Biden: Israel’s Gaza operation will end when Hamas no longer able to murder Israelis

US President Joe Biden says Israel’s operation in Gaza, following the shock October 7 massacre in southern Israeli communities, “will end when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse, and do horrific things to the Israelis.”

Biden says in a televised press conference following his long-anticipated meeting China’s Xi Jinping that Israel’s military has “an obligation to use as much caution as they can in going after their targets. Hamas said they plan to attack Israelis again and this is terrible dilemma.”

The Biden administration has continued to reject calls for a ceasefire, saying that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas after the October 7 massacre, while pushing for more short-term humanitarian pauses and asserting that it expects Israel to abide by the rules of war while fighting in Gaza.

Biden says Israel is taking risks in operating around al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City but “one thing has been established: Hamad does have headquarters, weapons, materiel, below this hospital, and — I suspect — others.”

The president says US officials have held discussions with the Israelis, urging them to be “incredibly careful” in military moves around hospitals in the Palestinian enclave.

Biden adds he is “mildly hopeful” that there would be a deal to free some 240 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

“I don’t want to get ahead of myself here because I don’t know what’s happened in the last four hours, but we have gotten great cooperation from the Qataris,” he says when asked about progress on freeing hostages taken on October 7, when Hamas-led terrorists also killed 1,200 people, a majority of them civilians.

Qatar has been leading mediation efforts for the release of the hostages.

FBI director says ‘sights on Hamas’ amid multiple terror investigations

FBI director Christopher A. Wray says the agency has opened a number investigations into Palestinian terror group Hamas and persons associated with the organization as worries amount over attacks on US soil.

The FBI, he said during testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security about global threats to the US, “has a large number of tips and leads related specifically to Hamas and radicalization and recruitment. We are urgently running down every tip and lead.”

“We cannot — and do not — discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here, on our own soil,” he said, cited by the New York Times.

Since Hamas’s October 7 shock assault on Israel, Wray said the FBI has seen “a rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations call for attacks against Americans and our allies,” naming Hezbollah, the Islamic State, and Al Qaeda.

“We’ve kept our sights on Hamas and have multiple investigations into individuals affiliated with that foreign terrorist organization,” he added.

Wray said that of particular concern were “homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization, and domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish Americans or other faith communities, like Muslim Americans.”

The FBI director said the “biggest chunk of the threats that have been reported, by a good margin,” have been to the Jewish community.

Wray pointed to the Hamas threat to urge Congress to re-authorize a spy program security officials say is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks.

The tool, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, will expire at the end of December unless the White House and Congress can cut a deal and resolve an unusually vexing debate that has yielded unlikely alliances at the intersection of privacy and national security.

Without the program, administration officials warn, the government won’t be able to collect crucial intelligence overseas. But civil liberties advocates from across the political spectrum say the law as it stands now infringes on the privacy of ordinary Americans, and insist that changes are needed before the program is reauthorized.

“Just imagine if some foreign terrorist organization overseas shifts its intentions and directs an operative here who’d been contingency planning to carry out an attack in our own backyard — and imagine if we’re not able to disrupt the threat because the FBI’s 702 authorities have been so watered down,” Wray told the committee.

The law, enacted in 2008, permits the US intelligence community to collect without a warrant the communications of foreigners overseas suspected of posing a national security threat. Importantly, the government also captures the communications of American citizens and others in the US when they’re in contact with those targeted foreigners.

IDF allows some foreign press into Gaza hospital where weapons found

The IDF appears to have allowed some foreign media reporters into the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where Israeli troops were operating following an operation that uncovered military equipment including weapons.

Among the foreign reporters were Trey Yingst of Fox News who posted three clips from al-Shifa including one that shows the hospital’s MRI room, where weapons were discovered.

Inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital tonight with the Israeli army. A preview of our story coming up next hour on @SpecialReport. More coverage tomorrow on what the Israelis found. Tune in. pic.twitter.com/YXHvtM3zsn

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) November 15, 2023

Yingst said reporters “were shown weapons in the radiology building” but no tunnels just yet.

PREVIEW: Inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital. We were shown weapons in the radiology building. We were not shown any tunnels. The raid is ongoing at this hour. Hundreds of Palestinians are still inside. I questioned the IDF about criticism over the operation. More airs tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/nwcvpHS1tB

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) November 15, 2023

IDF strikes multiple Hezbollah targets in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces says it struck a number of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the past day.

Among the targets were a weapons depot, observation posts, military infrastructure, and launch positions including one from which a guided anti-tank missile was fired at the area around the northern Israeli tow of Shlomi on Wednesday, the IDF says in a statement.

Trudeau escorted from Vancouver eatery as police disperse pro-Palestinian protest

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was escorted to safety as police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest outside a restaurant in Vancouver where he was dining, authorities say.

A crowd of about 250 pro-Palestinian supporters waving flags and chanting for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war surrounded the venue in the city’s Chinatown district on Tuesday evening.

Police say in a statement that 100 officers “assisted in controlling and dispersing the crowd, while the prime minister was escorted out of the restaurant.”

One man was arrested for obstruction while another was held for assaulting an officer who was punched in the face and had her eyes gouged, authorities say.

Vancouver police Sergeant Steve Addison told a news conference that “the actions of the protestors, such as blocking the lane behind the restaurant caused a concern.”

In a video on social media, some protesters are seen inside the restaurant, shouting at Trudeau.

Justin Trudeau chased out of Vancouver restaurant by screaming mob hurling accusations of genocide despite his irrelevance on the world stage and slumping poll numbers at home. pic.twitter.com/k8IIpFeNXs

— Rowan Thee Stallion ???? (@canmericanized) November 15, 2023

Earlier, Trudeau was heckled at another restaurant owned by celebrity chef Vikram Vij in a different part of the Pacific coast city.

Videos shown by local media showed a handful of protestors entering Vij’s restaurant and shouting at the prime minister to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Trudeau said at an event earlier Tuesday that the killing “of women, of children, of babies” in the Israel-Hamas war must stop, sparking a strong rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others.

In Hebrew tweet, Macron says France putting in all efforts to free hostages from Hamas

French President Emmanuel Macron says France is making great efforts to help secure the release of the hostages held by terror group Hamas in Gaza, following its shock October 7 raid on southern Israel in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took some 240 — of all ages — captive.

In separate tweets in French, English, and Hebrew, Macron says France is “putting all our efforts, all our strength, into freeing the hostages held by Hamas and allowing their families to be reunited with their loved ones.”

In Hebrew, the tweet refers to the hostages as “our hostages.”

Among the 239 hostages held by Hamas and other allied factions, about 100 are dual or foreign nationals. At least seven are believed to have dual French-Israeli nationality.