(NEW YORK) — A 747 cargo plane heading to Belgium from New York was forced to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport after a horse escaped from its stall, according to the air traffic control audio.
According to the audio clip, which was obtained by You Can See ATC via Live ATC, the horse got loose within 30 minutes of takeoff.
The Boeing 747 was barely at 31,000 feet when a pilot told air traffic control that a horse had escaped from its stall and that they needed to return to JFK on Thursday, according to FlightRadar24.
In the air traffic control audio, a pilot is heard saying, “We are a cargo plane with a live animal, a horse, on board. The horse managed to escape its stall. There’s no issue with flying, but we need to go back to New York as we can’t resecure the horse.”
The flight was forced to make a U-turn off the coast of Boston and dump about 20 tons of fuel over the Atlantic, “10 miles west of Martha’s Vinyard,” due to the flight’s weight, according to the audio.
Amid the fuel dump, the pilot requested a veterinarian to be present at JFK when the plane arrived.
Once landed, when ATC asked if the flight required assistance, “On the ground, negative. On the ramp, yes, we have a horse in problem.”
It remains unclear how the horse managed to escape but it remained unrestrained until the plane landed at JFK, according to the audio.
The flight was able to take off a short time later and successfully arrive at Liege Airport on Friday morning, according to FlightRadar24.
Air Atlanta Icelandic, the charter airline operating the flight, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday dropped his effort to move his criminal prosecution over hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels into federal court.
His attorneys asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss Trump’s appeal of a ruling that declined to move the case from state court into federal court.
The filing Tuesday did not give a reason but sought “to dismiss his appeal in this case.”
Trump in April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments made to the adult film actress days before the 2016 presidential election.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing.
Judge Juan Merchan has tentatively set trial for March 25 but he has signaled a willingness to move the date in order to avoid a conflict with other Trump criminal cases.
(NEW YORK) — Six people were killed in a multi-vehicle crash on an Ohio highway Tuesday morning, officials said.
Five vehicles — including a charter bus carrying Ohio high school students — were involved in the crash, which occurred on Interstate 70 in Etna shortly before 9 a.m. local time, officials said.
More details on the crash were not immediately available. Sean Grady, the director of emergency management for Licking County, told ABC News the Ohio State Highway Patrol will provide more information on the incident, including the fatalities.
A Pioneer Trails charter bus transporting students from Tuscarawas Valley School was among the five vehicles involved in the crash, according to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
“Let me just say that this is our worst nightmare when we have a bus full of children in a crash,” DeWine said during a press briefing Tuesday.
Gov. DeWine, earlier Tuesday, confirmed the crash was fatal but said no other details would be released until all the proper notifications have been made. Eighteen people were transported to seven area hospitals, he said.
Tuscarawas Valley Local Schools superintendent Derek Varansky said students and chaperones were traveling to the Ohio School Boards Association conference in Columbus when their charter bus was involved in a “very serious accident.”
“We understand from law enforcement that there may be multiple serious injuries and we are working to learn the details,” Varansky said in a message to the school community.
In addition to high school students, parents and teachers were among those on board, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Tuscarawas office.
Pioneer Trails said it is “fully cooperating with the authorities as we work to find the cause of the accident.”
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those impacted by this accident,” the company said in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, there will be no further comments.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to the crash site. NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy and the team were expected to arrive Tuesday evening, the agency said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul and Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — In a bipartisan vote, the House has passed Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to avert a government shutdown just days ahead of a Friday deadline.
The vote passed 336-95. The bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass.
In his first test as the newly-appointed speaker, Johnson pitched a two-step government plan that he described as a “laddered CR” or continuing resolution that would keep the government funded at 2023 levels.
Johnson leaned heavily on his Democratic colleagues after dozens of Republicans opposed his plan.
The bill now goes on to the Senate for approval. Senate leaders have indicated they support the bill.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House said on Tuesday the U.S. has intelligence that shows Hamas has used hospitals in Gaza, including the Al-Shifa Hospital, “to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby made the announcement on Air Force One while traveling with President Joe Biden to the APEC summit in San Francisco.
It appears to be the first time the U.S. has revealed specific intelligence about how and where it says Hamas has held Israelis and Americans kidnapped when the group, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
“I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, used some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” he told reporters.
“Hamas and the Palestinian – Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PIJ, members operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa in Gaza City. They have stored weapons there, and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility.”
Asked what evidence — or support — or sourcing he had to support the claim that he made about Hamas, Kirby responded the information comes from a “variety of intelligent sourcing.”
Israeli has been criticized for fighting near Gaza hospitals — especially the Al-Shifa Hospital — claiming Hamas was using the hospital and nearby tunnels as military command posts.
Kirby cautioned again that the alleged actions by Hamas “do not lessen Israel’s responsibilities to protect civilians in Gaza.”
“This is something that we obviously are going to continue to have an active conversation with our counterparts about.”
At about the same time as Kirby spoke, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh released a similar statement during her on-camera briefing.
“We do have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad uses some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including the Al-Shifa Hospital, as a way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages, they have tunnels underneath these hospitals,” said Singh. “And so Hamas and PIJ members operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. They have weapons stored there and are prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against the facility.”
“This is, I’m just telling you, what we, as the intelligence community, assesses is happening in Gaza City — how Hamas is using these hospitals to operate,” she said. “But absolutely, we do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where there are innocent civilians.”
Singh described the information as an independent U.S. intelligence assessment and “newly downgraded information that we felt was important to get out today because there have been a lot of questions about the hospital and how Hamas operates and so it was important to get out there for you all, to clarify various questions.”
She could not answer questions about how U.S. intelligence had made its own assessment if it does not have personnel on the ground or if it’s based on Israeli intelligence. “I’m not just not going to get into more specifics on the intelligence I can tell you that this is information that was downgraded and collected by the intelligence community.”
“The fact that I’m reading it out to you, we feel very confident in our sourcing and what the intelligence community has gathered on this topic, but I’m just not going to go into more specifics on the Intel itself,” Singh said.
On Monday, while President Biden said he had told Israel the Al-Shifa Hospital “must be protected” from the fighting, two administration officials said the U.S. has intelligence supporting Israel’s assessment that Hamas is using Al-Shifa to shelter a command center under the medical complex — further complicating the situation on the ground.
Like other administration officials, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to weigh in on Hamas’ operations surrounding Al-Shifa specifically and underscored that regardless of the terror groups’ activities, these centers were still serving vital civilian needs and must be safeguarded.
Miller also echoed national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who said that the administration believed Hamas was using hospitals in the enclave as human shields and that it was “very confident” in its intelligence on the matter without naming any particular hospital.
(WASHINGTON) — Accusations of a former House speaker elbowing a member. A senator challenging a witness to physical fight during a hearing.
Two tense moments played out in both chambers on Tuesday — and that was all before two members of the House Judiciary Committee got into a shouting match.
Let’s start in the House.
Rep. Tim Burchett is accusing fellow Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of bullying him, telling ABC News: “He just elbowed me in the kidneys … It was deliberate. It was just a cheap shot.”
The altercation initially unfolded in front of an NPR reporter who was talking with Burchett.
The reporter later published audio of what she saw. In the clip, Burchett is heard saying, “Why’d you elbow me in the back, Kevin? Hey Kevin, you got any guts? Jerk.”
He followed after McCarthy to confront the former speaker.
“I chased after him. I mean, because, you know, you’re sitting there thinking, ‘What the heck just happened?'” Burchett told ABC News, saying he and McCarthy exchanged words afterwards.
According to NPR’s audio, McCarthy denied intentionally jabbing at Burchett: “I didn’t elbow you in the back.”
He later repeated that to ABC News, saying, “I would not hit him in the kidney. I guess our shoulders hit, because Burchett runs up to me afterwards. I did not know what he was talking about.”
“If I would hit somebody, they would know I hit them,” he said.
The two are hardly friends: Burchett was one of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust McCarthy from leadership last month.
“You just don’t expect that kind of thing from an adult, especially a guy that was at one time the third person in line for the White House,” Burchett said.
Elsewhere at the Capitol, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma stood up during a hearing as he appeared ready to physically fight one of the witnesses, Teamsters union President Sean O’ Brien.
Back in June, O’Brien — who has a history of tense exchanges with Mullin — tweeted at the senator, calling him a “clown” and a “fraud” and ended his posts by inviting Mullin to a fight “any place, anytime cowboy.”
Mullin used his time at a Tuesday hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to confront O’Brien over the comments.
He read off some of O’Brien’s tweets, adding, “Sir, this is a time, this is a place. You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults — we can finish it here.”
“OK, that’s fine. Perfect,” O’Brien responded.
“You want to do it right now?” Mullin asked.
“I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien said.
“Well stand your butt up then,” Mullin replied.
Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, then stood up from his chair — as Chairman Bernie Sanders started pleading for both men to come to their senses.
“You’re a United States senator, sit down,” Sanders said, banging the gavel.
“This is a hearing, and God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress let’s not–” he added before being cut off by the two men.
Mullin said, “I don’t like thugs and bullies.”
“Well, I don’t like you,” O’Brien replied. “You just described yourself.”
The two started going at each other yet again, before Sanders cut them off yet again.
“We’re not here to talk about physical abuse,” Sanders said.
Mullin later told reporters that he has “no beef” with O’Brien and was simply responding to O’Brien’s tweets calling for a fight.
“People have been fighting for a long time. I mean, go back to the 1800s …. It was legal to do duels. If you have a difference, you have a difference,” Mullin said. “I didn’t start it.”
“This doesn’t have to do with policy. This doesn’t have to do with politics. This had to do with a guy who called me out. And I simply responded to it,” he maintained.
Finally, back in the House, Judiciary Chairman James Comer, a Republican, grew heated responding to Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, who suggested Comer had done something improper in his personal finances with his family.
Comer called that “b——” and “completely false.”
Meanwhile, Congress faces major issues like whether to provide military aid to Israel and further money to Ukraine — with no deal in place — and later Tuesday, the House will vote on staving off a partial government shutdown that could leave millions without pay.
(WASHINGTON) — Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership last month, claimed to ABC News that McCarthy elbowed him in the back after a House GOP meeting on Tuesday morning.
“He just elbowed me in the kidneys … It was deliberate. It was just a cheap shot,” he said.
McCarthy denied this, according to an NPR reporter who said she witnessed part of the altercation and published the audio of what she saw.
He later told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott, “I would not hit him in the kidney. I guess our shoulders hit, because Burchett runs up to me afterwards. I did not know what he was talking about.”
“If I would hit somebody, they would know I hit them,” he said.
But Burchett said he was speaking to the NPR reporter when McCarthy walked behind him and allegedly put his elbow intentionally into Burchett’s back. Burchett said he was pushed forward and then followed McCarthy down the hallway to confront him.
“I chased after him. I mean, because, you know, you’re sitting there thinking, ‘What the heck just happened?'” Burchett said.
According to the NPR reporter, Burchett asked McCarthy: “Why’d you walk behind me and elbow me in the back?”
The former speaker responded: “I didn’t elbow you in the back.”
And Burchett replied: “You got no guts, you did so.”
On Tuesday afternoon, asked to respond to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, another Republican critic, filing an ethics complaint against him over the alleged episode, McCarthy jokingly expressed relief, adding that he may run for reelection just so he can be the chairman of the House Ethics Committee in the 119th Congress.
Gaetz has long been under an ethics investigation but has pushed back, suggesting its politically motivated.
McCarthy also said he had no knowledge of allegedly shoulder-checking former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, as Kinzinger wrote about in a book.
“You’re bringing something up I know nothing of,” he said.
ABC News’ Arthur Jones II contributed to this report.
(MEXICO CITY) — Thousands of angry, mournful protesters gathered in Mexico’s capital on Monday night demanding justice for and challenging the preliminary investigation into the death of perhaps the country’s most famous openly nonbinary person.
Jesús Ociel Baena was the first openly nonbinary person to assume a judicial position in Mexico — possibly even the first openly nonbinary person in all of Latin America to do so — when they became a magistrate on a state court in Aguascalientes in October 2022.
The Aguascalientes state prosecutor’s office said Baena was found dead in their apartment on Monday morning alongside Dorian Daniel Nieves, identified by friends as Baena’s partner.
Baena was among the most visible LGBTQ+ advocates in the country, often posting on social media in their heels or skirts with a Pride flag fan, including in the courtroom.
Earlier this year, they were also the first Mexican citizen issued a passport noting their nonbinary identity, receiving the document directly from Mexico’s foreign secretary in a public ceremony in June.
Baena and Nieves returned home late Sunday night, according to the prosecutor’s office, and there were no signs of forced entry at the scene.
“We don’t know at this time, according to the authorities’ report, what it is about, if it was a homicide or it was some accident,” Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Monday at Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily press conference.
“Let’s see first before giving information,” she added.
While the prosecutor’s office pledged to conduct an “objective investigation,” they’ve already ruled out “the presence of a third person on site” and said Monday that all signs point to “an issue of personal nature.”
With the cause of death still under investigation, the prosecutor’s office said that one of Baena or Nieves was found holding a “cutting instrument.”
The state’s public security secretary told one local outlet late Monday that it was a razor blade, found in Baena’s hands.
Advocates, however, are raising alarms about what they call the premature suggestion that what happened was a so-called crime of passion.
Protesters took to the streets in Mexico City, Aguascalientes and elsewhere on Monday with chants of “Justicia!” and “Crimen pasional, mentira nacional!” — roughly translated as “crimes of passion” are a “national lie” — as they clapped Pride fans just like Baena’s and pushed for a thorough investigation.
Last year, there were at least 87 killings of LGBTQ+ people because of their identity, according to the Mexican nonprofit Letra S, which estimates the real number is likely even higher. Trans women made up more than half of those reported homicides, according to Letra S.
“The [Mexican] government did not always investigate and punish those complicit in abuses against LGBTQI+ persons, especially outside Mexico City,” the U.S. State Department said in its most recent human rights report.
Baena had reported receiving death threats and said they took measures to protect their security, including obtaining an order for state protection in July.
“It’s not something that I was happy to share, but the hate speech must be called out,” they wrote in a tweet at the time.
(NEW YORK) — Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 14, 4:29 PM EST
Nearly 1,000 Americans and family members still possibly waiting to leave Gaza: State Department
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Tuesday that just under 1,000 Americans and their family members may be waiting to leave Gaza, as hundreds have left so far through the Rafah border crossing.
“There are now over 600 American citizens and lawful permanent residents and their family members who have departed Gaza through Rafah gate,” Miller said during a briefing. “There are a little under 1,000 that we know of that are left now whose departure we hope to facilitate over the coming days should they wish to depart.”
The number of eligible individuals who may be looking to leave the enclave is higher than previously anticipated, based on previous State Department figures. Before the Rafah gate opened to outbound traffic, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said some 400 Americans and roughly 600 of their eligible family members were in contact with the department about leaving Gaza.
-ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Nov 14, 4:11 PM EST
Israel claims Hamas has ‘lost control of Northern Gaza’
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a briefing Tuesday that “Hamas has lost control of Northern Gaza.”
“We control Northern Gaza, especially Gaza City,” Gallant said.
Gallant said the Israel Defense Forces have uncovered 500 tunnels, including in schools, mosques and hospitals, as it seeks to remove Hamas’ leadership and military from Gaza.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Nov 14, 2:56 PM EST
Breakthrough in hostage deal could come in next 48-72 hours: Israeli source
A senior Israeli political source said Tuesday that progress has been made on a hostage deal and a breakthrough could come in the next 48-72 hours.
The Israeli War Cabinet is meeting Tuesday night to discuss the deal, the source said.
Israeli officials have said as many as 239 Israelis are being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Nov 14, 2:55 PM EST
US intelligence shows Hamas using hospitals to support military operations, hold hostages: Kirby
The U.S. has intelligence that shows Hamas has used hospitals in Gaza to support its military operations and hold hostages, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed Tuesday.
“I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, used some hospitals in the Gaza Strip — including Al-Shifa — and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” Kirby said during a gaggle on Air Force One.
Kirby said Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where “they have stored weapons there, and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility.”
Kirby said the information comes from a “variety” of intelligence sourcing.
He cautioned again that these actions by Hamas “do not lessen Israel’s responsibilities to protect civilians in Gaza.”
“This is something that we obviously are going to continue to have an active conversation with our counterparts about,” he said.
During a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh described the information as an independent U.S. intelligence assessment and “newly downgraded information that we felt was important to get out today because there have been a lot of questions about the hospital and how Hamas operates.”
Singh did not go into specifics on the intel but said “we feel very confident in our sourcing and what the intelligence community has gathered on this topic.”
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Luis Martinez
Nov 14, 2:42 PM EST
Fuel shortage stalls aid deliveries from Egypt into Gaza Strip, official says
A fuel shortage has stalled aid deliveries from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a Rafah border crossing official told ABC News on Tuesday.
“No aid got in today because [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] trucks have no fuel,” Wael Abu Omar, the Palestinian spokesman for the Rafah border crossing, said.
The UNRWA, which is responsible for receiving and distributing humanitarian aid coming from Egypt in Gaza, said Monday its trucks ran out of fuel and it would not be able to to receive aid coming through Rafah on Tuesday.
Tuesday marks the first day no aid trucks crossed into Gaza through Egypt since Oct. 21 amid the war.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received the last convoy of trucks from Egypt on Monday, including 155 trucks, following the UNRWA’s announcement.
-ABC News’ Ayat Al-Tawy
Nov 14, 12:28 PM EST
Mass grave dug inside Al-Shifa Hospital, official says
A mass grave has been dug inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza to bury dozens of corpses after Israeli forces banned the Red Cross from collecting the bodies, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“There are approximately 100 corpses lying on the hospital courtyard that have rotted and decomposed,” Al-Bursh told Al-Hadath TV on Tuesday, speaking from inside the hospital, the largest in Gaza. “We are walking on worms and we fear there will be an epidemic.”
Medical staff and people sheltering inside the medical complex have dug a “large hole” to bury the dead bodies, he said. Dozens of other bodies stored in refrigerators at the facility will also be buried in the mass grave, he said.
“Israel tanks are at the gates of the hospital and we are burying bodies under gunfire and with tanks around,” Al-Bursh said.
The hospital ceased to function on Saturday after it ran out of fuel, and staff and health ministry officials inside say the facility has been under siege by Israeli forces for five days, with drones and snipers firing into it.
“We are trying to dig a mass grave to bury the martyrs inside Al-Shifa Hospital. Our efforts to remove the bodies of the martyrs from Al-Shifa complex have failed,” said Dr. Youssef Abu Al-Rish, undersecretary of the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.
Israeli officials have said Hamas is operating a command center from under the hospital, something denied by Hamas.
-ABC News’ Ayat Al-Tawy and Morgan Winsor
Nov 14, 11:31 AM EST
Humanitarian corridor in Gaza is less than 1.5 miles long, Israeli officer says
One of two humanitarian corridors that the Israeli military has temporarily opened in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday is less than 1.5 miles long, according to an executive officer of an Israeli battalion in charge of the route.
The officer told ABC News that the corridor is a 2-kilometer stretch of Salah al-Din, the main highway connecting the north and south of Gaza. He said his troops have come under sniper fire and that “there were casualties.”
The Israeli military has distributed leaflets directing civilians in the north to routes that take them to the corridors, offering safe passage to evacuate to the south of the war-torn enclave within a designated window of time on Tuesday.
ABC News’ Matt Gutman, Becky Perlow and Juan Rentaria
Nov 14, 7:53 AM EST
IDF says it’s offered to transfer incubators to Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday morning that it “is in the process of coordinating the transfer of incubators from a hospital in Israel to Gaza.”
“We are doing everything we can to minimize harm to civilians, assist in evacuation, and facilitate the transfer of medical supplies and food,” the IDF wrote in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Our war is not with the people of Gaza.”
It was unknown whether the process to transfer incubators was underway and there was no confirmation of Israel’s offer from health officials or medical staff in the Gaza Strip. It was also unclear how the incubators would be powered at Gaza’s hospitals with little to no electricity and fuel.
The announcement came amid worldwide calls to save dozens of premature newborn babies at Gaza’s second-largest hospital.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City had been struggling to run with limited fuel for days as doctors warn of its imminent collapse. On Friday, fighting in the area intensified and a strike hit the courtyard outside the hospital.
Three of the 39 babies that were being cared for in Al-Shifa’s neonatal unit have died since their incubators stopped working on Saturday, according to the hospital’s head of plastic surgery, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati. The hospital staff has been trying their best to look after them, swaddling them and using what power is left to heat the room they are in.
In recent days, several hospitals across Gaza said they have been under attack as heavy fighting occurs between Israeli troops and the militant group that rules the enclave, Hamas. The IDF alleges that Hamas has placed its command centers in tunnels under hospitals in Gaza and is deliberately sheltering behind Palestinian civilians — claims which the group denies.
Nov 14, 5:11 AM EST
IDF announces two evacuation corridors open in Gaza on Tuesday
The Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday the temporary opening of evacuation corridors in the war-torn Gaza Strip to allow more people in the north of the Hamas-run enclave to move south.
A “safe passage” will be open “for humanitarian purposes” via the Salah al-Din highway toward the area south of Wadi Gaza on Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time, according to the IDF.
The IDF said it will also temporarily suspend military activities “for humanitarian purposes” in the neighborhoods of Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah on Tuesday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time.
“Please, for your safety, join the hundreds of thousands of residents who have moved south in recent days,” the IDF said in a statement. “We encourage you to seize the time and move south!”
The IDF also urged Gaza residents to “not surrender to Hamas,” alleging that the militant group “has lost control over the northern Gaza Strip area and is trying to do everything it can to prevent you from moving south and protect yourselves.”
Nov 13, 8:36 PM EST
Israel claims to have evidence of Hamas headquarters at hospital
Israeli military officials brought several journalists, including ABC’s Matt Gutman, into the Al-Rantisi Hospital inside Gaza, which had been hit with artillery.
The hospital, Gaza’s sole children’s hospital, was allegedly a Hamas command center, Israel’s chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who led the tour, claimed.
The hospital was surrounded by Israeli tanks from Thursday into Friday, the director of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital said on Friday.
Inside the basement of the hospital, which officials said has been evacuated, were abandoned AK-47s, grenades and what Hagari said were suicide vests. In another room of the basement was a chair where Hagari claims a hostage was kept.
The spokesperson said the Israeli military was set to detonate the grenades and vests they claim they found inside and a forensic team was going to probe the hospital for more evidence.
The tour came after the hospital’s resources deteriorated due to nearby attacks, according to UNICEF.
The hospital’s operations almost ceased between Thursday and Friday, according to UNICEF.
By Friday, Al-Rantisi Hospital had only a small generator powering the intensive care and neonatal intensive care units, UNICEF said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to meet Wednesday in the San Francisco area at an undisclosed location for their first face-to-face meeting in a year.
The bar for success is low – anything that stops the relationship from getting worse would be a win. In fact, the two countries just agreeing to talk more would be considered a victory.
Ahead of his departure to San Francisco, Biden said the goal of the meeting with Xi is “to get back on a normal course of corresponding, being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another when there’s another crisis, being able to make sure our militaries still have contact with one another.”
U.S. officials say they’re going into the meeting with realistic expectations. Rather than yielding major breakthroughs, they hope to manage tensions, keep U.S.-China competition in check, and maintain lines of communication so miscommunication doesn’t veer into conflict.
“We’re not trying to decouple from China. But what we’re trying to do, is change the relationship for the better,” Biden said.
Yet, one meeting, no matter how long or substantive, won’t change the broader trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship. It also will not reset deep ideological differences between these two superpowers over everything from technology, trade, defense, Taiwan, South China Sea, and conflicts overseas.
“Both in Washington and Beijing, there is some pretty deep-seated distrust and antagonism,” said Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The Chinese have a number of transient, tactical reasons to want the meeting, even as Xi Jinping remains broadly, very skeptical and cynical about the United States.”
Blanchette says Xi will want some reassurances on Taiwan and a slowdown on any future U.S. curbs on China’s high technology industry. Also, amid an economic downturn in China – with rising unemployment and foreign investment slowing — Xi will want to show the foreign business community that China is open for business.
There will be few areas of agreement on those fronts. Biden will likely defend U.S. export controls on semiconductor chips, while again stressing the U.S. is not trying to decouple from China.
U.S. officials say Biden is coming into the meeting in a strong position, given the strength of the U.S. economy.
“From my perspective, if in fact, the Chinese people who are in trouble right now economically … if the average citizen in China was able to have a decent paying job, that benefits them and it benefits all of us, but I’m not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets,” Biden said Tuesday.
When U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited Beijing in August, she said U.S. companies have told her that China has become “uninvestible,” because of fines, raids, and other actions from the Chinese government that have made it difficult for foreign corporations to do business in China.
On Taiwan, U.S. officials have stressed the U.S. is not trying to change the status quo. The U.S. maintains a one-China policy, which means the U.S. acknowledges China’s position that there is only Chinese government. Under the policy, the U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But China, which views the self-ruled island as part of its territory, views contact with Taiwan from high-level U.S. officials as undermining the one-China policy.
The most concrete outcome of the meeting would be if the two countries agree to restore military-to-military communication. China suspended talks last August in retaliation to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. has been having “constructive” discussions with China to restore military communications.
“Having our two militaries in communication is the way you reduce mistake, you avoid escalation, you manage competition, so it doesn’t veer into conflict.”
Restoring military communications is a key point of leverage that Beijing will not give up until they have extracted the concessions they want, according to Blanchette, because Beijing views many of the friction points as the U.S. interfering in its internal affairs, including in the case of Taiwan. Beijing thinks military dialogue is “really just a way for the U.S. to tie the PLA down,” Blanchette said, referring to China’s armed forces, the People’s Liberation Army.
The talks may yield promises of cooperation in areas like climate change and combatting fentanyl trade. But statements of goodwill out of the meeting will not point to a fundamental change in Xi’s view that the U.S. is trying to contain China’s rise, according to Blanchette.
“You can see Xi Jinping in important ways preparing the Chinese political and economic system for a period of prolonged, intense geopolitical struggle with the United States,” Blanchette said. “And amidst that struggle, there are going to be moments and opportunities for, you know, tactical adjustments, maybe even small compromises, but on the broader trajectory, I think Xi Jinping believes this is going to be a contest to see who outlast the other.”
President Biden is expected to bring up the war in Israel, according to U.S. officials. Given warm diplomatic relations between China and Iran, President Biden is expected to urge Xi to use his leverage with Iran to convince Iran and its proxies not to further escalate the conflict.
“President Biden will make the point to President Xi that Iran acting in an escalatory, destabilizing way, that undermines stability across the — broader Middle East is not in the interests of the PRC,” Sullivan said.
U.S. officials say Biden is also expected to warn China not to interfere in Taiwan’s elections next year or in U.S. elections.
