(LOS ANGELES) — A wind-whipped Southern California wildfire that started over the weekend ballooned to more than 15,600 acres on Monday, prompting the evacuation of more than 1,000 campers from a park, closing a popular recreation area on Father’s Day and threatening a major freeway in and out of Los Angeles, authorities said.
The Post Fire, which began after 2 p.m. PT on Saturday near Gorman, California, in the Tejon Pass area of Los Angeles County, saw flames jump from 5,000 acres to 14,625 acres by Sunday evening, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
By mid-morning Monday, the fire spread to 15,610 acres, fueled by dry brush and wind gusts of 50 to 65 miles per hour, according to Cal Fire and National Weather Service. Firefighters managed to increase containment from 2% on Sunday to 8% on Monday, eventually reaching 20% containment Monday night, according to Cal Fire.
More than 1,140 firefighters, including air tankers and helicopter crews, are battling the fire from the ground and sky, authorities said.
Joe Sirard, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California, told ABC News a red flag warning signaling high fire risk has been issued for the area until at least 6 p.m. Tuesday. Sirard said gusty winds of more than 60 mph are forecast for the area Monday night.
Capt. Sheila Kelliher Berkoh of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said firefighting conditions were challenging due to the high wind gusts, low humidity of around 15% and temperatures in the low to mid-80s.
“It’s hot, it’s windy, it’s super slippery,” Berkoh told ABC News Monday of the area where firefighters are battling flames. “Those ridgelines are tough and with the fire coming at you, you can’t make a direct attack at that. So, you’re really trying to come around the side.”
She said 11 bulldozers were being used to cut containment lines as firefighters gained a handle on the fire from the ground.
Berkoh said firefighters are crossing their fingers and praying that the fire, now moving from the north to the west into remote vacant areas, doesn’t shift.
“Let’s hope that it doesn’t change direction and push the fire to the east because that’s into a little more populated area and then we’ll have a big fight on our hands,” Berkoh said.
Three hikers who were stranded when their off-road vehicle broke down in the fire zone had to be rescued Sunday morning, the Los Angeles County Fire Department told ABC News. The rescued hikers were taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries, officials said.
Authorities issued evacuation orders Saturday as a wildfire in Los Angeles County, dubbed the Post Fire, spread over thousands of acres close to a major highway and threatened nearby structures, officials said. https://t.co/QhTLmLUBdkpic.twitter.com/ftiI26VpmP
At least one structure was destroyed by the fire, Cal Fire said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
About 1,200 campers at the Hungry Valley Park State Vehicular Recreation Area were ordered to evacuate Saturday night, and authorities closed Pyramid Lake, which was expecting thousands of visitors for Father’s Day, due to the threat of the Post Fire, Cal Fire said.
The fire was burning parallel to Interstate 5, a major arterial highway in and out of Los Angeles. The freeway was briefly closed on Saturday, triggering a traffic jam, officials said.
Meanwhile, a second Southern California wildfire was burning near Hesperia in San Bernardino County. The blaze started about 6:49 p.m. PT on Saturday and had burned 1,078 acres by Sunday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.
The wind-driven fire was pushing east Sunday toward the Arrowhead Equestrian Estates in Hesperia, where residents remained under an evacuation warning Monday, according to Cal Fire.
The Hesperia Fire is 72% contained as of Monday evening. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage and the cause remains under investigation.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana declined to prosecute a man who threatened to kill an Indiana congressman and his family, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) was left threatening messages by Aaron Thompson, who was later sentenced to two years of probation by the local district attorney in Indiana, but the new letter raises questions about why the U.S. Attorney, which normally handles threats to members of Congress, did not prosecute the case.
“Three daughters. Hey, hey, hey, three bullets hey, hey, hey one wife yay. Oh yeah, yeah, we’ll give her two bullets..” Thompson said in one threatening voicemail, according to the letter.
FBI agents visited Thompson’s house, where, according to the letter by Banks and sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland in December, he “admitted he had threatened me and my family with violence because he disagreed with my political beliefs.”
“When Capitol Police referred the criminal case against Aaron Thompson to the U.S. Attorney for Northern District of Indiana, they declined to prosecute despite clear evidence that Thompson violated federal law,” Banks wrote.
Banks is running for the open Senate seat in Indiana.
Garland, according to Banks, has made it a priority to prosecute threats to members of Congress and Banks asked why the DOJ didn’t pursue prosecution in his situation when similar threats made against California Rep. Eric Swalwell were prosecuted.
Last week, Attorney General Garland penned an op-ed decrying political violence.
“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy,” Garland wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. “They are normal. But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal.
A spokesperson for the Congressman says the Justice Department has not responded to Banks’ letter.
The Justice Department has not responded to ABC News request for comment.
(DES MOINES, Iowa.) — A federal judge in Iowa paused a state law giving local law enforcement the ability to arrest migrants in the state illegally, saying it is not the state’s job, but rather the job of the federal government to enforce immigration laws.
Signed into law in April, SF2340 authorizes local law enforcement officials to arrest migrants who have previously been deported or removed from the country, or who have been denied entry in the past. It also gives judges the power to order a person to be sent back to the country from which the person entered the United States.
It is similar to a Texas law, which gives that state’s law enforcement similar powers.
That law is on hold while it works its way through the courts.
The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Iowa, asked the court to grant an emergency injunction and halt the law from continuing to go into effect, which the court did.
“As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible,” Judge Stephen Locher wrote. “As a matter of constitutional law, it is not.”
Brenna Bird, the Republican attorney general of Iowa, said she is disappointed by the ruling.
“I am disappointed in today’s court decision that blocks Iowa from stopping illegal reentry and keeping our communities safe,” she said. “Since Biden refuses to secure our borders, he has left states with no choice but to do the job for him. We will be appealing the court’s decision to uphold Iowa’s immigration enforcement law.”
As a matter of law, courts have held that immigration enforcement is the job of the federal government, not the state government.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s Title IX expansion from going into effect in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves criticized the Department of Education in a decision issued Monday, claiming it “fails to provide a reasoned explanation for departing from its longstanding interpretations regarding the meaning of sex and provided virtually no answers to many of the difficult questions that arose during the public comment phase.”
In April, the finalized federal rules officially added “gender identity” to the list of protections from sex-based discrimination for the first time. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex at any institution that receives federal funding.
“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona previously said in a statement on the rule change. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming and respect their rights.
Schools could violate Title IX if a transgender person isn’t allowed to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity or if they are not referred to by their chosen pronoun, according to senior administration officials.
This change directly conflicts with several state laws that ban transgender students from using facilities — like bathrooms or locker rooms — that align with their gender identity and restrict the use of chosen pronouns and names, either by requiring parental permission or by allowing teachers to not use the preferred pronouns and name.
Several states with such laws are behind the lawsuits attempting to hinder the rule change.
Reeves’s ruling comes just a few days after another federal judge temporarily blocked the rules from taking effect several other states.
State leaders applauded the judge’s decision.
“We fought hard to protect our constitutional separation of powers, which ensures that the people through their elected representatives are the only authority that can make new laws,” said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
The Title IX change from the Biden administration had been welcomed by LGBTQ advocates, students and families who have been met with anti-LGBTQ legislation throughout the year.
The ACLU has recorded more than 500 laws targeting the LGBTQ community in 2023 many of which were centered on school activity.
Several legal organizations, including Lamba Legal, argue that Title IX has long guaranteed that transgender youth “have an equal right to go about their everyday lives at school in peace and with dignity,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Peter Renn in a May statement on its case against Idaho bathroom restrictions
(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) — On Tuesday in Oklahoma, Republican Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, will face one of his most significant and costly primary challenges since he went to Congress 22 years ago.
His leading opponent in the Republican contest for the 4th congressional district is deep-pocketed, out-of-state businessman Paul Bondar, who in March filed his bid to replace Cole the reliably red bastion.
Bondar, a political newcomer who recently moved into Oklahoma from Texas, has spent millions of his own dollars to wage a lively race against a 10-term incumbent — investing more than $4.3 million in advertisements, the advertisement tracking firm AdImpact reported on June 11.
In the process, Bondar has made the unexpected Oklahoma contest the third-most expensive House primary of the year. Cole has spent over $3.1 million ahead of the race, according to Federal Elections Commissions filings, though he has significantly more money on hand than the largely self-funded Bondar.
Cole has “never had this much money against him,” said Fount Holland, a longtime Oklahoma Republican political consultant who worked for Cole more than a decade ago. Holland noted that the challenge was unusual, especially because of Cole’s deep relationships in the district.
Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, a fixture in Oklahoma politics going back two generations, said he was “puzzled” over Bondar’s run.
“There’s never been a bit of a suggestion that Tom Cole is not up to the job. Never been a bit of a suggestion that Tom Cole is not focused, hugely intelligent, hugely significant at what he does, and especially being chairman at the most powerful, certainly one of the two, perhaps or three, most powerful committees in the U.S. House,” Keating said in an interview with ABC News.
Cole served as Oklahoma’s Secretary of State under Keating and worked as the governor’s chief legislative strategist and liaison to the state’s congressional delegation.
“There is no one more respected than Tom Cole. There really isn’t, and that’s why I was intrigued and puzzled by his opponent’s decision to run, not only in Oklahoma, but against a man like Tom Cole,” Keating added.
Bondar is challenging Cole from the far right, mounting a campaign focused on issues such as border security, energy independence and inflation, among other things. He has reserved his strongest criticism for Cole’s support of American foreign aid, especially money being sent to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion from the east.
“For those of you who don’t know me, you soon will,” Bondar said during a speech at the right-wing Turning Point conference over the weekend in Detroit. “I am running for the United States Congress in congressional district four in Oklahoma, and you may ask me why. I am running to remove the global boot that silences the conservative voices across America and to bring back the voice of the conservative movement.”
Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Cole. Bondar told ABC News over the weekend that the former president should “change his mind” and back him instead.
Cole has traded barbs with his opponent largely over questions surrounding Bondar’s residency. Bondar’s current address is in Texas, and he said he has leased a home in Oklahoma. His business he started — Bondar Insurance Groups — is based in Illinois with a location in South Florida.
Bondar has said he grew up in Wisconsin and spent much of his adult life in Illinois. He owned the Bondar Insurance Group in Oak Brook, Illinois, and moved to Texas in 2020, he told KFOR News in Oklahoma City.
A report from The Oklahoman alleged that Bondar has tangential ties to a couple connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report has led some party leaders in Washington to wonder whether Cole is being targeted because of his support for Ukraine.
Government records show that through business relationships in South Florida, Bondar’s wife may have a loose connection to a Russian pop star who has received awards from Putin — a tie that Bondar’s campaign rejects.
His wife Jennifer Bondar, as of 2023, is listed as the principal and manager of an LLC under a Florida address, according to the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations. The address, a condominium complex, is also where the Florida location of Bondar’s Insurance company is.
Jennifer Bondar’s LLC is in a unit owned by a company called Muza Marin Inc, according to the Broward County Appraiser in Florida. Those records list the registered agent — or the person that is designated by an LLC to accept official documents on behalf of the small business — for Muza Marin, Inc. as Lioudmila Issakovitch.
Issakovitch is married to pop star Valery Leontiev, who has a well-established and public relationship with Putin. Leontiev is a recipient of a number of Russian awards from Putin, including the Order of Friendship in 2014 and the Order of the Fatherland in 2022, which he received just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. The performer also sang a duet with Putin at a 2006 conference with the leaders of other former Soviet Union republics.
Bondar and his campaign have rejected any connections between the candidate and the Russian couple, and have denied even knowing them. They say the only connection is that their business partner Maxim Mandric, who had lived in the unit associated with the LLC, had moved to another unit.
“It’s important to note that the Bondars did not lease the unit and their business partner moved into another unit last year,” campaign spokeswoman Lisa Liebl told ABC News.
The candidate told ABC News in an interview on Saturday that his rise in popularity through the course of the race is “very similar to a Trump movement.” He also compared reports about his ties to Russians to the Trump-Russia investigation.
“That’s another reason why people think I’m President Trump — a fake, phony Russia-collusion story,” Bondar told ABC News.
“Because of — I don’t even know, I had a 1099 worker who rented an apartment through a real estate company that was being sublet. And the singer … of that property sang [for] Putin’s party so they put on there: ‘Texan has ties to Russia.’ That’s very funny, because I’m actually have a little bit of Ukrainian in me, and it shows the desperation and it shows that we’re successful. It shows that our campaign is really a well-run campaign,” he added.
Bondar’s spokeswoman told ABC News the campaign is consulting with lawyers and considering legal action against The Oklahoman because of its report on claims of the possible Russian connection.
Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who was senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration, noted that just because Leontiev has been seen publicly with Putin or has received awards from him, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the pop star and Putin are close.
“He’s like any other politician. These people have all sorts of contacts with people, which doesn’t always indicate closeness,” Thomas said.
“The president of the U.S. hands out awards to people and may not have a personal relationship with them. Putin operates in the same way. He has a small circle of confidants and perhaps a broader circle of people he listens to when it comes to foreign policy … Then there’s a much broader group that he may sing duets with or give awards to.”
The possible connection, though, has raised eyebrows given the recent battles over continued funding for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
Alexander Vindman, a retired National Security Council director of European Affairs, told ABC News that “whether or not Bondar knows it,” the Putin regime is capable of trying to leverage even loose connections to advance its own interests.
Vindman testified against then-President Trump when he was impeached in 2019 for abusing his power in connection with stalling a military aid package for Ukraine. Trump was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
In addition to Bondar, Cole faces three other GOP primary challengers, Andrew Hayes, Nick Hankins and Rick Whitebear Harris. On Friday, in an unusual move, all three released a joint video announcing they would be backing Bondar over Cole, despite not having dropped out themselves.
The combination of all four GOP challengers could lead to a runoff election if no one candidate wins 50% of the total vote. In that case, the top two vote getters would advance to a second round of balloting in August.
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Creating a surgeon general’s warning for social media is a necessary step to respond to the “defining public health challenge of our time,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze in an interview on Monday.
“We are living in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I have said publicly that this is the defining public health challenge of our time. I firmly believe that. And social media has emerged as an important contributor to that youth mental health crisis, so making social media safer for our kids — warning kids and parents about the harms associated with social media — is urgent,” Murthy said.
“It’s part of addressing the broader mental health crisis that we’re living through,” he said.
The warning, which would appear universally in social media feeds to raise awareness about the risks of social media on adolescent mental health, would need congressional action to be implemented. Testing on the best messaging and frequency of the warnings would then be conducted, Murthy said, with the goal of “driving toward behavior change.”
“I was getting questions from parents all across the country about social media, and they wanted to know, is this safe for my kids? And what we can conclude, based on our research and talking to experts from around the country, was that social media, number one, has not been proven to be safe for kids. And number two, there is mounting evidence of harms associated with social media use,” Murthy told Schulze.
“So, we want to make sure that parents and kids know that. And that’s where a warning label comes into play.”
The issue is also urgent because 95% of adolescents are on social media, Murthy said, echoing the case he made in a New York Times op-ed.
“The data tells us that kids who spend an average of three hours or more on social media a day, they experience a doubling of their risk for anxiety and depression symptoms. That’s pretty profound, but also particularly disturbing when you keep in mind that the average amount of use for adolescents today is 4.8 hours a day,” he said.
When tobacco warnings were implemented in the U.S. in 1966, 42% of Americans smoked, Murthy said. Today, that’s down to 12%. However, that change took nearly six decades and was only one step in a larger effort of education and reform.
“While we are late as a society to ultimately making these platforms safer, it’s urgent that we start taking action now. Because the truth is, there’s nothing more important to the mental health and well-being of our kids,” Murthy said.
“I say that not just as surgeon general and as a doctor, but as a father to of two young kids who I’m worried about, just like millions of parents are worried about the mental health and well-being of their children,” Murthy said.
Murthy said his kids aren’t allowed to use social media until they graduate from middle school, at which point he and his wife will review the data around safety and whether any platform regulations have been implemented, as well as the ability of his kids to safely navigate it.
For kids who are already on social media, the goal should be creating phone-free zones, he said, like dinner time, social interactions and bedtime. He encouraged parents to build communities around phone-free zones, because it’s “much easier to do when we are doing them collectively as a group of parents.”
Murthy acknowledged that on a larger scale, the ball is in Congress’ court — both in implementing warnings, and in providing broader safeguards against social media risks to mental health. Particularly in a tense election year where legislative gridlock is the norm, that poses a problem.
“But as a nation, we can do hard things when it comes to protecting and safeguarding our kids. We should be ready to do everything possible to achieve that end,” Murthy contended.
In the meantime, Murthy is committed to raising awareness in hopes that parents and kids will begin limiting screen time.
“The bottom line is, again, making the platform safer is the key. But until then, until that actually happens, it’s important that we make sure parents and kids know what we now know in medicine and public health, which is this association between social media use and mental health harms.”
(LONDON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea on an official state visit beginning on Tuesday, the Kremlin said on Monday.
Putin’s trip, which is scheduled to last for three days, follows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia in September 2023. Putin will spend two days in North Korea before traveling to Vietnam, the Kremlin said.
Kim during that visit had “cordially” invited Putin to visit North Korea at a “convenient time,” the Korean Central News Agency, a state-run media outlet, reported at the time.
Putin had accepted with “pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward the history” of friendship between the nations, the outlet said.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With just more than a week until the first presidential debate, President Joe Biden’s campaign is increasing attacks on former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction, announcing on Monday that it’s launching a $50 million ad buy targeting voters in battleground states highlighting the verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial.
The 30-second spot, which will air in battleground states throughout the rest of June, trades clips of a smiling Biden greeting voters with shots of Trump scowling in court.
“This election is between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself and a president who’s fighting for your family,” a narrator says.
The Trump campaign’s spokesperson criticized the new ads and are using the opportunity to push the false claims that Trump’s legal troubles stem from political motivations.
“This new ad once again proves the sham trial was always meant to be election interference, but Americans see through it,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt posted on X in response to the ad.
Since the verdict, which made Trump the first former president convicted of felony crimes, the Biden campaign has steadily leaned in to using Trump’s conviction as a strategy to show he isn’t fit for office.
The Democratic National Committee launched billboards near a Trump event calling him a “convicted felon,” while Biden himself used that language at a Connecticut fundraiser.
“Trump approaches the first debate as a convicted felon who continues to prove that he will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, said in a statement Monday.
Polling since the end of the trial has suggested the conviction harms Trump among voters still making up their minds about their presidential pick.
A Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll published on Monday found that Trump’s conviction makes 32% of registered independents less likely to support Trump compared to 12% who said it makes them more likely to support him. Forty percent said it had no impact.
ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip are pictured on June 4, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As the Israel-Hamas war continues, negotiations are apparently stalled to secure the release of hostages taken by the terrorist organization, and Israeli forces continue to launch incursions in the southern Gazan town of Rafah ahead of a possible large-scale invasion.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jun 17, 2:58 PM End of Rafah operation weeks away: IDF
The Israeli military is “weeks” away from wrapping up the main part of its controversial ground invasion in and around Rafah in southern Gaza, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told ABC News.
“We are there to dismantle the military framework of the [Hamas’] Rafah Brigade,” Hagari said on Monday.
“We are weeks now just from achieving this goal,” he said.
The Israeli military now controls over 60% of the Rafah area, Israeli defense officials told ABC News on Monday.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Hugo Leenhardt and Dana Savir
Jun 17, 1:49 PM Israeli forces kill ‘key’ Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that its soldiers have killed Muhammad Mustafa Ayoub, describing him as a “key operative” in Hezbollah’s rocket and missile department in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah confirmed Ayoub’s death in a brief statement.
Jun 17, 8:54 AM Israeli war cabinet disbanded, official says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has disbanded his war cabinet, the small group of government officials who had been tasked with overseeing decisions about the war against Hamas, a spokesperson said.
The prime minister said there was “no more need for an extra branch of government,” the spokesperson said.
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti
Jun 17, 6:37 AM Netanyahu’s security cabinet to handle war decisions, Israeli official says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government’s security cabinet will now make decisions about the war against Hamas, an Israel official told ABC News.
Netanyahu is now expected to make critical decisions on the war during small ad hoc meetings while seeking final approval from the wider security cabinet.
The decision came about a week after one of three core members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet’s said he would resign from the influential body.
Israeli minister Benny Gantz on Sunday, June 9, said he would resign from both the coalition government led by Netanyahu and the prime minister’s war cabinet.
The war cabinet had been formed on Oct. 11, in the days following the Oct. 7 surprise terrorist attack by Hamas militants.
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Kevin Shalvey
Jun 16, 6:41 PM Israeli security cabinet discusses steps to ‘strengthen’ West Bank settlements
The Israeli political security cabinet “discussed steps to strengthen settlements in the West Bank, among other things, in response to countries that unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state after October 7,” in a meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Spain, Ireland and Norway recognized Palestine as a state at the end of May. Separately, 143 of the 193 members in the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution stating that Palestinians qualify for full-member status at the United Nations at the beginning of May, according to the New York Times.
The cabinet also discussed “a series of reactions against the Palestinian Authority following its actions against Israel in international bodies,” the statement added.
The Israeli minister of defense and the deputy prime minister “requested an additional period of time to make their comments,” the statement says, and then the prime minister will “bring all the proposals to a vote at the next cabinet meeting.”
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Jun 16, 4:35 PM Biden cites pain of Muslims in Gaza in Eid al-Adha holiday statement
President Joe Biden issued a statement Sunday commemorating the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha in which he acknowledged the pain and suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza.
“In Gaza, innocent civilians are suffering the horrors of the war between Hamas and Israel.,” Biden said. “Too many innocent people have been killed, including thousands of children. Families have fled their homes and seen their communities destroyed. Their pain is immense.”
Biden added that his administration is working to end the war and make progress toward a two-state solution.
“And I strongly believe that the three-phase ceasefire proposal Israel has made to Hamas and that the U.N. Security Council has endorsed is the best way to end the violence in Gaza and ultimately end the war,” Biden said.
Biden also cited the conflict in Sudan as well as the targeting of Muslim communities in Burma and China.
He used the holiday to celebrate the contributions of the Muslim community in America and also to say that he is committed to fighting Islamophobia in the United States.
“Hate has no place in America, whether it is targeted at American Muslims, Arab Americans including Palestinians, or anyone else,” Biden said.
He added, “In the spirit of Eid al-Adha, let us all renew our commitment to values that unite us — compassion, empathy, and mutual respect — which are both American and Islamic.”
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart
Jun 16, 5:49 AM Netanyahu not briefed before ‘tactical pause’ announcement, Israeli official tells ABC News
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heard the reports on Sunday about a daily “tactical pause” along an aid route, he contacted his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him, an Israeli official told ABC News.
After an inquiry, the prime minister was informed that there was no change in Isreal Defense Forces policy and that the fighting in Rafah would continue as planned, the official said.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari released a statement in Hebrew shortly after announcement saying the pause will affect a single aid route.
“There is no cessation of fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, and the fighting in Rafah continues,” Hagari said. “Also, there is no change in the introduction of goods into the Gaza Strip.”
-ABC News Jordana Miller, Victoria Beaule and Kevin Shalvey
(NEWNAN, Ga.) — Six people died and five others were hurt in a house fire in Georgia early Monday, officials said.
Those who died ranged in age from 6 to 70 years old, Coweta County Coroner Richard Hawk said.
Firefighters responded to the house in Coweta County — about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta — around 5 a.m. and found more than half of the house engulfed in flames, Coweta County Fire Rescue said.
All 11 people inside the house were evacuated, according to fire rescue officials.
Six people died and five others were hospitalized, some with serious injuries, officials said.
One firefighter also suffered minor injuries, officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to officials.
