Telecom and internet services are down in Gaza again; Netanyahu says no cease-fire until hostages released

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will call foreign leaders Monday to discuss efforts to increase humanitarian relief to civilians in Gaza, the White House said in a statement. The Biden administration did not specifically mention which leaders she would be speaking to.

— Christine Wang

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said that the Israel-Hamas war plays to the advantage of Russia by diverting attention away from its siege of Ukraine.

"Of course, Russia is very happy with this war," he said in a Sunday interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They just want to divide the world and to take focus from Ukraine to another war."

He noted that Russia's stance in the Israel-Hamas war could be a signal of how the month-long conflict might spread to other parts of the Middle East and beyond.

He added that Russia could take advantage of the Middle Eastern instability and make the region another target of invasion: "They began in Ukraine. After Ukraine, in the Middle East, they will continue their plan."

Historically, Russia has maintained productive diplomatic relations with Israel. But Iran's support of Russia amid its assault on Ukraine puts the Kremlin in a more complex geopolitical position. Its stable relationship with Israel and budding relationship with Iran causes tension in who Russia sides with.

The Israel-Hamas war also poses trouble for Ukraine financial support from the U.S.

American lawmakers have been at odds about whether to continue funding Ukraine when it now has another ally at war. Zelenskyy said that U.S. funding will be the most crucial over the next year. He said that reducing Ukrainian resources would fulfill Russia's goal of destabilizing Europe so that it could pursue a larger takeover.

"Now is a very important moment not to lose the will, not to lose this strong position and not to lose your democracy," Zelenskyy said.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, said Sunday that the United States has not taken a hard enough stance in support of Palestinians.

"We need to see the U.S. playing the role of an honest mediator, not adopting the Israeli narrative," Zomlot said in a Sunday interview on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We need a grown-up in the room and that is the U.S."

Zomlot's comments followed a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the West Bank city of Ramallah earlier on Sunday where notably, no joint statement was issued afterward. Zomlot said that is because there is still tension between the U.S. and Palestine.

A statement from Blinken's office noted the points where the two leaders are on the same page: the necessity for humanitarian aid, prioritizing civilian lives and finding a pathway to Palestinian independence.

But Blinken and Abbas still diverged when it came to demands for an immediate ceasefire. Blinken has expressed support for "humanitarian pauses" of the violence in order to ease aid deliveries and hostage rescues. However, he has also continued to stand by the U.S. position that a total ceasefire could allow Hamas to regroup and repeat its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Palestine wants the U.S. to favor a ceasefire.

"Unfortunately, we haven't heard that and that's why we did not come up with a joint statement," Zomlot said.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, will introduce a non-binding resolution in the Senate on Monday threatening U.S. military action against Iran if it expands the war between Israel and Hamas.

Such an expansion may occur by "activating" Hezbollah or by killing American troops through Iran-backed proxies in Syria or Iraq, Graham said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed militant group based in Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel's north.

"There is no Hamas without the ayatollah's support. There's no Hezbollah without the ayatollah's support," Graham said. "The Great Satan in the region isn't Israel or the United States, it's Iran."

Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, threatened escalation with Israel on Friday, in his first address since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

A Senate resolution is meant to deter Iran from stoking a broader regional conflict, the senators said.

"It's aggressive but it's absolutely necessary," Blumenthal said.

"[Iran] is financially fueling, equipping, supplying all of these proxies that have as their goal to disrupt and destabilize the region," he added.

— Greg Iacurci

Former President Barack Obama says "nobody's hands are clean" in the Israel-Hamas war and acknowledged that he's questioned in recent days whether his administration could have done more to push for a durable peace when he was in power.

"If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth," Obama said in an interview Pod Save America. "And you then have to admit nobody's hands are clean. That all of us are complicit to some degree." The former president went on to tell his interviewers, Obama administration alumni Dan Pfieffer and Tommy Vietor, that he has asked himself since the start of the war, "Was there something else I could have done?"

The former president did make an attempt at peace between Israel and Palestinians during his second term, but months of talks collapsed in 2014 amid disagreements on Israeli settlements, the release of Palestinian prisoners and other issues.

"I look at this and I think back what could I have done during my presidency to move this forward — as hard as I tried, I've got the scars to prove it," Obama said in excerpts of an interview released on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The entire interview is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.

— Associated Press

Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog reiterated that Israel will not end the war until Hamas is neutralized.

"We cannot stop before we dismantle this terror machine," Herzog said in a Sunday interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Herzog's comments come during the fourth consecutive weekend of protests internationally, where hundreds of thousands have gathered to demand a ceasefire in the war.

Plus, U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, have stated the need for at least a temporary pause in violence for humanitarian aid deliveries and hostage rescues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that there will be no temporary ceasefire until Hamas releases all of its prisoners.

Herzog doubled down on the fact that Israel will not stop its bombardment until Hamas is taken over. And he said that process is especially precarious due to the complicated nature of the Gazan warzone.

"Gaza is probably the biggest terror complex in the world," Herzog said.

He said there is a vast network of tunnels and other infrastructure within Gaza that is necessary "to uproot" in order to prevent Hamas from repeating the Oct. 7 attack. The Israel Defense Force has said that Hamas' infrastructure is sometimes buried beneath schools and hospitals, which would mean that an attack on Hamas' resources could easily turn into an attack on innocent civilian lives.

Herzog said that efforts are in progress to move civilians out of the warzone but the complexity of the military operations in Gaza has meant they move "very slowly, very deliberately."

— Rebecca Picciotto

Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that Hamas is "committed to the extermination of Israel," and that Israel is rightfully working to end that threat.

"What Israel is doing — appropriately so — is targeting Hamas to degrade it and then destroy it, and we are helping them in that effort," Reed said on "Fox News Sunday."

"It is somewhat reminiscent of our efforts against Isis in Iraq," he added.

In that effort, Israel must comply with law, and also win hearts and minds in a way that avoids or minimizes harm to civilians, Reed said. The U.S. is helping Israel with military intelligence to better inform selected and precise targets, he added.

As it works to root out Hamas, Israel also needs to aid the Palestinian people — as both a humanitarian mission and "a smart tactical move," Reed said.

"What you want to do is separate Hamas from the Palestinian people, and you do that by making it appear — and in fact make it a reality — that they can find some support ... within the Israel lines and they can't find that within Hamas-controlled territory," Reed said.

— Greg Iacurci

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency says the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The date of the meeting was not disclosed in the report on Sunday.

According to IRNA, Khamenei praised the patience and endurance of the people of Gaza and emphasized Iran's policy of supporting the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Khamenei urged Islamic countries and international organizations to take serious actions in support of Gaza's people.

Israel's military last week accused Haniyeh, who lives in exile, of flying to Iran on a "private jet" as the people of Gaza suffer in a devastating Israeli offensive against Hamas.

Israel accuses Iran of destabilizing the region by supporting proxies like Hamas and the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

— Associated Press

Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said on Sunday that all communications and internet services have been cut again within the Gaza Strip.

"The main routes that were previously reconnected (were) cut off again from the Israeli side," it said.

— Reuters

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday defended the move to tie Israel military aid to spending cuts for the Internal Revenue Service, saying, "It's more important to protect Israel right now than it is to hire more IRS agents."

"We want to pay for it," Johnson said on "Fox News Sunday." "What a concept."

The House of Representatives passed a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel, while cutting an equivalent amount of IRS funding. The bill, Johnson's first major legislative action as speaker, passed 226 to 196 on a largely party-line vote.

However, the measure appears to be a non-starter in the Democrat-controlled Senate. President Joe Biden has also vowed to veto it.

"The proposal is simply not a serious one," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

Congress increased IRS funding by $80 billion over a decade as part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022, a climate-focused package spearheaded by Democrats.

The IRS plans to use the funding to improve customer service and technology, and crack down on wealthy households that may be dodging their tax bills. It intends to hire about 20,000 new employees as part of the initiative.

Republicans have been trying to axe the additional funding. More than $20 billion of the funding was already cut as part of a debt-limit deal earlier this year.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House-passed Israel aid package found that the measure would actually raise the deficit by over $12 billion over a decade. It would take away enforcement resources to audit the wealthy, costing the IRS almost $27 billion in lost tax revenue, CBO said.

— Greg Iacurci

United States Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said Sunday that it is necessary to pause the violence in Gaza for humanitarian aid deliveries and hostage rescues, though he continued to reject calls for an overall ceasefire.

"Humanitarian pauses," as Finer called them in a Sunday interview on ABC's "This Week," would "allow the Palestinian residents of Gaza take a breath amid this heavy heavy bombardment."

Finer's call for a temporary ceasefire echoes President Joe Biden who has said that pauses are necessary to safely release Hamas' prisoners and shepherd enough aid into Gaza.

On Saturday, 30 more aid trucks crossed into Gaza, bringing the total to 451. The process of delivering those trucks has been logistically complicated. The threat of shelling and lack of fuel have made the roads of Gaza tricky to navigate and sometimes delayed aid convoys, humanitarian workers have said. A pause of the siege would make that passage easier.

Meanwhile, the hostage situation has brought its own set of difficulties.

"Those negotiations are going on quietly behind the scenes, they have taken longer than any of us would like," Finer said in a Sunday interview on CBS' "Face the Nation." Finer added that more than 300 Americans have left Gaza through diplomatic efforts, though there are still U.S. citizens who remain.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there will be no pause in fighting until Hamas releases all of its hostages.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Turkey, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

— Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected calls for a ceasefire in Gaza until all of the more than 240 hostages captured by militant Palestinian group Hamas during its Oct. 7 attacks are returned.

"There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages, we say this to both our enemies and our friends. We will continue until we beat them," Netanyahu told air and ground crews at the Ramon Air Force Base in southern Israel, reiterating the government's position.

— Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is making a short detour on his urgent Mideast diplomacy tour, stopping in Cyprus where he's meeting the nation's leader.

The State Department said Blinken was meeting briefly on Sunday with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos mainly to thank them for Cyprus' role in temporarily hosting some American citizens who fled from Israel in the first weeks of the Gaza war.

The U.S. chartered at least one cruise liner that took Americans from the Israeli port of Haifa to Larnaca as Israel's military operations against Hamas intensified and the group accelerated rocket attacks on Israel following its Oct. 7 surprise attack.

Blinken is on his way to Turkey to meet senior officials on Monday.

— Associated Press

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the situation in Gaza with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in separate phone calls, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Sunday.

Fidan had exchanged views on "stopping the attacks targeting the civilian population in Gaza" and on achieving an urgent ceasefire, the source said.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Islamist Palestinian group is using residents as human shields.

Fidan also discussed efforts to guarantee the unimpeded and continuous provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the source added.

Fidan will meet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks on Gaza in Ankara on Monday.

— Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought his frenetic Mideast diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his latest bid to ease civilian suffering in the Gaza Strip and begin to sketch out a post-conflict scenario for the territory.

Blinken traveled to Ramallah for his previously unannounced visit in an armored motorcade and under tight security just hours after Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. Despite the secrecy and the State Department refusing to confirm the trip until after Blinken had physically left the West Bank, protests erupted against his visit and U.S. support for Israel as word of his arrival leaked.

Aside from pleasantries, neither man spoke as they greeted each other in front of cameras and the meeting ended without any public comment. It was not immediately clear if the lack of words indicated the meeting had gone poorly.

— Associated Press

Israeli warplanes struck the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza early Sunday, killing at least 40 people, according to health officials.

The camp is located in the evacuation zone where Israel's military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focused its military offensive in the northern areas. Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere in the besieged enclave. It has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

Critics say Israel's strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed in such attacks.

— Associated Press

Iran said that the United States would "be hit hard" if Washington did not implement a ceasefire in Gaza, the country's Minister of Defence was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday.

"Our advice to the Americans is to immediately stop the war in Gaza and implement a ceasefire, otherwise they will be hit hard," Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani said.

After a surprise attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, the Israelis have sought to defeat the militant group.

Iran considers the U.S. to be "militarily involved" in the conflict.

— Reuters

The World Health Organization (WHO) operating in Palestinian territory said Sunday that it has documented 102 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas conflict began in early October.

"Since 7 October, WHO has documented 102 attacks on health care in the Gaza Strip," the WHO said on X.

"Attacks have resulted in 504 fatalities, 459 injuries, damage to 39 facilities and affected 31 ambulances. Over half of health attacks and over a half of hospitals damaged were in Gaza City," it added. CNBC was unable to independently verify the figures.

To date, it's estimated that more than 9,200 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas. Israel in an update Sunday said that over 1,400 people had been killed — the majority in the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7.

— Holly Ellyatt

Twenty-one Palestinians from one family were killed in Israeli strikes targeting Gaza overnight, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said on Sunday.

"The victims belong to the family of Abu Hasira when the Israeli shelling targeted their house, full of women and children," the ministry said in a post on its Facebook page.

Reuters could not independently verify the account.

— Reuters

A junior Israeli government minister Amihai Eliyahu who suggested that dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza was an option for Israel has reportedly been suspended following the comments.

Sky News reported Sunday that Eliyahu has now been suspended by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu until further notice. It cited Israel's Army Radio as a source for the report.

— Holly Ellyatt

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to distance himself from comments made by a minister in his coalition government suggesting that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza is an option in the war.

Asked in an interview with Radio Kol Berama whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on the Gaza Strip, Israel's Heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right politician of the Otzma Yehudit party said "this is one of the possibilities," in comments reported by the Times of Israel.

He also reportedly stated that humanitarian aid to the population should be restricted, saying "we wouldn't hand the Nazis humanitarian aid. There is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza."

Eliyahu, who is not part of Netanyahu's war cabinet, backs retaking the Gaza Strip's territory and restoring settlements there, the Times of Israel noted.

When he was asked about the fate of the Palestinian population, he said: "They can go to Ireland or deserts, the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves."

Israel's prime minister sought to distance himself from the comments, stating on X Sunday that "Minister Amihai Eliyahu's statements are not based in reality. Israel and the IDF are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents. We will continue to do so until our victory."

— Holly Ellyatt

Palestinian news agency WAFA said 51 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed and scores wounded in an Israeli bombardment of Gaza's Maghazi camp on Saturday night.

Reuters could not independently verify the WAFA report. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the Hamas-run Health ministry in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, said a large number of people were killed without giving an exact figure, adding scores of people with severe injuries were laying on the ground of a hospital's emergency ward.

Maghazi is located in the Deir al-Balah Governorate in the central Gaza Strip.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and accuses the militants of using residents as human shields.

— Reuters

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Gaza must be part of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state once the Israel-Hamas war is over, and Ankara will not support any plans "gradually erasing Palestinians" from history.

Erdogan made the remarks a day before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to arrive in Ankara for talks on Gaza.

Turkey, which has sharply escalated its criticism of Israel as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has intensified, supports a two-state solution and hosts members of Hamas, which it does not view as a terrorist organization, unlike the United States, Britain and others in the West.

Turkey has called for an immediate ceasefire and offered to set up a system to guarantee it.

"Once all of this that is happening is finished, we want to see Gaza as a peaceful region that is a part of an independent Palestinian state, in line with 1967 borders, with territorial integrity, and with East Jerusalem as its capital," Erdogan was on Saturday cited as saying by broadcaster Haberturk and others.

"We will support formulas that will bring peace and calm to the region. We will not be supportive of plans that will further darken the lives of Palestinians, that will gradually erase them from the scene of history."

Erdogan said his intelligence chief was in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Hamas, but he would no longer regard Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a counterpart. He said Turkey did not want to sever ties with Israel.

— Reuters

Firefighters sprayed jets of water across twisted metal and jumbled concrete as flames roared from homes destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

The escalating bombardment comes as Israel's military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive to crush Hamas.

It wasn't immediately clear how many people were killed or wounded in the strike late Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip. Rescuers shouted to each other as they tried to pull people from the wreckage.

Associated Press video showed a man, barefoot and with blood soaking through his clothes, being carried on a stretcher through the concrete skeleton of a damaged building.

"Careful, careful!" someone called out as they staggered across the rubble. Others used a bed sheet to haul a dead body from the scene. Inside a bouncing ambulance driving away, a rescuer wearing black latex gloves patted the head of a young boy cradled in his lap. A man screamed off-camera.

— Associated Press

President Joe Biden suggested Saturday there have been some advances in U.S. attempts to persuade Israel to pause military strikes on Gaza for humanitarian reasons.

In a brief exchange with reporters as he left St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden was asked if there was progress, and he responded, "Yes," but did not share specifics.

This comes after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Arab counterparts Saturday. He disagreed with them on the need for an immediate cease-fire and made clear the furthest he would go was backing a pause for aid to reach civilians in Gaza. Blinken said a cease-fire would leave Hamas in place.

— Associated Press

The Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, has surrounded the densely populated city of Gaza, a handful of weeks following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.

The ongoing IDF campaign has been shrouded in mystery, here's what we know about its ground assault in Gaza.

Read the full story on NBC News.

— Amanda Macias

Huge crowds of demonstrators gathered around the world on Saturday in pro-Palestinian protests.

In Washington D.C., and New York, tens of thousands of protesters also joined together, some calling on the U.S. government to stop sending military aid to Israel and demanding a ceasefire. And for the fourth weekend in a row, major cities in Europe saw droves of protesters who also called for an end to the war.

London

France

Norway

Romania

Ireland

— Reuters

'No place that is safe in Gaza right now,' UN says; Israeli protestors call on Netanyahu to resign