The United Nations warns a “tragedy of colossal proportions” is underway in the Gaza Strip, one month after Israel laid siege to the Palestinian territory and began a round-the-clock bombardment. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres renewed his urgent call for an immediate ceasefire, citing the more than 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israel strikes. Over 4,000 of the dead are children.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day.”

Earlier today, the Israeli military ordered the immediate evacuation of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City. Israel already shelled the hospital two days ago and is threatening to bomb the building. After headlines, we’ll speak with the president and founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, who established the Gaza Strip’s only pediatric cancer center at the hospital.

On Monday, Israel’s military admitted it struck a convoy of ambulances outside Al-Shifa Hospital last week. Those attacks killed 15 people and wounded dozens. This is Haneed Abdelhakim Saad, a patient who narrowly survived the assault.

Haneed Abdelhakim Saad: “The ambulance came to take us to Egypt for treatment. While we were on the road, they started firing at us, and the ambulance in front of us was hit. The people in front of us were martyred, and we were moved back to Al-Shifa Hospital. … I lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital. They told me that I had debris in my mouth and that I had a 3% chance to make it, that my condition was very critical. I have a fracture in the head. My shoulder is dislocated.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday Israel would take responsibility for security in the Gaza Strip indefinitely, once its military operations in the besieged Palestinian territory are complete. Netanyahu also rejected international calls for a ceasefire to allow the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Well, there will be no ceasefire, general ceasefire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages. As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there, we’ve had them before. I suppose we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods, to come in, or hostages, individual hostages, to leave. But I don’t think there’s going to be a general ceasefire.”

On Sunday, Netanyahu suspended Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu after he claimed there are no noncombatants in the Gaza Strip and said that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is “an option.” This comes just days after an Israeli lawmaker from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party took to social media to incite genocide. Writing on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, Galit Distel Atbaryan wrote, “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters rush to the southern border and flee into Egypt, or die.”

South Africa has recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations, joining a growing list of nations that have withdrawn diplomatic personnel in protest of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said Monday South Africa is extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians in the Palestinian territories.

Naledi Pandor: “We believe the nature of response by Israel has become one of collective punishment, which falls fully outside of the practice of international humanitarian and international human rights law.”

Over the weekend, the governments of Chad and Honduras also recalled diplomats and embassy staff from Israel. And at the Vatican, Pope Francis on Sunday renewed his urgent plea for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid for Gaza.

In Washington state, hundreds of protesters peacefully blockaded the entrance to the Port of Tacoma Monday, delaying the loading of weapons onto a U.S. military supply vessel bound for Israel. It’s the same ship that met a similar protest Friday in the Port of Oakland. Organizers say they’ll continue to track the ship’s travel and will hold more protests wherever it sails. Here in New York, about 500 members of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies rallied at the Statue of Liberty Monday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters wore black T-shirts reading “Not in Our Name.” In a statement, Jay Saper of Jewish Voice for Peace said, “The famous words of our Jewish ancestor Emma Lazarus etched into this very monument compel us to take action supporting the Palestinians of Gaza yearning to breathe free.”

Aid agencies are sounding the alarm over the plight of Afghan refugees who’ve been forced to sleep in the open without proper food, shelter, sanitation and water after fleeing Pakistan to avoid arrest and deportation. An estimated 270,000 people have crossed the border after Pakistan’s government gave undocumented immigrants until the end of October to leave. Authorities have since gone door to door demanding immigration documents and have used bulldozers to raze homes in Afghan communities. Human Rights Watch warns the crackdown has led to detentions, beatings and extortion. This is 50-year-old Afghan immigrant Abdul Raheem.

Abdul Raheem: “These people are being very cruel to us. If they had given us four to five months more, we could have spent the winter here in comfort. Then, God willing, we would have gone back to our country.”

Ukraine’s government says Russian airstrikes on the Black Sea city of Odesa have wounded eight people, destroying stocks of food and damaging Ukraine’s main grain port. The strikes also damaged several exhibitions at the Odesa Fine Arts Museum. On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out conducting elections in 2024, saying they should remain suspended while Ukraine is under martial law.

President Volodymyr Zelensky: “We all understand that now, in wartime, when there are many challenges, it is absolutely irresponsible to engage in topics related to an election in such a frivolous manner. … I believe that elections are not appropriate at this time.”

Meanwhile, NBC News reports U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to Ukraine’s government about possible peace negotiations with Russia to end the war — and what Ukraine might need to give up in order to reach a deal.

Here in the United States, Donald Trump took the witness stand Monday in a civil fraud case brought by the state of New York against the former president and his businesses. Trump was repeatedly admonished by Judge Arthur Engoron for testimony that veered off topic and for lashing out against the court and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom he called a “political hack.” James is seeking $250 million after accusing Trump, his two oldest sons, the Trump Organization and company executives of inflating the value of assets. The judge has already ruled Trump is liable for fraud; the trial will determine how much the Trumps will pay in damages. We’ll have more on the Trump civil trial in New York later in the broadcast.

In Colorado, another police officer has been acquitted in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain. McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, wept as the jury declared Aurora officer Nathan Woodyard not guilty of homicide and manslaughter. McClain, a 23-year-old Black young man, was walking home from the store when he was tackled by police, placed in a carotid hold and injected with the powerful sedative ketamine. Woodyard was the officer who put McClain in a neck hold. Just one of the three officers involved in McClain’s killing is facing prison time after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide in October. A second officer was also acquitted last month.

In Atlanta, dozens of activists have been arraigned on RICO charges for their involvement in protests against the construction of a massive $90 million police training complex known as Cop City. At least 57 of 61 protesters charged appeared in court Monday as hundreds of other Stop Cop City organizers rallied outside in support. Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Christopher Carr issued the sweeping indictment over two months ago using the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to target the protesters. Many of them had already been charged with domestic terrorism. The ACLU and other rights groups have condemned the charges as an attempt to silence the Stop Cop City movement.

In Illinois, the father of the suspect behind the mass shooting at last year’s July Fourth parade in Highland Park has pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct. The charges carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison. Prosecutors said during the trial that Robert Crimo Jr. knew that his 19-year-old son had a history of threatening deadly violence, yet sponsored his son’s application for a permit to purchase an assault rifle. The July Fourth attack killed seven people and left 48 others wounded.

Voters across the United States are heading to the polls today for statewide and local elections. In Ohio, voters will weigh in on a measure that seeks to establish the right to an abortion in the state constitution. Ohioans will also vote on legalizing recreational marijuana.

In Virginia, where the entire Legislature is on the ballot, Democrats are vying to retain their narrow control of the Senate and flip the House of Delegates to stop Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin from enacting his right-wing agenda on abortion, education, taxes and other issues.

Maine has a ballot initiative that could lead to the creation of the U.S.’s first statewide publicly owned electric utility company. Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi all have gubernatorial races.