is unacceptable, and we must all call it out.”

Though hundreds of aid trucks have entered Gaza since the war began last month, they have not been allowed to bring fuel because of Israel's concern that it could be used by Hamas to power rockets.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said earlier today on social media that Al-Quds Hospital in northern Gaza was at risk of closing because of a lack of fuel and aid.

Wood also emphasized to the Security Council that civilian and humanitarian facilities, especially hospitals and medical facilities and those who provide care there, “must be respected and protected consistent with international law.”

UNITED NATIONS — The World Health Organization has verified more than 250 attacks on hospitals, clinics, patients and ambulances in Gaza since Hamas’ incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 — as well as 25 attacks on health care in Israel.

In Gaza, the “health system is on its knees” and the situation on the ground “is impossible to describe,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

“As we speak, there are reports of firing outside the al-Shifa and Rantisi hospitals,” he said, adding that Palestinian health workers were still saving lives despite being “directly in the firing line.”

Last week saw attacks on five hospitals in one day in Gaza, Ghebreyesus said, and in the past 48 hours four hospitals with some 430 beds were put out of action.

He said half of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health care centers are not functioning, and facilities that are functioning “are operating way beyond their capacities.”

Grand Central Terminal has reopened after "protest activity" earlier tonight prompted its closure.

New York City's emergency notification system announced the reopening on social media at 11:50 p.m. ET, nearly three hours after the closure was posted at 9:08 p.m.

More than a dozen children with cancer or other serious blood disorders have been safely evacuated from Gaza after weeks of difficult negotiations involving the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Hamas — but more than 30 remain in the war-torn territory, three doctors involved in the effort tell NBC News.

The children, accompanied by parents or companions, were evacuated from the Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children to hospitals in Egypt and Jordan, the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the World Health Organization said Friday.

The development comes as hospitals across northern Gaza on Thursday and Friday came under munitions fire and as Israeli military vehicles drew near. Strikes hit the strip’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, though it is unclear where the projectile originated.

Read the full story here.

Grand Central Terminal, the historic train station in Midtown Manhattan, was closed tonight because of "protest activity."

The closure was announced on the social media platform X, by city emergency notification officials at 9:08 p.m. ET. The circa-1913 transportation hub is normally open until 2 a.m. nightly.

Earlier, the account noted that travelers could face limited access and emergency personnel at the terminal because of the protest activity.

The New York Police Department's office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information said it was too early for crowd estimates or arrest figures, if there were any.

It wasn't immediately clear what protest prompted the closure. At least one pro-Palestinian rally was scheduled for this afternoon.

Protesters calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war also shut down the terminal late last month.

Posters of people held hostage by Hamas, affixed to light poles and buildings in cities and on college campuses around the U.S., are being torn down, leading to confrontations captured on social media and further inflaming the debate over the war in the Middle East.

Family members of hostages and antisemitism organizations said that removing the posters, meant to ensure their captured loved ones are not forgotten, is worsening already high tensions in the U.S. since Hamas’ initial Oct. 7 terror attack.

“Frankly speaking, I don’t understand why people are doing this. My daughter was taken as a hostage by a terrorist group. You’re doing a very bad act,” said Eitan Gonen, 55, who lives in Israel.

Romi Gonen, 23, was at a music festival when she was abducted.

Tearing the photos off telephone poles and other public-facing surfaces has become more frequent in recent weeks, following Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes and ground invasion, which Gaza health officials say have killed more than 10,800 people.

Read the full story here.

Biden administration officials and congressional sources have offered conflicting accounts on the U.S. intelligence community’s reporting about Israel’s claim that Hamas is operating a command center and tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. 

Palestinian health officials said numerous people were wounded Thursday when a munition struck the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of people are taking shelter.

Two U.S. officials said that the United States agreed with Israel’s assessment over how Hamas uses Al-Shifa hospital. One said the U.S. has “no reason to doubt” Israel’s claim. A second U.S official said “the U.S. intelligence community’s view is that Hamas has set up its own infrastructure in and below Al-Shifa” hospital, including a command center. The militants also use other hospitals in Gaza as a base for military operations, the official added.