FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Six-time National Football League champion Bill Belichick agreed to part ways as the coach of the New England Patriots, ending his 24-year tenure as the architect of the most decorated dynasty of the league’s Super Bowl era.

Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft announced the move to the media Thursday at Gillette Stadium. They didn’t take questions, though Kraft scheduled an availability for later in the day.

Belichick, 71, is just the third coach in NFL history to reach 300 career regular-season victories earlier this season, joining Hall of Famers Don Shula and George Halas. With 333 wins including the playoffs, Belichick trails only Shula (347) for the record for victories by a coach.

But the Patriots ended this season 4-13, Belichick’s worst record in 29 seasons as an NFL head coach. It supplanted the 5-11 mark he managed in his last year in Cleveland in 1995 and again in his first year in New England in 2000. Including the playoffs, he ends his Patriots tenure with a 333-178 overall record.

With his cutoff hoodies and ever-present scowl, Belichick teamed with quarterback Tom Brady to lead the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories, nine AFC titles and 17 division championships in 19 years. During a less successful — but also tumultuous — stint with the original Cleveland Browns, Belichick earned 37 of his career victories.

It’s not immediately clear who Kraft will tap to replace the future Hall of Famer.

Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo won a Super Bowl ring playing under Belichick and has interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies since becoming a New England assistant in 2019. Mayo turned down a few interviews last offseason before signing a contract extension to remain with the Patriots.

Mike Vrabel, who was fired earlier this week by the Tennessee Titans and won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, is also expected to be a candidate for the head coaching job.

Belichick had been grooming offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to replace him before McDaniels left following the 2021 season to become the coach of the Raiders. He has since been fired by Las Vegas. Belichick’s two sons, Steve and Brian, are also on the coaching staff.

Belichick’s exit from the Patriots comes just a day after another legendary coach and his longtime friend Nick Saban announced he’d retire after winning seven college national championships. Saban worked for Belichick’s father, Steve, in the 1980s as a coach at Navy, and Bill Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator when he became Cleveland’s head coach in 1991.

The six Super Bowl wins tie Belichick with pre-merger mentors Halas and Curly Lambeau for the most NFL championships. Belichick also won two rings as Bill Parcells’ defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.

But the Patriots have stumbled to a 29-38 record since Brady departed following the 2019 season and missed the playoffs in three of those four seasons. Beginning in 2001 when Brady became the starting quarterback, the Patriots missed the playoffs only once (2008) when Brady was injured. This marked New England’s fifth consecutive season without a playoff victory.

Belichick’s subsequent solutions at quarterback haven’t panned out.

Brady’s initial replacement, Cam Newton, didn’t resemble the player who won the 2015 MVP award and was cut after a 7-9 finish in 2020. Meanwhile Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that same season.

Potential long-term replacement Mac Jones, a 2021 first-round draft choice, was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and led New England to the playoffs. But he regressed in Year 2 when Belichick put longtime defensive assistant Matt Patricia in charge of the offense. Jones didn’t fare much better this season when Bill O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator. He was benched four times before being replaced as starter by backup Bailey Zappe for the final six games.

That left the Patriots looking at a lengthy rebuild, with no candidate on the roster to bring stability to the sport’s most important position.

Belichick, who also served as the de facto general manager with final say on personnel decisions, was celebrated for his ingenuity managing the salary cap during the run of Super Bowl success. It included getting stars like Brady and others to accept cap-friendly contracts or adjust their deals to accommodate the signing of other players.

But that acclaim has waned in the years since Brady left, as a run of draft picks and high-priced free agents didn’t live up to expectations. In addition, Belichick has seen several members of his personnel and scouting departments leave for other jobs. The list includes his former player personnel director, Nick Caserio, who was hired as Houston’s general manager in 2021.

Now it won’t be Belichick making the decisions for the Patriots on or off the field.

The only child of a World War II veteran who spent three decades as a Navy assistant coach, Belichick is a football historian with an encyclopedic knowledge of strategy from the sport’s early days to current NFL trends. His players said his attention to detail never left them unprepared.

Belichick has been a master of the NFL rule book, unearthing loopholes in clock operations and offensive line formations that — though entirely legal — cemented his reputation as a mad genius.

But his legacy in New England also includes two major cheating investigations — and other, minor ones — that cost him and the team draft picks and more than $1 million in fines. Opponents accused the Patriots of everything from hacking their headsets to cutting corners on injury reports.

His friendship with former President Donald Trump, which Belichick insisted was not political, landed the coach on the list to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the waning days of the administration. After the outcry against the U.S. Capitol siege, Belichick announced “the decision has been made not to move forward.”
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Washington — House Republicans held their first impeachment hearing Wednesday against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of what they called the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a 20-minute opening statement, Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, shared what he said was evidence that supports impeaching a Cabinet secretary.

“Secretary Mayorkas has brazenly refused to enforce the laws passed by Congress that knowingly made our country less safe,” he said.

Republicans blame Mayorkas for the high numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and said the Republican Party has undertaken a yearlong investigation into the secretary’s work.

During the hearing, Green said Mayorkas’ failure to adhere to the law provides ample justification for initiating impeachment proceedings. The lawmaker said the framers of the constitution did not envision impeachment solely for criminal acts but also for individuals displaying significant incompetence, jeopardizing fellow Americans, breaching public trust, or neglecting their duties.

“What we are seeing here is a willful violation of his oath of office by Secretary Mayorkas,” Green said.

Democrats dismissed the impeachment efforts.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans want to “throw political red meat to their base,” adding that Republicans have “absolutely no basis” to impeach Mayorkas.

“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies — that’s not what impeachment is for,” he said.

US-Mexico border

Meanwhile, Mayorkas has carried on with his duties. On Monday, he visited the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, to see Southwest border enforcement efforts.

His visit came after federal border officials reported a record 11,000 apprehensions a day at the southern border in December alone. These encounters dropped sharply with the beginning of the new year.

“It coincided with the time when Mexican enforcement was no longer implemented. The immigration enforcement agency in Mexico was not funded, which prompted President [Joe] Biden to reconnect with [Mexican] President [Andres Manual Lopez] Obrador …” Mayorkas told reporters.

The high numbers of migrants encountered at the southern border is one of the Republicans’ arguments to impeach the DHS secretary.

In year 2023, about 2.5 million migrants were encountered by border patrol officers. Out of those, 564,380 were expelled under Title 42, a public health code that expired on May 11, 2023. It was used during the pandemic and allowed U.S. immigration officials to quickly expel migrants to their country of origin or Mexican border towns and denied them a chance at asylum.

But it did not ban them from trying again, and migrants were counted multiple times under Title 42.

According to DHS, the department repatriated about 469,000 migrants in fiscal 2023, while about 909,450 more were processed by border patrol officials and received a document to present themselves at an Immigration Customs Enforcement office. Some of those were paroled into the U.S. and allowed to stay temporarily or paroled into the alternative to detention program. And 311,343 more migrants were transferred to an ICE detention facility.

Since the end of Title 42, everyone is again processed under Title 8, the federal code of laws dealing with immigration. Those arriving at the border without documents or trying to enter between ports of entry can be removed without their case being decided by an immigration court through a process known as expedited removal, and they are banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.

While in Texas, Mayorkas said that migrants encountered at the border who do not have a legal basis to stay in the U.S. will be removed.

Next steps

Impeaching the Homeland Security secretary would be a rare occurrence. In U.S. history, only one Cabinet official, Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, has been impeached.

The committee is expected to host more hearings as part of the impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas. Once concluded, the panel is expected to conduct a markup on articles of impeachment that will culminate in a committee vote, setting the stage for the articles to be subsequently forwarded to the full House for consideration.

Mayorkas, however, is not expected to be removed by the Senate.
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NEW YORK — Senator Bob Menendez on Wednesday sought dismissal of charges, including bribery, as his lawyers told a judge that New York federal prosecutors are making claims that are “outrageously false” and “distort reality.”

The New Jersey Democrat and his wife pleaded not guilty after they were charged last fall with accepting bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for help from the senator that would benefit three New Jersey businessmen, who were also arrested and pleaded not guilty.

The indictment has since been updated with charges alleging that Menendez used his political influence to secretly advance Egypt’s interests and that he acted favorably to Qatar’s government to aid a businessman.

“The Senator stands behind all of his official actions and decisions, and will be proud to defend them at trial,” the lawyers wrote.

A trial is scheduled for May 5. Menendez is free on $100,000 bail.

Menendez’s lawyers said in court papers that their client’s conduct was “constitutionally immune,” and none of it could serve as the basis for criminal charges.

“The government’s accusations in this case — that he sold his office and even sold out his nation — are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality,” the lawyers wrote.

They said the government is free to prosecute members of Congress for agreeing to exchange legislative action for personal benefits, as long as it doesn’t attack the integrity of the legislative acts themselves.

“But here, the Indictment does not try to walk that line; it flouts it entirely,” the lawyers said.

They said prosecutors were wrong to charge Menendez in connection with his decision to contact local state prosecutors to advocate on behalf of New Jersey constituents or to use his decision to invite constituents to meetings with foreign dignitaries as evidence against him.

“And the government goes so far as to impugn the Senator for introducing constituents to investors abroad. None of this is illegal, or even improper,” the lawyers wrote.

The indictment claims Menendez directly interfered in criminal investigations, including by pushing to install a federal prosecutor in New Jersey he believed could be influenced in a criminal case against a businessman and associate of the senator. Prosecutors also alleged that Menendez tried to use his position of power to meddle in a separate criminal investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.

Menendez’s lawyers said the novel charge that Menendez conspired with his wife and a businessman to act as an agent of the Egyptian government “fundamentally disrupts the separation of powers.”

Menendez, 70, was forced to step down from his powerful post leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was charged in September. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes over the past five years from the New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.

In October, he was charged with conspiring to act as an agent of the Egyptian government. As a member of Congress, Menendez is prohibited from acting as an agent for a foreign government.

His lawyers said in their Manhattan federal court filing Wednesday that the charge empowers the executive and judicial branches of government to second-guess the way the senator chooses to engage with foreign representatives as he carries out his duties.

As an example, the lawyers said that a future president might decide to prosecute legislative enemies as agents of Ukraine for supporting aid during its war with Russia or as agents of China for resisting a proposed ban of TikTok, or as agents of Israel for supporting military aid to fight Hamas.

“The Court should not permit this novel and dangerous encroachment on legislative independence,” the lawyers said.

They said there was “overwhelming, indisputable evidence” that Menendez was independent from any foreign official.

“As the government knows from its own investigation, far from doing Egypt’s bidding during the life of the alleged conspiracy, the Senator repeatedly held up military aid and took Egypt to task, challenging its government’s record for imprisoning political dissidents, running roughshod over the press, and other human rights abuses,” they said.

The lawyers said that their arguments Wednesday were just the start of legal challenges to be filed in the next week, including claims that the indictment was filed in the wrong courthouse and unjustly groups separate schemes into single conspiracy counts.

A spokesperson for prosecutors declined to comment.
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CONCORD, New Hampshire — A major storm drenched the Northeast and slammed it with fierce winds, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands following a bout of violent weather that struck most of the U.S. 

The storm, which started Tuesday night and was moving out Wednesday, washed out roads and took down trees and power lines. Wind gusts reached 72 kph to 88 kph and more windy weather was expected throughout Wednesday. 

It followed a day of tornadoes and deadly accidents in the South and blizzards in the Midwest and Northwest. In some parts of the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies, more than about 75 centimeters of snow fell. 

Here’s how various areas are being affected by the storms: 

New Jersey

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm. Many streets and roads were flooded, and rivers were rising after some areas got up to 7.6 centimeters of rain since Tuesday night. The rain fell on ground saturated by another storm a few weeks ago. Another storm is forecast for the weekend. 

Lou DeFazio, 65, of Manville, New Jersey, lives steps away from the Millstone River that flooded disastrously in 2021 after the remnants of Ida slammed into the state and swerved riverbanks. 

“It’s getting worse and worse,” he said, as the river swelled Wednesday. 

Murphy said 56,000 homes were without power and several hundred accidents and highway assists were reported, but no storm deaths. He said people often ignore flood warnings, to their peril. 

“And we saw in the storm Ida, people pay with their lives by driving their cars into a street they shouldn’t have, or staying in their home when they shouldn’t have,” Murphy said in an interview with CBS New York. 

New York

In Nassau County, video showed cars sloshing through water that had collected on the streets of Freeport. Further east, near the Hamptons, the National Weather Service reported major flooding out of Shinnecock Bay. Several schools across Long Island were either canceling or delaying classes as a result of the storm. 

New York City officials evacuated nearly 2,000 migrants housed at a sprawling tent complex before the storm hit amid fears that the facility could collapse in heavy winds. 

Photos showed the migrant families sleeping on the floor of a Brooklyn high school, whose students were forced to go remote on Wednesday as a result of the brief relocation. The migrants returned to the tent facility at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday after the winds had subsided, officials said. 

Pennsylvania 

A couple of Pennsylvania communities got more than 10 centimeters of rain and others received nearly that amount. Emergency responders rescued some drivers from stranded vehicles as roads flooded in low-lying areas, and downed trees and wires cut power to thousands of customers. 

Forecasters said several rivers in eastern Pennsylvania saw at least moderate flooding. Another storm bringing as much as 3.8 centimeters of rain Friday night through Saturday would exacerbate flooding and bring very strong winds, officials said. 

New England

A dam breach in Bozrah, Connecticut, prompted mandatory evacuation orders Wednesday for several areas along the Yantic River, Norwich officials said. A power company shut down a substation along the river leaving about 5,000 homes and businesses without power. 

The storm canceled events and government functions in Maine, where some areas were still recovering from a snowstorm over the weekend and flooding the previous month. 

Winds gusted to 153 kph at Maine’s Isle au Haut, an island in Penobscot Bay, said Jon Palmer from the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. At the state’s largest airport, high winds pushed an empty passenger aircraft into a jet bridge, Portland Jetport officials said Wednesday. No one was hurt. 

At parking lot near Widgery Wharf on the Portland’s waterfront, lobster fishermen attempted to turn back some of the flooding using pumps. 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills encouraged residents to stay off the roads amid flash flood warnings. 

“Please be sure to give plow trucks, utility crews, and emergency first responders plenty of space as they work to keep us safe,” she said. 

In Vermont, the storm brought wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour and heaving wet snow, followed by rain, leaving nearly 30,000 homes without power Wednesday morning. Many schools were closed or had delayed openings. 

Midwest 

Slushy highways led to fatal collisions in Wisconsin and another in Michigan. 

The storm, which began Monday, buried cities across the Midwest in snow, stranding people on highways. Some areas saw up to 30 centimeters of snow on Monday, including Kansas, eastern Nebraska and South Dakota, western Iowa, and southwestern Minnesota. 

Madison, Wisconsin, was under a winter storm warning until early Wednesday, with as much as 23 centimeters of snow and 64 kph winds on tap. 

The weather has already affected campaigning for Iowa’s January 15 precinct caucuses, where the snow is expected to be followed by frigid temperatures that could drift below minus 18 Celsius. 

Forecasters warned snow-struck regions of the Midwest and the Great Plains that temperatures could plunge dangerously low because of wind chill, dipping to around minus 29 Celsius and even far lower in Chicago, Kansas City and some areas of Montana. 

South 

Several deaths have been blamed on storms that struck the area with heavy rain, tornado reports, hail and wind. Survey teams were heading out Wednesday in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina to determine whether tornados struck, National Weather Service officials said. 

An 81-year-old woman in Alabama was killed when her mobile home was tossed from its foundation by a suspected tornado. A man died south of Atlanta when a tree fell on his car. Another person died in North Carolina after a suspected tornado struck a mobile home park. 

Roofs were blown off homes, furniture, fences and debris were strewn about during the height of the storm in the South. 

Many areas of Florida remained under flood watches, warnings and advisories early Wednesday amid concerns that streams and rivers were topping their banks. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who gave his State of the State address Tuesday as tornado warnings were active outside the Capitol, issued an executive order to include 49 counties in North Florida under a state of emergency. 

Rescuers in Virginia pulled two people from flood waters, where they were clinging to branches after their vehicle flooded and they were then swept from its roof, according to the Albemarle County Fire Rescue. They weren’t injured but were in the water for at least 10 minutes, according to spokesperson Abbey Stumpf. 

West

Storms in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains dumped snow, including 74 centimeters reported at Stevens Pass in Washington state and 76 centimeters outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to the National Weather Service. 

Authorities issued warnings for very dangerous avalanche conditions in mountainous areas of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Washington and Oregon. Backcountry travelers were advised to stay off steep slopes and away from the bottom of steep slopes. 

In areas of northern Montana, temperatures could drop below minus 30 degrees (minus 34 Celsius) by Saturday morning. High temperatures were expected to remain below freezing as far south as Oklahoma. 
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Washington — Hunter Biden made a surprise visit to a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday as Republicans were taking the first step toward holding President Joe Biden’s son in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena in a bitterly contested standoff.

The arrival of president’s son at the Oversight Committee, sitting in the audience with his legal team, including attorney Abbe Lowell, sent the panel that is working to impeach President Biden into a political frenzy.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace insisted that Hunter Biden be quickly arrested. GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called him a coward as he left during her remarks. Democratic lawmakers argued that Biden, who has refused to testify to the panel behind closed doors, should be allowed to speak publicly.

Hunter Biden has defended his lack of compliance with the GOP-issued subpoena, which ordered him to appear for closed-door testimony in mid-December. Biden and his attorneys said information from private interviews can be selectively leaked and manipulated by House Republicans and insisted that he would only testify in public.

On Wednesday, Committee Chairman James Comer struggled to regain control. “Mr. Biden doesn’t make the rules, we make the rules,” he said.

The House Oversight and Judiciary committees will each vote on contempt resolutions that seem likely to result in the U.S. House recommending criminal charges as Republicans move into the final stages of their impeachment inquiry into the president himself.

It’s the latest step for the inquiry, which began in September, but has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in wrongdoing involving his son’s business dealings.

If the committees approve the contempt resolutions as expected, they will go to the full House for consideration. And if the House votes to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, it will be up to the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute.

The contempt referral would be yet another headache for federal prosecutors already under heavy scrutiny for their handling of charges against Hunter Biden related to his taxes and gun use.

Shelving the contempt of Congress charges would likely further stoke conservative criticism that the Justice Department is politicized — especially given that two one-time advisers to former President Donald Trump were prosecuted for contempt of Congress by the Biden administration. But prosecuting contempt cases can be difficult.

“It’s clear the Republican chairmen aren’t interested in getting the facts or they would allow Hunter to testify publicly,” Hunter Biden’s attorney, Lowell, said in a statement Friday. “Instead, House Republicans continue to play politics by seeking an unprecedented contempt motion against someone who has from the first request offered to answer all their proper questions.”

He added, “What are they afraid of?”

Further angering Republicans, Hunter Biden did come to the Capitol on the day specified by the subpoena — but not to testify. Instead, he stood behind microphones outside the U.S. Capitol complex — a couple hundred feet away from the awaiting GOP investigators — and delivered a rare public statement defending his business affairs and castigating the yearslong investigations into him and his family.

“There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen,” the president’s son said in those remarks.

He added, “There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing — they have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life — so much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.

After delivering the statement to the media, Hunter Biden left the Capitol grounds.

The contempt resolution, released by Republicans on Monday, reads, “Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions.”

While Republicans say their inquiry is ultimately focused on the president, they have taken particular interest in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, questioning whether the president profited from that work.

Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation on whistleblower allegations that there has been political interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden.

The committees’ votes Wednesday on contempt of Congress come a day before Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his first court appearance on tax charges filed by a special counsel in Los Angeles. He is facing three felony and six misdemeanor counts, including filing a false return, tax evasion, failure to file and failure to pay.

His lawyer has accused David Weiss, the special counsel overseeing the yearslong case, of “bowing to Republican pressure” by bringing the charges.
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New York — Donald Trump won’t make his own closing argument in his New York civil business fraud trial after his lawyers objected to the judge’s insistence that the former president would stick to “relevant” matters.

Judge Arthur Engoron rescinded permission on Wednesday, a day ahead of closing arguments in the trial.

The trial could cost Trump hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and strip him of his ability to do business in New York. His lawyers had signaled Thursday that he planned to take the extraordinary step of delivering a summation personally, in addition to arguments from his legal team.

Trump is a defendant in the case, brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She claims his net worth was inflated by billions of dollars on financial statements that helped him secure business loans and insurance.

The former president and current Republican 2024 front-runner denies any wrongdoing, and he has lambasted the case as a “hoax” and a political attack on him. James and the judge are Democrats.

It’s extremely unusual for people who have lawyers to give their own closing arguments. In an email exchange that happened over recent days and was filed in court Wednesday, Engoron initially approved the unusual request, saying he was “including to let everyone have his or her say.”

But he said Trump would have to limit his remarks to the boundaries that cover attorneys’ closing arguments: “commentary on the relevant, material facts that are in evidence, and application of the relevant law to those facts.”

He would not be allowed to introduce new evidence, “comment on irrelevant matters” or “deliver a campaign speech” — or impugn the judge, his staff, the attorney general, her lawyers or the court system, the judge wrote.

Trump attorney Christopher Kise responded that those limitations were unfair and said Trump could not agree to them.
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 State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed administrative reforms with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting Wednesday in the West Bank, along with efforts to boost humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that Blinken “reaffirmed that the United States supports tangible steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”

Blinken also called for Israel to transfer all Palestinian tax revenue it collects to the Palestinian authority in accordance with existing agreements.

The Palestinian Authority governs part of the West Bank, while the Hamas militant group has controlled the Gaza Strip where Israel is fighting to eradicate the group.

The United States has envisioned a postwar roadmap that puts Gaza under a Palestinian-led governance with no role for Hamas.

But some analysts are skeptical and play down the prospect.

“I don’t see how the Palestinian Authority will go back into Gaza and assume any kind of meaningful control over what is left of Gaza. They’re having a very hard time maintaining control, even in the West Bank,” Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told VOA Tuesday.

Blinken has stressed the potential for Israel to win acceptance from Arab neighbors by seeking a path toward establishing a Palestinian state as a means to resolve the longstanding conflict.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected the two-state solution.

Blinken said Tuesday that displaced Palestinians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow, and Israel has agreed to allow a United Nations mission to evaluate the situation in war-ravaged northern Gaza.

“As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the U.N. to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north,” Blinken told reporters during a Tuesday news conference in Tel Aviv.

The top diplomat also urged Israeli leaders to prevent further harm to Palestinian civilians.

“The daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high,” he said.

International Court of Justice hearings

Later this week, the International Court of Justice will conduct hearings on a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and seeking an emergency suspension of its military campaign.

The United States believes the case is meritless and that it distracts from Israel’s efforts to fight threats from Hamas militants and other Iran proxies, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, according to Blinken.

“We want this war to end as soon as possible,” he said. “But it’s vital that Israel achieves its very legitimate objectives of ensuring that October 7 can never happened again.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has rejected the genocide charge filed at the International Court of Justice, calling the accusation “atrocious and preposterous.”

Hostages held in Gaza

On Tuesday, Blinken held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Herzog, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and other senior officials from Israel’s war Cabinet in Tel Aviv.

“The Secretary and Prime Minister discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages and the importance of increasing the level of humanitarian assistance reaching civilians in Gaza,” according to a statement from the State Department.

“In this regard, the Secretary welcomed the appointment of Sigrid Kaag as the UN’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, pledging close cooperation with her in this new capacity,” the statement added.

Blinken also met on Tuesday with the families of some of the hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza. And he relayed to Israeli leaders some of what he heard from other leaders in the region during stops in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Gaza health officials say more than 23,000 Palestinians, a large percentage of them women and children, have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Escalation in no one’s interest

After an Israeli airstrike killed a key Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday — the latest sign of a possibly widening conflict in the Middle East — Blinken told reporters it is clearly not in the interest of Israel, Lebanon or Hezbollah to see an escalation outside Gaza.

Hezbollah has identified the commander as Wissam al-Tawil. Last week, senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut. Hamas and Hezbollah are both U.S. designated terrorist organizations, and both are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.

The United States has urged Israel to shift to smaller-scale military operations in Gaza but has continued to support Israel in refusing Arab demands for a cease-fire in the three-month war. Israel has vowed to continue the war until it believes the threat of future Hamas attacks has been eradicated and the militant group no longer controls Gaza, a narrow strip of territory along the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel began its military campaign to wipe out Hamas after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7. Israel said about 1,200 people were killed and about 240 captives taken in the terror attack.

Cindy Saine contributed to this report. Some materialcame from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
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