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.”

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.

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.

“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.

Ex-MI6 head Richard Dearlove warned Trump that rushing into a truce and giving Russia concessions could pose grave danger to the West. LONDON — If President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, he should hold off negotiating a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, Britain’s former top spy told NBC News on Thursday. Richard Dearlove, the ex-head of British intelligence agency MI6, said that rushing a truce — and giving too many concessions to the Kremlin — could encourage President Vladimir Putin to launch other hostile forays into Europe. The Russians badly need a ceasefire, said Dearlove, citing waning Kremlin cash reserves and the falling price of crude oil, which Moscow exports to fund its war machine. “Ukraine is pretty close to a tipping point,” he said in a wide-ranging interview. “But the worry at the moment is that Trump will do a premature deal with the Russians” and make too many concessions. The “highly undesirable” consequences would be to “embolden the Russians, over time, to be more aggressive and assertive in Europe,” said Dearlove over a coffee at one of London’s historic private members clubs. His remarks come as Ukraine’s military chief said Russia had launched a new offensive in the Eastern European country. While often less critical of Trump’s unorthodox approach than many other foreign policy experts, Dearlove said he finds Trump’s general “lack of grace” and “lack of decent behavior” to be “very disconcerting” — specifically his Oval Office bust-up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. “My general view of Americans is they’re gracious and they behave very respectfully,” said a gently amused Dearlove, 80, an Olympic rower’s son who spent a year at Connecticut’s preparatory Kent School before gaining his degree back in Britain at the University of Cambridge. “It’s extraordinary the way that Trump has blown up all of that.” The jovial, outspoken grandee of the British foreign policy establishment joined MI6 in 1966 and served as its chief — code-named “C” — between 1999 and 2004. He now co-hosts the “One Decision” podcast, covering global news, alongside former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He says he “strongly supports” the American president’s campaign to pressure European allies to spend more on defense, decrying the imbalance of Europe enjoying a relatively generous health care and benefits system while letting the U.S. foot the bill for Western defense. “Why should American taxpayers pay for indulgent social security programs in countries like Germany, France and Italy?” he said. He dismisses “Signalgate” — in which Trump’s team discussed bombing Yemen on the messaging app Signal — as a “stupid” and “silly mistake” that showed “a degree of amateurism.” And he said it wouldn’t have a long-term impact on Western intelligence sharing. Reached for comment on Dearlove’s remarks, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said, “President Trump is a master negotiator who has done more to bring about world peace during his tenure than any president in modern history.” “The President’s Peace Through Strength agenda has delivered historic achievements across the globe and restored American dominance on the world stage,” Fields added. “The ‘experts’ have been wrong for decades, and doing the same thing while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” The ex-MI6 head says his biggest short-term worry revolves around Trump’s approach to Ukraine, which has involved parallel talks with both Kyiv and Moscow and has been lambasted by Trump’s critics in the West as being too favorable to the latter. “If you want to get the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t do a premature deal with Ukraine — wait,” Dearlove said. (According to former aides, the president still covets the landmark award won by four of his predecessors, and for which Trump has been nominated at least twice before.) Dearlove believes the Russians are on the back foot and will only come under more pressure to accept terms. “The Russians themselves badly need a ceasefire, but Putin is incapable of seeking one because he “doesn’t have a reverse gear,” Dearlove said. On Iran, responding to Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will hold direct talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, Dearlove says he believes the administration will “demand a very high price” — namely that Iran give up its entire nuclear program, both for energy and weapons. “I think there’s a bottom line for Trump and Israel that Iran must not have nuclear capability,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear that if Iran were to try to weaponize or if the intelligence suggests that they are weaponized, then there would be a joint Israeli-American attack.” Trump didn’t rule out military action if the talks don’t succeed, saying Tehran would have a “very bad day” if diplomacy failed. Dearlove agreed: “If the Iranians don’t negotiate, or if they mislead, which they’re quite capable of doing, they’re ones heading for a crisis.” Dearlove was head of MI6 when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, and was later criticized by a public inquiry for his handling of intelligence alleging that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, a key argument steering Britain into the war alongside Washington. At the inquiry in 2017, he described claims he was too close to the British government as “complete rubbish.” And, according to a BBC interview in 2023, he is among a minority of people who believe that Iraq did have some kind of weapons program, but that its components may have been moved into neighboring Syria. Looking ahead, Dearlove believes by far the biggest issue is how the West deals with China. “Pax Americana” — the “American peace” that has largely held since 1945 and is a byword for Washington’s postwar global dominance — has “definitively disintegrated,” he said. In its stead, there has to be “some sort of understanding between the United States and China,” whose President Xi Jinping “wants to create a world by 2050 which is aligned with China’s value system,” he added. “China and the West are intimately intertwined: You can’t take them apart, you can’t disentangle them,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s totally opposed to the Western value system.” He characterizes Xi’s Chinese Communist Party as “talking about global domination” — something vehemently rejected by Beijing. “There’s going to have to be some sort of international agreement which accommodates what I would describe as the two spheres of influence,” he said. Otherwise, China is “going to end up in a confrontation with the United States at some point in the 21st century.”

The strike killed Ahmed Mansour, an editor with the Palestine Today news agency, and his co-worker Hilmi Al-Faqawi. Yousef Al-Khozindar, a father of two working with NBC News to procure supplies and fuel, was in the tent next door being used by the news agency. The Israeli military said in a statement Monday that it had been targeting Hassan Aslih, a Gaza-based freelance photographer with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. The military described him as a “terrorist” with Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade operating “under the guise of a journalist.” Aslih was wounded in the strike, according to the government media office in the Hamas-run enclave. More than 50,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel has said 1,200 were killed in the attack and around 250 were taken hostage. The conflict has been especially dangerous for media workers. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2024 was the “deadliest year for journalists” around the world, with Israel being “responsible for nearly 70 percent” of those killed. Sunday’s airstrike brought the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the war to at least 175. On Monday, the New York-based committee, which is considered the world’s leading advocate for media workers, denounced the attack and called on the international community to “act to stop Israel killing Palestinian journalists.” “This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa Director Sara Qudah said in the statement. “The international community’s failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable.” Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law “as long as they do not take a direct part in the hostilities,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Israel Defense Forces said that Aslih had “participated” in the Oct. 7 attacks and that he had documented and uploaded video of “looting, arson and murder to social media.” Israel has often asserted that journalists it has killed were either members of Hamas or supporters, frequently without providing clear evidence. The Israel Defense Forces said it had taken “numerous steps” to mitigate harm to civilians before it launched the strike Sunday, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence. Asked by NBC News on Tuesday whether it was aware that other journalists were at the tent camp when the strike was launched, the IDF shared its initial statement, which did not directly address the question.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said Wednesday that his country will offer temporary shelter to Palestinian medical evacuees and children orphaned by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. “We are ready to evacuate those who are injured or traumatized, and orphans, if they want to be evacuated to Indonesia, and we are ready to send planes to transport them,” Subianto said, adding that he has instructed his foreign affairs minister to discuss evacuation plans with the Palestinian authorities at once. He said Indonesia is ready to evacuate a first batch of around 1,000 victims, who will stay in the country until they have fully recovered from their injuries and Gaza is safe enough to return to. Subianto said the move was not for permanent resettlement. Subianto spoke before getting on a flight to Abu Dhabi, the first stop in a weeklong tour of the Middle East that also includes stops in Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan. He said he would consult on the planned evacuations with those countries, some of which have also accepted Palestinians for humanitarian reasons. He added that other countries have called on Indonesia to increase its role in seeking a resolution to the conflict in Gaza. The world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinians. “This is something complicated; it’s not easy, but I think it encourages the Indonesian government to play a more active role,” Subianto said.

“There’s got to be an investigation,” Keir Starmer told British lawmakers. LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for a probe into the killing of 15 emergency workers in Gaza after a video appeared to contradict Israel's account of the incident and it walked back its version of events. “There’s got to be an investigation,” Starmer told the United Kingdom's lawmakers Tuesday. “And we have to be absolutely clear that we’re not just talking about that isolated incident.” The United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society have also condemned the March 23 incident, when the emergency workers were shot dead and buried in shallow graves. The Israel Defense Forces initially said it opened fire after unmarked vehicles approached in the dark, but changed its account after video showed clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks with their lights on coming under fire. Starmer also criticized Israel’s “resumption of hostilities” in the Gaza Strip after two months of relative calm in the war-torn enclave came to an end and talks to extend the truce stalled. “We need to get back to a ceasefire,” he said. He also echoed warnings from the U.N. that there “hasn’t been enough aid” getting into the Palestinian enclave after Israel halted all entry of humanitarian aid and goods into the Gaza Strip last month. His comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first world leader to visit President Donald Trump at the White House after the U.S. introduced sweeping new tariffs on some of America’s biggest trading partners, including China and the European Union, as well as Israel. At a news conference Tuesday, Trump said he sympathized with the Israeli hostages still held in the enclave. He also made another pitch for his plan for the U.S. to “own” Gaza and remove its Palestinian population. He made no mention of the Israeli military's killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in Gaza. The IDF initially said soldiers had opened fire on the vehicles as they approached its position “suspiciously,” without headlights or emergency signals. It said nine Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been killed. But video recovered from the phone of one of the dead paramedics and reviewed by NBC News, showed an ambulance with its lights on and emergency lights flashing. The vehicle was clearly marked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society's insignia. Lights on two other vehicles could also be seen flashing in the footage. On Monday, the IDF said a preliminary inquiry found that Israeli soldiers launched their attack “due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area.” It did not expand on why a threat was perceived, but said “six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.” It did not provide evidence of this and said the inquiry was ongoing. In an earlier news briefing Saturday, an IDF spokesperson had said the “individual who gave the initial account” appeared to have been “mistaken.” The spokesperson said the IDF was looking into whether an error was made. Troops were not trying to hide anything by covering the bodies, but wanted to protect them from wild animals, the spokesperson said, adding that it was “common procedure” to cover vehicles. The IDF notified the U.N. of the incident on the day it happened, the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday that they could not confirm that. Asked for clarification, the spokesperson did not immediately respond. Throughout the war in Gaza, members of Britain's Parliament have raised concerns about the country's arms exports to Israel, warning that they could be used to violate international humanitarian law. After taking office in July 2024, Starmer’s government announced the suspension of around 30 licenses, out of about 350, to Israel, after the government had concluded there was a “clear risk” they “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” Included in the suspension were licenses for equipment including components for military aircraft, “as well as items which facilitate ground targeting,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in September. The U.K.'s foreign office declined to say what had prompted it to suspend the licenses after NBC News submitted a Freedom of Information request in September. Such a disclosure “would be likely to prejudice the U.K.’s international relations,” it said. The U.S. continues to be Israel‘s biggest arms supplier, with Washington spending at least $17.9 billion on military aid for Israel in the first year of the country’s offensive in Gaza, according to a November report from Brown University’s Costs of War project.

Every day, Zeev Engelmayer takes a seat at his bay window overlooking his backyard in central Tel Aviv. His mission? Fighting despair with an army of colorful markers in a bid to bring hope to the people of Israel. For the past 18 months since the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, he has drawn a daily postcard, many featuring Israeli hostages. Some have been turned into banners, T-shirts and profile pictures on social media and have been embraced by the families of those taken captive. One even made its way to Pope Francis. Although the subject matter is often dark, the postcards are for the most part colorful and innocent. “I use a child’s style because a child has the ability to have hope even in times that are very difficult,” he told NBC News in February. In the first two weeks after the Hamas attacks, Engelmayer said he drew in black and white to reflect the deep sadness he felt about the attacks on Israel, which saw 1,200 people killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. He said his first piece paid homage to “Guernica,” the 1937 anti-war masterpiece by renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. But then one morning he said he picked up colored pens and began to draw. Titled “Something Terrible Is About to Happen,” the picture he produced that day depicted Kibbutz Be’eri, a small community in southern Israel where dozens of civilians and security personnel were killed on the morning of the Hamas attack and more than 30 residents were also taken hostage. “I wanted to show the difference between what was before, this peaceful place, and the green trees and the flowers,” Engelmayer said. “I wanted to show the moments before it happened.” The first postcard he drew of a hostage, he added, was of grandmother Yaffa Adar, now 86, who was filmed as she was taken away in a golf cart from her home in nearby Kibbutz Nir Oz while surrounded by armed militants. “She had a little smile,” said Engelmayer, adding that she held her head up high so as not to give her captors “the satisfaction of taking her hostage.” Instead of drawing her capture, he said he imagined her happy return home. “I drew her surrounded by a woman with colorful dresses, spreading flowers in the air,” he said of Adar, who was freed four days later, on Nov. 24, 2023, after 49 days in captivity. Engelmayer said after that he was approached by relatives of many hostages asking him to depict their loved ones. They told him all about their hobbies and passions, as well as personal anecdotes, in the hope of inspiring him. One also made it to Pope Francis via an Italian diplomat, Engelmayer said, adding that the pontiff then “prayed for the hostages.” Throughout, Engelmayer said he was determined to highlight the plight of those in Hamas captivity, although many have since been freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire deal earlier this year and during a previous pause in fighting in November 2023. After Phase 1 of what was to be a three-stage ceasefire deal, Israel last month stepped up attacks in Gaza, where it has killed more than 50,500 people since the Oct. 7 attacks, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Some days, Engelmayer said he struggled to “find the optimism.” In September 2024, when American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s body was found shot execution style, alongside five other hostages, he said he “drew a very pessimistic, difficult painting.” A picture of Kfir Bibas, who was just 9 months old when he was kidnapped with his brother Ariel, 4, and their mother, Shiri, 34. The postcard depicted the ginger-haired baby celebrating his first birthday alongside his captors, with a cake, balloons and decorations. It “looks as though it’s a happy drawing, but it’s a very sad drawing,” he said. “It’s the saddest happy birthday I made,” Engelmayer added. The remains of the Bibas boys and their mom were later returned from Gaza by Hamas. Their father, Yarden Bibas, 34, was released by Hamas on Feb. 1. He had no idea about their fate until he was freed. Other postcards have proved more positive, the dreams of reunions having come true. When Emily Damari, 26, was released, she held up her left hand, two of her middle fingers missing after she was shot when taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel. Inspired by her defiant gesture, Engelmayer said he drew her hand “like a tree, with leaves around and flowers.” His message? That “we can grow from this and heal from this.” Some of the hostages he’s depicted have reached out to thank him for his work, including Rimon Kirsht-Buchshtab, who used his drawing of her on her social media profiles. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, of which just around two dozen are believed to still be alive, including Israeli American Edan Alexander, and Engelmayer said he would not stop drawing the postcards until all had been returned. “This is the most important project I ever did,” he said. “It’s my mission.”