CBS News
U.N. official says he saw Israeli troops kill 2 Palestinians fishing off Gaza coast
Two men fishing in the waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip were killed Wednesday by Israeli troops firing at them with automatic weapons, James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF, told CBS News.
Elder said he was in a truck attempting to deliver food and medical supplies for 10,000 children in northern Gaza when his team was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint. From his position, he said he could see about 10 men fishing with a single net in knee-deep water.
“I was standing outside the vehicle and suddenly saw a tank coming and then firing, and saw those two men seek to run from their fishing spot and then hit the sand,” Elder said.
Elder said he heard the sound of an automatic weapon coming from near the tank before the men fell. He said his group eventually made contact with the military and that some of the fishermen who fled the shooting were able to return to the beach to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed.
“I don’t know if they were brothers or friends. I just saw those people carrying their dead friends or relatives, obviously in tears,” Elder told CBS News.
Asked if the men in the water had shown any signs of hostility toward Israeli forces, he told CBS News: “They were fishermen. They were fishing.”
When asked about the incident, which Elder first reported in an Instagram post, the Israel Defense Forces asked for an exact location and said it was looking into the claim.
Elder said he and his team were prevented from delivering their aid shipment and forced to turn back that day.
“We spent about eight or nine hours at military checkpoints. In the end, our truck, despite all the approvals, was denied access and returned … Yes, we will try again. Obviously, we’ll try again. But this is consistent with the denials that we and many other agencies have experienced,” Elder said.
Israel has previously said that it allows hundreds of trucks carrying aid to enter Gaza daily, and the Israeli government has blamed the U.N. for failing to distribute it.
Elder, who has visited the Gaza Strip repeatedly since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, told CBS News the violence he’s witnessed over the past several days has increased to levels he saw shortly after the conflict was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“It felt again like Day 1 of the war,” he said. “Walking in this hospital, absolutely heaving with people, children, little, you know, 3-year-olds, 7-year-olds with these grotesque wounds of war, head injuries, and the burns … And children are on the floor. They’re on makeshift stretchers. They’re on beds. There’s just not the capacity. Gaza has seen the systematic devastation of its health care system, so at a time when children are so woefully, wildly under attack from the skies, but also from malnutrition on the ground, we’ve never needed more health care and we’ve never had less.”
CBS News’ Chris Livesay and Erin Lyall contributed to this report.
CBS News
Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.
A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego.
According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.
CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge.
Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.
Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.
The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
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A teacher and student killed in a shooting earlier this week at a school in Madison, Wisconsin, were identified Wednesday by authorities.
The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a news release provided to CBS News that 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara were fatally shot Monday morning at Abundant Life Christian School.
Preliminary examinations determined the two died of “homicidal firearm related trauma.” Both were pronounced dead at the scene, the medical examiner said.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
The medical examiner also confirmed that a preliminary autopsy found that the suspected shooter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow — a student at the same school — was pronounced dead at a local hospital Monday of “firearm related trauma.” Madison Chief of Police Shon F. Barnes had previously told reporters that Rupnow was pronounced dead while being transported to a hospital.
Police had also previously stated that she was believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The shooting at the private Christian K-12 school was reported just before 11 a.m. Monday. In addition to the two people killed and the shooter, six others were wounded.
Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
A handgun was recovered after the shooting, Barnes said, but it was unclear where the gun came from or how many shots were fired. A law enforcement source said the weapon used in the shooting appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
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