JERUSALEM — Israel's military announced Sunday it has withdrawn its forces from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, wrapping up a key phase in its ground offensive against the Hamas militant group and bringing its troop presence in the territory to one of the lowest levels since the six-month war began.
Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under army policy, said a “significant force” remained in Gaza and would preserve the army's “freedom of action” to continue targeted operations across the territory, including Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold that has been Israel’s main focus for several months.
Still, the withdrawal was a significant milestone as Israel and Hamas marked six months of fighting. The Israeli officials said the 98th paratroopers division would recuperate and prepare for future operations. Israel previously claimed to have dismantled Hamas forces in Khan Younis, the hometown of the group’s leader, Yehya Sinwar.
AP video in Khan Younis on Sunday showed some people returning to a landscape marked by shattered multistory buildings and climbing over debris to explore crumbled, dusty remains.
Israel has vowed a ground offensive on the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah, considered Hamas’ last stronghold, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told his Cabinet that victory means “elimination of Hamas in the entire Gaza Strip, including Rafah.”
But Rafah shelters some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza's population. The prospect of an offensive has raised global alarm, including from Israel's top ally, the U.S., which has demanded to see a credible plan to protect civilians. Allowing people to return to nearby Khan Younis could relieve some pressure on Rafah.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC the U.S. believes that the partial Israeli withdrawal “is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops.”
Israel's military quietly drew down troops in devastated northern Gaza earlier in the war. But it has continued to carry out airstrikes and raids in areas where it says Hamas has resurfaced, including Gaza's largest hospital, Shifa, leaving what the head of the World Health Organization called “an empty shell."
The six-month mark has been met with growing frustration in Israel, where anti-government protests have swelled and anger is mounting over what some see as government inaction to help free about 130 remaining hostages, about a quarter of whom Israel says are dead. Hamas-led militants took about 250 captives when they crossed from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Negotiations in pursuit of a cease-fire in exchange for the hostages’ release were expected to resume in Cairo on Sunday. An Israeli delegation led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency was due to depart for Cairo, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
“Israel is prepared for a deal; Israel is not prepared to surrender," Netanyahu said, and asserted that international pressure on Israel “is only causing Hamas to harden its positions.”
Pressure rose for action now.
“This doesn’t seem a war against terror. This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself," Chef Jose Andres told ABC, days after an Israeli airstrike killed seven of his World Central Kitchen colleagues in Gaza. Aid deliveries on a crucial new sea route to the territory were suspended.
“Humanity has been all but abandoned” in Gaza, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement marking six months of war.
The U.N. and partners now warn of “imminent famine” for more than 1 million people in Gaza as humanitarian workers urge Israel to loosen restrictions on the delivery of aid overland, the only way to meet soaring needs as some Palestinians forage for weeds to eat.
Mothers who have given birth in Gaza since the war began are especially vulnerable.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the bodies of 38 people killed in Israel’s bombardment had been brought to the territory’s remaining functional hospitals in the past 24 hours. It said 33,175 have been killed since the war began. It doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
Israel’s military continued to suffer losses, including in Khan Younis, where the military said four soldiers were killed. Over 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Oct. 7, including 260 in the Gaza ground operation, according to Israel’s government.
Concerns about a wider regional conflict continued as a top Iranian military adviser warned Israel that none of its embassies were safe following last week’s strike in Damascus — blamed on Israel — that killed two elite Iranian generals and flattened an Iranian consular building.
“None of the embassies of the (Israeli) regime are safe anymore,” Gen. Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim agency.
Israel has not directly acknowledged its involvement. Netanyahu said Israel was prepared for any response. “Whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them,” he said.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the energy of positive and negative actions is multiplied during major astronomical events such as a solar eclipse.
According to the late Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, both lunar and solar eclipses are auspicious days for spiritual practice. He has said that the merit — which represents the positive karmic results of good intentions and actions — generated on lunar eclipses is multiplied by 700,000 and on solar eclipses by 100 million. Some of the recommended spiritual activities on these days include chanting mantras and sutras.
Pictured: A tourist with special filters watches a partial eclipse Jan. 15, 2010, as the moon begins to travel across the sun in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Heng Sinith, Associated Press)
Some Christians have believed that an eclipse portends the coming of the “end times” that will precede Christ’s return to Earth as prophesized at various points in the Bible. One such passage is in the second chapter of Acts: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”
There also has been a persisting belief among some Christians that an eclipse occurred during the crucifixion because three of the Bible’s four Gospels mention a three-hour period of darkness as Jesus died.
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining,” says Luke 23:44.
It’s been noted that a three-hour period of darkness doesn’t suggest a solar eclipse, which produces only a few minutes of darkness.
But a recent commentary on ChurchLeaders.com — a website supported by numerous prominent evangelical pastors — said the darkness depicted in the three Gospels “represents a profound spiritual transition.”
“The temporary obscuring of the sun, juxtaposed with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, offers a powerful metaphor for the transient nature of despair and the eternal promise of salvation and rebirth,” the commentary says.
Pictured: A partial solar eclipse is seen behind a cross on the steeple of the St. George church June 21, 2020, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. (Hassan Ammar, Associated Press)
The origin of eclipses in Hinduism is explained in ancient legends known as puranas. In one legend, the devas and asuras, who symbolized good and evil respectively, churned the ocean to receive the nectar of eternal life. As one of the asuras, Svarbhanu, posed as a deva to receive the nectar, the Sun god (Surya) and Moon god (Chandra) alerted Mohini, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who then used a discus to behead Svarbhanu.
But because the asura had already consumed a portion of the nectar, his immortal but detached head and body lived on under the names Rahu and Ketu. Legend has it that Rahu occasionally swallows the sun and the moon because of the gods’ part in his misery, causing solar and lunar eclipses.
Hindus generally regard a solar or lunar eclipse as a bad omen. Some observe fasts before and many do not eat during the period of the eclipse. Observant Hindus ritually bathe to cleanse themselves during the first and final phases of an eclipse. Some also offer prayers to ancestors. Most temples are closed for the duration of the eclipse. Devotees gather for prayers along pilgrimage sites near holy rivers during the onset of an eclipse. The event is considered to be a good time for prayer, meditation and chanting of mantras — all believed to ward off evil.
Pictured: A partial solar eclipse is seen behind the centuries-old Raghunath Hindu temple Oct. 25, 2022, in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. (Mukhtar Khan, Associated Press)
In Islam, a solar eclipse is a time to turn to God and pray. The eclipse prayer is based on narrations of sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad.
Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, said one narration cited the prophet as saying: “The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone. ... Whenever you see these eclipses pray and invoke (Allah).”
The story was that “after the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s son, Ibrahim, his companions tried to comfort him by saying that the sun eclipsed due to the greatness of the loss,” Aslam said. “The Prophet corrected them by reminding them that the sun and moon are signs of God and to not add any superstitions as to why an eclipse happens.”
On April 8, Aslam will lead the “kusuf” prayer on campus. Customarily, there's a brief sermon after the prayer to explain the lessons behind it and dispel any superstitions around it, he added.
“It is a beautiful and meaningful prayer that emphasizes our relationship with God’s creation, making sure to give our devotion to God, instead of incidental occurrences in God’s creation,” Aslam said.
Mahmoud Alhawary, an official with Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy in Cairo, said it’s better for the eclipse prayer to be performed in congregation at the mosque, but that Muslims may also pray individually elsewhere.
The wisdom “is for the individual to seek refuge in God, requesting the lifting of this affliction," Alhawary said. “People should know that the occurrences of the whole universe are in God’s hands.”
Pictured: Pedestrians walk near Sultan Ahmed mosque during a partial solar eclipse Oct. 25, 2022, in Istanbul, Turkey. (Emrah Gurel, Associated Press)
The Talmud — the collection of writings compiled more than 1,500 years ago that constitute Jewish religious law — offers specific blessings for many natural phenomena, but not for eclipses. Instead, it depicts an eclipse as “an ill omen for the world.”
On Chabad.org — a website serving an Orthodox Jewish audience — Chicago-based Rabbi Menachem Posner sought to view the Talmud passage in a modern context, given the consensus that eclipses are natural events that can be predicted centuries in advance.
“Eclipses should be opportunities to increase in prayer and introspection — as opposed to prompting joyous blessings,” Posner wrote. “It is a sign that we really could and should be doing better.”
Writing in early March for the Orthodox Jewish education organization Aish, Rabbi Mordechai Becher noted that Judaism has longstanding interconnections with astronomy. He said there are three craters on the moon named after medieval rabbis with expertise in astronomy.
As for eclipses, Becher — an instructor at Yeshiva University — suggested they were made possible by God for a profound reason.
“He created a system that would remind us regularly that our choices can create darkness, even at times when there should be light,” he wrote. “Our free will choices can create a barrier between us and the Divine light, but can also allow Divine light to be seen here.”
Pictured: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men hold a special solar eclipse prayer Aug. 11, 1999, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. (Eyal Warshavsky, Associated Press)
Awe and dread: How religions have responded to total solar eclipses over the centuries
Throughout history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder. Ahead of the total solar eclipse that will follow a long path over North America on April 8, here's a look at how several of the world's major religions have responded to such eclipses over the centuries and in modern times.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the energy of positive and negative actions is multiplied during major astronomical events such as a solar eclipse.
According to the late Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, both lunar and solar eclipses are auspicious days for spiritual practice. He has said that the merit — which represents the positive karmic results of good intentions and actions — generated on lunar eclipses is multiplied by 700,000 and on solar eclipses by 100 million. Some of the recommended spiritual activities on these days include chanting mantras and sutras.
Pictured: A tourist with special filters watches a partial eclipse Jan. 15, 2010, as the moon begins to travel across the sun in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Heng Sinith, Associated Press)
Some Christians have believed that an eclipse portends the coming of the “end times” that will precede Christ’s return to Earth as prophesized at various points in the Bible. One such passage is in the second chapter of Acts: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”
There also has been a persisting belief among some Christians that an eclipse occurred during the crucifixion because three of the Bible’s four Gospels mention a three-hour period of darkness as Jesus died.
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining,” says Luke 23:44.
It’s been noted that a three-hour period of darkness doesn’t suggest a solar eclipse, which produces only a few minutes of darkness.
But a recent commentary on ChurchLeaders.com — a website supported by numerous prominent evangelical pastors — said the darkness depicted in the three Gospels “represents a profound spiritual transition.”
“The temporary obscuring of the sun, juxtaposed with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, offers a powerful metaphor for the transient nature of despair and the eternal promise of salvation and rebirth,” the commentary says.
Pictured: A partial solar eclipse is seen behind a cross on the steeple of the St. George church June 21, 2020, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. (Hassan Ammar, Associated Press)
The origin of eclipses in Hinduism is explained in ancient legends known as puranas. In one legend, the devas and asuras, who symbolized good and evil respectively, churned the ocean to receive the nectar of eternal life. As one of the asuras, Svarbhanu, posed as a deva to receive the nectar, the Sun god (Surya) and Moon god (Chandra) alerted Mohini, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who then used a discus to behead Svarbhanu.
But because the asura had already consumed a portion of the nectar, his immortal but detached head and body lived on under the names Rahu and Ketu. Legend has it that Rahu occasionally swallows the sun and the moon because of the gods’ part in his misery, causing solar and lunar eclipses.
Hindus generally regard a solar or lunar eclipse as a bad omen. Some observe fasts before and many do not eat during the period of the eclipse. Observant Hindus ritually bathe to cleanse themselves during the first and final phases of an eclipse. Some also offer prayers to ancestors. Most temples are closed for the duration of the eclipse. Devotees gather for prayers along pilgrimage sites near holy rivers during the onset of an eclipse. The event is considered to be a good time for prayer, meditation and chanting of mantras — all believed to ward off evil.
Pictured: A partial solar eclipse is seen behind the centuries-old Raghunath Hindu temple Oct. 25, 2022, in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. (Mukhtar Khan, Associated Press)
In Islam, a solar eclipse is a time to turn to God and pray. The eclipse prayer is based on narrations of sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad.
Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, said one narration cited the prophet as saying: “The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone. ... Whenever you see these eclipses pray and invoke (Allah).”
The story was that “after the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s son, Ibrahim, his companions tried to comfort him by saying that the sun eclipsed due to the greatness of the loss,” Aslam said. “The Prophet corrected them by reminding them that the sun and moon are signs of God and to not add any superstitions as to why an eclipse happens.”
On April 8, Aslam will lead the “kusuf” prayer on campus. Customarily, there's a brief sermon after the prayer to explain the lessons behind it and dispel any superstitions around it, he added.
“It is a beautiful and meaningful prayer that emphasizes our relationship with God’s creation, making sure to give our devotion to God, instead of incidental occurrences in God’s creation,” Aslam said.
Mahmoud Alhawary, an official with Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy in Cairo, said it’s better for the eclipse prayer to be performed in congregation at the mosque, but that Muslims may also pray individually elsewhere.
The wisdom “is for the individual to seek refuge in God, requesting the lifting of this affliction," Alhawary said. “People should know that the occurrences of the whole universe are in God’s hands.”
Pictured: Pedestrians walk near Sultan Ahmed mosque during a partial solar eclipse Oct. 25, 2022, in Istanbul, Turkey. (Emrah Gurel, Associated Press)
The Talmud — the collection of writings compiled more than 1,500 years ago that constitute Jewish religious law — offers specific blessings for many natural phenomena, but not for eclipses. Instead, it depicts an eclipse as “an ill omen for the world.”
On Chabad.org — a website serving an Orthodox Jewish audience — Chicago-based Rabbi Menachem Posner sought to view the Talmud passage in a modern context, given the consensus that eclipses are natural events that can be predicted centuries in advance.
“Eclipses should be opportunities to increase in prayer and introspection — as opposed to prompting joyous blessings,” Posner wrote. “It is a sign that we really could and should be doing better.”
Writing in early March for the Orthodox Jewish education organization Aish, Rabbi Mordechai Becher noted that Judaism has longstanding interconnections with astronomy. He said there are three craters on the moon named after medieval rabbis with expertise in astronomy.
As for eclipses, Becher — an instructor at Yeshiva University — suggested they were made possible by God for a profound reason.
“He created a system that would remind us regularly that our choices can create darkness, even at times when there should be light,” he wrote. “Our free will choices can create a barrier between us and the Divine light, but can also allow Divine light to be seen here.”
Pictured: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men hold a special solar eclipse prayer Aug. 11, 1999, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. (Eyal Warshavsky, Associated Press)
Family and supporters of hostages held in the Gaza Strip scream and hold up their hands, painted red to symbolize blood, to call for the captives' release and to mark six months since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 cross-border attack Sunday in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Avraham Harush, father of Israeli solider Sergeant Reef Harush, mourns over his grave in Ramat David, Israel, Sunday. Harush, 20, was killed during Israel's ground operation in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army has been battling Palestinian militants in the war ignited by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into Israel.