Biden-Harris campaign works to court Black swing state voters, a vital bloc

3-point lines on Portland court are different distances, will be fixed before next game

PORTLAND, Ore. — The 3-point line for the women’s NCAA Tournament at Moda Center had a discrepancy in distance at each end of the court that went unnoticed through four games over two days before Texas and North Carolina State were informed of the problem ahead of their Elite Eight matchup on Sunday.

The teams’ coaches agreed to play Sunday’s game as scheduled with the mismatched 3-point lines rather than delay it, the NCAA said in a statement. N.C. State beat Texas 76-66 to advance to the Final Four.

“The NCAA was notified (Sunday) that the 3-point lines on the court at Moda Center in Portland are not the same distance. The NCAA staff and women’s basketball committee members on site consulted with the two head coaches who were made aware of the discrepancy. All parties elected to play a complete game on the court as is, rather than correcting the court and delaying the game,” Lynn Holzman, the NCAA’s vice president of women’s basketball, said in a statement.

Holzman said all lines would be measured after practices concluded on Sunday evening and the correct markings would be on the floor ahead of Monday’s game between Southern California and UConn.

“While the NCAA’s vendor has apologized for the error, we will investigate how this happened in the first place. The NCAA is working now to ensure the accuracy of all court markings for future games,” Holzman said. “We are not aware of any other issues at any of the prior sites for men’s or women’s tournament games.”

The court issue was another distraction for the NCAA during a women’s tournament in which the play has been exceptional but other issues have taken the spotlight.

There was a referee pulled out of a game at halftime in the first round. Utah faced racist harassment before its first-round game. Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo was forced to remove a nose ring and missed time in a Sweet 16 loss to Oregon State. LSU coach Kim Mulkey threatened to sue The Washington Post over a then-unpublished profile of her and later called out a Los Angeles Times columnist for what she said was sexist criticism of her team. The Times edited the column in response.

And now, the court issue in Portland.

“I hate to say this, but I have a lot of colleagues that would say, ‘Only in women’s basketball,’” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “I mean, it’s a shame, really, that it even happened. But it is what it is.”

Four Sweet 16 games on Friday and Saturday were played without any of the participating teams saying anything publicly about a problem with the court.

During pregame warmups, Schaefer and N.C. State coach Wes Moore were informed that the 3-point line distance at the top of the key was different on both ends of the floor. The distance between the top of the key and the 3-point line was too short at the end in front of the N.C. State bench, while the line at the Texas end was correct, Moore said.

NCAA officials were asked to measure the distance and brought out a tape measure about 15 minutes before tip-off. After discussions between NCAA representatives, the coaches and officials, the game went on as scheduled.

A delay would have taken at least an hour, both coaches said, because someone from the outside would have to be brought in to remark the floor and could have forced the game to be bumped from being broadcast on ABC.

“That’s a big deal to be on ABC,” Moore said. “We’ve been fortunate to be on it a couple of times the last couple of years. But it’s a big deal.”

Both coaches said their players were not aware of the discrepancy, and N.C. State’s Aziaha James in particular had no trouble, making a career-high seven 3s on nine attempts. The NCAA said the court would be corrected before Monday’s Elite Eight matchup between Southern California and UConn.

“At the end of the day we had already played a game on it and we both won, so we just decided to play,” Schaefer said.

While the NCAA did not provide details, one 3-point line near the top of the key appeared to be about 6 inches closer to the basket than at the opposite end of the floor. The NCAA 3-point line is at 22 feet, 1 ¾ inches for both women and men.

The numbers showed that players struggled with the line that was too close to the basket.

Through five games, teams shooting on the end with the closer 3-point arc were 25.8% (23 of 89) on 3s. At the end of the floor that was correct, teams shot 33.3% (29 of 87).

“These kids, they shoot so far behind it sometimes nowadays, who knows where the line is?” Moore said. “It is an unusual situation. But, like I said, I don’t know that it was an advantage or disadvantage, either way.”

Baylor coach Nicki Collen, whose team lost to USC in the Sweet 16, posted on social media that with eight teams at one site, the focus was on game plan, not what the court looked like.

Baylor was 6 of 14 on 3-pointers in the second half while shooting at the end of the floor with the correct arc.

“Guess that’s why we shot it better in the 2nd half,” Collen posted.

Source link

Biden-Harris campaign works to court Black swing state voters, a vital bloc

Biden-Harris campaign works to court Black swing state voters, a vital bloc – CBS News

Watch CBS News

Black voters in swing states like Wisconsin were key to President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, but their support may be waning ahead of the 2024 election. The campaign is paying millions to court such voters.

Source link

Israel’s high court says the government must stop funding seminaries. Could that topple Netanyahu?

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court ruling curtailing subsidies for ultra-Orthodox men has rattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s governing coalition and raised questions about its viability as the country presses on with the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu has until Monday to present the court with a plan to dismantle what the justices called a system that privileges the ultra-Orthodox at the expense of the secular Jewish public.

If that plan alienates the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers on whose support he depends, his coalition could disintegrate and the country could be forced to hold new elections.

Here’s a breakdown of the decision and what it might spell for the future of Israeli politics.

WHAT DOES THE DECISION SAY?

Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.

But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full time in religious seminaries, or yeshivas.

This years-old system has bred widespread resentment among the broader public — a feeling that has deepened during nearly six months of war. More than 500 soldiers have been killed in fighting, and tens of thousands of Israelis have had their careers, studies and family lives disrupted because of reserve duty.

The Supreme Court ruled that the current system is discriminatory and gave the government until Monday to present a new plan, and until June 30 to pass one. Netanyahu asked the court Thursday for a 30-day extension to find a compromise.

The court did not immediately respond to his request. But it issued an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly subsidies for religious students of enlistment age who have not received a deferral from the army. Those funds will be frozen starting Monday.

While the loss of state subsidies is certainly a blow, it appears the yeshivas can continue to function. Israel’s Channel 12 reported Friday that the state provides only 7.5% of all funding for the institutions. Netanyahu’s coalition could also search for discretionary funds to cover the gaps.

HOW IS THE DECISION BEING RECEIVED?

Many Israelis are celebrating the court’s decision, believing it spells an end to a system that takes for granted their military service and economic contributions while advantaging the ultra-Orthodox, or “Haredim” as they are called in Israel.

The religious exemption dates back to Israel’s founding, a compromise that the country’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, made with ultra-orthodox leaders to allow some 400 yeshiva students to devote themselves fully to Torah study. But what was once a fringe Haredi population has grown precipitously, making the exemption a hugely divisive issue to Israeli society.

Many ultra-Orthodox continue to receive government stipends into adulthood, eschewing getting paying jobs to instead continue full-time religious studies. Economists have long warned the system is unsustainable.

“The next government will have to hold a long overdue conversation about the future of the Haredi relationship to the state,” commentator Anshel Pfeffer wrote in Israel’s left-leaning daily, Haaretz.

“Now, the Haredim will have no choice but to take part in it. It won’t be just about the national service of its young men, it will also have to address fundamental questions about education and employment,” he said.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders have reacted angrily.

Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, called the court’s decision “unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”

The ultra-Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life, and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army. Although a small number have opted to serve in the military, many have vowed to fight any attempt to compel Haredim to do so.

“Without the Torah, we have no right to exist,” said Yitzchak Goldknopf, leader of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism. “We will fight in every way over the right of every Jew to study Torah and we won’t compromise on that.”

WHY DOES IT THREATEN NETANYAHU?

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is known as a master political survivor. But his room for maneuver is limited.

Vowing to press forward with a war that has harmed the Israeli economy and asked much of its soldiers and reservists, Netanyahu could lose the support of the more centrist elements of his fragile national unity government if he tries to preserve the exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.

The two centrists in his fragile War Cabinet, both former generals, have insisted that all sectors of Israeli society contribute equally. One, Benny Gantz, has threatened to quit — a step that would destabilize a key decision-making body at a sensitive time in the war.

But the powerful bloc of ultra-Orthodox parties — longtime partners of Netanyahu — want draft exemptions to continue.

The ultra-Orthodox parties have not said what they will do if they lose their preferential status. But if they decide to leave the government, the coalition would almost certainly collapse and the country could be forced into new elections, with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls amid the war.

Source link

Texas appeals court blocks state from probing transgender kids’ parents

A Texas appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking the state from investigating parents who provide their transgender children with gender-affirming medical treatments, which Gov. Greg Abbott has called abusive.

Abbott, a Republican, had ordered the state Department of Family Protective Services to carry out child abuse investigations into families whose children were receiving puberty-blocking treatments in February 2022.

A month later, a district court judge imposed a statewide temporary injunction on such investigations, saying the probes endangered children and their families.

The appeals court in Austin upheld the district court judge’s injunction in a pair of rulings on Friday, delivering a victory to LGBTQ groups, medical professionals and civil liberties advocates opposing moves by conservative politicians in dozens of states to criminalize the provision of gender-affirming treatments for trans youth.

“This is a much-needed victory for trans youth and those who love and support them,” the American Civil Liberties Union said on X on Friday.

Representatives for Abbott and the DFPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ACLU and Lambda Legal challenged Abbott’s order on behalf of the family of a 16-year-old transgender girl targeted for investigation.

The child had taken puberty-delaying medications and hormone therapy. Her mother was a DFPS employee and was put on paid administrative leave after asking what Abbott’s directive would mean for her family.

In 2022, the district court judge said the governor’s order could cause “irreparable injury” to families, given the stigma attached to being targets of a child abuse investigation, as well as the loss of livelihood.

Texas restricted gender-affirming care for youth in 2023, making it one of more than a dozen states that currently bars young transgender people from receiving certain puberty-blockers and hormone therapies, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

For more from NBC Out, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Source link

Trump and co-defendants ask appeals court to review ruling allowing Fani Willis to stay on Georgia election case

Former President Donald Trump and eight other defendants accused of illegally trying to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia on Friday submitted a formal application to appeal a judge’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case.

Trump and other defendants had tried to get Willis and her office tossed off the case, saying her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee earlier this month found that there was not a conflict of interest that should force Willis off the case but said that the prosecution was “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety.”

McAfee’s ruling said Willis could continue her prosecution if Wade left the case, and the special prosecutor resigned hours later. Lawyers for Trump and other defendants then asked McAfee to allow them to appeal his ruling to the Georgia Court of Appeals, and he granted that request.

The filing of an application with the appeals court is the next step in that process. The Court of Appeals has 45 days to decide whether it will take up the matter.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade upended the case for weeks. Intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February, overshadowing the serious allegations in one of four criminal cases against the Republican former president. Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn his narrow 2020 presidential election loss to President Biden in Georgia.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024, in Atlanta.

Alex Slitz / Getty Images

The appeal application says McAfee was wrong not to disqualify both Willis and Wade from the case, saying that “providing DA Willis with the option to simply remove Wade confounds logic and is contrary to Georgia law.”

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the case, said in a statement that the case should have been dismissed and “at a minimum” Willis should have been disqualified from continuing to prosecute it. He said the Court of Appeals should grant the application and consider the merits of the appeal.

A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment.

Willis used Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law, an expansive anti-racketeering statute, to charge Trump and the 18 others. Four people charged in the case have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.

McAfee clearly found that Willis’ relationship with Wade and his employment as lead prosecutor in the case created an appearance of impropriety, and his failure to disqualify Willis and her whole office from the case “is plain legal error requiring reversal,” the defense attorneys wrote in their application.

Given the complexity of the case and the number of defendants, the application says, multiple trials will likely be necessary. Failure to disqualify Willis now could require any verdicts to be overturned, and it would be “neither prudent nor efficient” to risk having to go through “this painful, divisive, and expensive process” multiple times, it says.

In his ruling, McAfee cited a lack of appellate guidance on the issue of disqualifying a prosecutor for forensic misconduct, and the appeals court should step in to establish such a precedent, the lawyers argue.

Finally, the defense attorneys argued, it is crucial that prosecutors “remain and appear to be disinterested and impartial” to maintain public faith in the integrity of the judicial system.

Source link

Trump, co-defendants ask appeals court to consider booting DA Fani Willis from Georgia case

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and eight of his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case on Friday asked a state appeals court to allow them to challenge a recent ruling that didn’t disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case.

“The Georgia Court of Appeals should grant the application and accept the interlocutory appeal for consideration on the merits,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, told NBC News in a statement Friday.

Willis’ office declined NBC News’ request for comment.

The application comes after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee gave Trump and the others permission to seek a review from the Georgia Court of Appeals of McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis and her office and dismiss the charges in the sprawling racketeering case.

In a motion originally filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, and later adopted by Trump and others, Willis is accused of financially benefitting from a personal relationship she had with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she’d appointed to the case. The motion alleged Willis and Wade took vacations together while working on the case.

Willis and Wade denied any wrongdoing. They acknowledged they’d been in a relationship, but they maintained that it began after his appointment as special prosecutor and that Willis did not benefit financially.

In a decision earlier this month, McAfee found no conflict of interest but said because of an “appearance of impropriety,” either Willis and her office would have to step aside, or Wade.

Wade resigned shortly after McAfee’s ruling — but, Sadow noted, the defense wanted the order to go further.

“Defendants argues in the trial court that the indictment should have been dismissed and, at a minimum, DA Willis and her office should have been disqualified from prosecuting the case,” Sadow’s statement said.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case, which alleges he conspired with others to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

With the request officially filed, the appeals court has 45 days to decide whether to take up the case. McAfee has said he will not halt proceedings in the Georgia case as the disqualification matter makes its way through the appeals court.

Source link

Syria reports Israeli airstrikes near Aleppo, world court orders action on Gaza famine

The Syrian army says Israeli airstrikes early Friday near the northern city of Aleppo killed or wounded “a number of” people and caused damage. An opposition war monitor said the strikes killed 42, most of them Syrian troops.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Israeli strikes hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near the Aleppo International Airport, and the nearby town of Safira, home to a sprawling military facility.

The Observatory said 36 Syrian troops and six Hezbollah fighters died, and dozens of people were wounded, calling it the deadliest such attack in years.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes.

Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.

The strikes came less than 24 hours after judges at the International Court of Justice unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.

The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.

“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (…) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.

The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.

In Thursday’s order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.

The judges added that this could be done “by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”. The court ordered Israel to submit a report in a month after the order to detail how it had given effect to the ruling.

Source link

Israeli court halts subsidies for ultra-Orthodox who don’t serve in army

TEL AVIV — Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered an end to government subsidies for many ultra-Orthodox men who do not serve in the army — a blockbuster ruling that could have far-reaching consequences for the government and the tens of thousands of religious men who refuse to take part in mandatory military service.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces the most serious threat yet to his government as he struggles to bridge a major split over military service in the shaky national unity government cobbled together in the days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Inside his coalition, the powerful bloc of ultra-Orthodox parties — longtime partners of Netanyahu — want draft exemptions to continue. The centrist members of his War Cabinet, both former military generals, have insisted that all sectors of Israeli society contribute equally during its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

If the ultra-Orthodox parties leave the government, the country would be forced into new elections, with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls amid the war.

Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.

But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full time in religious seminaries.

The exemptions — coupled with government stipends many seminary students receive through age 26 — have infuriated much of the general public. These longstanding tensions have grown during nearly six months of war — in which over 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed.

The Supreme Court has ruled the current system discriminatory and given the government until Monday to present a new plan and until June 30 to pass it. Netanyahu on Thursday asked the court for a 30-day extension to find a compromise.

The court did not immediately respond to his request. But it issued an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly subsidies for religious students who are between the ages of 18 and 26 and have not received a deferral from the military in the past year. Funds will be frozen starting April 1.

The ruling will affect about a third of the 180,000 seminary students who receive subsidies from the government for full-time learning, according to Israel’s Channel 12 TV. It said the subsidies could be temporarily covered by the governing coalition’s discretionary funds.

Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s top political rival and a member of the three-man War Cabinet, praised the court’s decision and said it recognized “the need for soldiers during a difficult war, and the need for everyone in our society to take part in the right to serve the country.”

Among Israel’s Jewish majority, mandatory military service is largely seen as a melting pot and rite of passage, and the army has said it is suffering from manpower shortages because of the war in Gaza.

The ultra-Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army. Religious leaders have vowed to fight attempts to force ultra-Orthodox men into the army and have staged mass protests against similar attempts in the past.

Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, called the court’s decision “unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”

In his letter to the Supreme Court requesting the extension, Netanyahu said additional time is needed to come to an agreement, “because it has been proven in the past that enlistment without an agreed-upon arrangement actually has the opposite effect.”

Source link

Top UN court orders Israel to allow food and medical aid into Gaza

The UN’s top court has unanimously ordered Israel to enable the unhindered flow of aid into Gaza in order to avert a famine.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel must act “without delay” to allow the “provision… of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”.

This follows warnings that famine could hit Gaza within weeks.

Israel has called allegations it is blocking aid “wholly unfounded”.

It has also denied allegations of genocide lodged at the ICJ by South Africa and has blamed the UN for problems with the distribution of aid.

The latest ruling by the court in The Hague comes after South Africa asked it to bolster an order issued to Israel in January to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza.

Although orders issued by the ICJ are legally binding, the court lacks the power to enforce them.

Last week, a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Global Initiative, which is run by the World Food Programme and others, warned that a “catastrophic” situation was developing.

It said that all of the 2.2 million people in Gaza were “facing high levels of acute food insecurity” and that famine was projected to hit the north of the territory before the end of May.

In its ruling, the ICJ said Gaza was “no longer facing only a risk of famine” but “famine is setting in” and that, according to UN observers, 31 people, including 27 children, had already died of malnutrition and dehydration.

It also noted comments by Volker Türk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, who said last week that the “situation of hunger, starvation and famine” was “a result of Israel’s extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods, displacement of most of the population, as well as the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure”.

The court said Israel must “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale… of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”.

The aid most needed included food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, and clothing as well as hygiene products and medical supplies, it said.

The ruling also said Israel must ensure “its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza” under the Genocide Convention.

Recent months have seen long queues of aid trucks repeatedly forming as they wait to enter Gaza from Egypt, and accusations levelled at Israel that it is subjecting the deliveries to complex and arbitrary checks.

In a filing last week, Israel asked the ICJ not to issue the latest order, saying South Africa’s allegations were “wholly unfounded in fact and law” and “morally repugnant”.

It has also dismissed the broader case being brought against it under the Genocide Convention as “baseless”.

Israel has further said that Hamas takes much of the aid that enters Gaza and accused the UN of failing to distribute what is left to the civilian population.

The current conflict began after the 7 October attack, which saw Hamas-led gunmen storm across the border into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage.

Of those taken, about 130 remain unaccounted for, at least 34 of whom are presumed dead.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,552 people. Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that, of those killed, more than 25,000 were women and children.

Source link

UN court orders Israel to provide more aid to the Gaza Strip

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to immediately allow the delivery of significantly more humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations’ highest court in The Hague ordered on Thursday that more border crossings should be opened for the transport of food and medical aid.

The court was responding to a request from South Africa in the ongoing genocide proceedings against Israel.

At the end of January, the court had already ordered emergency measures and ordered Israel to do everything possible to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Given the deteriorating situation in the war zone and the threat of famine, South Africa called for additional measures. The court agreed with this.

Decisions of the International Court of Justice are binding.

Since the decision of January 26, the “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have continued to deteriorate,” the decision stated.

The judges particularly mention hunger. There is now no longer just a risk of famine, but famine has already begun, they said.

Israel must work closely with the United Nations to deliver aid, they said. The judges also included water, electricity, clothing and tents among the urgently needed relief supplies.

Israel was also warned to ensure that its military units do not violate the rights of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This also includes preventing the delivery of urgently needed relief supplies.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre with more than 1,200 deaths that militants from the Palestinian Hamas movement and other Islamist groups carried out in Israel on October 7.

Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive. In view of the high number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, Israel has come in for increasing criticism internationally.

Palestinian families can be seen at makeshift tents in Rafah, amid the battles between Israel and Hamas. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa

A Palestinian family can be seen at makeshift tent in Rafah, amid the battles between Israel and Hamas. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa

Source link