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Pope Leo XIV calls for end of Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and

Pope Leo XIV called Wednesday for sufficient humanitarian aid to be allowed into war-ravaged Gaza, where humanitarian agencies say a total blockade has sparked critical food and medicine shortages. Israel has, under massive pressure from the U.S. and other allies, started to allow more aid into Gaza this week, but it has not eased its military operations, and aid agencies say the amount of humanitarian goods entering the strip is nowhere near enough to meet the urgent needs of a battered civilian population.

The United Nations announced Monday that it had been cleared to send in aid for the first time since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, sparking severe shortages of food and medicine.

“The situation in the Gaza Strip is worrying and painful,” the pope said during his first weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square. “I renew my heartfelt appeal to allow the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities, the heartbreaking price of which is paid by children, the elderly, the sick.”

Leo, who was elected on May 8 to be the Catholic Church’s first U.S. pope, has made peace an early theme of his papacy, calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Pope Leo XIV blesses the crowd at the end of his first weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, May 21, 2025.

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty


The Israeli army has stepped up its offensive in Gaza in recent days, with the enclave’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health saying some 600 people have been killed over the last week alone. Israel says both the restrictions on aid and the stepped-up military campaign are aimed at pressuring Hamas — long designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. and Israel — to release the remaining 58 hostages held in Gaza and to accept a ceasefire on Israeli terms.

Israel has vowed to carry on with its war until the hostages, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive, are free, Hamas is defeated and disarmed and its leaders are sent into exile. The war was sparked by the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken as hostages into Gaza.

The health ministry, which does not differentiate between combatant and civilian casualties, says more than 53,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory war, many of them women and children.

Charity calls Israeli easing of Gaza blockade “a smokescreen”

The amount of aid Israel has started to allow into war-ravaged Gaza is not nearly enough and is “a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over,” the MSF aid group said Wednesday.

“The Israeli authorities’ decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving,” said Pascale Coissard, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) emergency coordinator in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. “The current authorization for 100 [trucks] per day, when the situation is so dire, is woefully inadequate.”

“Meanwhile, evacuation orders are continuing to uproot the population, while Israeli forces are still subjecting health facilities to intensive attacks,” Coissard said.

Palestinians, struggling with hunger due to an Israeli blockade, wait in line to receive hot meals distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, May 17, 2025.

Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty


Israel said 93 trucks had entered Gaza from Israel on Tuesday, but the United Nations said the aid had been held up.

Asked Tuesday about Israel’s latest moves, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Washington that the Trump administration had been “pleased to see that aid is starting to flow in again.’

“I understand your point that it’s not in sufficient amounts,” he told a journalist. “But we were pleased to see that decision was made. I understand another 100 trucks are behind that and maybe more in the next few days.”

Rubio said the U.S. was working with the U.N.’s World Food Program “to walk through some of the ideas and plans they had for distribution” of aid inside Gaza, but he stressed that in the administration’s view, “ultimately the answer here is for this [war] to end, hopefully with the elimination of Hamas, because the people of Gaza deserve a more prosperous, peaceful future, which they will never have as long as Hamas exists.”

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Pro-Russian ex-Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov reportedly killed outside American School in Spain

A pro-Russian former politician from Ukraine was fatally shot Wednesday morning outside his children’s school in the Spanish capital Madrid, according to the Reuters news agency and multiple Spanish outlets. Andriy Portnov was killed outside the American School of Madrid by an unidentified gunman or gunmen, according to the reports.

“Several persons shot him in the back and the head and then fled toward a forested area,” Reuters quoted an unnamed source at the Spanish Interior Ministry as saying. 

There was no immediate confirmation of the slain man’s identity by Spain’s National Police or other authorities, and no indication of a motive or any suspects who might have been identified. Witnesses told Spanish media that at least one possible suspect was seen running into a nearby wooded area.

According to Spain’s El Diario newspaper, citing witnesses, Portnov was shot right after dropping off his children at the American School. Photos from the scene showed a man’s body lying motionless on the ground behind a Mercedes sedan. 

Police officers are seen next to a body, reportedly that of ex-Ukraine politician Andriy Portnov, in front of the American School in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid, May 21, 2025.

OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP/Getty


Portnov was a senior aid to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, a pro-Russian leader who was ousted during the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014. That ouster brought Ukraine’s current, Western-backed government to power, and it infuriated Russia, which launched its first, initial invasion of Ukrainian territory that same year, quickly culminating in the unilateral annexation of Crimea. 

Portnov was a lawyer, and his political opponents in Ukraine had accused him of helping build a legal framework to enable the former government in Kyiv to crack down on protesters during the 2014 pro-democracy uprising.

Portnov continued living in Ukraine after the 2014 revolution, despite his close ties with the Yanukovich administration, until he left the country in 2022, according to the Radio Freedom Ukraine network.  

In 2021, Portnov was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Magnitsky Act, an American law designed to target foreign individuals implicated in corruption and human rights abuses.

Then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, left, is seen with the deputy head of his presidential administration, Andriy Portnov, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 2, 2010.

Stringer/REUTERS


The U.S. government accused him of having “cultivated extensive connections to Ukraine’s judicial and law enforcement apparatus through bribery,” and said he had been “credibly accused of using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine’s courts and undermining reform efforts.”

“As of 2019, Portnov took steps to control the Ukrainian judiciary, influence associated legislation, sought to place loyal officials in senior judiciary positions, and purchase court decisions,” the Treasury said.

There have been a series of crimes in Spain seemingly related to the Russia-Ukraine war since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Late that same year, a series of letter bomb attacks targeted high-profile institutions including the Ukrainian and U.S. embassies in Madrid and the Spanish Defense Ministry. In early 2024, Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine, was killed near Alicante, in southeast Spain.

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China says Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense plan increases risk of “space becoming a battlefield”

China said Wednesday that the Trump administration’s plan to construct a so-called “Golden Dome” missile defense system to protect the U.S. from missile attacks carries “strong offensive implications” and will increase the risks of a global arms race and militarizing outer space. President Trump said Tuesday that his administration had “officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system,” and that a budget package currently being deliberated by Congress would provide an initial $25 billion in funding for the project.

An unclassified assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency shows the military expects to be contending with missile threats that are greater in “scale and sophistication in the coming decade,” noting specifically that “China and Russia are developing an array of novel delivery systems to exploit gaps in the current U.S. ballistic missile defenses.”

“North Korea has successfully tested ballistic missiles with sufficient range to reach the entire homeland, and Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a military-viable ICBM by 2035, should Tehran decide to pursue the capability,” the DIA assessment said, warning that already, “there is no part of the homeland which cannot be struck by existing ICBMs.”

President Trump speaks alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office at the White House, May 20, 2025, in Washington, as he announces plans for a “Golden Dome” national ballistic and cruise missile defense system.

Getty


But China, which has been deepening its ties with Russia while rapidly developing its missile and other military capabilities, including its nuclear weapons, accused the Trump administration of obsessing over U.S. defense at the risk of endangering global security.

“The United States, in pursuing a ‘U.S.-first’ policy, is obsessed with seeking absolute security for itself. This violates the principle that the security of all countries should not be compromised and undermines global strategic balance and stability. China is seriously concerned about this,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Wednesday during a regular briefing in Beijing, according to multiple international news agencies.

The White House plan “heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield, fuels an arms race, and undermines international security,” she said. “We urge the United States to abandon the development and deployment of a global missile defense system as soon as possible.”

The U.S. military has said for years that China and Russia are already deploying weapons in space, with reports suggesting everything from laser weapons to Chinese satellites with the ability to disable or even capture American satellites. Last year, the U.S. warned Russia against deploying a nuclear-capable anti-satellite weapon that analysts believe could loiter in space for long periods of time before emitting a burst that would disable all satellites around it.

In Russia’s capital, meanwhile, the Kremlin said Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s plans would require consultations between Moscow and Washington, but a spokesperson said it was largely a “sovereign matter” for the U.S.

It was a softer stance than taken previously by the regime of President Vladimir Putin, which had recently published a statement saying the new American missile defense system would explicitly give Moscow an impetus “for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space.”

Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, as he made his announcement, that he’d not yet spoken with Putin about his plans, but he said he would, “at the right time.”

China and Russia, in a joint statement issued earlier in the month, called the Golden Dome project, “deeply destabilizing in nature,” and the two U.S. adversaries said it would turn space into “an arena for armed confrontation.”

Tucker Reals

Tucker Reals is CBSNews.com’s foreign editor, based in the CBS News London bureau. He has worked for CBS News since 2006, prior to which he worked for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and London.

Eleanor Watson and

Kathryn Watson

contributed to this report.

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17-year-old U.S. soldier who went missing in Korean War is accounted for

A 17-year-old soldier who was killed during the Korean War has been accounted for 75 years after he went missing, officials said Monday. 

Army Cpl. Albert J. Estrada was a member of Battery B, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, 31st Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. He began service in July 1950, according to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation. He was one of tens of thousands of soldiers present at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950, the DPAA said. 

During the battle, 30,000 United Nations servicemembers, including U.S. soldiers, faced off against 120,000 Chinese and North Korean enemy forces in “rugged terrain in lethally cold weather,” the DPAA said. The battle, which the DPAA described as “one of the most brutal” of the entire war, raged for 17 days. 

Army Cpl. Albert J. Estrada.

Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation


Army officials wanted to push North Korean forces into China and sever supply lines near the Chosin reservoir, the DPAA said. But the North Korean forces launched a surprise attack that forced one group of soldiers to retreat in late November. A few days later, Chinese soldiers surrounded and isolated another group of soldiers. A task force was hastily assembled to try to organize a withdrawal. A “bitter fight” allowed U.N. forces to open an airfield to bring in reinforcements and evacuate casualties on December 1, according to the U.S. military, and eventually, the U.N. soldiers managed a full retreat. 

More than 1,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers were killed during this time, the DPAA said. Thousands more were injured or incapacitated by the cold weather. Due to the elements and the retreat, “hundreds of fallen Marines and soldiers were unable to be immediately recovered,” the DPAA said. 

Estrada was one of the soldiers who could not be located after the battle. He was reported missing on Dec. 6, 1950. There was no information to indicate that he was ever held as a prisoner of war, the DPAA said. Three years later, on Dec. 31, 1953, the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death. 

U.S. Marines at Chosin.

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency


Between 1953 and 1954, the North Korean government returned thousands of remains of soldiers who had died during the Korean War. The remains had been buried in U.N. cemeteries in North Korea. The effort, known as Operation Glory, included the return of 500 sets of remains that had been buried near the Chosin reservoir. All but 126 of the remains were identified. The unidentified remains were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the DPAA said. 

From 1990 to 1994, the North Korean government returned 47 additional containers of remains attributed to the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. From those recovery efforts, the DPAA and the organizations that preceded it were able to identify over 130 of the unaccounted-for missing personnel lost in the Chosin Reservoir Campaign. 

The DPAA did not say which handover Estrada’s remains were recovered from. A full announcement of his accounting will be shared at a later date, the agency said. 

Estrada earned multiple military honors, including the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal, according to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation. 

Estrada’s surviving siblings, Manuel Estrada and Ruth Tucker, have long lobbied for his identification, according to a 2018 article from The Daily Democrat. That year, Tucker was presented with a medal from the Republic of South Korea honoring her efforts to account for missing American soldiers who died during the Korean War. At the time, Tucker said complete identification of Korean War remains can take between four and five years. 

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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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.”

Palestinians, struggling with hunger due to an Israeli blockade, wait in line to receive hot meals distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, May 17, 2025.

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.”

A girl suffering from severe malnutrition receives treatment at the Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, May 17, 2025.

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.

Debora Patta

Debora Patta is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.

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Trump says he’ll meet with Putin on Ukraine war “as soon as we can,” amid low hopes for Ukraine-Russia talks

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — President Trump said Friday that he’s moving to set up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as he can, after Putin opted to skip peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.

“I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he wrapped a four-day visit to the Middle East. Later, he told reporters on Air Force One, setting off on the journey back to Washington, that he might call Putin soon.

“He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not,” Mr. Trump said. “At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting.”

President Trump attends the U.S.-UAE Business Council in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, May 16, 2025.

Waleed Zein/Anadolu/Getty


The president reiterated that he wasn’t surprised by Putin’s decision to skip the talks taking place Friday in Turkey. Putin didn’t want to go because he’s not there, Mr. Trump said. 

Meetings between Ukrainian and Russian delegations did get underway in Istanbul Friday, but there was little expectation of any breakthrough as Putin sent a lower-level delegation, drawing accusations from Ukraine and its European partners that Moscow wasn’t really interested in a negotiated resolution to the war.

Mr. Trump said he would hold a meeting with Putin, “as soon as we can set it up.”

“I would actually leave here and go,” he said, noting that his daughter Tiffany just gave birth to her first child. “I do want to see my beautiful grandson.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to take part in the talks as Mr. Trump pressed for the leaders to find a solution to the war, ongoing since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But Putin spurned the call to meet face-to-face with Zelenskyy.

Mr. Trump has pressed both sides to quickly come to an agreement to end the war. Zelenskyy has agreed to an American plan for an initial 30-day halt to hostilities, but Russia has not signed on and has continued to strike at targets inside Ukraine.

Firefighters extinguish a fire at a plastic tableware business damaged by a Russian drone attack, May 15, 2025, in Velyka Chernechchyna, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine.

Oleksandr Oleksiienko/Kordon.Media/Global Images Ukraine/Getty


“He didn’t go, and I understand that,” Mr. Trump said Friday of Putin’s decision to skip the talks in Istanbul. “We’re going to get it done. We got to get it done. Five thousand young people are being killed every single week on average, and we’re going to get it done.”

The U.S. president told reporters on Thursday that a meeting between himself and Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.

“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Mr. Trump said. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any meeting between Putin and Mr. Trump would have to be “well prepared” for, but he said such an encounter was indeed necessary in Russia’s view, as “a serious conversation on international issues is needed, including the Ukrainian crisis.”

Should the talks in Istanbul fail to make any progress, Zelenskyy said Friday that there should be a “strong reaction,” as it would be clear, in his view, that Russia does not have any interest in ending the war.

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Trump says “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza, as death toll from Israel’s assault reportedly hits 53,000

Abu Dhabi — President Trump said Friday that the United States would have the situation in Gaza “taken care of,” telling reporters that people were starving in the besieged Palestinian territory, echoing a warning that aid agencies have repeated for months.

“We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving,” the president told reporters.

The brief comments came as Mr. Trump concluded the final leg of a multi-day tour of Arab nations in the Middle East, including Qatar, which has been a key partner with the U.S. and Egypt in trying to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has imposed a blockade for over two months on Gaza, leading United Nations agencies and other humanitarian groups to warn of rapidly dwindling fuel, food and medicine supplies in the Palestinian territory that, before the war, was home to about 2.4 million people.

Injured Palestinian children receive medical treatment at Nasser Hospital after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza, May 16, 2025.

Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu/Getty


Israel has repeatedly denied that there is a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and it blames the suffering of the enclave’s civilian population entirely on Hamas, which sparked the war with its unprecedented Oct. 7 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.

Mr. Trump’s remarks came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced openness to any new ideas to bring aid into Gaza, after a U.S.- and Israeli-backed plan was widely criticized, while also expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in the territory.

Relentless Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency said Friday that 50 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory since midnight.

“The number of martyrs killed in Israeli shelling targeting civilian homes in the northern Gaza Strip between midnight and early this morning has risen to 50… Our teams are still working in those areas,” civil defense official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP.

The bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on northern Gaza are brought to the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza City, May 16, 2025.

Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu/Getty


“The Israeli occupation bombed the house next to mine, hitting it directly while its residents were inside,” Yousef Al-Sultan, 40, from the al-Salatin area, west of Beit Lahia, told AFP, reporting “air strikes, artillery shelling and gunfire from quadcopter drones.”

“There is a massive wave of displacement among civilians. Fear and panic grip us in the middle of the night,” he said.

Head of the U.N. Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, said Friday in a message posted on social media that Israel’s operations in Gaza had reportedly killed 45 children in just two days, which she called “unconscionable.”

“This should shock the world but is largely met with indifference,” Russell wrote. “Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza. This horror must stop.”

She warned that more than 1 million children in Gaza were at risk of starvation, “deprived of food, water and medicine.”

Children clammer for food as charities distribute hot meals to Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2025, amid a months-long blockade of the territory by Israel.

Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty


There was no immediate comment on the latest strikes in northern Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces, but Israeli media said it was part of a stepped-up operation that would include new ground incursions into the area. The IDF has said since the beginning of the war that it only targets Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza, which it accuses of hiding weapons and fighters in civilian infrastructure.

Qatar and hostage families call on Netanyahu to make a deal

Hamas and allied groups seized 251 people, many of them civilians, during the Oct. 7 attack and killed about 1,200, according to Israeli officials. The hostages were brought back into Gaza, and most have been released during two separate ceasefires. Israeli officials believe 58 remain in captivity inside Gaza, about 20 of whom are still thought to be alive.

The hostages’ families have led protests for months demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to secure the remaining captives’ release, and they voiced new concern on Friday over the escalating military operations in Gaza, which they say puts their loved ones at increasing risk.

With President Trump now set to conclude a three-nation Middle East trip — which notably did not include a stop in Israel — the families have ramped up pressure on Netanyahu to back the American leader’s calls for a negotiated resolution with Hamas.

“The hostages’ families woke up this morning with heavy hearts and great concern in light of reports about increased attacks in Gaza and the imminent conclusion of President Trump’s visit to the region,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum organization said in a statement on Friday. “We are in dramatic hours that will determine the future of our loved ones, the future of Israeli society, and the future of the Middle East. Missing this historic opportunity would be a resounding failure that will be remembered in infamy forever. We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu to join hands with President Trump’s efforts, which will lead first and foremost to the release of 58 hostages and to extensive regional agreements. Time is running out, the world is watching, and history will remember.”

Netanyahu’s government has vowed to continue the war in Gaza until all of its goals are met. It says those goals include the release of all remaining hostages, the “military and governmental defeat of Hamas,” and ensuring that Gaza “will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”

There was fleeting hope for a potential breakthrough in long-running negotiations earlier this week when Hamas, in a deal negotiated directly with the Trump administration, released the last living U.S. national who had been among the hostages, Edan Alexander.

On Wednesday, as President Trump visited the country, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani lamented Israel’s mounting assault in Gaza on the heels of Alexander’s release, saying in an interview with CNN that it raised doubts about the prospects of ongoing diplomatic efforts.

“Unfortunately, Israeli reaction to this was a mass bombing the next day,” said al-Thani, adding that, along with “statements coming out of the Israeli government” about not ending the war “is basically sending the signal that we [Israel] are not interested in negotiations.”

The top Qatari diplomat stressed that the country’s negotiating team remained engaged with all parties in the conflict, and “we hope to see some progress,” but he cautioned: “I’m not sure if this progress will be something seen very soon with this continuing behavior.”

“If there is no willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations, then how can we reach the solution?” he asked.

Thus far the Trump administration has shown no willingness to increase pressure on Netanyahu by constraining its vital military aid for Israel.

The Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said Thursday that the death toll in the Palestinian enclave since the war began had reached 53,010, including 2,876 people killed and nearly 8,000 injured since Israel resumed ground operations on March 18, when it ended the last ceasefire.



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Putin skips Ukraine talks in Turkey as Russia shirks pressure from Trump, hurls insults at Zelenskyy instead

Istanbul — Russia and Ukraine traded insults on Thursday as negotiators were due, tentatively, to meet in Turkey for the first direct peace talks in more than three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia for sending a “decorative” delegation as he touched down in Ankara for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russian officials, for their part, called Zelenskyy “pathetic” and a “clown” for challenging President Vladimir Putin to show up in person for the talks, while touting further territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin made it clear on Thursday that President Trump’s push for a ceasefire in the three-year war — a war he repeatedly claimed he could end within hours — was not changing Moscow’s entrenched position on the standoff.

The exchange of personal barbs between Moscow and Kyiv undermined the chances of any breakthrough at the talks in Turkey. It wasn’t even clear if any talks between the warring parties would take place.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Turkey’s capital Ankara to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, May 15, 2025.

Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu/Getty


Putin did not come to Turkey, despite days of international pressure. Instead Russia’s negotiating team, which touched down in Istanbul on Thursday morning, was led by a hardline historian and Kremlin aide who has denied Ukraine’s right to exist.

“We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and what their mandate is, if they are capable of making any decisions themselves,” Zelenskyy said from the tarmac at Ankara airport. “From what we see, it looks more like a decorative” deployment by Moscow, he added.

President Trump said he was keeping open the possibility of travelling to Turkey on Friday, if there was any meaningful progress in the talks. But the absence of Putin — as well as any top diplomats such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov — appeared to diminish the talks’ importance, or any possibility of a breakthrough.

Russia said negotiations would take place in the “second half of the day,” but Zelenskyy said he would decide upon his delegation’s approach only after meeting with Erdogan.

Russia hurls insults at Zelenskyy for calling on Putin to negotiate

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova hit back at Zelenskyy’s criticism of Moscow’s delegation almost immediately. Speaking at a briefing in Moscow, she called him a “dummy”, a “clown” and a “loser.”

Lavrov called Zelenskyy “pathetic” for trying to persuade Putin to turn up in person.

“At first Zelenskyy made some kind of statements that demanded Putin come personally. Well, a pathetic person,” he said in a televised address to diplomats in Moscow.

Mr. Trump, who has been pushing for a swift end to the three-year war, said he might go to Turkey if he saw meaningful progress.

“You know, if something happened, I’d go on Friday,” he said during a visit to Qatar on Thursday.

Speaking at a NATO meeting in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was “impatient” and willing to consider “any mechanism” to achieve a lasting end to the war.

Rubio is expected in Istanbul on Friday, “for meetings with European counterparts to discuss the conflict in Ukraine,” according to the US State Department said.

Putin himself made the surprise call for direct negotiations after Kyiv and European leaders pressured him to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire — a call he also rejected.

No nearer to a Ukraine-Russia peace deal?

Despite the flurry of diplomacy, Moscow and Kyiv’s positions remain far apart. The Kremlin’s naming of Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Putin though not a major decision-maker, as its top negotiator suggested Moscow does not plan to make concessions.

Medinsky led failed negotiations in 2022, in which Moscow made sweeping claims to Ukrainian territory and demanded restrictions on Kyiv’s military. He is known for writing ultra-nationalistic school textbooks that question Ukraine’s right to exist and justify the ongoing invasion.

Even as he touched down in Turkey, Russia’s defense ministry claimed in a social media post that troops had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, Torskoye and Novooleksandrivka in the Donetsk region.

Russia also sent a deputy foreign minister, deputy defense minister and the head of its GRU military intelligence agency to Turkey.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv had sent a top-level delegation.

“Our delegation is at the highest level – the ministry of foreign affairs, the office of the president, the military, our intelligence agencies… in order to make any decisions that can lead to just peace,” he said in Ankara.

Russia insists the talks address what it calls the “root causes” of the conflict, including a “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine. These vague terms that Moscow has used to justify its invasion are widely rejected by Kyiv and the West.

Officials in Moscow have also repeated that Ukraine must cede territory occupied by Russian troops and pull out of some areas still under Ukrainian control.

Kyiv wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire and says it will not recognize its territories as Russian. But Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine might only get them back through diplomatic means.

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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill scores, dimming hope for a ceasefire despite Trump’s mounting pressure

Israeli airstrikes pounded northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 60 people, including almost two dozen children, according to local hospitals and health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory. The strikes came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no way” he would halt Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian enclave before Hamas is defeated.

At least 50 people, including 22 children, were killed in the strikes around Jabaliya in northern Gaza, according to local hospitals and Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. At least 10 other people were killed in the city of Khan Younis, the European Hospital reported. A CBS News cameraman saw multiple bodies on a street in the southern Gazan city.
 
The Israel Defense Forces said it had targeted a Hamas stronghold underneath a hospital.

A Palestinian man carries a wounded child after the European Hospital, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, was damaged by apparent Israeli airstrikes, May 13, 2025.

Hatem Khaled/REUTERS


That attack came just a day after the Trump administration, bypassing Israel, struck a deal with Hamas – long designated a terrorist group by Israel and the U.S. – to secure the release of the last living American hostage who had been held in Gaza, Edan Alexander. It was a gesture that some thought could lay the groundwork for a ceasefire, but Netanyahu has made it clear he will not halt Israel’s war in Gaza, even if Hamas releases its hostages, until his stated objectives are met, dimming hopes for a truce.

A statement issued by the Israeli leader’s office on Wednesday stressed that Netanyahu remained “determined to complete all of Israel’s war goals: the release of all our hostages, the military and governmental defeat of Hamas, and a promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”

Netanyahu under mounting pressure from all sides

As CBS News correspondent Debora Patta reported, for the families of the 58 people still held captive in Gaza — as many as 23 of whom Israeli officials believe could still be alive, the joy of Alexander’s release quickly turned to rage as the bombing resumed and intensified following the handover.

At the latest of the regular demonstrations in Israel’s capital, many accused Netanyahu on Tuesday of deliberately prolonging the war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.

As President Trump visits the region this week, former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told CBS News that Netanyahu has been left watching from the sidelines.

“Staggeringly, he [Trump] is not coming here,” Pinkas said, referring to the U.S. leader’s itinerary, which includes stops this week in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “This is a very visible, very in-your-face kind of move by Trump.”

Pinkas said Netanyahu would need to have a ceasefire deal in the works to remain on Mr. Trump’s good side, and he warned that, “Israel cannot wage the war against the judgment and wishes of the United States government. That’s plain and simple.”

Asked if Netanyahu could feasibly resist the mounting pressure from Trump to end the war, Pinkas said: “Not really. He’s got no ammunition left in his political magazine.

For the moment, Mr. Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu is only diplomatic, with no public discussion of any additional measures, such as limiting supplies of U.S. weapons, as happened briefly under the Biden administration.    

And for now, Netanyahu has intensified the war, and he has continued to maintain a controversial blockade on all humanitarian supplies, fuel and other essential goods entering the enclave since March.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed almost 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Israel’s offensive has obliterated vast swathes of Gaza’s urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.

France’s Macron calls Netanyahu tactics in Gaza “a disgrace”

International food security experts warned earlier this week that famine could break out in the Gaza Strip if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.

French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu’s decision to block aid from entering Gaza as “a disgrace” that has caused a major humanitarian crisis.

“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing today is unacceptable,” Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national television. “There’s no medicine. We can’t get the wounded out. Doctors can’t get in. What he’s doing is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”

Children clammer for food as charities distribute hot meals to Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2025, amid a months-long blockade of the territory by Israel.

Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty


Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in El Arish hospital in Egypt last month, called for the reopening of the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys. “Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and build a political solution,” he said.

Netanyahu, in the statement issued by his office on Wednesday, lashed out at the French leader, claiming he had “once again chosen to stand by a murderous Islamist terrorist organization and echo its false propaganda, while accusing Israel of blood libels.”

“Instead of supporting the Western democratic camp that is fighting the Islamist terrorist organizations and calling for the release of the hostages, Macron is once again demanding that Israel surrender and reward terrorism,” the statement said.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living at “catastrophic” levels of hunger, while 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

Israel has dismissed international warnings that potential famine looms, but it has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations.

Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has destroyed most food production capacity inside the territory.

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Ukraine says Russia attacking with drones despite ceasefire calls; Zelenskyy challenges Putin to meet in Turkey

Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia launched more than 100 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, after the Kremlin rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in the war it sparked more than three years ago. There was no response from the Kremlin, meanwhile, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s challenge for President Vladimir Putin to meet with him for face-to-face peace talks in Turkey this week.

The United States and European governments have made a concerted push to stop the fighting, which has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides as well as more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians. Russia’s invading forces have seized control of around one-fifth of Ukraine.

In a flurry of diplomatic developments over the weekend, Russia shunned the ceasefire proposal tabled by the U.S. and European leaders but offered instead to hold direct talks with Ukraine on Thursday. The Kremlin has not said whether Putin himself is willing to travel to Turkey to engage in those talks.

Ukraine, along with European allies, had demanded Russia accept a ceasefire starting Monday before holding peace talks. Moscow effectively rejected that proposal and instead called for direct negotiations in Istanbul.

President Trump insisted that Ukraine accept the Russian offer. Zelenskyy went a step further and put the pressure on Putin by offering a personal meeting between the leaders.

“Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything for this,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram Monday. “We expect appropriate steps from Russia.”

Zelenskyy has first conversation with Pope Leo

The Ukrainian leader said he told Pope Leo XIV about peace efforts during his first phone conversation with the new pontiff.

Ukraine is counting on the Vatican’s help in securing the return of thousands of children that the Kyiv government says have been deported by Russia, Zelenskyy said, adding that he had invited the pope to visit Ukraine.

“Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” Zelenskyy said of the children in a post on X. “I informed the Pope about the agreement between Ukraine and our partners that, starting today, a full and unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days must begin. I also reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for further negotiations in any format, including direct talks — a position we have repeatedly emphasized. Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything to achieve that. We now await similar steps from Russia.”

In his first Sunday noon blessing as pontiff, Leo called for a genuine and just peace in Ukraine.

“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” said the first U.S.-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2022, in the war’s early months, Zelenskyy repeatedly called for a personal meeting with the Russian president but was rebuffed, and eventually enacted a decree declaring that holding negotiations with Putin had become impossible.

Putin and Zelenskyy have only met once, in 2019. Mr. Trump says “deep hatred” between the sides has made it difficult to push peace efforts forward.

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