At Least 21 Palestinians Killed Heading to Gaza Aid Hub, Hospital Says
Officials at the hospital said another 175 people were wounded, without saying who opened fire on them. An Associated Press reporter saw dozens of people being treated at the hospital.
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Los Angeles Times
a minute ago
- Los Angeles Times
Israeli strike hits Gaza church, killing 2 and wounding priest who was close to Pope Francis
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli shell slammed into the compound of the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing three people and wounding 10 others, including the parish priest, according to church officials. The late Pope Francis, who died in April, had regularly spoken to the priest about the situation in the war-ravaged territory. The shelling of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza also damaged the church compound, where hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering from the 21-month Israel-Hamas war. Israel issued a rare apology and said it was investigating. Pope Leo XIV on Thursday renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in response to the attack. In a telegram of condolences for the victims, Leo expressed 'his profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region.' The pope said he was 'deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and injury caused by the military attack,″ and expressed his closeness to the Rev. Gabriel Romanelli and the entire parish. The church compound was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the casualties. The Catholic charity Caritas Jerusalem said the parish's 60-year-old janitor and an 84-year-old woman receiving psychosocial support inside a Caritas tent in the church compound were killed in the attack. Parish priest Romanelli was lightly wounded. 'We were struck in the church while all the people there were elders, innocent people and children,' said Shady Abu Dawood, whose mother was wounded by shrapnel to her head. 'We love peace and call for it, and this is a brutal, unjustified action by the Israeli occupation.' The Israeli military said it was investigating. It said it 'makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures, including religious sites, and regrets any damage caused to them.' In a rare move, the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted an apology on social media. 'Israel expresses deep sorrow over the damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and over any civilian casualty,' it said. Israel has repeatedly struck schools, shelters, hospitals and other civilian buildings, accusing Hamas militants of sheltering inside and blaming them for civilian deaths. Palestinians say nowhere has felt safe since Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni blamed Israel for the strike on the church. 'The attacks on the civilian population that Israel has been demonstrating for months are unacceptable,' she said. The church is just a stone's throw from Al-Ahli Hospital, Naem said, noting that the area around both the church and the hospital has been repeatedly struck for over a week. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which also has a church in Gaza that previously sustained damage from Israeli strikes, said the Holy Family Church was sheltering 600 displaced people, including many children, and 54 people with disabilities. It said the building suffered significant damage. Targeting a holy site 'is a blatant affront to human dignity and a grave violation of the sanctity of life and the inviolability of religious sites, which are meant to serve as safe havens during times of war,' the Church said in a statement. Separately, another person was killed and 17 wounded Thursday in a strike against two schools sheltering displaced people in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Awda Hospital. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike. In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the lone Catholic church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war. Francis had repeatedly criticized Israel's wartime conduct, and last year suggested that allegations of genocide in Gaza — which Israel has rejected as a 'blood libel' — should be investigated. The late pope also met with the families of Israeli hostages and called for their release. Only 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to the U.S. State Department's international religious freedom report for 2024. Most are Greek Orthodox. The Holy Land's Christian population has dwindled in recent decades as many have emigrated to escape war and conflict or to seek better opportunities abroad. Local Christian leaders have recently denounced attacks by Israeli settlers and Jewish extremists. There has been little visible progress in months of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at a new ceasefire and hostage release agreement, after Israel ended an earlier truce in March. According to an Israeli official familiar with the details, Israel is showing 'flexibility' on some of the issues that have challenged negotiators, including Israel's presence in some of the security corridors the military has carved into the territory. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing ongoing negotiations, said Israel has shown some willingness to compromise on the Morag Corridor, which cuts across southern Gaza. However, other issues remain, including the list of Palestinian prisoners to be freed by Israel and commitments to end the war. The official says there are signs of optimism but there won't be a deal immediately. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 people, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Fifty hostages are still being held, less than half of them believed to be alive Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but is led by medical professionals. The United Nations and other international organizations consider its figures to be the most reliable count of war casualties. Shurafa and Lidman write for the Associated Press. Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Colleen Barry in Milan, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.
The Hill
a minute ago
- The Hill
The president is fueling antisemitism with his attacks on higher education
President Trump is attacking universities across the nation, threatening their federal funding for what his administration calls inadequate action to combat antisemitism. His arguments are that many universities have not protected Jewish students on their campuses from protests and writings supporting Palestinians in response to the nearly two-year Israel-Gaza conflict. The president cites Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as the foundation for his actions, which bars discrimination against race, color or national origin. However, these views conflate antisemitism, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian positions. Trump also appears to believe that using antisemitism is a strong lever to redirect university policies around his broader attack on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI policies. Trump's actions have been disruptive across higher education. Despite such overreach, most institutions have simply genuflected, as with the recent resignation of the president of the University of Virginia — a move that stoked further protests across campus. The boldest retort has come from Harvard, which began its response on April 29 with a more than 300-page report on antisemitism and anti-Israel biases. The actions by the Trump administration to keep Harvard from enrolling international students, to lose its accreditation and to terminate its federal funding are weapons against Harvard and higher education in general. Taxes on large university endowments is yet another tool being used to dampen the influence of the most prestigious and influential schools. Yet Trump using antisemitism in this manner may lead to more, not less, antisemitism in the future. Antisemitism is nothing new, and is an ongoing concern for all Jews. It is a particular form of racism, whereby certain groups are discriminated against based on their race, country of origin, gender or, more broadly, anything that makes them different from the majority — and a convenient scapegoat. As Trump exploits disdain for antisemitism to execute his own personal crusade against higher education, his laser focus on Jewish students and faculty becomes exploitive in and of itself. It draws unnecessary attention to these people in such a way that has been twisted to make them look like victims, which they are not. Jewish students are well represented in higher education, making up between 8 and 24 percent of the undergraduate student bodies at Ivy league schools. The list of public schools that have 10 percent or more of their undergraduates identifying as Jewish is both long and geographically diverse, including the University of Florida (19 percent), the University of Maryland College Park (19 percent) and the University of Michigan (15 percent). In contrast, Jews are estimated at around just 2 percent of the general U.S. population. Given that the Jewish culture strongly supports and advocates for education, this should not be a surprise. Even before Trump's recent actions, race preference in higher education has been under a spotlight. The 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ended affirmative action based on race in college admissions. Jews were contributors to this ruling, as quotas on Jewish students that existed in the 1920s were cited by two justices. The ruling did not, however, directly affect DEI activities on campuses. As Trump uses antisemitism to fulfill his personal attacks on higher education, he is inadvertently giving preferential treatment to Jewish students at these institutions. Yet this is exactly what DEI does for members of underrepresented groups on campuses — the very thing that Trump disdains about DEI (or what he refers to as an ' illegal discrimination ') and says he wants to end. The only difference is which group is given favored treatment. The University of Michigan acknowledged in 2024 that its DEI efforts were counterproductive, fostering resentment, bitterness and discord amongst all community members. In the current political climate, the school went one step further and closed its DEI offices, as have numerous other schools. This does not mean that physical and verbal harassment of any subgroup in a population should be tolerated. What it does mean is that when any subgroup is singled out, the 'laws of unintended consequences' can produce a whiplash effect over time. The fire attack in Boulder, Colo., may be an example of such behavior. All groups and subgroups should be treated fairly. But 'fair' does not always mean 'equal.' By using antisemitism as the stick to punish universities, Trump's Machiavellian plan is on full display, exploiting the negative connotations associated with antisemitism even though his issue is much broader with higher education. If Trump truly cared about stifling antisemitism on university campuses, he would not use it to fulfil his broader crusade against higher education. Indeed, his current efforts only serve to inflame antisemitism and make it worse. Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.
New York Times
2 minutes ago
- New York Times
Israeli Strike on a Gaza Church Kills Three
An Israeli strike hit a Catholic church in Gaza City on Thursday, killing three people and injuring at least six others, including the parish priest, according to church officials. Several hundred Palestinians were sheltering at the Holy Family Catholic Church compound when the church roof was hit around 10:10 a.m., sending shrapnel and debris flying. Farid Jubran, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said it was unclear whether the munition that struck was dropped from an airplane or fired by a tank. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its official X account that Israel 'expresses deep sorrow over the damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City' and that the Israeli military was 'examining this incident.' After the attack, Pope Leo XIV called for 'an immediate cease-fire' in Gaza in a statement. There has been no significant progress this week in the Israel-Hamas negotiations over a new U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal. Israel has continued its relentless assault on the Gaza Strip, which it says is aimed at incapacitating Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that has long ruled the enclave. More than 7,750 Palestinians have been killed since the previous cease-fire collapsed in March, with around 100 confirmed dead in hospitals across the territory in just the past few days, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its casualty counts. Some were killed while searching for food at distribution sites. In total, more than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war that began with a Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The fighting has created a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where hunger is widespread and many residents are struggling to find food, water and the strike on the church in Gaza City, Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called the Israeli attacks on civilians in the strip 'unacceptable,' adding that 'no military action can justify such conduct.'Among those injured in the strike was the church's parish priest, Gabriel Romanelli, who regularly updated Pope Francis on events in Gaza — almost every evening during the pontiff's final year, according to Mr. Jubran. Saad Salameh, 60, the church's janitor, was said to be in the yard when the strike hit, and Fumayya Ayyad was in a tent within the compound, according to Caritas Jerusalem, a Catholic aid organization operating at the church. Both died within hours. The other person killed was identified as Najwa Abu Daoud. Ameera Harouda and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
