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Israeli ambassador to the U.S. on killing of 2 embassy staffers
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Israel condemned over troops in occupied West Bank firing
Jenin, West Bank — Several nations that have backed Israel during its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip voiced outrage Wednesday after Israeli troops fired what they called “warning shots” as foreign diplomats visited the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority, which partially administers the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, accused Israeli troops of “deliberately” shooting at the delegation near the flashpoint city of Jenin. The Israeli military, already under pressure over its tactics in the Gaza war, said it regretted the “inconvenience.”
AFP video from Jenin — a frequent target of Israeli military raids — showed the delegation and accompanying journalists running for cover as shots were heard on Wednesday.
MOHAMMAD ATEEQ/AFPTV/AFP/Getty
A European diplomat said the envoys went to the area to see the destruction caused in the West Bank by Israeli military raids during the Gaza war, which was sparked by the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack.
The Israel Defense Forces said the diplomatic convoy had strayed from the approved route and entered a restricted zone, prompting troops to fire “warning shots” to steer the group away. The IDF added that no one was wounded and it expressed regret for the “inconvenience caused.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman called the incident “unacceptable.”
“Diplomats who are doing their work should never be shot at, attacked in any way, shape or form. Their safety, their viability, must be respected at all times,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. “These diplomats, including U.N. personnel, were fired at, warning shots or whatever… which is unacceptable.”
Demands for explanation over Israel’s “unacceptable” actions
Several countries that had representatives in the group voiced outrage and demanded an investigation.
“We call on Israel to investigate this incident and also hold those accountable who are responsible for any threats to diplomats’ lives,” said European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay summoned Israel’s ambassadors or said they would raise the issue directly.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the incident “totally unacceptable” and pressed for an “immediate explanation.”
Carney added that Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand has summoned Israel’s ambassador to Ottawa.
MOHAMMAD MANSOUR/AFP/Getty
Egypt denounced the shooting as a breach of “all diplomatic norms,” while Turkey demanded an immediate investigation.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said: “This attack must be investigated without delay and the perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Ahmad al-Deek, political adviser for the Palestinian foreign ministry who accompanied the delegation, condemned what he called a “reckless act by the Israeli army.”
“It has given the diplomatic delegation an impression of the life the Palestinian people are living,” he said.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported the delegation included diplomats from more than 20 countries including Britain, China, Egypt, France, Japan, Jordan, Turkey and Russia.
Britain’s minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer, said Wednesday that he’d spoken directly with U.K. diplomats affected by the incident, and he called for an investigation.
“Today’s events in Jenin are unacceptable. I have spoken to our diplomats who were affected,” he said in a social media post. “Civilians must always be protected, and diplomats allowed to do their jobs. There must be a full investigation and those responsible should be held accountable.”
“The Japanese government has protested to the Israeli side and requested an explanation and the prevention of a recurrence,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said in Tokyo, confirming that diplomatic staff from the country had taken part in the delegation.
Israel-Europe ties increasingly strained over Gaza, D.C. murders
The incident came as anger mounted over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Palestinians are scrambling for basic supplies after weeks of near-total isolation. A two-month Israeli aid blockade on Gaza was partially eased this week, but not enough to alleviate the hunger crisis facing the enclave’s roughly 2 million inhabitants, according to the U.N. and humanitarian agencies.
Israel stepped up its military offensive over the weekend, vowing to defeat Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whose October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.
Israel has faced massive pressure, including from its allies, to halt its intensified offensive and allow aid into Gaza. European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday ordered a review of the EU cooperation accord with Israel.
Sweden said it would press the EU to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers, while Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel and summoned the Israeli ambassador.
Pope Leo XIV described the situation in Gaza as “worrying and painful” and called for “the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid.”
Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty
Israel’s ties with Europe were tested further on Thursday as Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar blamed what he called antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement “by leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe,” for the murder of two Israel Embassy staff members in Washington D.C. the previous night.
A suspect identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago was taken into custody, and heard shouting, “Free, free Palestine” as he was led away, after the attack outside the Jewish Museum in the U.S. capital.
Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said at least 3,509 people have been killed since Israel ended a ceasefire and resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,655.
How the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Museographic Approach and the UAE’s Soft Power Strategy Line Up
In recent years, institutions worldwide have begun to reexamine their permanent collections and curatorial displays, reconsidering how these frame and narrate art history and the evolution of civilization. No museum operates as a truly neutral entity—each institution shapes how we perceive art history and society’s larger cultural dynamics. Confronting longstanding questions of representation, inclusivity and power embedded in traditional narratives, museums are adopting new approaches to collecting, operations and promotion that are more fluid and critically engaged. Once presented through static and crystallized frameworks, art and artifacts on display may be rotated in or out of exhibitions, recontextualized via placard texts or even returned to their country of origin in the service of more pluralistic, multilayered and equitable presentations of global art and cultural histories.
The museographic strategy adopted by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017 in the U.A.E., is particularly revealing in how it aligns with the country’s broader political agenda, both in terms of cultural diplomacy and domestic and international policy. Indeed, the museum is staging what may be an unprecedented museographic proposition: a synchronically intercultural narrative of civilization’s development, tracing how artistic, spiritual and scientific breakthroughs unfolded in parallel across disparate regions of the world.
French architect Jean Nouvel’s tour de force rises with deliberate spectacle along the waterfront of the emerging cultural district on Saadiyat Island, soon to host a lineup of equally spectacular buildings: the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum, the Natural History Museum—all currently under construction—and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, the immersive digital museum by the Japanese collective teamLab, which opened just last week. It sits less than a ten-minute drive from some of the most beautiful and luxurious resorts recently built along the island’s white-sand beaches and clear-water shoreline, with many more still on the way.
Emerging from the turquoise waters like a mirage with luminous white volumes, Nouvel reimagined the museum not as a singular monument but as a porous city of knowledge—open, fluid and in dialogue with its surroundings. Inspired by traditional Arab medinas and low-lying desert settlements, the building appears to hover above the waterline, establishing a visual and conceptual continuity with Arabic heritage and aesthetic traditions. Its crowning architectural gesture—a 180-meter-wide dome composed of eight interlocking layers of steel and aluminum latticework—casts a mesmerizing “rain of light,” echoing the dappled sunlight of an oasis palm grove while invoking the transcendental role of geometric abstraction in Islamic art as a non-figurative pathway to the divine.
While the Louvre in Paris—like the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art—continues isolating and compartmentalizing cultures into distinct zones, one encounters a strikingly different logic here. Gold funerary masks from Peru (100 BCE-700 BCE), the Philippines (900-1200) and Lebanon (600-800 BCE) are in a shared vitrine; representations of motherhood from the Ivory Coast, Egypt and France sit side by side; and funerary objects from Oceania, China and France appear in direct dialogue.
Other vitrines trace the migration of decorative and symbolic motifs across continents, shaped by trade, imitation and adaptation into the visual vocabularies of receiving cultures. Patterns from Chinese blue-and-white porcelain were reimagined in Iznik (the epicenter of ceramic production in the Ottoman Empire), fused with floral motifs inspired by Istanbul’s gardens. In Venice, these same designs were reinterpreted through Italian Mannerism’s lens, absorbing the local tradition’s colors and ornamental language.
As visitors move through the exhibition—and along the arc of civilization—a resonant curatorial juxtaposition appears: a medieval statue of the Virgin Mary with child stands in alignment with turquoise tiles bearing Quranic verses and an ancient Buddha sculpture. Positioned on a single axis, these objects reveal how, nearly 2,000 years ago, the rise of universal religions unfolded almost simultaneously across Europe, Asia and Africa. “By addressing their message to all humanity without distinction, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam transcended local cultural characteristics and deeply transformed ancient societies,” reads the wall text, underscoring how the spread of belief systems, far from being solely defined by conflict, also created spaces of mutual influence and shared transformation.
The climax of these cross-cultural curatorial pairings arguably arrives near the end of the exhibition. In the contemporary section, a dialogue unfolds between a futuristic sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, a 19th-century ceremonial dance paddle from the Rapa Nui culture of Chile and a curvilinear headdress shaped like a snake from the Nalu or Baga culture in Guinea (dated between 1800 and 1940). Together, they reveal the extent to which Modernism owes its visual language to non-Western cultures, particularly in its synthetic treatment of the human form, reduced to pure line and formal essence, as seen in ritualistic and totemic artifacts.
In the final room, Cy Twombly’s pseudo-script and Willem de Kooning’s gestural abstraction channel the same primal need to leave a mark that pulses through time in the imaginative figures carved into rock faces by Arabian shepherds over 4,000 years ago—presented here in direct visual dialogue. As this across-time exchange between picture and script unfolds, a vessel painted by Keith Haring, covered in hieroglyphic-like humanoid figures, mirrors that same impulse: a drive to invent a visual language of pictograms and symbols that predate formal writing systems, springing instead from raw expression and emotional charge.
Although the curatorial parallels may at times stretch the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, the underlying message resonates clearly: human development follows a shared trajectory, with civilizations across geographies arriving at similar breakthroughs in tandem—each shaped, expanded and deepened by the ongoing flow of cross-cultural exchange.
As with MASP in São Paulo, the Louvre Abu Dhabi likewise embraces transparency in its display strategies, allowing for a layered interplay of artifacts, cultural narratives and aesthetic vocabularies that enables synchronic dialogues across time and geography. Here, objects are not isolated but visually and conceptually interwoven, forming revealing parallels and unexpected juxtapositions that complicate linear readings of art history.
Completing this dialogue across time and space is a permanent installation by Jenny Holzer, which engages enduring themes of civilization, historical memory and cross-cultural exchange through three texts carved into marble panels on the external walls of the museum’s galleries. Written in Sumerian-Akkadian, Arabic and French, these inscriptions present excerpts from a Mesopotamian Creation Myth tablet excavated from the ancient city of Assur in present-day Iraq, the 1588 annotated edition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais and a passage from Ibn Khaldun’s 14th-century Muqaddimah, held in the Atif Efendi Library in Istanbul—a foundational text for modern disciplines such as economics, sociology, ethnography and the philosophy of history. Reflecting the museum’s multicultural origins and universalist approach to culture and creativity, Holzer’s intervention brings these texts—on the origins of thought, the act of writing and the transmission of knowledge—into a powerful spatial conversation with the building’s architecture. In doing so, she reactivates historical consciousness, inviting viewers to consider the universal rhythm of societal development shaped by the shared existential questions that have echoed across human civilizations for millennia.
This museographic and historical approach—one that considers the global history of humanity as an interconnected whole—lays bare the extent to which traditional institutions remain shaped not only by Western-centric narratives but also by ethnographic frameworks that feel increasingly outdated in today’s multicultural and globally entangled society. What stands out at the Louvre Abu Dhabi is that it does not merely sidestep a Western or Eurocentric perspective; it adopts a global, multicultural and all-encompassing vision that actively fosters intercultural dialogue. It emphasizes the trans-geographical connections forged through centuries of trade, exchange, migration and mutual influence—tracing these entanglements back to the earliest moments of human civilization.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi’s museography is deliberately conceived as post-national, transhistorical and profoundly humanist, serving as a symbolic statement of the U.A.E.’s ambition to position itself as a bridge between civilizations and a catalyst for cross-cultural understanding. The museum points out that the “Abu Dhabi Collection has evolved over many years, contributing to the universal dialogue in the art world. It underscores the Emirate’s commitment to building a unique collection that disseminates cross-cultural and universal narratives. Spanning prehistory to the present, the collection reinforces Abu Dhabi’s status as a world-leading cultural centre dedicated to creating and sharing new research and knowledge.”
When museography aligns with a political agenda
It is particularly relevant to consider this museographic and curatorial approach in light of the geopolitical role the U.A.E. (as well as other Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and, more recently, Qatar) seek to play within today’s shifting global dynamics. These nations have increasingly positioned themselves as neutral actors amid evolving international alliances, frequently serving as diplomatic hubs for high-stakes negotiations and conferences addressing urgent global challenges. At the same time, as relatively young states aiming to attract talent and capital, they have adopted comparatively open migration policies. The UAE, in particular, has become a refuge for individuals fleeing political unrest, war or authoritarian regimes in neighboring countries, as well as for nationals from countries like Russia, affected by international sanctions.
In parallel, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have made significant investments in the cultural sector to shape domestic identity and diversify their oil-dependent economies and wield cultural production as a strategic instrument of diplomacy and soft power on the global stage.
In February, the United Arab Emirates and Italy significantly deepened their bilateral ties through a landmark agreement involving a $40 billion Emirati investment in Italy. The initiative spans more than forty agreements across sectors and establishes a comprehensive strategic partnership that prominently includes cultural collaboration—particularly in heritage preservation, tourism and artistic exchange.
In 2024, the UAE signed a similar memorandum of understanding with South Korea—a country widely recognized for its dynamic and effective cultural policies—once again emphasizing the strategic role of cultural diplomacy. Building on this framework, last September the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) and the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) signed an additional MOU, reinforcing their shared commitment to sustained cultural collaboration.
One of the first outcomes of this partnership is “Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits,” a new exhibition that opened last week at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi’s cultural district. Co-curated by Kyung-hwan Yeo and Maya El Khalil, the exhibition traces the evolution of Korea’s avant-garde art scene from the 1960s to the present through the work of 28 pioneering artists drawn from the Seoul Museum of Art’s collection. Crucially, and in contrast to many recent international showcases of Korean art, particularly in the U.S., this initiative moves beyond soft-power branding to establish a genuinely reciprocal platform for intercultural dialogue. Centered on the concept of “medium” and the entanglement of body, society and technology, the show opens a deeper conversation between the UAE and Korea, drawing meaningful parallels between their respective art scenes where artists have similarly responded to the pressures of accelerated urbanization and compressed modernity. A follow-up exhibition of U.A.E. artists from the 1990s to today will open at the Seoul Museum of Art, accompanied by a dual-publication featuring essays by writers and critics from both countries reflecting on one another’s artistic landscapes.
SEE ALSO: Tina Kim On Dansaekhwa, Diplomacy and Effective Canon Building
Similar MOUs centered on shared cultural priorities have been signed by the UAE with several other nations in recent years, including Greece (2020), the U.K. (2021) and Japan (2024). Meanwhile, signaling its broader cultural investment strategy, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ acquired a minority stake in Sotheby’s, announcing a $1 billion investment last August.
At the same time, top international universities such as NYU and Berklee have expanded their presence in the U.A.E., strengthening institutional ties through the establishment of dedicated campuses. Also located in the Manarat Al Saadiyat district, Berklee College of Music opened in 2020 as a music and performing arts institution offering educational programs and live performances affiliated with the American university. NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), launched in 2010 in partnership with the Abu Dhabi government via the Executive Affairs Authority, has since evolved into a fully accredited, degree-granting global campus of New York University—academically and administratively integrated with NYU New York and NYU Shanghai.
Gulf states advance with cultural power while the U.S. focuses elsewhere
As previously reported, neighboring Saudi Arabia has been particularly active in leveraging cultural diplomacy as a central instrument of soft power and international collaboration. The latest development came just weeks ago, when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) signed an expanded partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for AlUla—formalizing what had been a quietly growing collaboration focused on cultural heritage preservation and research. The agreement establishes joint initiatives in archaeological research, exhibition loans and curatorial exchange, with the dual aim of promoting AlUla as a global cultural destination and advancing scholarly understanding of the region’s heritage. As part of Saudi Arabia’s broader Vision 2030 strategy for economic diversification, the partnership adds to a growing roster of international collaborations—including recent agreements with the Centre Pompidou (supported by a €50 million donation toward the institution’s €262 million renovation), the Desert X biennial and UNESCO.
VIMA Art Fair and the Quiet Politics of a Nascent Regional Scene
The days of the art world having a ‘slow season’ are over. And amid a never-ending parade of fairs, gallery weekends, openings and festivals—three planes in one week, artworks melting into one another, fatigue setting in—enthusiasts and professionals alike can find themselves unmoored.
A serious collector friend confessed to me that somewhere over the Aegean, in desperate need of solace, she turned to the only podcast she had downloaded on her phone: an episode of France Culture dedicated to Algerian-French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus and his conception of the absurd and of the necessity of going on and finding joy in the struggle.
By the time she landed at Larnaca airport in Cyprus, she felt soothed. In her cab to Limassol, she noticed real estate billboards zipping past her window. “What’s up with those?” she wondered as her taxi stopped next to the former wine warehouse that was hosting the inaugural edition of VIMA, the latest addition to the May art fair calendar. Stepping out of the car into the hair-whipping Mediterranean winds, she made her way toward the artfully run-down and oh-so-cool venue. Once inside, she immediately noticed that VIMA felt different.
“This is not your typical art fair, which are identical everywhere,” she told me over abundantly sugared Cypriot coffee. “The vibe is easygoing, the blend of Middle Eastern and local galleries is quite unique—bref, there is a sense of Cyprus!”
Cyprus as a multicultural node
The second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, the coastal city of Limassol has been dubbed “Limassolgrad” for the strong presence of Russians who have been coming since the collapse of the Soviet Union and even more since the war started.
But it is not only the Russians who have flocked to Cyprus. It’s also the Lebanese, the Israelis and (perhaps most invasive all) the digital nomads coming to take advantage of Cyprus’ tax status. This is a lot to handle for a country already split between the Greeks and the Turks, home to two British airbases and Europe’s most eastern avant-poste, just a few short hours from Gaza and Beirut.
The trio behind VIMA Art Fair, Edgar Gadzhiev, Lara Kotreleva and Nadezhda Zinovskaya, is Russian, though all three have made their homes in Cyprus and are actively engaged with the local art ecosystem. To build VIMA, they worked closely with a team of local experts, including Cypriot cultural figures Alexandros Diogenous, Tasos Stylianou and Andre Zivanari.
SEE ALSO: Art Basel Expands to the Gulf With a New Qatar Edition in 2026
“We were doing long research, and it appeared that it is the right time to do the art fair exactly here,” Kotreleva told Observer. “At the moment, there’s a lot of private capital moving to Cyprus. And those people seem willing to collect art.”
While the fair positions Cyprus as a place of confluence of identities and a multicultural node, the founders are cautious about calling the fair political. “We have Russians, Lebanese, Ukrainians, Israelis and English people coexisting here,” Gadzhiev explained. “With the fair, we want to provide a safe space for the art.” The wine warehouse was also part of the vision. “We feel that this could show other owners of post-industrial buildings that this could be the way forward,” said Kotreleva, who researched the modernist heritage of Limassol.
Gadzhiev stressed that VIMA is not just about commerce but also about building infrastructure. “We need a space of connection between the market and the galleries,” he said. “There’s no popular media telling art news here. People often don’t know where to go.”
For now, VIMA is an art fair on the margins
Stopping at the booth of the Nicosia gallery ΓΚΑΡΑΖ art space, I spoke with Cypriot artist Giorgos Gerontides, whose work consists of paintings and sculptures made from modified children’s toys and explores latent violence. “My practice is based on toys that represent animals or weapons and how children learn from them,” he said.
Gerontides grew up in Nicosia, studied in Athens and now lives in Thessaloniki. “In small places like Cyprus, you can work better—you are more concentrated,” he noted. “You don’t need to run to openings or to meet people. But of course, you need to travel to see and communicate.”
He found that VIMA had quality works. “I like the space, the architecture, the way they create exhibitions and performances.” He also commented on the necessity of context in a region where previous art fairs didn’t have a cohesive program. “Here you feel that it’s not only about sales, it’s also what we show and what we can learn from all these galleries coming to Cyprus.”
Arsen Kalfayan and Roupen Kalfayan of the Athens and Thessaloniki-based Kalfayan Galleries saw promise in Cyprus as a growing market. “We are particularly happy that we are in Cyprus, which we believe has potential. Maybe it needs time, but the size of the fair is already quite good—not too big, not too small. It’s right for the island.”
“I think this fair will put Cyprus on the map again,” said Maria Stathi from Art Seen. “At the fair, there are some incredible artists and strong galleries.” Based in Nicosia, the gallerist decided to present an all-women showcase of very engaged and political artists from Cyprus. That regional focus was echoed by Nika Gallery, which operates between Dubai and Paris, and presented Arab and Russian artists whose work is focused on migration. “We are aiming to be a platform, a bridge between totally different cultures,” said founder Veronika Berezina. “I like that the vision of the fair is very much related to our vision—being in the middle, in the crossroads, open to different participants.”
Maria Stathi emphasized the diversity of the fair’s audience. “I saw some of our local collectors, but also collectors from abroad,” she said. “It’s exciting to see people flying over, especially for the first edition.”
The obvious question is whether the local techno expats will pump money into the fair, as has happened in places like South Korea. VIMA’s founders said that although they are not relying on tech wealth to power their collector base, they acknowledged the potential of certain audiences to propel the fair forward. “Some support culture—our main sponsor is from the IT sector. He’s a passionate person, and his company is very corporate social responsibility-driven.”
Building a platform for layered cultural exchange
Every art fair is commercial, but in the panels led by curator and writer Nadine Khalil and a lecture by artist collective Slavs and Tatars, VIMA tackled socio-political questions head-on. In a more subtle way, similar explorations also emerged in “The Posterity of the Sun,” a group exhibition curated by Ludovic Delalande and installed in an open space near the site of the former winery. Left deliberately raw, the show made full use of Cyprus’s stark light and elemental setting. “I thought it was better not to pretend it’s a white cube, but to embrace its nature and build a dialogue with the architecture,” Delalande told Observer.
The selection spanned generations and geographies, with artists from Palestine, Lebanon, France, Tunisia and beyond. The works—from monumental felt installations made in the wake of the Beirut port explosion to delicately pigmented ceramics encoding the memory of sunsets—formed a meditation on temporality, fragility and the materiality of art. “I wanted to create a dialogue between Cypriot artists and artists from abroad… and to start from here, to look at the world from Cyprus,” the curator said.
The title of the show comes from a 1950s book of poems and photographs by Albert Camus and René Char—a tribute to their friendship and the sun-drenched landscape of the South of France. “The sun is something we need to live, but also something we must be protected from,” Delalande mused. “It reminds me of the human condition—we are all under the sun, and we will all disappear.”
Recalling her avian journey into Camus’ absurd, my collector friend found those thoughts echoed surprisingly directly in the fair. Standing before Adrian Pepe’s large felt installation that hung like a golden fleece in the setting sun, she found closure along with a rare sense of resonance between a broad philosophy and a small slice of the art market inspired by the spirit of a place. “We are already planning the next edition,” concluded Kotreleva. “For us, it’s about building a cultural ecosystem.”
Art Basel Expands to the Gulf With a New Qatar Edition in 2026
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Israel lets limited aid into Gaza, as Netanyahu says allies can’t tolerate “images of mass famine”
A soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip and an increasingly vocal outcry over near-famine conditions in the Palestinian territory are piling pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a negotiated ceasefire with Hamas and drop his country’s near-total blockade of the enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 87 people were killed by Israeli military strikes over the last 24 hours alone.
The Israel Defense Forces have ramped up operations in Gaza over the last week, killing hundreds of people, many of them women and children, in what Netanyahu’s government insists is legitimate self-defense and aimed entirely at securing the return of 58 hostages still held by Hamas and its allies in Gaza, and destroying the group. Israel blames Hamas — long designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union — for all casualties in Gaza, accusing the group of operating in and around civilian infrastructure.
On Monday, for the first time in two and a half months, Netanyahu permitted a handful of trucks carrying aid to enter Gaza. He said he had been pressured into easing the total blockade by allies who could not tolerate “images of mass famine.”
Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty
There were unconfirmed reports on Tuesday that as many as 100 trucks had been allowed to cross the Gaza border. But the United Nations’ World Food Program said this week that a few trucks would be just a drop in the bucket given the vast and urgent need for food in Gaza, where more than 2 million Palestinians have been trapped for more than two years of blistering war.
Thousands of trucks have been lined up for weeks just across the Gaza border, waiting to cross in. No food, fresh water or medicine had entered the territory for nearly 80 days under the Israeli blockade. Hunger is so rife that full-blown famine is once again stalking Gaza’s population, according to the WFP’s director for the Palestinian territories, Antoine Renard, who’s just returned from the enclave.
“You have around an estimated 14,000 children that I know are facing what we call severe acute malnutrition,” he told CBS News on Monday, meaning those children could die without rapid intervention. “We always wait for when ‘famine’ is on. But when famine is on, it’s already too late. That will be a failure of all the international community.”
CBS News
Until this week, Israel’s government had insisted there were no food shortages in Gaza. But for the first time, in a message posted Monday on social media, Netanyahu acknowledged that Gaza is nearing a hunger crisis.
“Our best friends in the world, senators that I know as enthusiastic Israel supporters, who I know for many years, are come to me and telling me, ‘we give you all the support for a final victory — arms, support on your maneuvers to destroy Hamas, support at the U.N. Security Council. There is one thing we cannot endure — pictures of mass famine. This is something we are unable to witness. We will not be able to support you.'”
As a result of that pressure, he’s allowing the limited amount of aid into Gaza.
Renard said the WFP had sufficient food on standby, ready to enter, to feed the entire population of Gaza for a month.
“It must stop,” he said of the Israeli blockade. “The civilian population shouldn’t be trapped. There’s no reason, actually, to hold them accountable for what they are not part of.”
Netanyahu did not name any of the nations exerting pressure on his government to ease the blockade, and while Israel’s closest and most vital ally the U.S. was almost certainly the country he referred to when mentioning long-friendly senators, it’s not just the U.S. calling for a resolution to the crisis — and other countries have been doing so more assertively.
In a strongly worded statement published Monday, the leaders of the U.K., France and Canada called the level of human suffering in Gaza intolerable, and they threatened to take action.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” the countries said in a joint statement. “We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank … We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”
Netanyahu decried the threat, saying in a statement that by “asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottowa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.”
“The war can end tomorrow if the remaining hostages are released, Hamas lays down its arms, its murderous leaders are exiled and Gaza is demilitarized,” said the Israeli leader. “No nation can be expected to accept anything less and Israel certainly won’t. This is a war of civilization over barbarism. Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved.”
Israel has escalated its war with a new offensive that has killed nearly 600 people over the last week, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.
Doctors are running out of supplies — barely able to treat malnourished children, let alone the hundreds of people injured by the Israeli strikes who stream in day after day.
The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and left 251 others as hostages in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, displaced 90% of its population — most of them multiple times — and killed more than 53,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Freed U.S.-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander’s parents share the joy of a reunion 584 days in the making
Tel Aviv — American-Israeli Edan Alexander was among the first Israeli captives taken into Gaza during the Hamas-orchestrated Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. One week ago, he was reunited with his family in a deal brokered by the Trump administration and led by the White House’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Alexander and his family have credited the Trump team with saving his life, and in a sit-down interview with CBS News, the young soldier’s parents told senior foreign correspondent Debora Patta about the remarkable moment they learned Edan would be released, and the moments they’ve cherished since.
Edan Alexander spent 584 days in Hamas captivity. After a number of false starts and false hope for his release, when the call finally did come from the highest levels of the U.S. government, his father missed it — eight times.
“So, we were all at home in Jersey after the Mother’s Day brunch that we had,” recalled his mother, Yael.
“I was blowing out some leaves,” said his father, Adi. When he put down the leaf blower, he realized he had “missed eight phone calls from Steve Witkoff.”
When Adi finally got in touch with the senior White House envoy, “he told us in 10 minutes from now, Hamas will be announcing about your son’s release tomorrow.”
“I thanked him. Non-stop; ‘Thank you, Steve! Thank you so much,'” Yael recalled saying down the phone line. “It’s the happiest Mother’s Day ever!”
“We were like, yelling, like crazy with the kids,” she said. As Yael, Adi and their two other children watched the television, the announcement came that Edan would be released the following day, just as Witkoff had promised. “And we were like, okay, we need to pack! We need to… Get to Israel!”
Finally, the reunion they’d dreamt of for more than a year and a half was taking shape.
Adi booked a flight immediately. Yael had already booked one for later that same day, in a sheer stroke of luck, planning to go and be with family in Israel right after marking Mother’s Day.
Neither of the parents got much rest on their flights to Israel.
“I couldn’t sleep the whole flight,” Yael told CBS News. “Like, you’re alert … I couldn’t sit even, you know? I was like in full adrenaline, like, ready, to be there and to get Edan back, you know?”
As soon as they touched down, they were whisked away to an Israeli military base, where Edan soon arrived after being handed over by Hamas.
Israeli Defense Forces/Handout/Anadolu via Getty
“Definitely I gave him like, the biggest hug ever,” said his mother. “When I came to him, I came in full power! We almost fell, because he was weak, and he was very excited, like he was standing, like shivering, you know, because, wow, it’s unbelievable — and I’m screaming, and I am like, you know, holding him. It was — wow.”
The parents said Edan remains weak, but doctors cleared him for release from the hospital where he’s been treated. He’s still getting medical attention for some minor injuries sustained during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which his mom and dad said, “nobody took care of in those tunnels.”
Even getting his freedom back was a harrowing ordeal.
“The day of release was a very busy day for him,” father Adi told CBS News. “It took forever. They moved around and crawled under, and it was a very tough day on him. He didn’t sleep the whole night before that, because he was excited, he didn’t sleep. He was like, super, super tired, so it took like, almost two days after for him to decompress from the day of the release.”
Since then, Edan has given them some details about his captivity, but they aren’t pushing him.
“He talks a lot about it, but no rush. We’re not asking. If you want to say something, you say, and we’re not pushing,” said his father. “He went through a lot of stuff.”
“He’s just happy to be home, you know, just to sit with Mika and Roy [his siblings] and just to hang out and just be with us and watch TV yesterday,” his parents said.
Handout/Courtesy of the Alexander family
During his long captivity, Edan saw his parents on the news, pleading for his release.
“I think the fact that he saw us, saw us running and fighting and knocking on every door, kept him hopeful,” said his father, along with “the fact that he was held with other hostages all together, and not by himself, kept him hopeful. And he’s just a strong kid, you know, strong mentally and physically.”
Hamas has held many of its hostages in tunnels under the Gaza Strip, with many, including Alexander, saying they never saw daylight at all.
“I’m so pale,” his mother recalled him saying. “I look like a vampire!”
Israel has stepped up its war in Gaza, where the Hamas-run Ministry of Health says more than 53,000 people have now been killed since the fighting began, including more than 500 in the last week alone.
Families of the hostages — 58 of whom are still believed to be held in Gaza, including about 20 thought by Israeli officials to be alive — have taken to the streets regularly, decrying the renewed offensive as putting their loved ones at even greater risk.
“Edan told us, so when they heard the bombing, it was very, very concerning, scary,” said Adi. “And at some point, one of the tunnels collapsed.”
“He told us sometimes he was afraid to go to sleep. Because maybe they are going to bomb this place that he is specifically inside,” added the father. “It was very scary.”
Now back together as a family, their thoughts are still very much with the other hostages.
“We are still continuing to speak for all the 58 hostages that are still there,” Yael told CBS News. “Whatever Edan told me about hostages [who were] with him, you know, during any time of the captivity, I’m calling their moms and dads, and I’m telling them from the hospital — I’ve done it already — and I am telling them whatever Edan told me. You know, to give them a little bit hope that their story could end also soon, and with a good ending.”
She knows better than most how much power that hope can provide.
“It’s very important, you know. For me, every hostage that got released, it was like, ‘Oh my God, maybe he saw Edan. Maybe he can tell me something, and I don’t care if it’s not from two days, you know. Maybe a year ago he was with Edan, but still, to hear something about my boy, you know, it was very crucial to us.”
At least one of those previously released hostages came to visit Edan in the hospital last week. Fellow U.S.-Israeli dual national Sagui Dekel-Chen, who was released after 498 days in captivity, said in a statement released Monday by the Hostage Families Forum that he and Edan were together for a while in captivity.
Hostages and Missing Families Forum/Handout
“Our fates became intertwined in the most complex situation one could imagine,” Dekel-Chen said in the statement. “It was important for me to come and welcome Edan upon his return. I know what he went through and what he still has ahead of him. I am very happy for him and his family. I hope that soon I will be able to embrace all the other hostages who remain behind as well.”
Yael Alexander said “it was unbelievable to see” the two men reunited in freedom. “It was a miracle. This is the victory — to see the hostages together.”
Asked what their family wanted the world to know now, as rumors swirl once again of potential progress in ceasefire talks despite the ramped-up Israeli military operations, Adi said the message was simple: Act now.
“The urgency,” he told CBS News. “Just the urgency. Our son, he was lucky to get out … Listen, you can’t treat agony with more agony. This war needs to end.”
For the time being, however, there is no end in sight. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Monday that Israel intends to keep pushing its offensive in Gaza, to seize complete control of the Palestinian territory.
“We’re grateful for Steve [Witkoff], for President Trump, and for Adam Boehler,” said the relieved father. “Great job. But the job is not done. We still have more to do.”
“It’s time for them to come home. All of them,” said Yael. “Not in small pieces, just, to bring everyone back home.”
and
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Israel launches new, extensive ground operation in Gaza
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Israel intensifies war in Gaza, it says to pressure hostage releases
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