As negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire continue in Cairo, Israeli forces killed three sons and four grandchildren of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in central Gaza on Wednesday. Haniyeh spoke to Al Jazeera shortly after the attack.

Ismail Haniyeh: “They believe that if they kill or assassinate leaders or their next of kin, that we will abandon our people, that we will abandon our resistance. They are mistaken. This noble blood that is spilled, including my own children, will harden our resolve, make us more defiant, more adamant to continue to march on this road, the road of struggle and resistance, until we win our freedom and the lawful rights of the Palestinian peoples are restored.”

Ismail Haniyeh’s family members were killed as they were reportedly traveling to a gathering to mark the end of Ramadan. Across Gaza, Israel’s six-month-long assault has cast a dark shadow on the holiday of Eid.

Iman Al-Dah: “We haven’t become accustomed to this life, and we won’t get used to it. We’re just trying to. This Eid has come without any new clothes for the young ones, no money given to children and no joy. Those who have lost people, lost homes, what Eid is this? This is the Eid of destruction, not the Eid of joy.”

In other news from Gaza, a UNICEF aid convoy was hit by Israeli gunfire today as it attempted to deliver lifesaving supplies to children in northern Gaza. UNICEF said three rounds of gunfire hit the convoy. Israeli forces then refused to allow the aid convoy to head north even though the UNICEF trip had been authorized. In related news, World Central Kitchen has revealed one of its aid workers was gravely injured last week in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque. The attack occurred just minutes before an Israeli drone repeatedly struck a World Central Kitchen convoy, killing seven aid workers, in an attack that sparked worldwide condemnation.

In other news from Gaza, a top U.S. official has acknowledged a majority, if not all, Palestinians are facing starvation in Gaza. David Satterfield, the U.S. humanitarian envoy in the Middle East, made the remark during an online forum hosted by the American Jewish Committee.

David Satterfield: “There is an imminent risk of starvation for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza. This is not a point in debate. It is an established fact, which the United States, its experts, the international community, its experts, assess and believe is real.”

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East is heading to Israel today amid growing fears Iran may soon launch an attack in retaliation to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian Consulate in Damascus last week. On Wednesday, President Biden said the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad.

In Arizona, Republican lawmakers have blocked efforts by Democrats to repeal an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions in the state. The moves came a day after Arizona’s Supreme Court revived the 160-year-old law, which was approved before Arizona was a state and before women could even vote. The court issued its decision a day after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said abortion should be decided by the states. On Wednesday, Trump criticized the Arizona ruling, saying the ban goes too far. We will go to Arizona later in the broadcast.

President Biden is hosting a trilateral summit today at the White House with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as the U.S. moves to expand its military presence around the South China Sea. Earlier today, protesters gathered in Manila to denounce the expanding U.S. presence in the Philippines.

Luke Espíritu: “We are being used as pawns by the Americans. They are bringing their military here through the nine Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement bases, which they are planning to increase to 22. They are concentrating their machinery here, their bombs, aircraft, all focused on China. What does this mean? They will bring danger to the Philippines and make us a target.”

In other news from the region, the U.S. has announced plans to expand a Navy base in Papua New Guinea, where China has also attempted to increase its footprint.

In other news from Asia, South Korea’s conservative prime minister and other top presidential aides offered to resign after the ruling People Power Party suffered a major defeat in parliamentary elections.

Russia is continuing to attack critical parts of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure by bombing a large electricity plant near Kyiv and several other power facilities. Following the strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated his call for Western nations to provide Ukraine with more air defense.

More than 110,000 people in Kazakhstan and Russia have been forced to flee their homes as the region faces its worst flooding in decades. Officials warn the flooding may worsen as the Ural River continues to rise from fast-melting snow and ice due to rising temperatures.

In other climate news, scientists have revealed new heat records have been set in the ocean every day for the past year. March 2024 broke records for both air temperature and ocean surface temperatures.

Ecuador’s former Vice President Jorge Glas has begun a hunger strike to protest his recent arrest on corruption charges. He was detained on Friday when Ecuadorian security forces raided Mexico’s Embassy in Quito, where he had been living since December. The Organization of American States and other international bodies have condemned the raid. Glas has denied the charges against him.

The Environmental Protection Agency has for the first time placed limits on six types of PFAS chemicals in drinking water. The so-called forever chemicals have been linked to cancer, infertility and thyroid problems. The EPA has also issued new rules aimed at reducing toxic emissions from more than 200 chemical plants. Many of the plants are located in low-income and communities of color in Texas and an area of Louisiana known as Cancer Alley.

President Biden said Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Today marks five years since Assange was locked up in London’s Belmarsh Prison facing extradition to the United States for publishing classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes. Earlier today, Reporters Without Borders repeated its call for Assange to be immediately released.

The former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, has been sentenced to five months in prison for lying under oath during Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial. Meanwhile, another appellate judge has rejected Trump’s latest attempt to delay the start of his criminal hush money trial, which begins on Monday.

Independent presidential candidate Cornel West has tapped Melina Abdullah to be his running mate. Abdullah is a professor and a longtime organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement. West called her “one of the great freedom fighters of her generation.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a staffer after she publicly said Kennedy is running as an independent presidential candidate in part to help Donald Trump win in November. Rita Palma, who served as Kennedy’s New York state director, was recently filmed describing how President Biden could fail to reach the needed 270 electoral votes if Kennedy managed to win in a state like New York.

Rita Palma: “The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, the enemy — our mutual enemy is Biden. Give those 28 electoral votes to Bobby rather than to Biden, thereby reducing Biden’s 270. And we all know how that works, right? Two seventy wins the election? If you don’t get to 270, if nobody gets to 270, then Congress picks the president. So, who are they going to pick? Who are they going to pick, if it’s a Republican Congress? They’ll pick Trump. So we’re rid of Biden either way.”

Police at Rutgers University have launched an investigation after an Islamic center at the school was vandalized on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Vandals smashed windows, broke TVs, damaged artwork and destroyed a Palestinian flag.

A Palestinian American law student at the University of California, Berkeley has accused a professor of assaulting her during a backyard dinner held at the home of the school’s dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and his wife, the law professor Catherine Fisk. A video of the incident shows Fisk grabbing a microphone away from the student, Malak Afaneh, as she attempted to speak out against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Malak Afaneh: “Where millions of Muslims around the world fast, not only from Israel’s sustenance” —

Catherine Fisk: “Leave. This is not your house.”

Malak Afaneh: “Fast not only from Israel’s sustenance.”

Dinner guest: “Why are you touching her?”

Catherine Fisk: “This is my house, and I want you to leave.”

Malak Afaneh: “Fast” —

Dinner guest: “Stop touching her.”

Malak Afaneh: “We have attorneys.”

Dinner guest: “Stop touching her.”

Malak Afaneh: “We get attorneys.”

Catherine Fisk: “Get her to leave my house.”

Dinner guest: “OK. You don’t have to get aggressive.”

Malak Afaneh: “Excuse me. Please don’t touch me.”

Catherine Fisk: “I’m not being aggressive. I’ve asked you to leave.”

Erwin Chemerinsky: “Please leave our house!”

Malak Afaneh: “Please don’t touch me.”

Erwin Chemerinsky: “You are guests at our house!”

Dinner guest: “That’s fine.”

Malak Afaneh: “This is our First Amendment right.”

Catherine Fisk: “Then leave.”

Malak Afaneh: “This is our First Amendment” —

Erwin Chemerinsky: “No!”

Malak Afaneh: “It is.”

Erwin Chemerinsky: “This is my house. The First Amendment doesn’t apply.”

Malak Afaneh: “The National Lawyers Guild…”

The University of Cologne has rescinded a job offer to the Jewish American philosopher Nancy Fraser because she had signed a letter against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Fraser, who teaches at The New School, said, “I was canceled in the name of German responsibility for the Holocaust. This responsibility should also apply to Jewish people. But in Germany it is narrowed down to the state policy of the currently ruling Israeli government. Philosemitic McCarthyism sums it up quite well. A way to silence people under the pretext of supposedly supporting Jews.”