State Department orders departure of nonessential staff from Baghdad embassy
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(WASHINGTON) — The State Department is ordering the departure of all nonessential staff from its embassy in Baghdad due to concern over increased security risks in the region, according to two State Department officials familiar with the matter.
“President Trump is committed to keeping Americans safe, both at home and abroad. In keeping with that commitment, we are constantly assessing the appropriate personnel posture at all our embassies,” one of the officials said. “Based on our latest analysis, we decided to reduce our Mission in Iraq.”
The embassy already has a very limited number of nonessential employees, so the order is not expected to impact many individuals.
Under the current plan, one official said the U.S. military would not be involved in transporting the nonessential personnel out of the country, but that those plans could change if the situation on the ground calls for it.
Another U.S. official said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the Middle East as tensions ratchet up between Israel and Iran.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
Hnat Holyk/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Russia launched no long-range strike drones into Ukraine on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s air force said, marking the first night since December 2024 in which zero such craft targeted the country.
Ukraine’s air force reported two missiles launched into the southern Zaporizhzhia region, both of which were shot down. The air force sent out no drone warnings during the night.
The air force also said that Russia attacked frontline communities in Zaporizhzhia with five guided bombs on Monday evening, killing one person and injuring five others.
The absence of attack drones represented a notable departure from recent weeks, which have seen Russia launch massed drone attacks — often of more than 100 drones in the course of a night — against Ukrainian cities.
“There were no strike UAVs,” Andriy Kovalenko — the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council — wrote on Telegram. “We are monitoring the situation, but this doesn’t mean anything yet.”
Both Kyiv and Moscow have continued to launch massed cross-border drone strikes in recent months, despite U.S. efforts to facilitate a ceasefire and eventual peace deal to end Russia’s 3-year-old invasion of its neighbor.
Last week, all three parties — the U.S., Ukraine and Russia — said they agreed to pause any attacks in the Black Sea and freeze strikes on energy infrastructure. Both Kyiv and Moscow have since accused the other of violating the pause on energy attacks.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its forces downed three Ukrainian drones overnight over the territory of its western Bryansk region. The ministry also alleged that Ukrainian drones targeted energy facilities twice over the previous 24 hours.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha also accused Russia of attacking energy infrastructure, telling journalists Monday that a strike on a facility in the southern Kherson region left 45,000 residents without power.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly cited Russia’s near-nightly bombardments as evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no real interest in the ceasefire and peace being proposed by President Donald Trump and his administration.
In a Sunday evening video address, Zelenskyy reported “more strikes and shelling” in seven Ukrainian regions. “The geography and brutality of Russian strikes, not just occasionally, but literally every day and night, show that Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy,” he said.
“For several weeks now, there has been a U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire,” Zelenskyy added. “And almost every day, in response to this proposal, there are Russian drones, bombs, artillery shelling and ballistic strikes.”
In recent days, Trump hinted at frustration with Moscow, telling reporters he was “very angry” at Putin after the Russian leader again criticized Zelenskyy and called for his removal in favor of a transitional government.
Trump added he would consider applying new sanctions on Russia’s lucrative oil exports and on any nations purchasing its oil. China and India are among the most significant customers for Russian oil products.
The president later told reporters on Air Force One that his administration was making significant progress toward ending the war. Asked about his relationship with Putin, Trump responded, “I don’t think he’s going to go back on his word.”
Asked if there was a deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire, Trump suggested there was a “psychological deadline.”
He added, “If I think they’re tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”
Palestinians conduct search and rescue operations in the rubble of destroyed buildings following an Israeli attack on the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City on the second day of Eid al-Adha in Gaza on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Talking with ABC News for his first-ever interview, the new executive chairman of the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) discussed dozens of people being killed near the aid distribution centers and one of the sites being shut down within 10 days of opening.
Reverend Dr. Johnnie Moore — who has twice been appointed by President Donald Trump as a commissioner on the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom — said the organization “can’t control what happens outside” the distribution points and added that there have been incidents, “as one would expect, in a war, outside of our distribution sites.”
Israel Defense Forces said that its troops opened fire on both Sunday and Tuesday of this week in areas near GHF aid distribution sites in Gaza, stating it has fired shots “towards” people but not at them. The IDF said “suspects” had deviated from specific routes towards the aid hub.
According to Moore, “some” deaths in one of the incidents did “come from the IDF” although he also blamed “some” of the deaths on Hamas.
At least 57 people were killed and nearly 300 injured, health officials said, between Sunday and Tuesday’s shootings, leading GHF to pause its distribution for 24 hours.
When asked if GHF’s aid plan was part of the problem, given that desperate, hungry people had been killed on their way to pick up food, Moore answered, “No, I think that’s a quite cynical point of view.”
“I fundamentally disagree with the premise that our operation is somehow disproportionately imperiling people,” he said.
According to Moore, GHF — since it was set up 10 days ago — had distributed “10 million meals to Gazans, to thousands and thousands and thousands of people.”
The population of Gaza is around 2.2 million.
Addressing the two incidents, Moore said, “Somehow people veered off the secure corridor,” and referred to the deaths as “a tragedy.”
In the wake of such deadly incidents, GHF has since closed its distribution centers. Moore said his organization was “working with others” to make such incidents “less likely to happen” in the future.
“I’m not doing this for anybody to die,” GHF’s executive chairman said.
Moore pushed back on the implication that the new aid plan, which was set up at the behest of Israel to counter the alleged looting of aid by Hamas, had been mismanaged.
Moore confirmed that Gazans arriving at the aid distribution points didn’t need to show any form of ID to get access to aid. When asked by ABC News how he could be sure that Hamas would not profit from aid distributed under his plan, he said there was “no evidence” any of their aid had been seized.
The GHF executive said his organization was “very much solving the problem” and, over time, GHF would “put more energy on verification.”
International aid agencies have refused to participate in GHF’s aid distribution operation, stating that it breaches fundamental humanitarian principles, such as the notion that aid should always be distributed at the point of need.
The GHF operation has been accused by multiple U.N. organizations of forcing people to have to travel long distances through a perilous war zone to reach the distribution points, which are located in tightly restricted areas. The most vulnerable people in Gaza would appear to be the least likely to be able to access the aid.
Moore rejected that premise and said, “over time” he believed they would be able to get aid to the most vulnerable people.
International aid agencies have also accused GHF’s aid distribution operation of being part of Israel’s military strategy, which Moore said was “simply not true.”
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This militarized system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned,” Turk’s statement continued.
Moore said GHF was communicating with the IDF to “manage” the “secure corridors,” but he described GHF as an “American organization” with “American contractors.”
When asked if Israel was funding the organization, at least to some extent, he refused to comment.
“There’s certain things that we’re not gonna talk about or focus on now,” Moore told ABC News.
GHF has been mired in controversy from the beginning, and it lost Executive Director Jake Wood, a U.S. military veteran, who resigned just before the aid plan launched nearly two weeks ago. Wood cited concerns over the group’s impartiality.
In an interview days before his resignation, Wood had suggested on CNN that GHF would only be able to scale up its operation to the necessary level to cater for Gaza’s population if major aid agencies were to join the operation, something they have all refused to do.
As a new executive, Moore said he believed they could scale up the operation to the necessary degree, but said it was not their goal to do it without the cooperation of major aid agencies.
“I mean, they’re the ones who have said that they won’t work with us,” he added. “My message to them [international aid agencies] is like, stop criticizing us, just join us, and we can learn from them if people have better idea.”
As of Thursday, the aid sites were shut down and then briefly re-opened and then closed again at two sites in Rafah, Gaza, GHF said. The GHF says that some sites have been reopened on Saturday but it is currently unclear how much aid is being distributed.
Moore said the ultimate aim was to have significantly more than eight distribution centers and said he thought that “big organizations” would eventually cooperate with GHF.
(GAZA STRIP) — After almost three months of a total aid blockade in Gaza and intensified attacks from Israel, children are suffering the most severe consequences, a local doctor says, from death and injuries to starvation.
A senior Palestinian pediatric doctor described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “unbelievable,” witnessing children dying from hunger and preventable injuries, scenes he said he had studied in textbooks, but never imagined seeing in real life.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Dr. Ahmmed Al-Farra, head of pediatrics and maternity in Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex, said hospitals are collapsing across the region.
No public hospitals are operating in the north of the strip and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, once the largest hospital in southern Gaza, has repeatedly been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
Al-Farra said that many patients have died on the operating table due to a lack of essential equipment and medication. “If a patient in North Gaza has chest pain or is injured, he will lose his life,” said Al-Farra. “All the hospitals there are gone: Shifa, Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian Hospital. Destroyed or inoperable.”
He paints a devastating picture of life in Gaza, over 19 months into the war. “We’re seeing children with marasmus — skin and bone,” he said. “Some are just 40% of their expected weight. Severe malnutrition, no protein, no vitamins.”
Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by protein-energy deficiency, caused by insufficient calorie intake leading to severe fat and muscle loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. While it can occur in anyone with severe malnutrition, it usually occurs in children.
Siwar Ashour, a child in Gaza, was born small, but was a relatively healthy baby six months ago, according to Al-Farra.
But today, she is acutely malnourished and fighting for her life in the Nasser Hospital, the doctor said. The facility has been repeatedly bombed by Israel, including attacks on Monday. Israel Defense Forces officials say they are targeting terrorists hiding there.
Siwar is bound in plastic, according to Al-Farra. The doctor says her weight loss is so severe that she can no longer regulate her own body temperature. And at 6 months old, she weighs just over 7 pounds. That is less than half the weight of an average American baby girl, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“If she does not take the suitable formula of milk, unfortunately, she will not survive,” Al-Farra said.
Nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger, according to a report released by 17 UN agencies and NGOs. Israeli officials have disputed the agency’s figures and say their warnings have been wrong in the past.
Detailing the only option that his colleagues have in hospitals to fight the severe malnutrition in children, Al-Farra said that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, has managed to provide small amounts of emergency baby formula, known as F-75 and F-100, to treat acute malnutrition in babies.
The doctor, however, said children’s conditions often deteriorate again after being discharged from the hospital. “We give the children a bit of formula — F-75, F-100 — from MSF, just in the hospital,” he explained. “They get a little better, and then we have to send them home, because we need the bed for the next child. But outside, there’s no food, no milk, no protein. They come back a week later, worse than before.”
Al-Farra also highlighted the widespread hunger afflicting Palestinians of all ages and all walks of life in Gaza, now 11 weeks into Israel’s ban on humanitarian aid entering the strip. Even as a doctor with a relatively stable income, he said he has gone without fresh meat, chicken and fish for over three months. “I haven’t had any chicken or meat protein in the past three months. … If this is my reality, imagine what it’s like for the people in the streets,” he said.
Following repeated international warnings on the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel allowed five trucks of aid to enter the territory on Monday, according to COGAT, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. A top Israeli official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the aid trucks contained flour, baby food, medical supplies and staples for central kitchens in Gaza.
Israel says they imposed the humanitarian aid blockade on March 2 to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas ended on March 1. The ceasefire fully collapsed on March 18 when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza.
Israel on Sunday agreed to allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza, saying it didn’t want a “starvation crisis.”
Israel allowed 100 aid trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday, UN OCHA Deputy Spokesperson Jens Laerke said. But no aid has been distributed in Gaza yet, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said during his daily briefing from UN Headquarters in New York Tuesday.
The amount of aid was described as “a drop in the ocean” by the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, UNOCHA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the decision to allow in aid came after pressure from U.S. lawmakers.
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist fighters entered Israel and killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. There are still 58 hostages held captive by Hamas, 20 of whom are presumed to be alive. Hamas is believed to be holding the bodies of four Americans.
The war has taken a large toll on Palestinians, with over 53,000 killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. While statistics do not distinguish between military and non-military casualties, women and children make up tens of thousands of this number, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Highlighting the dire situation of the survivors of the war in Gaza, especially children, Al-Farra pleaded for immediate aid coming into the strip. “We’re not asking for miracles. We’re asking for food, for medicine,” he said. “They are not numbers on paper — they are human beings created by God. They have the right to survive.”
ABC News’ Lama Hasan, Samy Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Jordana Miller contributed to this report
