[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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A Hezbollah drone attack overnight at a military base in northern Israel killed at least four and injured 61 more.

At least 20 people, including children, were killed in an Israeli strike at a Gaza school, according to two local hospitals. Meanwhile, explosions hit outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing three people and injuring about 50.

U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon will "remain in all positions," according to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres. The comments come after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the UNIFIL force to leave the area after one of its outpost came under repeated attack by Israeli military.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu urges removal of UN peacekeepers from Lebanon, claiming they are 'hostages of Hezbollah'
The UN's refusal to remove its UNIFIL peacekeeping force from combat areas of Lebanon endangers both them and Israeli troops, Mr Netanyahu claims, as Israeli tanks burst through the gates of one UN base early on Sunday.

This needs to stop. The Israelis has a terrible hubris.

The Israeli military has launched a series of deadly strikes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, including on a flour distribution center, a school and a hospital where displaced Palestinians were sheltering.

Video of a fire at a tent camp that started after Israeli forces launched an airstrike on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah overnight showed harrowing scenes.

In multiple videos shared on social media and verified by NBC News, at least one person could be seen reaching their hands out from the flames as they were burned alive. Others could be seen racing from the fire, some carrying the injured, while others ran toward the blaze to help.

At least four people were killed in the strike and its fiery aftermath, with dozens more injured, including women and children, local health officials said.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was targeting Hamas militants operating out of the hospital.

On Friday, a fact-finding mission set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories and Israel said the Israeli military’s targeting of hospitals in Gaza constituted “the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and the crime against humanity of extermination."

Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry dismissed the accusations from the commission as "outrageous."

The Israeli military again faced condemnation from U.N. leaders Monday after troops struck a school in Nuseirat in central Gaza. The strike hit a refugee camp run by the U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, killing at least 20 people, the agency's commissioner general said.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the Mufti school was meant to be used in the second round of polio vaccinations in the Gaza Strip, which began Monday.

“We had to cancel the vaccination campaign in that school due to severe damage,” he said in a post on X on Monday morning.

The strikes marked a deadly weekend in Gaza that persisted into Monday morning, with the Israeli military launching a separate strike in the area of the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, killing several people and injuring dozens of others, an official at the Al-Awda Hospital told NBC News. The official said the strike had hit a flour distribution center.

Israel is encountering a potential shortage of rocket and missile interceptors in its air defense array amid the yearlong war in Gaza and Lebanon, and as it prepares for a possible escalating conflict with Iran, according to a British report Tuesday.

Citing experts and former military officials, the Financial Times said that Washington is assisting the Jewish state in addressing the matter, in particular through its promise to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system (THAAD), but Jerusalem could increasingly find itself needing to decide which targets it wants to prioritize defending.

“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” Dana Stroul, an ex-US defense official, said. “If Iran responds to an Israel attack, and Hezbollah joins in too, Israel’s air defenses will be stretched.”

She added that supplies were not unlimited and that Washington could not keep up its ongoing supply of both Ukraine and Israel at the same pace.

Israel’s multi-layered system includes the Iron Dome, used to shoot down short-range missiles; David’s Sling, used to intercept medium-range missiles; and the Arrow system, which is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.

According to former IDF general Assaf Orion, Israel hasn’t been fully tested as Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon has not unleashed its full capability yet.

“It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” Orion told the Financial Times. “Some of that gap is a choice by Hezbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF… But Hezbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation.”

United Nations peacekeepers insisted they would stay in all positions in Lebanon Monday, defying Israeli calls for them to move amid intensifying fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has wounded five blue helmets and sparked international condemnation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called Monday for the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to move from certain areas near the Israeli border, while dismissing as “completely false” claims that Israeli forces targeted the UN force known as UNIFIL.

Israel has faced severe criticism over injuries and damage sustained in recent days by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, which has been deployed in Lebanon since the first of Israel’s four major ground offensives against its neighbor in 1978, but which Israel says has done little to uphold its mandate of keeping armed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah away from southern Lebanon.

The decision was made that UNIFIL would currently stay in all its positions in spite of the calls that were made by the Israel Defense Forces to vacate the positions that are in the vicinity of the Blue Line,” said UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

“I want to emphasize that this decision still remains,” he said, adding that the plan was confirmed earlier Monday by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Later, UNIFIL’s mission spokesperson posted a video message on X, saying “We are staying. We are in the south of Lebanon under a security council mandate, so it’s important to keep an international presence and to keep the UN flag in the area.”

“There were some deliberate attacks against our troops…and the parties have an obligation to protect peacekeepers and ensure the safety and security of our troops,” Andrea Tenenti said.

In New York, the UN Security Council for the first time unanimously voiced “strong concerns” Monday over the string of incidents, but avoided singling out Israel.

“Against the backdrop of ongoing hostilities along the Blue Line, the members of the Security Council expressed their strong concerns after several UNIFIL positions came under fire in the past days,” said the council’s rotating presidency, currently Switzerland’s UN ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl.

The 15 council members “urged all parties to respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises,” according to a statement following two closed-door meetings on the deteriorating situation in Lebanon.

The Security Council also called for the full implementation of its resolution 1701, which was adopted in 2006 with the aim of keeping peace on the border after the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution tasked UNIFIL with helping ensure south Lebanon is kept off limits to both Hezbollah and Israel.

The council “recognized the need for further practical measures to achieve that outcome,” but did not offer specifics.

Earlier, a joint statement from Britain, France, Germany and Italy expressed “deep concern in the wake of recent attacks by IDF on UNIFIL bases. These attacks must stop immediately.”

“Any deliberate attack against UNIFIL goes against international humanitarian law and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,” they added.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the criticism, saying “such attacks… constitute a grave violation of international law and are totally unacceptable.

The EU “expresses particularly grave concern regarding the attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces against UNIFIL, which left several peacekeepers wounded,” he added.

On Sunday, the Israeli military took foreign journalists into southern Lebanon and showed them a Hezbollah tunnel shaft that was less than 200 meters (650 feet) from a UNIFIL position, as well as weapon stashes that the troops found.

The Biden administration has warned Israel that if the humanitarian situation in Gaza doesn't improve within the next 30 days, the U.S. may restrict military assistance to Israel.

In a letter Sunday to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. must continually assess under its own law whether Israel is “directly or indirectly” impeding the transport of U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza. If it is, they warned that the U.S. could halt additional foreign military financing, according to two U.S. officials and a defense official.

In a letter Sunday to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. must continually assess under its own law whether Israel is “directly or indirectly” impeding the transport of U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza. If it is, they warned that the U.S. could halt additional foreign military financing, according to two U.S. officials and a defense official.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller confirmed the existence of the letter in a briefing Tuesday but would not comment on what consequences Israel would face if the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza does not improve.

The Biden administration sent a similar warning to Israeli officials in April ahead of a required report, and the U.S. ultimately determined the actions taken by Israel to improve the humanitarian situation afterward met the requirements under the law.

“We have been having a number of ongoing conversations with them about the very serious decrease in the level of humanitarian assistance,” Miller said Tuesday. “Ultimately, we did not see our concerns sufficiently addressed, which is why the two secretaries sent the letter.”

The U.S. sent the letter even as it continued to provide help to its close ally. On Monday, the U.S. announced it was sending an advanced anti-missile system and about 100 American troops to Israel amid turmoil in the Middle East involving Israel, Lebanon and Iran.

Meanwhile, a number of pro-Palestinian organizations, including Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians and ActionAid, called on global leaders Tuesday to take action to end Israel's assault on Gaza, saying in a joint release that the northern part of Gaza is "being wiped off the map."

Progressive members of the Democratic Party, as well as advocacy organizations like IfNotNow, have been calling on the Biden administration for months to halt arms to Israel.

Let's see if he actually lives up to this threat.... Probably not, if longstanding previous patterns continue.

Even if he does, 30 days from now is way too late to win Harris any votes from American Muslims and Arabic-speakers in the swing state of Michigan.

Israel gave documents seized from Hamas command posts in the Gaza Strip to The New York Times and The Washington Post; both newspapers reported on them Saturday.

The documents show that Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, sought to destroy Israel with help from Hezbollah and Iran via coordinated surprise attacks.

They also reveal plans, not yet finalized, to topple Moshe Aviv Tower and the Azrieli Center towers, both of which are near the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Leaking enemy documents to influence global public opinion and the positions of foreign governments is a practice familiar from both world wars.

What might Israel gain from the publication of Hamas documents now, months after they were seized – especially when they were released by foreign media, not as part of an Israeli awareness campaign?

The question becomes more pointed when considering that the documents were published in the liberal American press, aligned with the Biden administration and critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than in Israeli media or right-wing outlets in the U.S.

Because of their harsh criticism of Netanyahu and of the death and destruction the Israel Defense Forces is causing in Gaza and Lebanon, the Times and the Post enjoy greater credibility when they fall in line with Israel's narrative.

Giving the documents to Israeli journalists Amit Segal and Nir Dvori, who are close to the government and the army, would have brought them huge ratings in Israel but zero influence abroad.

Similarly, having them published by Fox News or even The Wall Street Journal would have looked like an Israeli public diplomacy operation rather than a legitimate journalistic investigative report. And of course, a foreign report will be quoted by all the print, electronic and online media in Israel, influencing the local agenda from there.

From reading the reports in the American papers, one can ascertain several messages that Israel would be happy to burn into the world's consciousness, even if not all of the publications were necessarily initiated in Jerusalem.

First of all, that Iran knew about Sinwar's plan to invade Israel, even if it wasn't informed of the timing (the Iranians supported the Hamas attack after the fact, but denied that they knew about it in advance). Second, that Hamas is Al-Qaida and, like it, wanted to blow up high-rise office buildings along with everyone inside them. Third, that the goal of Sinwar's war was to conquer and destroy Israel, not just communities and military bases near the Gaza border.

The Hamas documents are supposed to bolster Netanyahu's claim that Israel isn't fighting against a liberation movement seeking to free the occupied Palestinian people, or even against a paramilitary organization that is poorly funded and trained and lacks planes, the Iron Dome anti-missile system, tanks and artillery, which is the prevailing view in liberal circles in the West.

Rather, it is fighting a terrifying "axis of evil" led by Iran that threatens to destroy Western culture as a whole, not just the small, unpopular Jewish state. Hamas even wanted to use horse-drawn chariots, just like the Philistines who set forth from Gaza to fight the Israelites, until they encountered Samson. Truly, the barbarians versus "Judeo-Christian culture."

In this spirit, the documents are also supposed to justify Israel's counterattack, which has so far caused enormous death and destruction in Gaza and, to an increasing degree, also in Lebanon. Whoever released them for publication sought to persuade Western decision makers and public opinion that the Israeli military is not trying to punish defenseless Palestinians and Lebanese, but rather to save Israel from destruction – and that Israel's tactics are therefore justified: expelling population, conquering cities and villages, destroying homes and infrastructure, preparing the ground for future annexation and settlement (at this stage, presumably only in Gaza), while giving up on bringing the hostages home, which would require withdrawal and cease-fire.

As always, Israel's foreign policy both stems from and reinforces its domestic policy. The minutes of meetings at Sinwar's headquarters show that he planned to attack Israel in 2022, during Israel's so-called government of change, but postponed the operation due to his efforts to persuade Hezbollah and Iran to launch coordinated attacks.

Netanyahu and his disciples will surely see this as clearing him of the accusation, "you're the head, so you're at fault." See, Hamas wanted to destroy Israel even when it was led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and only foot-dragging by Iran and Hezbollah pushed the disaster into Netanyahu's term.

But if you keep reading, the Sinwar documents actually establish Netanyahu's guilt and responsibility for the October 7 massacre. They show that Netanyahu's policies after he returned to power pushed Hamas to launch the war by itself, without waiting for Hezbollah and Iran.

Sinwar didn't care about the government coup in Israel or the protests against it by reservist pilots and Brothers and Sisters in Arms. What he saw from his headquarters in Gaza City was the increased Jewish presence at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound/Temple Mount and talks on normalization with Saudi Arabia. He decided to take action to stop both those processes, and also before Israel completed development of its laser-based missisile interception system.

It turns out that Netanyahu's policies toward the Palestinians, rather than toward the High Court of Justice, were the main driver of the catastrophe.

The Biden administration is seeking to use Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon to end the dominance of the group and elect a new Lebanese president, U.S. and Arab officials said, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, spoke to the leaders of Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to rally support for the U.S. backed plan which includes electing a new president, and tapped U.S. special envoy, Amos Hochstein, to make the case to Arab officials that Israel's offensive is an opportunity remake the Lebanon's political reality after decades of political deadlock.

State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said at a press conference earlier this week that the U.S. would like to see Lebanon "break the stranglehold that Hezbollah has had on the country and remove Hezbollah veto over a president."

Saudi Arabian officials, familiar with the U.S. plan, told The Journal that the American initiative has Saudi support.

Egypt and Qatar, however, view this plan as unrealistic, with officials arguing that Israel will not succeed in destroying Hezbollah, and that the organization must be part of any political agreements to ending the conflict.

The report added that Egypt expressed concern that international interference in Lebanese politics could ignite internal tensions leftover from the country's civil war that ended in 1990.

Political analysts and diplomats told The Journal that any group seen as trying to take power in the wake of Israel's attacks could be rejected by the Lebanese public.

The American initiative largely hinges on the support of key public figures in Lebanon, including Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri – who leads the Shi'te faction that has a critical interlocutor in cease-fire negotiations with Hezbollah.

Both Mikati and Berri said last week that they supported holding new presidential elections, but at the same time also expressed their appreciation for Hezbollah's continued resistance against Israel.

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem, who assumed leadership of the group since the killings of Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, rejected political changes, citing the ongoing conflict with Israel.

The United Sates has tried for years to lead political reforms in Lebanon with little success. The Lebanese public are deeply divided along political and sectarian lines.

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that 50 humanitarian aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip during the day at political officials' order after the U.S. threatened to block arms sales over the issue.

The humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza has deteriorated recently, with many residents describing hunger and a severe shortage of basic necessities because no aid is entering.

One Gazan named Mahmoud, who lives with his family in Jabalya in northern Gaza and doesn't want to leave, told Haaretz this week that several of the city's neighborhoods have no potable water or any infrastructure amid widespread fears that residents are living on borrowed time. He says several bakeries have closed because of a shortage of flour. "The lucky ones still have a few bags of pasta," he said.

Residents of Jabalya and Beit Hanoun told Haaretz that until around 10 days ago, it was still possible to buy food at makeshift stalls, including a few fruits and vegetables. These have disappeared, they say. Residents increasingly fear that this is a deliberate policy aimed at forcing them to leave or die of hunger or military fire.

The Hamas government media office said in an announcement that Israel was deliberately intensifying a policy of starvation and killing in northern Gaza.

Gaza's hospitals, which are only partially operating, are also feeling the crisis. On Monday, the director of the Gaza Health Ministry's hospital network, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, gave a television interview in which he burst into tears when asked about the ability to provide medical aid to the remaining population in northern Gaza. He replied that the people were now in God's hands.