2 Navy pilots shot down over Red Sea in ‘friendly fire’ incident: Military
The USS Gettysburg on June 29, 2010. Via Chris Jackson/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Two U.S. Navy pilots ejected safely over the Red Sea after their F/A-18 fighter aircraft was mistakenly shot down early Sunday in what military officials are calling “an apparent case of friendly fire.”
One of the pilots has minor injuries, according to a news release from U.S. Central Command.
The guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the aircraft, that was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman, according to the news release.
The military said a full investigation is underway.
The U.S. Navy has been patrolling the region for over a year to combat ongoing attacks on commercial ships from the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Several hours earlier, the military said U.S forces conducted precision airstrikes against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility used by the Houthis and shot down multiple uncrewed aerial vehicles and an anti-ship cruise missile.
That operation involved the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy and included F/A-18 aircraft.
Gali Mir-Tibon speaks with ABC News’ chief national correspondent Matt Gutman. ABC News
(TEL AVIV, Israel) — For Israeli husband-and-wife Noam Tibon and Gali Mir-Tibon, Oct. 7, 2023, began like any other day.
They went for an early-morning swim off the Tel Aviv coast on that Saturday morning. They heard sirens but continued to swim — it was safer in the water. When they got back to their car, they checked their phones and saw a text from their son, Amir, that there was a terrorist inside their kibbutz, Nahal Oz, in southern Israel.
“I served 35 years in the military,” Tibon, a retired Israel Defense Forces major general, told ABC News. When he pinged IDF generals about the situation, he said they responded: “We are aware and are on the way.” That phrase “on the way” surprised Noam, because Israel’s vaunted military should already have been there. “Something in my heart told me, ‘Noam, you have to go there.'”
They raced southward, speeding through red lights, Mir-Tibon recounted. She was driving, he was riding in the passenger seat, holding his pistol and frantically making calls.
“We are almost the only vehicle on the road,” the novelist told ABC News. “We get another text message [that] says, there are terrorists in our neighborhood, the new neighborhood of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. So it’s getting worse.”
Along the way, they said they saw a police car blocking the road shooting at a white pickup that Mir-Tibon said they would later learn was a Toyota with Hamas terrorists.
They stopped the car while bullets flew ahead of them debating what to do, Tibon said.
“Suddenly, a young couple jump from the bushes wearing party clothes, which is unusual in this situation,” Tibon said.
They were barefoot and asked for help, Mir-Tibon said.
“They get inside and they are very, very afraid,” she said.
When they asked what happened, Tibon said the couple responded, shaking, “We were in the party. Many terrorists came. They slaughtered everybody.”
The couple had fled the Nova music festival, the site of one of the worst civilian casualty incidents in Israel’s history.
At least 260 people were killed by Hamas militants at the music festival, held in the Negev desert in southern Israel, during the terrorist group’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Overall, militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages — about 100 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israeli officials. It was the deadliest single day for the Jews since the Holocaust.
In the year since, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
As the full scope of the attack that day was still unknown to them, Tibon said they turned around and drove away with the couple.
“You don’t leave anyone behind you, it’s not a hard decision,” Tibon said.
They were able to drop the couple off with police before continuing on toward the kibbutz, Tibon recalled. Along the way, they continued to hear shots being fired and see dead bodies.
“It’s all the way burning cars, bodies, bodies, bodies,” Tibon said.
When they came upon a group of Israeli soldiers, Tibon begged them to take him to his son’s kibbutz.
“The commander hesitates,” he said. “And then one brave guy by the name of Avi … he said, ‘I’m going to help you.'”
Mir-Tibon stayed behind in a shelter while Tibon left with the soldier to find his son and his family. They joined Israeli paratroopers as they got to the gate of Kibbut Nahal Oz, he said.
“We are under very, very heavy fire by the terrorists,” he recalled. “I was fighting for my life.” He said he killed a squad of terrorists, and then tended to three Israeli paratroopers who’d been wounded, two of them severely. He was just yards from the gate of his son’s kibbutz. He turned around and drove the wounded men back to his wife, who then drove back out of the hellscape with the men bleeding out in her car. Eventually, she found a pair of ambulances. The men all survived, the couple recounted.
Tibon returned through the gunfire again towards his son’s kibbutz. Meeting another group of soldiers at the gate. He said he then spent several hours searching homes in the kibbutz — ensuring everyone else was safe — before arriving at his son’s house, about 10 hours after the initial attack. He said he found the door locked, which gave him “hope.”
“From all the houses that I search, if the door was locked, inside there is live people. If the door is open, blood and no people, or blood and bodies,” he said.
Tibon said he banged on the window and yelled for his son, calling out, “It’s Dad!”
He first heard his 3-year-old granddaughter say, “Grandpa here,” he recalled.
Noam’s son Amir, his wife and their children were all rescued.
“This was a very emotional moment,” Tibon said. “I felt I fulfilled my mission. But I have to rescue them and I have to rescue the whole kibbutz, they are not alone.”
Tibon said he helped to evacuate more than 400 people out of the kibbutz.
Mir-Tibon had feared the worst at points while waiting to find out if her family survived.
“There were moments I think, if they’re not alive, I don’t think there is any point to my life,” Mir-Tibon said. “We are the lucky ones.”
(SEOUL) — As South Korea’s Constitutional Court began the process of reviewing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, the leader of his party, who had supported his impeachment, announced his resignation.
Han Dong Hoon, the leader of Yoon’s People Power Party, resigned Monday morning. He had wavered in his support for Yoon, the embattled president who declared a short-lived martial law earlier this month, but, in the end, announced that the party would support impeaching Yoon last week ahead of the vote this weekend.
Han faced strong backlash from his own party for openly supporting impeachment without consulting senior members of the party enough ahead of his announcement last week. The impeachment bill passed Saturday.
Han said he does “not regret supporting the impeachment,” because the emergency martial law was the wrong decision to make.
Yoon, impeached Saturday and stripped of his presidential powers and duties, briefly declared martial law on Dec. 3.
“Defending illegal martial law is a betrayal of the country, the people, the conservative spirit, and the achievements of our party that achieved industrialization and democratization,” Han said Monday.
The constitutional court has up to six months to decide whether to reinstate or formally oust Yoon. Until then, Yoon’s main constitutional powers have been transferred to Prime Minister Han Duck Soo.
(WASHINGTON) — National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that President Joe Biden is looking to make as much progress as possible on foreign policy before he leaves office next month.
In an interview with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Sullivan said that Biden is hoping to surge aid to Ukraine and move forward with ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas with his time left in office. Both conflicts have dogged the administration, with Ukraine struggling to retake territory it lost to Russia and little progress in Gaza despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We are going to do everything in our power for these 50 days to get Ukraine all the tools we possibly can to strengthen their position on the battlefield so that they’ll be stronger at the negotiating table. And President Biden directed me to oversee a massive surge in the military equipment that we are delivering to Ukraine so that we have spent every dollar that Congress has appropriated to us by the time that President Biden leaves office,” Sullivan said.
When pressed on clinching a deal in Gaza and possibly broader diplomatic breakthroughs between Israel and Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Sullivan said, “The first step is getting the ceasefire and hostage deal. If we can get that into effect, then the possibilities for a broader diplomatic initiative in the region along the lines that you just described really open up, and we will use every day we have in office to try to generate as much progress towards that end as possible.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
