Joe Biden on Tuesday declared support for Israel, calling the assault by Hamas militants that left nearly 1,000 people dead an “act of sheer evil” and confirming that some US citizens are part of the many currently being held hostage. The US president spoke as Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip, part of a retaliation Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, said would be so crushing that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations”. Biden said the US was committed to supporting its ally and was “surging” additional military assistance to replenish its Iron Dome rocket interceptor system. The US Congress, presently plunged into chaos without a House speaker, may also be asked to take “urgent action” on the matter, Biden said. Biden is a staunch ally of Israel, stretching back to his first visit to the country as a young US senator in 1973. In his remarks on Tuesday, Biden recalled that visit, 50 years ago, recounting a lengthy conversation he had with then Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, in the weeks leading up to the Yom Kippur war. He said Meir, sensing his concern for the fate of Israel, sought to assure him. “Don’t worry, Senator Biden, we have a secret weapon,” she whispered, according to Biden. “We have no place else to go.” In Washington, the attack has largely drawn a similar response from lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, with condemnations of Hamas and expressions of solidarity with Israel. Israeli airlines add more flights to bring home reservists Reuters: Israeli airlines El Al, Israir and Arkia added more flights on Tuesday to bring home reservists, according to their websites and Israel’s airports authority, though the prospect of more conflict also stoked sector worries about staff shortages. Israel said on Monday it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists. While many major airlines have cancelled flights to and from Israel, domestic carriers have looked to ramp up capacity, at least in coming days. Many Israelis were travelling abroad the last week for a Jewish holiday. On its website, Israir Airlines said it was offering flights from Larnaca in Cyprus, Corfu in Greece and Batumi in Georgia to help bring Israelis back to the country. Arkia was offering flights from Greek capital Athens to Eilat in southern Israel and from Marrakesh in Morocco to Tel Aviv, among others. Flag carrier El Al added a flight from Athens on Tuesday. El Al added that, while it wasn’t offering free flights for reservists, it was trying to keep prices affordable. Reservists were being charged $900 for flying from the United States, $650 from Bangkok, and $300 from Europe for flights under four hours, a spokesperson said. On Tuesday, a large part of Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood was reduced to rubble after hours of airstrikes the night before. Residents found buildings torn in half or demolished to mounds of concrete and rebar, the Associated Press reports: Cars were flattened and trees burned out on residential streets transformed into moonscapes. Palestinian Civil Defense forces pulled Abdullah Musleh out of his basement together with 30 others after their apartment building was flattened. “I sell toys, not missiles,’’ the 46-year-old said, weeping. “I want to leave Gaza. Why do I have to stay here? I lost my home and my job.” The Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets in Rimal, an upscale district home to ministries of the Hamas-run government, universities, media organizations and the aid agency offices. In a new tactic, Israel is warning civilians to evacuate neighborhood after neighborhood, and then inflicting devastation, in what could be a prelude to a ground offensive. On Tuesday, the military told residents of the nearby al-Daraj neighborhood to evacuate. New explosions soon rocked it and other areas, continuing into the night. In all, dozens of fighter jets hit more than 70 targets in the area, according to Israeli military officials, who said Hamas had directed attacks against Israel from the neighborhood. One blast hit Gaza City’s seaport, setting fishing boats aflame. “There is no safe place in Gaza right now. You see decent people being killed every day,” Gaza journalist Hasan Jabar said after three Palestinian journalists were killed in the Rimal bombardment. “I am genuinely afraid for my life.” Canada planning evacuation flights for citizens stranded in Israel Canada is planning to operate evacuation flights for Canadians stranded in Israel after major airlines canceled flights in the wake of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ unprecedented weekend attack, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Tuesday. Some 35,000 Canadian citizens live in Israel and nearly 90,000 Canadians travel to the country every year, according to the Canadian foreign ministry. About 1,000 Canadians in Israel are looking to leave after Hamas’ assault on Saturday, according to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. At least two Canadians have been confirmed dead in the attack - 22-year-old Ben Mizrachi and 33-year-old Alexandre Look, according to Canadian officials. Canada will send military aircraft to Tel Aviv “in the coming days” for citizens and permanent residents as well as their spouses and children, Joly said in a statement. “We are planning to begin the assisted departure of Canadians from Tel Aviv ... We are also working on additional options for those who cannot reach the airport in Tel Aviv,” Joly said on X, formerly Twitter. While many major airlines have canceled flights to and from Israel, domestic carriers have looked to ramp up capacity, at least in the coming days. Despite Israel announcing a ‘total blockade’ of Gaza in Monday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that his understanding was that “the concept of siege is not something that in fact is going to be pursued by the Israeli government,” adding that Washington was speaking with the Israeli government “about their actions in this regard.” Sullivan also said US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday discussed “the difference between going full bore against Hamas terrorists and how we distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians.” Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan on Sunday accused Hamas of war crimes and said it was time to “obliterate Hamas terror infrastructure,” as the 15-member UN Security Council met behind closed-doors on the conflict. Palestinian envoy to UN describes Israel"s bombardment of Gaza Strip as "genocidal" The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday described Israel‘s bombardment of the Gaza Strip and vow to impose a complete siege on the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave as “nothing less than genocidal.” Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing on Monday a “total blockade” to stop food and fuel reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people. Gallant said Israel was battling “beastly people.” Israel has razed entire districts in Gaza as it prepares for a possible ground offensive. “Such blatant dehumanization and attempts to bomb a people into submission, to use starvation as a method of warfare, and to eradicate their national existence are nothing less than genocidal,” Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour wrote in a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, seen by Reuters. “These acts constitute war crimes,” he wrote. Biden’s remarks on X are drawn from his speech earlier at the White House, in which he was unequivocal in his condemnation of Hamas, calling it a terrorist organization whose “state purpose is the annihilation of the state of Israel and the murder of Jewish people”. “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination,” he added, echoing the sentiment expressed in a rare joint statement by the leaders of the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy on Monday night. “All of us recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people,” it said. “But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations, and it offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed.” Biden said the group’s attack “brings to mind the worst rampages of Isis”. “Parents butchered, using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach churning reports of babies being killed … women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies,” he said. “This is terrorism.” Israel, Biden said, not only had the right to defend itself but a “duty” to do so. But in a phone call prior to his remarks, Biden said he reminded Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that democracies were more secure when they act “according to the rule of law”. Biden: "This is terrorism" Joe Biden has just posted a short statement to X, formerly Twitter. He said: “The brutality of Hamas, the blood-thirstiness, brings to mind the worst rampages of Isis. This is terrorism.” This is Helen Sullivan taking over our rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas rejected Joe Biden’s remarks on Israel, which they described as “inflammatory” and accused him of attempting to “cover up the criminality and terrorism of the Zionist government” against the Palestinian people. In a statement, a Hamas spokesperson said the US president’s comments “coincided with the continuation and escalation of the barbaric Zionist aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of our occupied territories”. The statement accused Biden of not having referred “at all in his speech to the massacres committed by the Zionist forces against our people in cold blood and in full view of the world”. On X, Elon Musk responded to a letter by Thierry Breton warning him over the alleged disinformation about the Hamas attack on Israel. Musk wrote: Please list the violations you allude to on 𝕏, so that that the public can see them. In a reference to the law’s requirement that platforms regulate their own content under the new laws, Breton replied: Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. Summary It’s approaching 2am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here’s where things stand: A massive Israeli military buildup was continuing along Gaza’s border on Tuesday, amid mounting expectations that Israel would launch a ground invasion of Gaza within days. The Israeli military said it had mostly secured its border with Gaza after a night of intensified airstrikes across the enclave that destroyed infrastructure and displaced thousands of people. Israel’s defence minister said he had “released all restraints” on his troops, adding that Gaza “will never return to what it was”. Israel’s military confirmed the death toll from Saturday’s Hamas attack had passed 1,000 – the deadliest militant assault in its history. Israeli soldiers were still collecting bodies of the dead four days after Hamas rampaged through southern Israeli towns. The Gaza health authority has put the death toll in the enclave at 900 since Saturday. Among the dead are 260 children and 230 women, it said. Frightened residents of Gaza described bombardments striking residential buildings, hospitals and schools across the enclave amid growing concern over destruction of civilian infrastructure as Israel pledges to enforce a full siege. Two Palestinians were fatally shot in East Jerusalem by Israel’s border police, in a sign of increasing violence that is disproportionately targeting youth across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A salvo of rockets from Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon was fired at northern Israel, in a sign of the rapidly escalating crisis. Israeli forces responded with fire in the third consecutive day of violence along the Lebanese-Israeli border. The Israeli military also shelled Syria from the Golan Heights after mortar rounds were fired into the territory. The UN’s human rights council warned there is already “clear evidence” that war crimes may have been committed in the latest explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza. It said it had been collecting evidence of “war crimes committed by all sides” since Saturday. Israel is believed to have identified most of the hostages abducted by Hamas and has started notifying their families. Officers from the Israel Defence Forces were to tell about 100 families on Tuesday that their loved ones were in Gaza. Joe Biden declared support for Israel, calling the assault by Hamas militants that left nearly 1,000 people dead an “act of sheer evil”. At least 14 Americans were killed in last weekend’s attack and an as yet unknown number of Americans are being held hostage, Biden said from the White House. The first plane carrying US ammunition landed in Israel on Tuesday. EU foreign ministers have reversed the decision by the European Commission to suspend payments to the Palestinian Authority, after an emergency meeting in Oman. The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk over the alleged disinformation about the Hamas attack on Israel, including fake news and “repurposed old images”, on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.