Israel-Hamas war live updates: Thousands break into UN warehouses in Gaza; Israel vows to

Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Sunday stood by his call to ban pro-Palestinian advocacy groups from Florida state colleges, despite criticisms saying the move violated free speech.

On Tuesday, DeSantis called on the Florida university system to shut down at least two chapters of a pro-Palestine student group called Students for Justice in Palestine. He received backlash for the move, including from fellow Republican presidential candidates.

In a social media post on X, formerly Twitter, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who lags DeSantis in the polls, called the action “utter hypocrisy for someone who railed against left-wing cancel culture.”

“This is not cancel culture,” DeSantis fired back in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We also have strong laws in Florida against fundraising for groups like Hamas, and we are enforcing those vigorously. It’s not a First Amendment issue. That’s a material support to terrorism issue.”

When asked whether he had any evidence that the student groups had fundraised for or provided material support to Hamas, DeSantis did not provide any evidence but maintained that he was “justified within the law.”

— Rebecca Picciotto

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post contains graphic content. Discretion is advised

The number of children killed in the blockaded Gaza Strip since the start of the Hamas-Israel earlier this month has exceeded the number of children killed in armed conflict every year globally since 2019, international charity Save the Children said Sunday.

In a statement, the charity cited numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry of at least 3,195 children killed in the war that was sparked following a surprise Hamas attack on Oct. 7. It also mentioned the deaths of 33 children in the occupied West Bank and 29 children killed in Israel.

“The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk,” Save the Children Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory Jason Lee said in a statement. “One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions. A cease-fire is the only way to ensure their safety.”

CNBC could not verify the number of deaths reported.

— Associated Press

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office says he has spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron about the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support into Gaza and maintaining regional security following the expansion of Israel’s military operation against Hamas.

The leaders “agreed to work together on efforts both to get crucial food, fuel, water and medicine to those who need it, and to get foreign nationals out,” Downing Street said in a statement Sunday,

“They expressed their shared concern at the risk of escalation in the wider region, in particular in the West Bank. The Prime Minister and President Macron updated on the conversations they have had with leaders in the region to stress the importance of working to ensure regional stability.”

Sunak and Macron agreed that it was important not to lose sight of the long-term future of the region and, in particular, the need for a two-state solution, the statement said.

“They underscored that Hamas does not represent ordinary Palestinians and that their barbarism should not undermine the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

— Associated Press

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that his country does not want the war between Israel and Hamas to unfurl into other parts of the Middle East.

“We do not want this war to spread out,” Amir-Abdollahian said in a Thursday interview, which aired Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

Since the war began, speculation has swirled over Iran’s potential involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, which the foreign minister said is a “baseless claim.”

His comments come after a speech at the United Nations where he said that if Israel’s bombardment against Palestine continues, then the United States “would not be spared from this fire.”

That speech happened on the same day the U.S. launched strikes against Iranian military sites in Syria in retaliation for Iranian-backed militia attacks against U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq. U.S. officials maintained that those attacks were “separate and distinct” from the Israel-Hamas war.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Palestinian women wash their clothes using seawater due to the lack of fresh water and electricity, along the beach in Deir el-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 29, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

— Mahmud Hams | AFP | Getty Images

United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the Israeli government and its military should do everything in their power to protect the civilians in Gaza who have been caught in the crossfire of the country’s war against Hamas.

“Every hour, every day of this military operation, the IDF, the Israeli government should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between terrorists who are legitimate military targets and civilians who are not,” Sullivan said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He added that President Joe Biden will speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reiterate that point.

Sullivan explained that Hamas’ military strategy involves using civilians as “human shields.” The military group, for example, does not wear uniforms to make it difficult to distinguish fighters from civilians. As a result, when Israel targets Hamas, it also may end up harming civilians. Sullivan noted that by the U.S. count of the death toll, thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

“That creates an added burden for Israel but it does not lessen Israel’s responsibility under international humanitarian law to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, and to protect the lives of innocent people,” Sullivan said.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Pope Francis repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza on Sunday.

“Let’s continue to pray for Ukraine and for the serious situation in Palestine and Israel and for other regions with wars,” Francis said.

“In particular, in Gaza, leave space to guarantee humanitarian aid. And let the hostages be freed immediately. Let no one abandon the possibility to stop the arms. Ceasefire,” he added, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace above St. Peter’s Square.

The pope cited the Rev. Ibrahim Faltas, the vicar of the Holy Land, as joining him in the urgent plea for a cease-fire.

“Stop yourselves, brothers and sisters, war is always defeat. Always! Always!” he concluded.

— Associated Press

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning walked back his comments about the intelligence failures leading up to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

Late Saturday night, he took to social media to deny that he had received any warning about the attack that has now triggered a war between Israel and Hamas. He said that in the days leading up to the war, security advisors had repeatedly assured him that Hamas had been deterred and was not a threat.

That comment came hours after his press conference with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz where he was asked whether he had received any notice prior to the Hamas attack. There has been ongoing speculation as to whether Netanyahu had anticipated the attacks.

That initial Saturday night social media post triggered an onslaught of criticism directed at Netanyahu for pointing fingers at his military chiefs for the intelligence failure of the Oct. 7 attack.

“Netanyahu crossed a red line tonight,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “While IDF soldiers and commanders are fighting valiantly against Hamas and Hezbollah, he is trying to blame them instead of backing them up.”

“The Prime Minister must retract his statement last night,” Gantz said in his own X post.

Hours later, Netanyahu deleted the post and issued an apology.

“I was wrong. Things I said following the press conference should not have been said and I apologize for that,” Netanyahu wrote in a new social media post on Sunday. “I give full backing to all the heads of the security arms.”

— Rebecca Picciotto

The head of self-driving auto technologies firm Mobileye and one of Israel’s leading businessmen, Amnon Shashua, on Sunday urged the immediate ouster of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

Shashua, in a high-profile public rebuke from Israel’s private sector, said Netanyahu’s government was guilty of “failures, dissonance and incompetence” since Hamas gunmen crossed from Gaza in a deadly rampage of southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7.

“We must cut our losses and do it quickly. The only solution to the current situation in Israel is to replace the government, and it needs to happen immediately,” Shashua wrote in an opinion piece in financial daily Calcalist.

Netanyahu caused his own uproar on Sunday by taking a jab at his intelligence chiefs, saying they never warned him Hamas was planning its attack, but later retracted his comments and issued an apology.

Netanyahu’s office, asked by Reuters, declined to comment on Shashua’s editorial.

— Reuters

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated his criticism of Israel in a post on X, suggesting the country’s measures against Gaza could force others to respond.

“Zionist regime’s crimes have crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action,” Raisi wrote in the post. “Washington asks us to not do anything, but they keep giving widespread support to Israel. The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance but received a clear response on the battlefield.”

Iran refuses to acknowledge the state of Israel and is its top adversary. It is also a primary funder of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group whose terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,300 people. Israel says its offensive into Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas and defending its people.

— Natasha Turak

Three Palestinian men were shot and killed overnight by Israeli forces in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry wrote in a post on its Facebook page.

The deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank, which is under Israeli military occupation, to 114 since Oct. 7. Tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and military forces in the territory were already high before the Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,300 people.

Hamas governs the Gaza Strip but not the West Bank, where its secular rival Fatah exercises control and coordinates with Israeli authorities in many areas.

— Natasha Turak

The World Health Organization has restored contact with its team in the Gaza Strip after heavy Israeli bombardment led to a connectivity blackout, its director-general said.

“As with everyone in Gaza, they and their families are not safe. They said the last two nights were extremely tense with a lot of airstrikes — without fuel, water, electricity, connectivity and safe shelter to evacuate to,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.

The WHO director stressed the need to protect health facilities and humanitarian workers and reiterating his calls for a cease-fire. He warned that hospitals in the besieged territory were running out of medical supplies and overwhelmed with patients.

“Because of the siege, Gaza is also running out of insulin and anesthetic,” he wrote in a separate post on X.

— Natasha Turak

Palestinians wait in front of a bakery shop to meet their daily food needs during the 23rd day of Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza on October 29, 2023. 

Forty more aid trucks are expected to enter Gaza on Sunday, a representative from the UN World Food Programme said, as the humanitarian situation on the ground worsens and Israeli bombardment intensifies.

“We hope today we will be able to allow more trucks into Gaza – 40 trucks are expected to be crossing,” WFP Country Director for Palestine Samer Abdeljaber said in an interview with CNN. “However, we have to also note that that’s not enough compared to the soaring needs … at the moment in Gaza, we need more than that.”

“Just for WFP to be able to reach 1 million people, we need 40 trucks a day. If we’re going to be supporting 2 million people, we need 100 trucks of food,” he said.

Abdeljaber said that the trucks will be bringing aid including food, water and medical equipment, but not fuel. He added that the internet and communications blackout as a result of…