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Gazans flee Rafah as Israel pushes its war with Hamas – and the U.S. and others push for an endgame
Tel Aviv — Nearly 360,000 people had fled the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah by Monday, according to the United Nations, in an exodus that tripled in size over just a few days. The Israel Defense Forces sparked the upheaval late last week, issuing evacuation orders by text messages and fliers dropped from the sky to people in the city’s eastern half.
Since then, IDF forces have pushed across the southern part of the Palestinian territory in what the military says are limited and precise attacks targeting Hamas militants and infrastructure.
The U.S. has repeatedly warned Israel against launching a major military ground operation in Rafah, fearing mass casualties. The White House, in tandem with other countries, has also increased pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to form a plan to address the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, and for the so-called “day after,” to figure out who or what will replace Hamas as Gaza’s governing body.
Pressure mounts on Netanyahu
The Biden administration cautioned again over the weekend that Israel needs an exit plan for the war, and that even if Hamas can be defeated, without a viable alternative to govern Gaza, the group long designated by both Israel and the U.S. as a terrorist organization could stage a comeback.
“You’re going to have a vacuum, and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy and, ultimately, by Hamas again,” Blinken told CBS’ “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan on Sunday. He stressed that the U.S. “will not support” an Israeli military operation in Rafah without a “credible plan to protect civilians.”
Very public cracks are now appearing between Israel’s government and its military, meanwhile. Senior military officials have started openly demanding that Netanyahu decide what will replace Hamas to run Gaza — saying if that isn’t determined, Israeli forces could wind up stuck there.
Many Israeli troops’ families have similar concerns. Over the weekend, a letter signed by 600 family members of current IDF soldiers called on Netanyahu’s government to forego a Rafah ground assault, warning that it “could be no less than a death trap.”
“Any reasonable person understands that when they have been announcing and warning for months about entering Rafah, there are those who are working to prepare the ground and harm the forces there,” the families warned in the letter.
The Biden administration has made it clear it will not supply weapons for what it considers an ill-advised full-scale military operation in Rafah, but Netanyahu has refused to back down from his vow to carry out that assault, saying there are several Hamas battalions holed up in the city.
In an overnight phone call, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant gave U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken an update on the war, including on “the precise operation in the Rafah area against remaining Hamas battalions,” according to a statement from Gallant’s office.
Gazans forced to flee again and again
In the southeast corner of Rafah, shattered neighborhoods were eerily quiet on Monday morning — abandoned after Israel’s warnings of an imminent advance.
Hundreds of thousands of people who’d fled to the city on previous Israeli orders have fled once again, this time to the west of Gaza, to the coastal area of al-Mawasi, which Israel has made into a sprawling camp for the displaced.
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It may be out of the line of fire for now, but it is far from a safe refuge as thousands of families are exposed to the elements in tents pitched across a barren stretch of coastline.
Displaced mom who lost 6 of her 7 children “still in shock”
Just to the north, in a makeshift camp in Deir al Balah, Jamila Abu Jebara told CBS News she lost virtually her entire family to an overnight Israeli airstrike exactly seven months ago. Her husband and six of her seven children were killed. Neighbors were only able to pull her and her 10-year-old daughter Dema from the wreckage of their home.
“My 8-year-old son’s body is still under the rubble,” she said. “I’m waiting for a cease-fire to pull him out.”
Beyond that, the now-single mother said she had no plans for the future, “because I am still in shock.”
“As a mother, I need to stay strong for my daughter Dema, so I can take care of her and build her future. She is with me constantly, and I don’t like her to go anywhere without me. She even sleeps with me.”
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“I wish this war would end,” her daughter Dema told CBS News.
Many Israelis have the same wish. On Sunday, as Israel marked its Memorial Day, the country mourned its dead soldiers and the roughly 1,200 victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which sparked the current war.
But as dozens of families push Netanyahu to agree to a deal to bring home the roughly 100 Israelis still believed to be held hostage by Hamas or other groups in Gaza, the prime minister’s remarks at a memorial service were unequivocal.
“We will keep going until victory,” he said, vowing to complete his stated mission to “destroy Hamas.”
At the camp in Deir al Balah, Abu Jebara told CBS News she wished she could have protected her six children from Israel’s attacks.
“I wish I’d died and they had lived,” she said, adding an appeal as Americans marked Mother’s Day:
“My message to any mother: See our lives and see our sorrows. I’m one of countless mothers who have lost.”
CBS News’ Tucker Reals contributed to this report.
Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power, has died. He was 82.
A spokesperson for USA Gymnastics confirmed to CBS News by email that Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife Martha trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
The Karolyis defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy. Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was pushed out after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.
It would not be the last time Karolyi was accused of grandstanding and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.
During the height of the Larry Nassar scandal in the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment — over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
Still, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
LEAH MILLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
