Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused the Israeli military of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as its devastating siege continues for a 19th day. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools sheltering Palestinians, forcing those inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians fleeing the shattered remains of Beit Lahia report seeing bodies in the streets and Israeli soldiers detaining and beating men. The stench of death is everywhere. This comes as a United Nations report published Tuesday found one year of Israeli attacks on Gaza has set back the territory’s economic development nearly seven decades, plunging three of every four surviving Palestinians into poverty, with Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure leaving behind a “vast wasteland of rubble and twisted steel.” The U.N. warns Palestinians under Israeli siege in northern Gaza “are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.”

Israel is intensifying its attacks on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre — one of the oldest cities in the world — after ordering residents to leave their homes and businesses. More Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight. Israel’s army announced it had killed Hashem Safieddine, presumed to be the next head of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated its former leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in September. On Tuesday, Lebanese Cabinet member Nasser Yassin said Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help over a million people who’ve been displaced by Israel’s assault. He spoke ahead of an international summit on Lebanon taking place in Paris later this week. 

Nasser Yassin: “You know, overnight we’ve seen more than 1 million people being displaced by the attacks, hostilities, by the aggression. And this is similar to an earthquake. You don’t see this number in scale and the speed of it, except in major natural disasters. And this is what happened in 48 hours.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports Israel’s military forcibly entered a clearly marked United Nations base and is suspected of using the incendiary chemical white phosphorus close enough to injure 15 peacekeepers. The use of white phosphorus as a weapon is a war crime under international law.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers fatally shot an 11-year-old Palestinian child during a raid Tuesday in the city of Nablus. Abdullah Hawash was critically injured and later died of his wounds. Over the past year, Israeli forces have killed at least 760 Palestinians in the West Bank, while more than 11,400 have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after wrapping up talks with senior Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. The State Department says Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to revive Gaza ceasefire negotiations and pushed Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Tuesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Tel Aviv hotel where Blinken was meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. They were demanding the U.S. pressure Israel into making a ceasefire deal that would see the release of hostages held by Hamas. Protesters, many of them family members of hostages, held signs reading “No more war; no more bloodshed; free our state; free our hostages.”

Blinken’s 11th trip to the Middle East in just over a year comes as Axios reported the State Department is reviewing U.S. aid to Israeli units accused of killing, torturing and sexually assaulting Palestinians. ProPublica reported in April that a State Department panel had recommended as long ago as last December that multiple Israeli military and police units should be disqualified from receiving U.S. aid under the Leahy Amendment, the 1997 law that requires the United States to cut off financial aid to those credibly accused of human rights violations. Secretary Blinken still has not taken any action.

Al Jazeera is continuing to demand the immediate medical evacuation of two of its journalists in Gaza injured in Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi was paralyzed after he was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while reporting in Jabaliya earlier this month. Israeli authorities have blocked the evacuation of al-Wahidi from Gaza, as well as that of fellow Al Jazeera cameraperson Ali al-Attar, to receive urgently needed medical treatment. Al-Attar suffered serious injuries due to shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah causing a cerebral hemorrhage. In related news, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is leading a group of U.S. lawmakers urging the Biden administration to open an investigation into the October 2023 Israeli attack that killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon. Six others were injured, including reporters for Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera.

Leaders of the BRICS alliance, led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have gathered in the Russian city of Kazan. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is attending the summit. Its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, said over 30 countries have expressed a desire to join BRICS this year.

As the summit opened, U.S. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin accused North Korea of deploying troops to Russia. He’s the first U.S. official to make the claim after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused North Korea of assisting Russia’s occupation of Ukraine. This follows a mutual defense pact signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June.

Former President Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff has warned Trump meets the definition of a fascist. Retired Marine General John Kelly made the remarks in an on-the-record interview with The New York Times.

John Kelly: “Well, looking at the definition of 'fascism,' it’s a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy. So, certainly, in my experience, those are the kind of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”

Kelly said Trump’s recent comments about employing the military against domestic opponents had left him “deeply bothered.” He recounted that Trump said on several occasions, “Hitler did some good things, too.” Separately, The Atlantic reports Trump said during a private meeting at the White House, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” Trump also reportedly referred to 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier Vanessa Guillén, whose 2020 murder at Fort Hood in Texas brought global attention to the epidemic of sexual violence in the U.S. military, as an “f—ing Mexican” — though Trump used the expletive. Trump reportedly ordered his then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows not to pay for Guillén’s funeral.

Kamala Harris’s campaign has said it “regrets” a decision to eject a Muslim American Democrat from a Monday evening rally in metro Detroit, where Harris was joined on stage by Republican former Wyoming Congressmember Liz Cheney. Ahmed Ghanim, a Democratic Party activist and former House candidate for Michigan’s 11th District, says he RSVP’d to the event, cleared security and was seated at the Royal Oak Musical Theater when a staffer ordered him to leave or be put into the back of a police car. Ghanim told The Detroit News he felt targeted because he is Muslim, adding, “I didn’t even have anything like a Palestinian keffiyeh, any signs or a banner, nothing. None of that is allowed inside. I guess that’s how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims.” This comes as a new poll from Arab News finds Arab Americans are slightly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.

Georgia’s Supreme Court has declined to reinstate election rules approved by a partisan, pro-Trump majority on the Georgia State Election Board. Among other things, the new rules would have required ballots to be hand-counted, potentially delaying results and sowing chaos on election night.

Here in New York, a federal judge has ordered former mayor, and former Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani to turn over his luxury Manhattan apartment and other prized possessions to a pair of Georgia election workers whom Giuliani falsely accused of committing election fraud during ballot-counting operations in 2020, leading to a torrent of death threats from Trump supporters. Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss were awarded $146 million last year after Giuliani was found liable for defaming them. Along with his apartment, Giuliani will have to hand over his collection of luxury watches, signed baseball memorabilia and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz previously owned by actor Lauren Bacall.

Here in New York, the trial for a white former U.S. marine who choked Black street performer Jordan Neely to death on a subway train in May 2023 began this week in a Manhattan court. Daniel Penny is facing charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for holding Neely in a chokehold until he died. Neely, a 30-year-old beloved street performer, was unhoused and hungry, and crying out for help when the ex-marine attacked him. Neely was well known to New Yorkers and tourists as a talented Michael Jackson impersonator. 

In Mozambique, more protests have erupted over allegations of fraud in the October 9 presidential and parliamentary elections. European Union poll observers on Tuesday noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level” and urged transparency from Mozambique’s election authorities. Protesters took to the streets of the capital Maputo despite a violent crackdown by Mozambique security forces.

José Cuna: “Our rights to protest as Mozambican citizens gave me the will to go to the streets. What is happening in the country are things which I do not understand. There are killings, kidnappings, and we end up not understanding who is behind it, and automatically Mozambique is not safe anymore.”

The U.N. Biodiversity Conference, known as COP16, has opened in Cali, Colombia, as Indigenous and environmentalist activists demand world leaders enact bolder actions to protect an estimated 1 million plant and animal species threatened by extinction — most of them due to human activity. The conference is taking place as experts warn humanity is “on the precipice” due to worsening biodiversity loss and the catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis. This is Colombia’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad.

Susana Muhamad: “This should be an international priority. Resources for war, trillions of dollars, are immediately handed out. In one week, billions of dollars were given for military weapons and bombs. But we take years to obtain fair financing at the scale we need it when we talk about the most important issue: to defend life. This is what creates inclusive safety for everyone and provides a chance of survival for younger generations.”

Among the demands are the implementation of a $20 billion fund for global biodiversity protection that was approved in 2022, which wealthier nations have failed to contribute to as promised, as well as financial support for Indigenous communities that are on the frontlines of biodiversity protection.