Israel said starting Tuesday local time it would be opening the Kerem Shalom Crossing for security checks on aid shipments from Al-Arish in Egypt, while aid organizations continued to describe the situation facing civilians in Gaza as extremely dire.
“Gaza’s health system is on its knees and collapsing,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
It is estimated that half of the population in the Gaza are starving as aid organizations say the current convoys cannot meet their needs.
Israel’s military has said that it is fighting in three areas it says are Hamas’ strongholds: Sajaiya, Jabalia and the Khan Younis area.
Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7 attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, has said that none of its hostages would be released except through an exchange agreement.
The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said Israel cannot take the hostages alive “without exchanging or abiding by the conditions of resistance.”
Israel on Monday released the names of 20 hostages that it believes are dead. More than 100 remain captured.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the country was still trying to move things forward for hostage release negotiations despite a breakdown in talks.
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NBC News spoke with displaced Palestinians who were forced to evacuate to Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safe zone” along the Mediterranean in southern Gaza. United Nations officials warned that conditions in Gaza are deteriorating rapidly as Israel continues its military offensive.
About 1.9 million people have been displaced in Gaza, officials have said. Aid and health organizations have warned of a health care system that is collapsing. Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN World Food Programme, has said that "only a fraction of the food needed is getting in," and has called the situation in Gaza "a nightmare."
Biden officials meet with Jewish leaders in White House to discuss rise in antisemitism
WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials met with Jewish leaders at the White House to discuss rising antisemitism, according to a meeting participant.
Amy Spitalnick, chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, was there and confirmed the gathering included White House coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, and Deborah Lipstadt, special envoy on antisemitism.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff spoke at the meeting, Spitalnick said.
“The administration has been incredibly responsive and engaged,” Spitalnick said in a statement.
Gaza captivity was ‘Russian roulette,’ freed Israeli hostage says
YAVNE, Israel — Israeli Sharon Alony-Cunio survived 52 days as a hostage in Gaza with her two little girls before she was released in an Israel-Hamas swap deal. But she fears for the life of her husband, who is still captive in the bombarded Palestinian enclave.
Now back home with her twin 3-year-olds, Julie and Emma, she pleads for the remaining 137 hostages to be freed. “Every minute is critical. The conditions there are not good, and the days go on forever,” she told Reuters in her first interview.
“It’s a Russian roulette. You don’t know whether tomorrow morning they’ll keep you alive or kill you, just because they want to or just because their backs are against the wall,” said Alony-Cunio, 34.
Alony-Cunio was one of 240 people taken hostage on Oct. 7 by Hamas gunmen who burst through the border with Israel and killed around 1,200 people.
The militants who took over her kibbutz, Nir Oz, which lies a little over a mile from Gaza, set fire to her house and took her away at gunpoint after she climbed out the window.
She was taken across the border with her husband and one of their twins, she said. Their second daughter was held separately in Gaza for 10 days before they were reunited in captivity with 12 other hostages under conditions she said were tough, particularly for children.
“Everyone gave up food for [the girls]. You don’t know if in the evening there will be a pita, so in the morning you save some for the evening. Everything is very calculated, a quarter of a pita, half a pita to keep for the next morning.”
Sometimes they were fed dates and cheese, and sometimes they would divide meat rice and rations for six among the 12 of them.
Waiting to be allowed to go to the toilet was a problem for the girls, she said, so they had to use a sink and a rubbish bin. “Sometimes when there was a power cut, they let us open the door, they drew the curtain, and then we would whisper. How do you keep a child together for 12 hours with whispers only?”
Her group of hostages was held above ground and moved a few times, she said, but with memories still raw and with her husband still inside, Alony-Cunio was reluctant to give more details of her capture and her time as a hostage.
But one of the biggest hardships, she said, was simply not knowing what was being done to get them out.
“Every day there is crying, frustration and anxiety. How long are we going to be here? Have they forgotten about us? Have they given up on us?”
More than 100 hostages were released in a seven-day truce. The rest are still being held incommunicado as Israel bombards Gaza, vowing to take out Hamas. More than 18,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to local health authorities.
Many families of the 137 hostages still in Gaza, whose names and photos on posters line the streets of Israel, are scared.
“My children are torn,” Alony-Cunio said. “I am torn without my second half, the love of my life, the father of my daughters, who ask me every day, ‘Where is Daddy?’”
David was separated from them three days before their release on Nov. 27, before fighting resumed. Getting the remaining hostages out should be the top priority, she said.
“I am petrified I will get bad news that he is no longer alive,” Alony-Cunio said.
“We are not just names on a poster. We are human beings, flesh and blood. The father of my girls is there, my partner, and many other fathers, children, mothers, brothers.”
Israel focused on preventing the ‘next massacre,’ says former PM Naftali Bennett
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says an “interim technocratic government” should govern Gaza once Hamas is rooted out until a permanent structure can be put in place. He joined "Meet the Press NOW" to discuss the state of the Israel-Hamas war and the future of Gaza.
Israeli hostage freed by Hamas says ‘time is running out’ for captives as she describes harrowing conditions
TEL AVIV — Yocheved Lifshitz, one of the first Israeli hostages released by Hamas, took the world by surprise in late October when she shook the hand of one of her captors and uttered a single word: “Shalom” — a Hebrew salutation meaning “peace.”
Now, in an exclusive interview, Lifshitz said she believes peace can be achieved only once those who are still held captive are freed.
They include her husband, Oded Lifshitz, who was also kidnapped from their kibbutz, Nir Oz, on Oct. 7.
“Time is running out,” Lifshitz, an 85-year-old peace activist who was released Oct. 23, told NBC News’ Richard Engel today.
“They need to get out today. Otherwise, they won’t survive,” she warned.
Limited hope that U.S. can secure another pause agreement, two officials say
There is limited hope in the Biden administration that the U.S. can secure another pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to potentially release more hostages held in Gaza, according to two U.S. officials.
So far, there has been “zero” progress in achieving that, one of the officials said, but another suggested there is some optimism that that could shift in the coming days if all parties return to serious negotiations.
It has been over a week since the pause ended, which led to the release of more than 100 hostages. The Qataris, who have served as mediator in talks among Israel, Hamas, Egypt and the U.S., are still trying to get everyone back to the table after Israel said Hamas had not been able to produce a satisfactory list of hostages, which led to collapse of the multiday deal on Dec. 1.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday there are still “daily conversations” with U.S. partners in the region about the likelihood of getting another humanitarian pause.
“Don’t have any progress report today, but it is an active issue of discussion,” Kirby said aboard Air Force One. “We think it’s still valuable.”
Questions remain about how many hostages Hamas, or other militant groups in Gaza, might be holding. Over the weekend, Israel claimed that Hamas was in possession of the bodies of 20 hostages who had been killed since the Oct. 7 attacks.
A U.S. official said the Biden administration has no reason to doubt that figure but could not speak to whether the number could include any Americans. Eight or nine Americans are still unaccounted-for. Four U.S. citizens have been released so far: two before the exchange deal and two during the agreement before it fell apart.
Israeli soldiers lined up along the Gaza border
284 people killed sheltering in U.N. facilities, refugee agency says
The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said 284 displaced people in Gaza have been killed sheltering in U.N. facilities.
Since the war began, more than 40 UNRWA installations in Gaza have been directly hit and 60 more have sustained collateral damage. UNRWA notes in today's situational report that nearly a thousand people have been injured at its facilities.
An estimated 1.3 million people are taking shelter in 154 UNRWA installations in Gaza.
And in the West Bank, Israeli security forces have killed 265 Palestinians. UNRWA reports that 69 of them were children.
Israel to open Kerem Shalom border crossing to security checks for aid convoys
The Kerem Shalom border crossing will open to security checks tomorrow, which will help streamline inspections for aid trucks that are entering Gaza.
Israel made the announcement in a video through the official X account for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which said opening the crossing would allow double the amount of aid being sent to Palestinians.
Gaza has three border crossings: Rafah, Erez and Kerem Shalom. Rafah, which is only between Egypt and Gaza, was opened for civilian crossing and aid convoys weeks ago. But Kerem Shalom is a commercial crossing that connects Gaza, Egypt and Israel, which was used to bring aid to the Palestinian enclave before Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau has told NBC News that reopening Kerem Shalom would significantly improve the aid situation, as current convoys cannot meet the need of starving Gazans.
'They need to get out today': Released hostage is concerned for those still in captivity
Yocheved Lifshitz, who was taken hostage by Hamas and released, told NBC News' Richard Engel about those who are still being held in Gaza.
“They need to get out today; otherwise, they won’t live,” Lifshitz says, citing concerns about their treatment by Hamas that have led to conditions including a lack of air in tunnels, exhaustion and a shortage of food and medicine.
Tune in for more from the interview tonight on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” at 6:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm CT.