(NEW YORK) — As the 2024 tax season kicked off across the nation Monday, the Internal Revenue Service is offering some new services it says will help make filing easier for taxpayers.
The IRS is now offering Free File and Direct File for qualifying taxpayers and expanded in-person services through its Taxpayer Assistance Centers.
The new programs come after an infusion of supplemental funding provided to the IRS through the Inflation Reduction Act.
“As our transformation efforts take hold, taxpayers will continue to see marked improvement in IRS operations in the upcoming filing season,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. “IRS employees are working hard to make sure that new funding is used to help taxpayers by making the process of preparing and filing taxes easier.”
Free File offers taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less access to IRS-partnered tax softwares enabling them to file for free. All taxpayers are eligible to use Free File Fillable Forms, though this option does not come with as much guidance.
The Direct File option is a pilot program offering free federal tax return filing with step-by-step guidance. The 2024 season will see a phased roll out plan, so it won’t be available to all taxpayers immediately.
Only a small number of taxpayers will be able to access the program at the start of filing season, but it is expected to be more widely available by mid-March in 12 participating states: Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state and Wyoming.
The IRA funding has also allowed the IRS to expand its in-person services. Fifty Taxpayer Assistance Centers have been opened or reopened using the funds and will be operating with expanded hours for the 2024 filing season.
For a quick and easy return, the IRS says electronic filing with direct deposit is still the best option for taxpayers, but regardless of how people file, it’s important to hold off until they’ve received all of their income-related documents.
The IRS anticipates almost 129 million individual tax returns to be filed this season.
Taxpayers living in Maine and Massachusetts have until April 17 this year to file, but most returns must be filed by the April 15, 2024, tax deadline.
(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.) — Police are hunting for a man who they say followed an elderly woman home from a shopping trip and assaulting her on the doorstep of her own home.
The incident began at a store in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Monday in the 400 block of Putnam Road when, according to the Virginia Beach Police Department, a man began following an elderly woman around inside the establishment for reasons currently unknown.
“The man followed the woman throughout the store she was shopping in,” said the Virginia Beach Police Department in a statement following the incident. “He then followed her out of the store, making lewd comments to her in the parking lot.”
The woman subsequently got into her vehicle and left the premises to go home but, unbeknownst to her, the suspect followed her in his car back to her house before launching his assault on her at her front door, police said.
The motive for the attack is currently unknown and police are searching for a suspect they are describing as a “Black male wearing glasses, a black hair covering, a red long sleeve shirt, jeans, and boots,” according to the Virginia Beach Police Department’s statement following the incident.
The suspect was driving a “white 4-door Buick sedan with a spare tire on the rear driver’s side,” police said. “The vehicle has a sunroof, tinted windows, and Virginia tags attached to the vehicle with the last four possibly being 7663.” There is no front tag on the vehicle.
Police are now asking anyone with knowledge of this incident, or who may be able to identify this individual, to please contact the VBPD Detective Bureau at 757-385-4101 or anonymously through Crime Solvers at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP/P3tips.com.
(NEW YORK) — Former president Donald Trump trounced his Republican opponents in the first two primary contests, setting the course for a potential general election rematch with likely Democratic nominee President Joe Biden.
The decisive issue, according to polls, may prove to be the economy. Seventy-four percent of Americans say the economy is very important to them, making it the top concern among voters, an ABC News/Ipsos poll in November found.
Biden and Trump contrast sharply on topics that intimately affect everyday people’s finances, including taxes, jobs and trade. Neither candidates’ campaign responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Here’s what to know about key economic proposals put forward by the rival presidential candidates:
Taxes
Biden has sought to raise taxes on wealthy people and some corporations in what he considers an effort to bring fairness to the tax code.
On the other hand, Trump appears poised to preserve or deepen tax cuts that he views as a catalyst for economic growth.
Trump is committed to extending the tax cuts signed into law during his first term when they begin to phase out in 2025, Stephen Moore, who served as an economic adviser to Trump and says he has helped shape Trump’s agenda for a possible second term, previously told ABC News.
The administration may seek to cut taxes further but details of such a proposal remain uncertain, Moore said.
“This is all in motion,” Moore added. “Nothing has been decided.”
By contrast, the Biden administration has proposed tax hikes for wealthy people and indicated a preference for allowing some of the Trump tax cuts to lapse.
For example, Biden could oversee the expiration of a 20% tax deduction for specific income generated at pass-through businesses, such as sole proprietorships, that file taxes through a personal owner. The move would effectively amount to a tax increase for those companies.
Targeting high-net worth individuals, meanwhile, Biden could impose a first-of-its kind wealth tax.
Last year, Biden proposed a 2024 tax plan that included a 25% tax on the wealth of individuals with a net worth exceeding $100 million. The plan, Biden said, would apply to 0.01% of Americans.
“I’m a capitalist, but pay your fair share,” Biden said in his State of the Union address last year.
The currently divided Congress may not pass such a tax hike but Biden could pursue it if granted a second term.
Trade
While the Biden campaign has not put forward an agenda for trade policy under a second term, his administration has so far taken up an aggressive posture toward some adversarial countries like China while reaching trade deals with others.
Biden preserved the tariffs imposed by Trump on Chinese imports, escalating the confrontation with China through additional measures, such as a ban on the export of advanced chips to the country.
On the other hand, the U.S. in recent years has reached trade agreements for some goods with neighboring countries Taiwan and Japan. In December, the Biden administration extended a suspension of Trump-era tariffs on steel and aluminum from Europe, but the White House has established a permanent agreement to do away with the levy.
For his part, Trump plans to ratchet up the confrontational trade policy instituted during his first term, promising to impose tariffs on most imported goods.
Speaking with Fox Business in August, Trump said the tax on imported items could ultimately stand at 10%.
Trump also plans to tighten constraints on China-made products, including a “4-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods,” according to a set of proposals released in February.
Jobs and manufacturing
Both candidates tout their bonafides as job creators who nurture the growth of U.S. manufacturing. But they have carried out very different approaches to doing so.
The Trump campaign has presented its tariff policy as a means of protecting U.S. businesses, thereby ensuring a robust job market and a bolstered domestic supply chain.
“Trump wants jobs here in America,” Moore said. “He wants things made in America.”
The Biden administration, by contrast, has enacted federal legislation that brings investment to U.S. companies and in turn boosts the demand for workers.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pointed to several measures signed into law by Biden that have brought investment to projects focused on infrastructure, computer chips and clean energy.
“These investments will fuel our economic growth and increase our economic security,” Yellen said.
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas called the impeachment proceedings against him “baseless” and the accusations made against him by the Homeland Security Committee “false.”
“I will defer a discussion of Constitutionality of your current effort to the many respected scholars and experts across the political spectrum who already have opined it is contrary to law,” Mayorkas writes in a nearly seven-page letter to the committee. “What I will not defer to others is a response to the politically motivated accusations and personal attacks you have made against me.”
Mayorkas said the “false accusations” made by the committee “do not” rattle him and “do not” divert him “from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted.”
The House Homeland Security Committee is set to vote on whether to send articles of impeachment to the House floor for a vote. It is likely to pass despite no proof there were high crimes and misdemeanors — the usual bar for impeachment.
Policy disagreements on a “historically divisive” issue are what is going on here, he said in his letter, noting that he had a disagreement with the Trump administration through family separation.
“I have adhered scrupulously and fervently to the Oath of Office I have taken six times in my public service career,” he said.
Mayorkas, who is Cuban-American, said he has had “reverence” for law enforcement since he was brought to America by his parents who escaped the Communist takeover of Cuba.
“My parents experienced such loss at the fisted hands of authoritarianism that the American law enforcement officer stood as a tangible symbol of safety and the rule of law in our new home,” he said. “When I was a boy, my mother would have me jump out of the back seat of our family’s station wagon, approach a police officer in uniform, extend my hand, and say thank you.”
He continued in his letter: “It was because of everything America meant and gave to my family that I was motivated to enter public service.”
This is the first time Mayorkas has spoken at length about the impeachment move since articles were introduced over the weekend, and he offered a full-throated, vigorous defense of his record as secretary.
He recounted his federal service, first being appointed to serve as a U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, then as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, and eventually as deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
“I no longer introduce and argue evidence in a federal courtroom to persuade the jury to convict a dangerous criminal, but the mission to which I remain devoted is the same: to safeguard the American people,” he said in his letter.
Mayorkas said as a U.S. attorney, he prosecuted RICO cases of national and international significance, “enforcing a wide breadth of criminal statutes.”
Republicans, in their argument to impeach him, have said Mayorkas has failed to enforce the law at the southern border.
“Instead, you claim that we have failed to enforce our immigration laws,” he said. “That is false.”
The Committee has accused the secretary of not cooperating with their oversight requests — something he said was also “baseless and inaccurate.”
“I have testified before this Committee seven times,” he wrote in his letter. “I agreed to testify again and asked to work with your staff to identify a mutually agreeable date. You did not respond to my request, changed course, and instead invited me to submit written testimony. Two days later, you issued a statement representing that every member of the Committee’s majority already had rendered their decision. I respectfully submit this letter in response.”
Secretary Mayorkas said he cooperates in “good faith” with the committee.
“I have testified more than any other member of the Cabinet,” he said, adding that despite the attempt to impeach him, he’ll still cooperate with the committee.
He ticked through the department’s accomplishments, including apprehending fentanyl smugglers and deporting criminals, but said there is much more to be done on the southern border.
Sec. Mayorkas called on Congress to get a legislative fix done at the border and said he has been working with the Senate to get it done.
“I have been privileged to join a bipartisan group of United States Senators these past several months to provide technical and operational expertise in support of their efforts to strengthen our country’s border security,” he said. “These efforts would yield significant new enforcement tools and make a substantial difference at our border.”
Mayorkas said he is hopeful that the deal gets done and that he can deliver more resources for border patrol agents in the field to better protect the border.
(NEW YORK) — At least four people are dead after a boat carrying over a dozen tourists sank in the waters off the coast of Cancun.
The boat, which was traveling from Isla Mujeres to Puerto Juárez, caught a strong sea swell and the vessel began to sink as it took on water, ABC News has learned from officials close to the investigation.
The boat was carrying 16 tourists and three crew members at the time of the accident, authorities said.
At least four people have been confirmed dead — two adult males, one adult female and one minor — while seven people are still missing. Authorities have not yet released any of the passenger’s identities while the rescue operation is still underway.
Eight people have been rescued so far but their conditions, as well as the nationalities of the passengers involved, are currently unknown.
(WASHINGTON) — The working theory about how an enemy drone slipped past defenses at a U.S. base in Jordan is that American personnel mistook the enemy drone for one of their own returning from a surveillance mission, two U.S. officials confirmed Monday.
One U.S. official confirmed that the explosive-laden attack drone approached the base at a low altitude and hit a housing area at the remote Tower 22 base in the Jordanian desert near the border with Syria and Iraq.
The attack on Sunday by Iran-backed militants killed three American service members and wounded at least 40 others, U.S. officials said, with President Joe Biden warning that the strike will be met with American retaliation as Iran denied involvement.
The Pentagon on Monday announced the names of the three Army reservists killed as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia.; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia., all from an Army Reserve engineering unit from Georgia.
At a Monday briefing, while Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh couldn’t say where the one-way attack drone came from, she said it had the “footprint of Kataib Hezbollah” and that U.S. officials believe Iran is behind the attack.
The drone hit early in the morning while many troops were still in bed, she added.
“Iran continues to arm and equip these groups to launch these attacks, and we will certainly hold them responsible,” she said, adding, “We don’t seek a wider conflict with Iran. We don’t want to go to we don’t want a war with Iran.”
The deaths are expected to spur more U.S. involvement in the region since they mark the first in the line of fire for American troops since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October in response to Hamas’ terror attack.
The U.S. has supported Israel against Hamas in Gaza while trying to prevent the fighting from enveloping the broader Middle East, even as the U.S. has said Iran-supported militants carried out a series of strikes in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in opposition to Israel’s campaign.
But Pentagon officials have also said that the deaths of American service members would elicit a strong response — though such a step could draw the U.S. and other regional and international powers further into a mushrooming conflict.
“Have no doubt — we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.
Later, during an event in South Carolina, Biden held a moment of silence for the dead and said, “We shall respond.”
In response to the strikes, a spokesperson for the Iranian Mission for the U.N. said late Sunday, “Iran has nothing to do with the attacks in questions. The conflict has been initiated by the United States military against resistance groups in Iraq and Syria; and such operations are reciprocal between them.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin lamented the attack in his own statement, promising that “the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests.”
CENTCOM initially said 25 troops were injured in the attack by a one-way drone, also known as a “suicide” drone. The number of injured later increased to at least 40, officials said. and then to at least 34. At least eight were evacuated for high-level treatment.
Some of the injured service members received serious wounds from shrapnel and some were being screened for traumatic brain injuries, an official with the White House National Security Council said.
Biden was briefed multiple times in the hours after the strike and said in his statement on Sunday that the U.S. was “still gathering the facts” surrounding the “wholly unjust attack,” which he said occurred Saturday night.
The White House clarified that the attack occurred early Sunday in Jordan, or late Saturday Eastern time.
The president in his statement on Sunday hailed the killed service members for being “unwavering in their bravery. Unflinching in their duty. Unbending in their commitment to our country.”
Located in the northeastern region of Jordan, the Tower 22 is a small outpost that supports operations across the border at the U.S. base at al-Tanf in Syria and contributes to the Pentagon’s advise-and-assist mission for the Jordanian military.
Iran-backed militias have in recent months carried out more than a hundred attacks in the region, primarily on U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Syria but also on American ships and international commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The strikes have wounded scores of American troops, including one who sustained a serious injury on Christmas Day in an attack on the Erbil air base in Iraq.
Two Navy SEALS were also presumed dead after they were lost at sea during a mission that successfully intercepted a vessel carrying Iranian-made missile parts destined for Yemen.
U.S. forces began conducting targeted, retaliatory strikes on fighters in the Middle East in October, which the Pentagon has consistently described as defensive measures intended to degrade the militias’ proficiency and deter them from escalating.
After months of attacks primarily targeting commercial vessels in the waters surrounding Yemen, the U.S. also launched a number of strikes against the country’s Houthi rebels in January.
U.S. officials initially expressed hope that carrying out operations in the two theaters would diminish the belligerent groups’ capabilities for further conflict, but the tit-for-tat exchanges with militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have instead steadily escalated.
That protracted pattern has fueled questions about the broader military strategy.
“What do they [critics of the current approach] want? A broader conflict? Do you want us in a full-scale war?” Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz.
Some lawmakers have also criticized the White House for not first seeking authorization from Congress for the Yemen strikes, though the administration maintains it acted under existing legal authority to carry out such operations.
In the hours after the Jordan strike was confirmed, a growing number of members of Congress spoke out. Many of them offered condolences to the slain and wounded service members, and Republicans argued that the Biden administration had failed to adequately address Iran.
“We need a major reset of our Middle East policy to protect our national security interests and restore deterrence,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement as House Speaker Mike Johnson called for “a crystal clear message across the globe that attacks on our troops will not be tolerated.”
In the interview taped last week with “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Gen. Brown was asked if Americans being killed in the Middle East would impact his decision making.
He said the military was doing “everything we can to protect our forces” and noted the U.S. does not want “broader conflict” in the region — and that he doesn’t believe Iran wants war with the U.S., either.
“We don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict within the region,” Brown said.
Before the start of the Israeli-Hamas war, U.S. forces in the Middle East experienced a two-year period of relative calm.
The last major attack to result in multiple American service members killed in action was the bombing outside of the Kabul, Afghanistan, airport in August 2021, which claimed the lives of 13 U.S. troops and more than 180 Afghan citizens.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Mariam Khan, Meghan Mistry, Lauren Peller, Martha Raddatz, Fritz Farrow and MaryAlice Parks contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This developing story has been updated.
(LOS ANGELES) — Arrests have been made after six people were found shot to death last week in a desert community in San Bernardino County, California, according to authorities.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said it would announce more information at a press conference Monday evening. It was unclear how many people were arrested or any information on the charges.
“No information will be released prior to the press conference,” law enforcement said.
Shortly after 8 p.m. local time Tuesday evening, authorities responded to a wellness check in a remote area off of Highway 395 and found “multiple deceased people,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.
Initially, five people were found dead Tuesday but a sixth body was located Wednesday morning during the ongoing investigation, San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokesperson Mara Rodriguez said at a news conference.
The FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had offered assistance to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in the investigation into the bodies found in the desert about 50 miles outside of Los Angeles, but local investigators are handling the case themselves.
A blue Chevy SUV was also seen riddled with bullet holes in the area some of the bodies were found.
Last week, law enforcement sources told ABC News there was not yet a clear picture of what led up to the murders.
The investigation remains ongoing, according to officials.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Monday indicted an Iranian man and two Canadian nationals in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme that targeted dissidents and critics of the Iranian regime.
According to a newly-unsealed indictment, prosecutors say Naji Zindashti conspired with two Canadian men between December 2020 and March 2021 in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate two residents of Maryland.
The intended victims of the plot, who at the time resided in Maryland, had previously fled to the United States after one of them defected from Iran, the DOJ said.
The three men allegedly used an encrypted messaging service and discussed logistics of how to carry out the murders, communicating cryptically about “jobs,” “equipment,” tools” and how to “make some money.”
One of the Canadian men, Damion Ryan, allegedly wrote that carrying out a murder in the U.S. would be challenging but he “might have someone to do it,” and recommended “2 guys go with proper equipment.”
The other Canadian man, Adam Pearson, allegedly stated in a message that “shooting is probably easiest thing for them” and said he’d encourage recruits to “shoot [the victim] in the head a lot [to] make example” and that he would tell them “we gotta erase his head from his torso.”
Zindashti allegedly arranged for $350,000 payment for the murders, to which Ryan responded, “We have a 4 man team ready.”
All three men are charged with one count of conspiracy to use interstate commerce in the commission of murder for hire.
Zindashti is believed to reside in Iran while Ryan and Pearson are currently in prison in Canada on unrelated offense, officials said.
The Treasury Department said Zindashti is a narcotics trafficker and leader of a network that operates at the behest of Iran’s intelligence services.
The two men he allegedly sought to recruit in the murder-for-hire plot revealed were members of Canada’s Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Group with a long criminal history of firearms and drug trafficking offenses, the Treasury Department said.
A Palestinian elderly woman crosses a street which has been bulldozed by the Israeli forces during a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on January 29, 2024 amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. (Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — More than 100 days since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli military continues its bombardment of the neighboring Gaza Strip.
The conflict, now the deadliest between the warring sides since Israel’s founding in 1948, shows no signs of letting up soon and the brief cease-fire that allowed for over 100 hostages to be freed from Gaza remains a distant memory.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 29, 3:29 PM
Qatari prime minister: Hostage talks in ‘much better place’ now than a few weeks ago
The Qatari prime minister said Monday that the hostage talks between Israel and Hamas are in a “much better place” now than they were “a few weeks ago,” according to Reuters.
He also said he hoped the drone attack by Iran-backed militants that killed three American service members in Jordan won’t derail progress that’s been made on a hostage deal.
“I hope that nothing would undermine the efforts that we are doing or jeopardize that process,” Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani said at a think tank event in Washington, D.C., according to Reuters. “Yet it will definitely have an impact on it and one way or another, it will have an impact on the regional security and we hope that things get contained and not to get escalated beyond control.”
Jan 29, 12:30 PM
IDF: Quarter of Hamas terrorists killed
One “quarter of Hamas’ terrorists have been killed and at least another quarter are wounded,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday while visiting troops at the Gaza border.
Gallant said fighting the remaining terrorists “will take months.”
“On the other hand,” he continued, “the terrorists don’t have supplies, they don’t have ammunition, they don’t have reinforcements.”
ABC News’ Dana Savir
Jan 29, 11:50 AM
Dossier from Israel alleges 4 UNRWA employees involved in kidnappings
A dossier from the Israeli military has revealed new allegations against employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees who are accused of being involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The report obtained by ABC News alleges that 13 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, including six employees who allegedly infiltrated Israel.
Four UNRWA employees were allegedly involved in kidnappings and one employee allegedly supplied logistical support, the report said.
One UNRWA teacher is accused of kidnapping a hostage, who has returned to Israel and identified the UNRWA teacher, the report said.
Nine countries, including the U.S., have paused funding for the UNRWA in wake of the allegations. The commissioner-general of UNRWA is investigating.
ABC News’ Matt Gutman
Jan 29, 7:00 AM
IDF general answers questions about alleged war crimes in southern Gaza
ABC News embedded with Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ 98th Division that currently controls the southern Gaza Strip, and questioned him about alleged war crimes, the recent killing of an unarmed Palestinian carrying a white flag and the controversial buffer zone.
On Saturday, ABC News met with Goldfus in what looked like a post-apocalyptic neighborhood in Khan Younis, where machine guns chattered, detonations thundered and the blasts of tank fire rang out. Some of the explosions were so powerful that they blew in the curtains of the commandeered Palestinian home that the general and his staff have turned into a temporary headquarters.
Outside the headquarters were a series of arena-sized basins. One was about 60 feet deep and larger than a football field. A month ago, it was a multi-acre cemetery. Flanking the destroyed cemetery was the remains of a mosque — half of a dome listing on its side like a sinking ship. Goldfus told ABC News that his troops had dug up most of the cemetery looking for tunnel shafts belonging to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza. The general pointed out where he said they found tunnel shafts, but ABC News could not visually verify due to the depth of the pit.
When asked what his troops do with the bodies if they dig up graves while hunting for tunnel shafts, Goldfus told ABC News: “We’ll put them aside.”
The intentional destruction of religious sites, such as cemeteries, without military necessity violates international law and could amount to war crimes. But Goldfus said he’s not concerned because Hamas had turned the cemetery and the adjacent mosque into a “military compound” that was “used to attack my forces again and again and again.”
“I’m not digging up a cemetery, I’m digging up a military compound,” he added.
When asked what he would say to the families of the people who were buried there, the general told ABC News: “I’m very sorry about it. Your relatives are being used as a human shield.”
Last week, British television network ITV captured what it said were Israeli snipers in Khan Younis gunning down an unarmed Palestinian man carrying a white flag who had moments earlier told the news team that he was trying to cross the battle lines to reach his family. At the time, Israel claimed the ITV video was edited and that there was no way of telling who fired the shots. However, while speaking to ABC News on Saturday, Goldfus appeared to take responsibility for the incident.
“Yes, it was my troops and I’m investigating that incident,” he told ABC News. “That is not the way we carry out rules of engagement. No, we don’t fire people waving white flags. We don’t fire at civilians.”
When pressed on the fact that Israeli troops have killed civilians in Gaza, the general said: “They are mistakes. It is war.”
Asked whether Israeli soldiers could face criminal charges for the fatal shooting, Goldfus told ABC News that “it depends.”
“We investigate every mistake that is done,” he added.
The general also answered questions about the buffer zone the IDF is creating inside Gaza along the coastal enclave’s border with Israel.
“This is part of the area that will become a buffer zone … to dismantle Hamas and prevent any entity that will try to carry out any terror attacks against our people,” he told ABC News while looking at a table-sized aerial map of the Gaza-Israel border.
Goldfus said the buffer zone will create an area inside Gaza that is under Israel’s control.
-ABC News’ Matt Gutman and Sohel Uddin
Jan 28, 2:24 PM
‘Constructive meeting’ with officials but ‘gaps’ remain, Israeli PM’s office says
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office released a statement on Sunday’s talks between CIA Director Bill Burns, the prime minister of Qatar and intelligence officials from Israel and Egypt.
The meeting was “constructive” but “significant gaps” remain, the statement said, adding that more meetings are expected this coming week.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Jan 28, 4:40 AM
UN chief appeals for continued UNRWA funding
The secretary-general of the United Nations appealed on Sunday for continuing funding for the U.N. aid agency responsible for Gaza.
Nine countries, including the United States, paused their funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees after Israel accused 12 of its employees of being involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Mark Regev, an Israeli spokesman, told ABC News in a phone interview Sunday that Israel gathered intelligence about the alleged connection to terrorism through videos released by Hamas and others during the Oct. 7 attack and claimed there’s “clear unrefutable evidence that U.N. paid staff were involved in crimes against humanity.”
About 2 million people in Gaza depend on the agency for daily survival, Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement Sunday.
According to Guterres, “Of the 12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini; one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified.”
“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences,” he said in the statement.
He added, “But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
-ABC News’ Matt Gutman, Edward Szekeres and Kevin Shalvey
Jan 27, 5:13 PM
9 nations suspend contributions to UNRWA due to Oct. 7 allegations
The number of nations pausing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East has risen to 9 — an unprecedented number for a UN agency. This withdrawal of funding comes amid allegations from Israeli officials that some of the agency’s staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
On Saturday, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland joined the U.S., Australia and Canada in pausing funding to UNRWA.
“UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency. Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms,” the commissioner general of UNRWA said in a statement.
“Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment. This stains all of us,” the statement said.
(NEW YORK) — When a former college professor opened fire at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, last month, killing three faculty members and injuring one, he had with him two laminated cards with details about his targets, according to a new confidential law enforcement investigative synopsis obtained by ABC News.
The Jan. 26 synopsis included new investigative details compiled by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. It revealed suspect Anthony Polito, 67, had a blood-stained, yellow, two-sided index card with job titles and room numbers, as well as a second, white, laminated card with employee photos, room numbers and crude comments written on it.
Polito died at the scene of the Dec. 6 shooting after a firefight with officers, about 10 minutes after shots were first reported at UNLV’s Beam Hall.
The investigative report said all but one of 22 white powder letters Polito allegedly sent to university workers across the country were intended for people related to his professional and academic background, but the one exception was a vehicle insurance claims supervisor.
In the letters sent to women, Polito allegedly called them derogatory names and made sexual allegations. He claimed one woman demanded that he and other faculty wore neckties because they were a sign of “male patriarchy,” the report said.
The powders were not harmful, police said.
Polito had applied to numerous colleges and was denied employment, authorities said.
Polito’s personal website was full of highlights about his career and life, including his intelligence, the report said. Law enforcement believes Polito’s attack was prompted by an inferiority complex and delusions of grandeur about himself, according to the investigative report. It is also believed he had grievances involving his career.
Polito used a legally purchased handgun in the mass shooting and was armed with more than 150 rounds of ammunition, according to authorities.
The UNLV employees killed were business professor Cha Jan Chang, assistant accounting professor Patricia Navarro Velez and associate professor of Japanese studies Naoko Takemaru.
