An American pastor kidnapped at gunpoint last week in South Africa was rescued late Tuesday in a “high-intensity” shootout that left three people dead, local authorities said. Josh Sullivan, 35, was abducted by a group of armed men who raided his small congregation, a branch of Fellowship Baptist Church in the southern town of Motherwell, as he was leading a prayer service, according to The Associated Press. The pastor has been living in South Africa with his wife, Meagan, and their children since 2018. He was successfully rescued near a safe house where he had been held around 14 miles away from Motherwell in the city of Gqeberha. Hawks — the branch of the South African Police Service that investigates organized crime — carried out the recovery operation with various other police teams after they received verified intelligence, South African police said in a statement Wednesday. Police said they opened fire on three suspects attempting to flee the safe house in a vehicle, responding “with tactical precision, leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.” Sullivan, who was inside the vehicle, was found “miraculously unharmed,” police added, saying that he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in “an excellent condition.” Sullivan's mother, Tonya Morton Rinker, said in a Facebook post Tuesday that the pastor had returned home to his wife and children. “A sad situation but I’m so thankful my son is home alive and safe. Thank you Lord!” Rinker said in the post. In an earlier statement Monday, Rinker told NBC News that Sullivan is “an exceptional father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, strength and generosity” and added that his “humor and wit are a blessing.” Last week, Sullivan's church, the Fellowship Baptist Church, urged its followers to “please pray for Josh Sullivan” in a statement on Facebook. The church, which is based in Tennessee, said Saturday that in the days since Sullivan’s kidnapping, it had faced growing questions, including what it described as “malicious and hateful” messages about why it deploys missionaries. South African police said it would continue to investigate Sullivan’s abduction and asked anyone with information about the case to come forward. “We extend sincere appreciation to all role players that includes our law enforcement members, the public, international partners, both local and international media whose support and vigilance were instrumental in this success,” it added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should end his “political” war in Gaza and bring the remaining hostages home, former leaders of the Mossad intelligence agency and members of the military told NBC News on Tuesday. Unless Netanyahu changes "his attitude and his strategy, I think that to achieve an agreement will be very difficult,” Danny Yatom, who served as head of the Mossad, said Tuesday in a telephone interview. Yatom, who was also then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s chief of staff and security adviser, is one several former leaders of the spy agency who backed a series of open letters to the Israeli government. The former members of the military and the intelligence community, as well as reservists, are demanding an end to the war in Gaza in return for the release of at least 59 hostages who remain in captivity there. Less than half are believed to still be alive, according to Israeli officials. After another letter signed by nearly 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists and retirees was published in Israeli media on Thursday, the army said it would fire anyone who added their name to it. It did not specify how many people that included or if the firings had begun. Hamas has maintained that it will not agree to a deal that does not include the promise of a complete end to the war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict. More than 51,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Talks for a permanent end to the fighting were supposed to begin after the first phase of a three-part ceasefire deal — in which Hamas released 25 living hostages and the bodies of eight in exchange for around 1,800 of Palestinian prisoners — ended on March 1. But Israeli forces shattered the fragile truce last month and has since launched airstrikes on the enclave while also resuming military ground operations. Yatom said it was clear to many that “the targets of Netanyahu are different than the targets of the society, of the Israeli society.” "His main priority is to remain prime minister," Yatom said, adding that his prime minister's fragile government coalition relies on the support of far-right lawmakers like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom have threatened to withdraw support if the military campaign ends in Gaza. Citing his opposition to the truce, Ben-Gvir resigned from the Israeli government in January after the original ceasefire deal was announced. He returned to the Cabinet shortly after Israeli forces resumed their operations in Gaza. Eran Duvdevani, a retired colonel with the Israel Defense Forces who helped to organize a separate letter signed by former and reserve Israeli paratroopers, said that Israel had agreed to the original ceasefire deal "and now, it's as if there's zero willingness to agree to an end to the war." “Even though Hamas did horrific things on Oct. 7, you don’t go to war for revenge.” he said. With the Trump administration's backing, Netanyahu appears to "feel that he can do whatever (he) wants." Duvdevani said. “This should not be the way.”

Nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — face extreme hunger, says the World Food Program, with 14 million displaced by the conflict. Diplomats and aid officials from around the world are meeting Tuesday in London to try to ease the suffering from the 2-year-old war in Sudan, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 14 million and pushed large parts of the country into famine. The one-day conference, hosted by Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and the African Union, has modest ambitions. It is not an attempt to negotiate peace, but an effort to relieve what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Attendees include officials from Western nations, international institutions and neighboring countries — but no one from Sudan. Neither the Sudanese military nor the rival paramilitary it is fighting has been invited. “The brutal war in Sudan has devastated the lives of millions — and yet much of the world continues to look away,” said British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who visited Chad’s border with Sudan in January. “We need to act now to stop the crisis from becoming an all-out catastrophe, ensuring aid gets to those who need it the most.” Sudan plunged into war on April 15, 2023, after simmering tensions between the Sudanese military and a paramilitary organization known as the Rapid Support Forces. Fighting broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread across the country, killing at least 20,000 people — though the number is likely far higher. Last month the Sudanese military regained control over Khartoum, a major symbolic victory in the war. But the RSF still controls most of the western region of Darfur and some other areas. More than 300 civilians were killed in a burst of intense fighting in Darfur on Friday and Saturday, according to the U.N. The war has driven parts of the country into famine and pushed more than 14 million people from their homes, with more than 3 million fleeing the country, to neighboring countries including Chad and Egypt. Both sides in the war have been accused of committing war crimes. The World Food Program says nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — face extreme hunger. Aid agency Oxfam said the humanitarian catastrophe risks becoming a regional crisis, with fighting spilling into neighboring countries. It said that in South Sudan, itself wracked by recent war, “the arrival of people fleeing Sudan’s conflict has put more pressure on already scarce resources, which is deepening local tensions and threatening the fragile peace.” Lammy said that “instability must not spread.” “It drives migration from Sudan and the wider region, and a safe and stable Sudan is vital for our national security,” he said. Lammy said the conference would try to “agree a pathway to end the suffering,” but the U.K. and other Western countries have limited power to stop the fighting. Sudan’s government has criticized conference organizers for excluding it from the meeting while inviting the United Arab Emirates, which has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF. The UAE has strenuously denied that, despite evidence to the contrary. The U.S., which recently cut almost all its foreign aid, also is expected to be represented at the London conference. Ahead of the meeting, Lammy announced 120 million pounds ($158 million) in funding for the coming year to deliver food for 650,000 people in Sudan, from Britain’s increasingly limited foreign aid budget. In February the U.K. cut its aid budget from 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product to 0.3% to fund an increase in military spending. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said Sudan, along with Ukraine and Gaza, will remain a priority for British aid.

Josh Sullivan’s “humor and wit are a blessing,” Tonya Morton Rinker told NBC News, adding that he was “always ready with a joke, and forever seeking to make people laugh.” An American pastor who was kidnapped at gunpoint in South Africa last week is “an exceptional father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, strength and generosity,” his mother told NBC News on Tuesday. Josh Sullivan’s “humor and wit are a blessing,” Tonya Morton Rinker said in a statement, adding that he was “always ready with a joke, and forever seeking to make people laugh.” Sullivan, 35, has been living in South Africa with his wife, Meagan, and their children since 2018, The Associated Press reported, citing the Fellowship Baptist Church blog. Thursday evening, a group of armed men raided his small congregation, a branch of Fellowship Baptist Church in the southern town of Motherwell, as he was leading a prayer service, South African local police told the AP. It said it wanted to assure the public that its “top priority at this stage is safe return of the victim” and asked anyone with information about the case to come forward. The State Department said Friday in a statement that it was aware of reports of the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in South Africa.As of Tuesday, Sullivan’s whereabouts remained unknown, with his family calling for prayers for his safe return. Rinker, who has asked people to pray for him and his family on her Facebook page, said in the statement that her son “has a servants heart, a kind compassionate spirit and is filled with selflessness.” "He’s an exceptional father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, strength and generosity," she added. In a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday, Fellowship Baptist Church, which is based in Tennessee, urged its followers to “please pray for Josh Sullivan,” saying he had been “kidnapped at gunpoint” by a group of men. The church said in a separate post Saturday that the days since his kidnapping, it had faced growing questions, including what it described as “malicious and hateful” messages, about why it deploys missionaries. “It is this — because God did and He told us to,” the church said.

With sunken cheeks, knobbly knees on stick-thin legs and ribs jutting out of his chest, 6-year-old Osama Al-Raqab hardly resembles a photo that showed the young boy smiling into the camera. "He used to be happy and full of life," Osama's aunt, Nour Sameer Al-Raqab, told NBC News' crew in southern Gaza's Bani Suheila on Sunday as she held up the image from a few months before the war began next to the boy's face. “Now, he looks like a skeleton.” Osama's grandmother Um Ahmad Al-Raqab called on Israeli authorities to allow her grandson to be evacuated out of Gaza for treatment for cystic fibrosis. The boy had the ailment, which can make it difficult to maintain a healthy weight, when the war began and is now suffering with acute malnutrition. "If he stays like this, he will die," she said. He is among many struggling to survive in the besieged Palestinian enclave as it endures a month-and-a-half-long blockade that has halted the flow of aid and goods — the longest suspension of aid since the war began. “We are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life," humanitarian and health bodies, including United Nations agencies, the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, warned in a statement this month. In its latest humanitarian situation update, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that with no aid entering since March, when Israel launched its blockade, malnutrition and other preventable conditions were expected to rise, increasing the risk of child deaths. It added that medicines were rapidly running out. Israel has maintained amid mounting criticism over its aid blockade that there is "no shortage of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip" after it allowed the entry of thousands of trucks into the enclave during the ceasefire. Asked to comment on the matter, COGAT, Israel’s military liaison with the Palestinians, referred NBC News to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Khan Younis, video shot by NBC News' crew showed children holding empty pots and pans as they crowded around a soup kitchen. “If I don’t get food, we won’t eat,” one little girl, Bara’a Abu Mousa, told NBC News’ crew after finding herself pushed out from the clamoring crowd. “We have nothing at home.” After waiting four hours, Bara’a was given a small portion of rice to be shared with her family. After shattering a ceasefire that brought relative peace to Gaza on March 18, Israeli forces have shelled and bombed the enclave without encountering virtually any opposition. The Hamas terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people, and 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli counts, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict. Israel's ensuing offensive has killed more than 50,800 people — many of them women and children — according to health officials in the Gaza Strip, and destroyed much of the enclave. More than 50 hostages remain in Gaza, both dead and alive. Efforts to renegotiate and resume the ceasefire have so far proved fruitless, with each side blaming the other.

For more than a century, a member of Kathryn Lawton's family has worked in Canada's car industry. Kathryn and her husband Chad both work for Ford in Windsor, the heart of Canada's automobile sector, just a bridge away from the US state of Michigan. And so do their children, who are "fifth generation Ford workers", she says. So when US President Donald Trump suggested that Canada stole the American auto industry, Chad Lawton calls it "ludicrous". "These were never American jobs. These were Canadian jobs," he told the BBC, on the day that Trump's auto tariffs came into force. "They've always been Canadian jobs, and they're going to stay Canadian jobs because we didn't take them from them. We created them, we sustained them." Kathryn agreed: "This is Ford City right here." Tucked away in southwestern Ontario, Windsor finds itself on one of the front lines of Trump's trade war. It faces a 25% tariff on foreign-made vehicles - reduced by half for cars made with 50% US-made components or more - as well as blanket 25% US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. US tariffs on auto parts are expected next month. The region of just over 422,000 grew alongside Detroit - nicknamed Motor City for its role as an auto manufacturing hub - turning the region into an important centre for North American automobile production. Ford first established its presence in Windsor in 1896, while the first Stellantis (then Chrysler) factory arrived in 1928, with dozens of factories and suppliers springing up around the city and surrounding region in the ensuing decades. Much of the manufacturing has since left the city, though it still boasts two Ford engine factories and a Stellantis assembly plant, which employ thousands. Workers on both sides of the border have built iconic vehicles over the decades, most recently models like the Dodge Charger and the Ford F-150. Some 10% of the 240,000 people in Windsor work directly in the automotive industry, while an estimated 120,000 other jobs depend on the sector. A drive through the neighbourhood around the Ford factory feels like a trip back in time, showcasing classic bungalows from the last century. Many have seen better days, though each boasts a verandah and small front yard. Large murals celebrating the city's automotive history punctuate the scenery. Windsor has weathered the challenges of the North American auto sector alongside Michigan, as the industry shares a deeply integrated supply chain. Chad Lawton points to the 2008 financial crisis, when the Big Three American automakers - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler - faced staggering losses, and GM and Chrysler received billions in US bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. That period was "bad, not just for next door, but also we went through a very, very rough time", he said. "This feels the same. The level of anxiety with the workers, the level of fear, the idea and the belief that this is just something that is so completely out of your control that you can't wrap your head around what to do." John D'Agnolo, president of Unifor Local 200, which represents Ford workers in Windsor, said the situation "has created havoc". "I think we're going to see a recession," he said. He continued: "People aren't going to buy anything. I gotta tell my members not to buy anything. They gotta pay rent and food for their kids." What makes the tariffs such a hard pill to swallow for auto workers the BBC spoke to is that this situation has been brought about by the US, Canada's closest economic and security ally. "It seems like a stab in the back," said Austin Welzel, 27, an assembly line worker at Stellantis. "It's almost like our neighbors, our friends - they don't want to work with us." Christina Grossi, who has worked at Ford for 25 years, said the prospect of losing her job, and what it will mean to her family, is "terrifying". But Ms Grossi also fears losing the meaning she gets from her work. "You've been doing this job for so long and you really take pride in it, you're proud of what you're putting out to the public," she said. "And now someone's taking away the opportunity to do that." Laura Dawson, the executive director of Future Borders Coalition, said the tariffs could cause major upheavals throughout the sector due to its deep integration, with ripple effects felt across the continent if exports from Canada stop for more than a week. She said the US tariffs structure is extremely complicated. Cars crossing the border will need every component to be assessed for "qualifying content" - where it originates, the cost of labour to produce it, and - if it contains steel or aluminium - where that metal came from. "Every part of an automobile is literally under a microscope for where it was produced and how," she said. The US tariffs have been a major factor in Canada's general election, which is on 28 April, with Canada's political parties rolling out suites of plans on the campaign trail to help the auto sector. Liberal leader Mark Carney, the current prime minister, has pledged to create a C$2bn ($1.4bn; £1.1bn) fund to boost competitiveness and protect manufacturing jobs, alongside plans to build an "all-in-Canada" auto component parts network. In his role as prime minister, he imposed last week a reported C$35bn in counter auto tariffs, in addition to previously announced reciprocal measures on the US. Carney's main rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, has vowed to remove sales tax on Canadian vehicles, and to create a fund for companies affected by the tariffs to help keep their employees. Jagmeet Singh, whose left-wing New Democratic Party is fighting for a competitive seat in Windsor, has pledged to use every dollar from counter tariffs to help workers, and to stop manufacturers from moving equipment to the US. Still, Windsor's economy is dependent on automakers, and heavily relies on trade with the United States. If it falters, everything - from restaurants to charities - will feel the effects. The Penalty Box is a sports bar just down the road from the Stellantis plant, and popular with the workers there. "We're one of the busiest restaurants. I don't want to say it, but if you ask around about the Penalty Box, they'll tell you," its 70-year-old owner, Van Niforos, said. "We do close to 1,000 meals a day." With a white apron and a wide smile, he relates its 33-year history. But his demeanour darkens when asked about threats the auto sector faces. "It's a devastating situation. I don't want to think about it," he said. "We employ 60 people and we're open six days a week. [If something happens to the Stellantis plant], will we be able to keep 60 people working? Absolutely no." Chad Lawton, sitting in his office at the local union, takes a deep breath as he contemplates how precarious his life feels. He doesn't think Carney's counter tariffs help the current situation, arguing they "just makes a really bad situation a little bit worse". He hopes there is room for trade negotiation, but said he will be the first to say that Canada "cannot just concede and roll over". "I've worked for a Ford Motor Company for almost 31 years, and I have never seen anything close to this," he said. "That includes Covid, because at least with Covid, we knew what we were dealing with. And there was some certainty there." "This is all over the map."

The airstrike destroyed parts of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and forced predawn evacuations of patients and staff members. Israeli airstrikes destroyed part of a hospital in Gaza City early Sunday, according to local health officials, as Israeli forces continue to pound the enclave’s shattered hospitals even as the humanitarian crisis grows. There were no casualties in the strike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, according to Gaza health officials, as patients and hospital staff members evacuated following Israeli military orders. Dr. Fadel Naim, the hospital’s administrative director, told NBC News that it was the last central medical center in Gaza City and was now out of service, adding that the Israeli military strike had attacked a building housing reception and the emergency department, “completely destroying it.” An image of the blast showed a blinding yellow flash lighting up the night sky as a missile struck, engulfing the hospital in flames. The Israeli military said that the compound was used by terrorists “to plan and execute terror attacks,” without providing evidence, and that steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians before the strike, including issuing warnings. Naim said there were “no militants or military activity in the building or anywhere in the hospital.” Hamas called the attack “a new escalation of criminality” and accused Israel of a “systemic series of attacks” on hospitals and schools. It provided a list of 36 hospitals across Gaza it says Israel has attacked since the current conflict began. As the Palestinian Health Ministry pleaded for international institutions to step into protect Gaza's health sector, several countries condemned the attack, including Egypt, Qatar and the United Kingdom. Britain's foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on X that Israel had "comprehensively degraded access to healthcare in Gaza." "These deplorable attacks must end," he said. Israel’s bombardment has shattered the enclave’s hospital system, making it difficult, if not impossible, for Palestinians to get basic lifesaving medical help. In December, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Israeli attacks had pushed Gaza’s health care system to “the brink of total collapse.” At least 70% of infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed, including hospitals and schools, 60% of homes and 65% of roads, another U.N. report said in February. Last week, an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital Complex hit a media tent and killed several people, including Yousef Al-Khozindar, 27, who was working with the NBC News crew, and injured several others. The Israeli government has also imposed a monthlong blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has Palestinians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. In October 2023, a blast in the parking compound at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, a Christian-run medical complex, killed 200 to 300 people and sparked international outrage as the first recorded instance of an attack on a health facility. Hamas blamed Israel for the attack, while Israel blamed it on an errant rocket fired by a militant group in Gaza. That blast happened just 10 days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and around 250 were taken hostage. Since then, more than 50,900 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave, amounting to more than 2% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million. Officials say more than 1,500 of them have been killed since March 18, when Israel restarted its offensive in the Gaza Strip after having abandoned the ceasefire.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have killed at least 100 people, including 20 children and nine aid workers, after launching an assault on two famine-stricken camps in the Darfur region, the latest escalation in a bitter civil war about to enter its third year. The RSF targeted the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, where more than 700,000 people are sheltering from the relentless violence that has killed tens of thousands, forcibly displaced 12.7 million people and left 24.6 million people facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations. U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami said Saturday that the latest attacks marked “yet another deadly and unaccepted escalation” in the conflict, and that attacks on civilians and aid workers marked “grave violations of international humanitarian law.” “The colleagues from an international non-governmental organization were killed while operating one of the very few remaining health posts still operational in the camp,” she said. The war pits Sudan’s armed forces, led by the country’s de facto ruler Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against the RSF militia commanded by his former deputy, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.The two were once allies within the military junta that seized control after the spectacular collapse of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s government in 2021. But their power-sharing arrangement rapidly fell apart, sparking war in April 2023. While both sides have been accused of extensive human rights violations, a U.N. fact-finding mission in October found that the RSF was responsible for committing sexual violence on a large scale in areas under its control, including gang rapes, abductions and sexual slavery. In January, the United States determined that the RSF had committed genocide in areas under its control. A March report from UNICEF said children as young as 1 year old had been raped and sexually assaulted by armed forces, in the first comprehensive account illustrating how mass sexual violence is being wielded as a weapon of war against children in Sudan. The agency documented over 200 cases of child rape since early 2023, although the authors stressed that this was only a small fraction of the total number of cases. The latest attacks comes as aid groups grapple with a funding crisis after President Donald Trump enacted a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid in February. One network of communal kitchens has had to immediately stop most of its operations due to a lack of funding, about 75% of which came from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to their organizers. Abuzar Osman Suliman, the coordinator of the Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan’s western Darfur region, told NBC News in February that all 40 of ERRs’ community kitchens had to close in the Zamzam camp. U.N. agencies have been unable to get substantial amounts of food relief to the Zamzam camp and a famine was already declared in the camps in August, according to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international system that sets a scale used by the United Nations and governments. Famine has since spread to four other areas of Sudan, according to the IPC, and is expected to deepen and spread in coming months due to the war and impeded access to humanitarian assistance.

“We have a U.S. citizen, a child, who was murdered in cold blood,” one official told NBC News. “Why should we not be treated equally as any other American?” TURMUS AYYA, West Bank — To his family, Amer Rabee was just a 14-year-old American boy picking almonds with two friends. But to the Israeli soldiers who gunned him down on Sunday night, the trio were “three terrorists” who were “endangering civilians” by throwing rocks at cars. The hail of bullets the soldiers fired over the next several minutes succeeded in “eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday. Now, as the village of Turmus Ayya, which has a large number of U.S. citizens, mourns the loss of one of its children — whose family insists had neither violent tendencies nor political allegiances — it’s grappling with a deeper question: why President Donald Trump and the U.S. government have said so little about the killing of one of its citizens. Amer was “an American citizen,” Mohammed Rabee, 28, said Thursday about his cousin, who grew up in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. “He thought his passport came with freedom and American protection, but it clearly didn’t.” “Our president hasn’t shed a light on this,” he added. Mohammed and other family members spoke to NBC News on the third day of mourning for Amer at one of Turmus Ayya’s municipal buildings, where townspeople shuffled through to offer their condolences, sipped coffee and smoked cigarettes before dining on a lamb and rice lunch. Describing Amer, the youngest of five siblings, as “very intelligent,” Amer’s father Mohammed Rabee, 48, said he had “no problems” with anyone in the West Bank, where the family moved to in 2013. He added that Amer had plenty of friends back home in the U.S. who he kept in contact with over the phone and through his gaming console. As soon as he heard his son was involved in a shooting, he said he tried to contact the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, hoping it would intervene or provide medical help. The process of identifying himself and his son took too long, Mohammed said, and he begged the State Department official on the other end of the line to contact the IDF to ask it to hold its fire. NBC News has asked the embassy for comment. The following day, hours after his son had been killed, the embassy called Mohammed back to follow up, he said. “I told them he’s already dead, so what can you do now?” Mohammed said. The same day, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem released a statement acknowledging that an American citizen had been killed and offered “our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss.” But Amer’s family, along with other residents of Turmus Ayya, said they wanted to hear from Trump, who did not mention him at a meeting in the Oval Office with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu the day after his death, even as he held forth on the plight of remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip. “We have a U.S. citizen, a child, who was murdered in cold blood,” said Yaser Alkam, the head of the Turmus Ayya’s municipality. “Why should we not be treated equally as any other American?” The Trump administration has been “fighting for the release of one of the American hostages in Gaza,” said Alkam, referring to Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli American soldier who grew up in the U.S. After the Trump administration took power, it broke long-standing diplomatic protocol and started negotiating directly with Hamas to try to free Alexander — thought to be the last living American hostage in the enclave — and secure the release of the bodies of four other Israeli Americans in Gaza. Like Amer’s family and many of the other residents in the village dubbed “little America” by Palestinians, Alkam said he has dual citizenship and divides his time between the West Bank and the U.S. Turmus Ayya is the ancestral homeland for thousands of Palestinian Americans, many of whose ancestors immigrated to the United States decades ago. Their descendants return to inherited property in the town — homes, businesses and farms that allow residents to keep their feet in both cultures. But even though many storefront signs in Turmus Ayya are written in English and pizza places are as common as shawarma stands, the town is fraught with danger. Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed over 50,500 people there, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Israeli onslaught in Gaza followed a Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. In an update late last month, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office said Israeli forces had killed 99 Palestinians this year in the West Bank. Amer’s father, Mohammed, said settlers burned down one of the family’s vacation homes outside the village. He added that he regularly warns his sons not to venture to the outskirts for fear of settler attacks, even tracking their movements on a cellphone app. Many of the uniformed soldiers are settlers themselves, deputized by the armed forces to carry and use firearms as a kind of local law enforcement. “The reason why all this aggression happens is because they want to push out and take our land,” said Amer’s older brother Saad. “Us just being here, simply existing on this land, is an act of resistance, and it pushes back their illegal settler expansion.” Along with its statement, the IDF released a grainy, night-vision video of what it said was the incident that showed three people, one of whom appeared to throw an object. Both Amer’s father and brothers said they couldn’t identify him from the video, but that the shooting occurred at a well-known teenage hangout spot amid green almond trees that had just begun fruiting. One of the other boys, Palestinian American Ayub Ijbara, remains in the hospital. Abdul Rahman Shhadah has returned home. Both are also 14. Traipsing through the small town’s hilly outskirts is “something that Palestinian boys do,” Amer’s brother Saad said. The family all said they thought it was unlikely that Amer and his friends had been throwing rocks at cars. If they were throwing rocks at all, it was more likely they were trying to knock the almonds from the trees. But even if they had been targeting cars on the nearby road — which wasn’t clearly visible from the scene of the IDF shooting — teenage hijinks shouldn’t have merited a death sentence, they said. “I want the whole world to hear our story so they can feel the same way if this happened to an American kid or an Israeli kid,” said Amer’s grandfather Amjad. “We want them to be safe in this world, not killed at 14 years old.”

Many now have to walk, sometimes for miles, to get a small water fill after the Israeli military’s bombardment damaged a pipeline operated by state-owned Mekorot. Hundreds of thousands of Gaza City residents have lost their main source of clean water in the past week after supplies from Israel’s water utility were cut by the Israeli army’s renewed offensive, municipal authorities in the territory said. Many now have to walk, sometimes for miles, to get a small water fill after the Israeli military’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaia neighbourhood, in the north of the Strip, damaged the pipeline operated by state-owned Mekorot. “Since morning, I have been waiting for water,” said 42-year-old Gaza woman Faten Nassar. “There are no stations and no trucks coming. There is no water. The crossings are closed. God willing, the war will end safely and peacefully.” Israel’s military said in a statement it was in contact with the relevant organizations to coordinate the repair of what it called a malfunction of the northern pipeline as soon as possible. It said a second pipeline supplying southern Gaza was still operating, adding that the water supply system “is based on various water sources, including wells and local desalination facilities distributed throughout the Gaza Strip”. Israel ordered Shejaia residents to evacuate last week as it launched an offensive that has seen several districts bombed. The military has said previously it was operating against “terror infrastructure” and had killed a senior militant leader. The northern pipeline had been supplying 70% of Gaza City’s water since the destruction of most of its wells during the war, municipal authorities say. “The situation is very difficult and things are getting more complicated, especially when it comes to people’s daily lives and their daily water needs, whether for cleaning, disinfecting, and even cooking and drinking,” said Husni Mhana, the municipality’s spokesperson. “We are now living in a real thirst crisis in Gaza City, and we could face a difficult reality in the coming days if the situation remains the same.” Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have become internally displaced by the war, with many making daily trips on foot to fill plastic containers with water from the few wells still functioning in remoter areas — and even these do not guarantee clean supplies. Water for drinking, cooking and washing has increasingly become a luxury for Gaza residents following the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose fighters carried out the deadliest attack in decades on Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people in southern Israel and taking some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, Palestinian authorities have said. Many residents across the enclave queue for hours to get one water fill, which usually is not enough for their daily needs. “I walk long distances. I get tired. I am old, I’m not young to walk around every day to get water,” said 64-year-old Adel Al-Hourani. The Gaza Strip’s only natural source of water is the Coastal Aquifer Basin, which runs along the eastern Mediterranean coast from the northern Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, through Gaza and into Israel. But its salty tap water is severely depleted, with up to 97% deemed unfit for human consumption due to salinity, over-extraction and pollution. The Palestinian Water Authority stated that most of its wells had been rendered inoperable during the war. On March 22, a joint statement by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics and the Water Authority said more than 85% of water and sanitation facilities and assets in Gaza were completely or partially out of service. Palestinian and United Nations officials said most of Gaza’s desalination plants were either damaged or had stopped operations because of Israel’s power and fuel cuts. “Due to the extensive damage incurred by the water and sanitation sector, water supply rates have declined to an average of 3-5 litres per person per day,” the statement said. That was far below the minimum 15 litres per person per day requirement for survival in emergencies, according to the World Health Organization indicators, it added.