U.S. to increase Middle East military presence

Blinken: U.S. ready if Iran tries to ‘escalate’ crisis

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is already “taking steps to make sure we effectively defend our people” if Iran tries to “escalate” the Israeli war with Hamas.

“We are concerned, in fact we expect, escalation by Iranian proxies against our forces, directed against our personnel,” Blinken said today on “Meet the Press.”

Blinken was referring to Iranian-backed militant groups like Hezbollah, which is based in southern Lebanon and has expressed solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.

Nobody, Blinken said, wants a “second front” of fighting to open up.

“But if that happens, we’re ready for it,” he said.

That is why, Blinken said, the U.S. has sent two aircraft carriers into the region “not to provoke, but to deter.”

‘All my family is gone’: Woman grieves relatives killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM — Falling to her knees in anguish, Muna Habil was inconsolable as her neighbors tried to comfort her.

“I have no one left — all my family is gone,” Habil cried. “They killed them.”

Her mother, her father, her brother and her sister-in-law were killed by a blast at a building in Al Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza at around 6 a.m local time Saturday. Five children, her nieces and nephews, also died.

Read the full story here.

Second aid convoy enters Rafah border crossing

A second convoy of 17 trucks carrying humanitarian aid has entered the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

It comes a day after 20 trucks carrying the first supplies of food, water and medicine entered the besieged enclave since the eruption of war between Israel and Hamas.

Health officials have warned that residents need a steady supply of relief to combat a spiraling crisis.

Netanyahu warns Hezbollah against waging a war on Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group against waging a war on Israel, saying doing so would devastate Lebanon.

Netanyahu told soldiers stationed in northern Israel near the Lebanese border today that it would be a “mistake” for Hezbollah to join the Israel-Hamas conflict. He added that Israel would “cripple” the group if it got involved, according to an official transcript.

Israel drops leaflets warning north Gaza residents their lives are ‘in danger’

The Israeli military has dropped leaflets from the sky warning Gaza residents in the north to evacuate farther south, days after a similar warning prompted hundreds of thousands to evacuate.

“Your presence north of the Gaza Valley puts your life in danger,” the leaflet reads in Arabic.

“To anybody who chose not to evacuate from the northern strip to south of the Gaza Valley, it’s possible they will be considered as a partner to terrorist organization.”

The Israel Defense Forces subsequently told NBC News it “has no intention of considering those who have yet to evacuate as a member of a terrorist group.”

On border with Gaza, Israeli ground invasion appears imminent

Josh Lederman

RE’IM, Israel — Here on the  Israeli border with Gaza we’re continuing to hear the booms of both Israeli airstrikes into Gaza and Hamas rockets into Israel. 

This morning there are new signs that a ground invasion by Israel is imminent as it increases attacks and prepares for the next stage of the war. 

The Israel Defense Forces released a new video of what it said was an infantry brigade practicing the battle plan. Leaflets have also been dropped on northern Gaza urging them to flee south. 

Pictures of killed or missing fill Tel Aviv auditorium

Matthew Nighswander

Pictures of over 1,000 people abducted, missing or killed in the Hamas attack in Israel are displayed today on seats in the Smolarz Auditorium at Tel Aviv University.

U.N. aid chief ‘pessimistic’ more aid will come in today

After the Rafah border crossing with Gaza opened briefly on Saturday, the U.N. aid chief has said he is ‘pessimistic’ more aid will be let in today.

“We had hoped for more today,” Martin Griffiths told Sky News.

He added that the 20 aid trucks that had crossed into Gaza on Saturday was a “very good start, but it’s nowhere near enough to provide for the needs of up to 2 million people.”

Father holds his child’s body in a Gaza morgue

Matthew Nighswander

A father holds his child’s body today next to others killed at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza.

Aerial exchanges near the Israel-Gaza border

RE’IM, Israel — Though the long-awaited ground assault has not yet started, the aerial war is raging in the skies above southern Israel.

NBC News just had to take cover after air raid sirens sounded in Re’im, near the Gaza border.

And artillery dug in near the kibbutz has let off several deafening rounds in the past 10 minutes. All the while the slow drumbeat of bombardment can be heard across the border in Gaza, accompanied by the whine of Israeli drones and the roar of its jets somewhere overhead.

Israel says it killed a senior Hamas commander

The Israeli military has claimed it killed the deputy commander of the Hamas rocket fire force last night, adding it was pounding Hamas targets as the country prepares for the next phase of the war.

“We continue to attack targets with an emphasis on Gaza City and its surroundings, but in the entire Gaza Strip, in preparation for the next phase of the war,” spokesperson Daniel Hagari said, adding there was an emphasis on targeting militant leaders. NBC News has not verified the claim.

He also repeated Israel’s call for residents of the Gaza Strip to move southward. “I call on Gaza residents – there is now Gaza North and Gaza South – in Gaza North we are attacking fiercely,” he said.

Almost half of the population of Gaza has been displaced but the south has also faced relentless bombardments with many residents saying there was nowhere to run.

Gaza skyline lit up orange as artillery pounds enclave

ISRAEL/GAZA BORDER — Overnight the Gaza skyline lit up orange at various points and we heard artillery fired in the direction of the enclave. 

There were air raid sirens in central and southern Israel as rockets were fired in the direction of those areas. 

We expect an Israeli ground offensive to take place in Gaza any day now. They do have everything in position to do so. It’s just a question of when.

Israel says 212 hostages are being held in Gaza

At least 212 hostages are being held in Gaza, Israel’s military spokesperson said this morning, a slight increase on the number announced to the public.

“We will not rest until we can bring them all back home. We keep in touch with their families,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing, adding 307 Israeli soldiers had been killed.

The news follows the release of two American hostages by Hamas.

Continuous aid needed to ‘avoid catastrophe’ in Gaza, says U.N. agency

JERUSALEM — A consistent flow of aid is needed in order to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where food and drinking water has become scarce, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA.

“The situation is terrible, humanitarian supplies are very limited,” the director of the agency, which has been tasked tasked with supporting Palestinian development since 1949, said.

“We need a sustainable supply line of aid to avoid catastrophe in the Strip,” the director added.

Flowers and fear as a kibbutz near Gaza still lies empty

BE’ERI, Israel — The sun was shining on this kibbutz near the Gaza border this morning, the scent of fresh mint and flowers wafting into the streets from gardens where not long ago death had hung heavy in the air and lay heavy in body bags on the ground. But the destruction is still palpable from when Hamas militants swept through Be’eri, with some homes reduced to rubble, while others sit empty.

Survivors of the attack only return briefly and in small numbers to collect some of the possessions they were forced to leave behind. Otherwise, only soldiers remain. Bicycles lay burnt on the ground, while others are still intact but sit abandoned in a bid to escape.

Dozens of people lost their lives here, while others are feared to have been taken hostage by Hamas. It is unclear when residents will be able to return, or if they will even want to.

As the sound of missiles flying into Gaza rings out, IDF Staff Sgt. Ben, who asked that his last name be withheld, said many people want to return eventually, but “a lot of people aren’t ready to come back at all.”

Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian airports

JERUSALEM — Israeli airstrikes put runways out of service at the international airports of Damascus and Aleppo in Syria this morning, according to the Syrian defense ministry.

The “bursts of missiles” were fired from the Mediterranean Sea direction and “led to the martyrdom of a civilian worker at Damascus airport and the wounding of another worker,” it said in a statement. “Material damage to the runways at both airports led to them being out of service,” it added.

NBC News was unable to independently verify the claim. Israel has not commented publicly.

Israel’s military has targeted airports in the government-held parts of Syria in recent weeks an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups it supports, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Evacuating a damaged building in Rafah

Matt Nighswander

Palestinians leave a damaged building in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, this morning amid intense Israeli airstrikes.

Israel evacuates more than a dozen communities near Lebanon

JERUSALEM — Israel announced this morning it was evacuating more residents in the country’s north as tensions and clashes escalate on the border with Lebanon.

“The 14 communities added to the plan are: Snir, Dan, Beit Hillel, She’ar Yashuv, Hagoshrim, Liman, Matzuva, Eylon, Goren, Gornot HaGalil, Even Menachem, Sasa, Tziv’on and Ramot Naftali.u,” read a joint statement by the defense ministry and military.

Many residents had already begun moving south, fearing their towns could become a battleground between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.

Rare West Bank airstrike targets mosque containing ‘terror cell,’ Israeli military says

BE’ERI, Israel — The Israeli military said Sunday that it had launched an aerial strike from a military aircraft on an underground compound at a mosque in the occupied West Bank containing a “terror cell.”

Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operatives “who were organizing an imminent terror attack,” were hit in the rare strike on compound in the city of Jenin, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Securities Authority said in a joint statement.

NBC News could not independently verify this claim.

“Intel was recently received which indicated that the terrorists, that were neutralized, were organizing an imminent terror attack,” the statement said. It added that the mosque was used “as a command center to plan the attacks and as a base for their execution.”

The West Bank has seen a rise in tensions and violence since the Hamas attack, with dozens of Palestinians reported killed in clashes with Israeli troops, attacks by Jewish settlers and frequent arrest raids. Violence had already been soaring before the eruption of war in Gaza.

Gaza rocket flies over kibbutz that was site of Hamas massacre

RE’IM, Israel — At one of the kibbutzes in southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas two weeks ago, NBC News saw a rocket being fired from Gaza.

From a roof terrace in Re’im, where the Supernova music festival was also held, the rocket arced through the hazy morning sky, making a whooshing sound, leaving a trail of smoke and followed by a distant thud. The rocket was destined for another part of Israel, further north, and no alarms sounded here.

This kibbutz is around 3 miles from the border with Gaza. From that direction, the morning has been accompanied by the metronome of muffled booms, as Israel continues to bombard the Strip.

U.S. to increase military presence, readiness in Middle East

The United States is increasing its military presence in the Middle East in order to help defend Israel if necessary, deter Iran and its proxy forces from entering the war, and protect U.S. forces already in the region, the Pentagon announced today.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed the strengthening of the nation’s defense posture in the region after consulting with President Joe Biden, he said in a nighttime statement.

The new show of force includes moving the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group to the Central Command area, where it will be able to supplement the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which is in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Austin said.

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and additional Patriot battalions are also being deployed to the region, he said. Additional forces are being placed on “prepare to deploy” status “to increase their readiness and ability to quickly respond as required,” the secretary of defense said.

How NBC News verifies videos from the Israel-Hamas war

NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team is helping fight the fog of war, working to get an accurate, confirmed set of facts about the situation in Israel and Gaza.

Here’s how journalists are using tech tools and old-fashioned reporting to get to the truth about viral videos and images.  

In critical swing state, some Muslim Americans warn they won’t back Biden again

As Biden declared unwavering support for Israel in the days after Hamas’ terrorist attack in Israel, Ahmad Ramadan, a former Biden adviser now leading coalition efforts for the Michigan Democratic Party, called the state party chair to raise the alarm about what he was hearing.

Michigan has one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the country, and they say their support for Biden was instrumental to putting him over the top in the critical swing state in 2020. But now, Ramadan and other Democratic leaders in the state were hearing nothing but frustration with Biden — and threats to not vote for him again.

In a series of more than a dozen roundtable discussions with Muslim community leaders in the two weeks since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Ramadan said the main takeaway is that “people are very disappointed.” They say they “will not forget what President Biden did and why he lied to them,” he added.

“Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab American and Muslim American voter in Michigan,” said state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat whose district includes Dearborn, which is home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American communities in the country. 

Read the full story here.

Catch up with NBC News’ coverage of the Israel-Gaza war