By MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials and witnesses said, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will “allow” Palestinians to leave during an upcoming military offensive in some of the territory’s most populated areas.

Netanyahu wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people through what he refers to as “voluntary migration” — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing.

“Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the Strip if they want,” Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with i24, an Israeli TV station, to discuss the planned offensive in areas including Gaza City where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter. “We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.”

Witnesses and staff at Nasser and Awda hospitals, which received the bodies, said people were shot dead on their way to aid distribution sites and while awaiting convoys entering Gaza. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ceasefire talks set to resume

Efforts to revive ceasefire talks have resumed after apparently breaking down last month. Hamas and Egyptian officials met Wednesday in Cairo, according to Hamas official Taher al-Nounou.

Israel has no plans to send its negotiating team to talks in Cairo, the prime minister’s office said.

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Israel’s plans to widen its military offensive against Hamas to the areas of Gaza that it does not yet control have sparked condemnation and criticism at home and abroad, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 of them are alive. Families fear a new offensive endangers them.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Netanyahu was asked by i24 News if the window had closed on a partial ceasefire deal and he responded that he wanted all of the hostages back, alive and dead.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty told reporters that Cairo is still trying to advance an earlier proposal for an initial 60-day ceasefire, the release of some hostages and an influx of humanitarian aid before further talks on a lasting truce.

Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The militant group has refused to lay down its arms.

South Sudan calls reports of resettlement talks baseless

Israel and South Sudan are in talks about relocating Palestinians to the war-torn East African nation, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The office of Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sharren Haskel, said Wednesday she was arriving in South Sudan for a series of meetings in the first visit by a senior government official to the country, but she did not plan to broach the subject of moving Palestinians.

South Sudan’s ministry of foreign affairs in a statement called reports that it was engaging in discussions with Israel about resettling Palestinians baseless.

The AP previously reported that U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for moving Palestinians uprooted from Gaza.

Killed while seeking aid

Among those killed while seeking aid were 14 Palestinians in the Teina area approximately 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from a food distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to staff at Nasser hospital.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza move along the border with Gaza Strip in southern Israel, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Hashim Shamalah said Israeli troops fired toward them as people tried to get through. Many were shot and fell while fleeing, he said.

Israeli gunfire killed five other Palestinians while trying to reach another GHF distribution site in the Netzarim corridor area, according to Awda hospital and witnesses.

GHF said there were no incidents at or near its sites Wednesday.

The U.S. and Israel support GHF, an American contractor, as an alternative to the United Nations, which they claim allows Hamas to siphon off aid. The U.N., which has delivered aid throughout Gaza for decades when conditions allow, denies the allegations.

Aid convoys from other groups travel within 100 meters (328 feet) of GHF sites and draw crowds attempting to loot them. An overwhelming majority of violent incidents over the past few weeks have been related to those convoys, the GHF said.

Israeli fire killed at least six other people waiting for aid trucks close to the Morag corridor, which separates parts of southern Gaza, Nasser hospital said.

UN says starvation at highest levels of the war

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Tuesday shared the warning from the World Food Program and said Gaza’s Health Ministry told U.N. staff that five people died over the previous 24 hours from malnutrition and starvation.

The Health Ministry says 106 children have died of malnutrition-related causes during the war and 129 adults have died since late June.

The U.N. and humanitarian partners still face significant delays and impediments from Israeli authorities who prevent the delivery of food and other essentials at the scale needed, Dujarric said.

Hamas abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the 2023 attack. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has since displaced most of Gaza’s population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The offensive has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Housing vouchers, which typically cover a portion of a participant’s rent, are a key tool to fighting homelessness in an increasingly unaffordable city. But they can be hard to use. Host Kadisha Davis discusses those pitfalls and asks listeners to share what an ideal voucher program would look like to them.

New York City lawmakers and advocates at a 2023 rally calling for the expansion of CityFHEPs, the city’s main voucher program. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

Housing vouchers, which typically cover a portion of a participant’s rent, are a key tool to fighting homelessness in an increasingly unaffordable city like New York.

But they can be hard to use. Voucher holders often face discrimination in the city’s competitive rental market, and some assistance programs are bogged down by bureaucratic hurdles.

On the latest episode of the Hear Our Voices podcast—which shares stories, resources and information about family homelessness in New York City—Host Kadisha Davis discusses those pitfalls and asks listeners to share what an ideal voucher program would look like to them.

The question isn’t all hypothetical: this year, New York State committed to launching a pilot program for a new voucher, dubbed the Housing Access Voucher Program (HVAP), eligible to households experiencing or at risk of homelessness, regardless of their immigration status. It’s expected to launch next spring.

At the same time, Mayor Eric Adams and the NYC Council have been locked in a court battle over expanding access to New York City’s rental assistance voucher, CityFHEPS. Among other changes, councilmembers want to raise the income eligibility threshold—from 200 percent of the poverty line to 50 percent of area median income, equal to $81,000 a year for a four-person household.

To Davis, raising that threshold is key to an effective voucher program. “I think especially in this economy, a lot of people are working multiple jobs” to afford their housing, she said.

You can listen to the full episode below.

Editor’s Note: The “Hear Our Voices” podcast is produced by the Family Homelessness Coalition, whose members include Citizens’ Committee for Children, a City Limits funder.

The post ‘Hear Our Voices’ Podcast: The Ideal Housing Voucher appeared first on City Limits.

By DAVID FISCHER, Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge is set to hear closing arguments Wednesday over whether to stop construction indefinitely at an immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” as she considers whether it violates environmental laws.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered a two-week halt on new construction last Thursday as witnesses continued to testify in a hearing to determine whether construction should end until the ultimate resolution of the case.

The temporary order doesn’t include any restrictions on law enforcement or immigration enforcement activity at the center, which is currently holding hundreds of detainees. The center, which was quickly built two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport, is designed to eventually hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures.

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The order temporarily barred the installation of any new industrial-style lighting, as well as any paving, filling, excavating, fencing or erecting additional buildings, tents, dormitories or other residential or administrative facilities.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe want Williams to issue a preliminary injunction to halt operations and further construction, which they say threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars’ worth of environmental restoration.

Plaintiffs presented witnesses Wednesday and Thursday who testified that the facility violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major construction projects.

Attorneys for the state and federal government have said that although the detention center would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility is entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the federal environmental review wouldn’t apply.

The judge last week said the detention facility was, at a minimum, a joint partnership between the state and federal government.

Witnesses describe environmental threats

Witnesses for the environmental groups have testified that at least 20 acres (8 hectares) of asphalt have been added to the site since the Florida Division of Emergency Management began construction. They said additional paving could lead to an increase in water runoff to the adjacent wetlands, spread harmful chemicals into the Everglades and reduce the habitat for endangered Florida panthers.

Amy Castaneda, the Miccosukee Tribe’s water resource director, testified Tuesday that nutrient runoff from the detention center could flow into tribal lands, changing vegetation growth. That could lead to fish kills and block humans and wildlife from moving throughout certain areas, she said.

Marcel Bozas, director of the Miccosukee Tribe’s fish and wildlife department, said tribe members hunt and fish for subsistence and cultural reasons. Sustained human activity can drive away game animals, like whitetail deer, as well as protected species, like Florida panthers, wood storks, eastern black rails and bonneted bats, he said.

State official says Florida runs center

Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles executive director David Kerner testified that the 1,800 state troopers under his command are authorized to detain undocumented migrants under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He said the federal government doesn’t tell the state where to detain immigrants, and that the Everglades facility was built to alleviate overcrowding at federal immigration detention facilities, as well as state and county facilities with agreements to hold federal immigration detainees.

Kerner couldn’t say how many of the “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been charged with violent crimes or whether any other sites besides the middle of the Everglades were considered for possible detention centers.

Attorneys for federal and state agencies last month asked Williams to dismiss or transfer the injunction request, saying the lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s southern district is the wrong venue for the lawsuit because the detention center is in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s middle district, they said.

Williams had yet to rule on that argument.

Facility faces a second legal challenge

In a second legal challenge to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a federal judge over the weekend gave the state more time to prepare arguments against an effort to get the civil rights litigation certified as a class action.

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz in Miami said he will only consider a motion by detainees’ lawyers for a preliminary injunction during an Aug. 18 hearing. He set a Sept. 23 deadline for the state to respond to the detainee’s class action request. The second lawsuit claims detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated because they are barred from meeting lawyers, are being held without any charges, and a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

The lawsuits were being heard as DeSantis′ administration apparently was preparing to build a second immigration detention center at a Florida National Guard training center in north Florida. At least one contract has been awarded for what is labeled in state records as the “North Detention Facility.”

When the one-two punch of Senate Bill 8—a 2021 Texas law that barred nearly all abortion care —and the U.S. Supreme Court’s subsequent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade befell Texans, Blanca Murillo felt like she was on the brink of hopelessness. Murillo had spent her entire career in the reproductive rights movement in Texas, and, as the development director with The Lilith Fund, the oldest abortion fund operating in the state, she worried for the many clients her group serves. 

Abortion funds like Lilith work on the frontlines of abortion care, providing financial assistance for the procedure or for travel, hotel stays, and childcare. The nonprofit, grassroots groups—often under the radar relative to large national organizations like Planned Parenthood—serve as a critical bridge to help largely low-income people of color access out-of-state care. And their hands are full under Texas’ strict abortion bans: More than 28,000 people are now forced to flee the nation’s second-most populous state annually. 

But Murillo’s despair soon shifted to hope when her group was met with a massive swell of what some call “rage donations,” sparked by anger against both SB 8 and the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision. While Lilith’s yearly budget hovered around $1 million before the back-to-back historic attacks on abortion rights, the group saw its coffers skyrocket to more than $6 million afterward. “People were understandably enraged and wanted to help. I was in awe of how much everyone cared at that time,” said Murillo. 

However, those “rage donations” have dried up—not just for Lilith Fund, whose revenue has fallen by half, but for five additional Texas funds the Observer spoke with. Mirroring a nationwide “crisis,” dwindling donations to Texas—home to more abortion funds than any other state—have left groups struggling to keep up with demand. 

After Dobbs, for the first time in its history, The Lilith Fund was able to give some assistance to every client who requested it, but now the future feels uncertain. 

“It’s such a gift to be able to help everyone that calls us, but we don’t know how long that’s sustainable,” said Murillo. “There’s definitely the fear of, can we actually keep this going? Will we have to start turning people away or changing operations?”

May 3, 2022, demonstration in Austin (Gus Bova)

While funds grapple with a decrease in donations, the price for abortion care is rising, creating a perfect storm. Living under abortion bans, Texans are frequently forced to travel 500 to 1,500 miles for the procedure—and sometimes more—adding substantial cost to their medical care. For instance, last year Lilith Fund clients traveled an average of 1,012 miles, with the most miles traveled by a client totaling nearly 4,200—and the group says those figures are only rising this year. 

Travel time for residents in banned states like Texas has increased from roughly 2.8 hours to more than 11 hours, and travel costs jumped from an average of $179 to $372, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health earlier this year that tracked access in 14 states. Of course, those costs vary and may be a modest estimate for some Texans who need to spend more than a thousand dollars in travel, say abortion fund leaders. More than half of those surveyed by researchers said their abortion care required an overnight hotel stay, while just 5 percent said the same prior to the bans. The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) similarly found that practical support expenses—like travel, lodging, and childcare—increased by 30 percent in the past year. 

The price of the procedure itself is also on the rise: Costs grew by 37 percent from 2022 to 2024, according to data from NNAF. Texas groups say this is in part due to the many logistical barriers imposed by bans that force pregnant patients to delay care and undergo abortion later in pregnancy, when it becomes more expensive and more difficult to secure, especially as some clinics do not perform abortion into the second trimester. Out-of-state clinics have also found themselves spread thin, as they now see double the number of patients that they did before the end of Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 

Overall, demand is increasing with funds nationwide seeing 56 percent more requests than before the historic loss of abortion access. 

As intake coordinator with the Texas Equal Access Fund, a North Texas-based group, Charlie Hughes hears the heightened stress from callers who are forced to trek long miles for care, primarily to New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Appointments that were previously available within a day or two now could take two or three weeks, said Hughes. About 60 percent of the fund’s callers are already parents and must also secure childcare, adding another obstacle. 

Like other funds, Hughes’ group saw donations jump 120 percent post-SB 8 and Dobbs and was able to support more callers in the three years that followed than in its entire 20-year history. Then came the decline, leaving the fund with an “unsustainable burden.” In June, the Texas Equal Access Fund received about 500 requests for help and was only able to fund 87 of them.

“[Callers] need to travel farther and the procedure is costing more, and so we need to find more funding while our donations decline—it’s a stressful situation all around,” Hughes said.

Similarly, per-client cost more than tripled post-Dobbs for Jane’s Due Process, an abortion fund that connects teenagers with care. While the group previously centered its legal work on helping teens navigate judicial bypass for abortions, they’ve since had to shift to funding flights, lodging, transportation, and the procedure itself, with an average cost of $1,500 per caller.

“We continue to be underfunded while the demand—and the stakes—grow,” said Lucie Arvallo, the fund’s executive director. “And it’s not as if the attacks on abortion have slowed down in Texas, we still deeply need investment, possibly now more than ever.” 

Smaller than some of their counterparts in major cities, the Frontera Fund in the Rio Grande Valley serves a population within 100 miles of the Texas-Mexico border. The fund saw its modest annual budget of about $11,000 balloon to more than $650,000 from individual donations driven by 2022-era outrage. That infusion was instrumental in helping Frontera dramatically change its operations from assisting just eight callers per year in getting out-of-state care to 30 callers a month. Today, the budget has dipped by more than 70 percent as demand remains. 

“We’ve had to put limits on our services,” said Zaena Zamora, Frontera Fund’s executive director. “I worry we’ll have to downsize our already small fund, and just really hope we’ll never have to close.”

Last year, The National Abortion Federation, which runs a hotline that helps cover procedure costs, cut back funding for those who qualify for its financial assistance program from 50 percent of the cost of care to 30 percent due to fewer incoming donations. 

Abortion funds largely attribute the sizable drop off in contributions to abortion rights seemingly fading from the spotlight.

“Abortion was all over the news after SB 8 and then Dobbs, and getting so much attention at the time,” said Anna Rupani, executive director of Fund Texas Choice. “We are so grateful for the rush of donations, but now that there isn’t as much focus on abortion, I’m not sure people realize this is an ongoing, long-term need.”

Aggressive and intrusive legal attacks on abortion funds from anti-abortion activists and state leaders including Attorney General Ken Paxton may have also had a chilling effect on potential donors. Funds were forced to pause operations for nine months in 2023 before a court ultimately blocked an effort from Paxton encouraging district attorneys to criminally prosecute the funds.

Multiple leaders told the Observer they’ve heard first-hand from donors and foundations that philanthropy has shifted to political advocacy groups, candidates, ballot initiatives, and clinics in non-banned states. (Historically, abortion funds already receive just a small fraction of overall foundation support for reproductive rights compared to other abortion-related groups.) 

In an op-ed in The Nation signed by 30 local abortion funds across the country—including five in Texas—leaders criticized the priorities of “well-funded” mainstream national reproductive rights organizations, who are “disconnected” from the needs of on-the-ground grassroots groups directly serving their communities. “Local funds have been put in a position to disproportionately hold the weight of abortion access while being abandoned based on their more radical and staunch values,” leaders wrote. “Now is not the time to put policy advocacy and wealth hoarding over material support.”

For some donors, Texas—and the South—feels like a futile investment. 

“The irony of that logic to me is that you would think the groups that have withstood so many attacks on abortion and found a way to remain resilient and still standing would be the ones you would want to invest in,” said Rupani. “It’s pretty frustrating.” 

And the attacks here rarely cease: During this year’s regular legislative session, Republicans took aim at abortion funds by curtailing city governments’ ability to partner with them to provide residents with practical support services. Bills filed for the ongoing special session include a proposal that would criminalize anyone who helps a teen travel for abortion without parental consent; a measure that could subject all funds to criminal prosecution; and a proposal that would empower private citizens to sue manufacturers or health providers who mail or prescribe abortion pills—a revival of a measure that failed during the regular session. That last bill, SB 6, passed out of a Senate committee on Monday. (While progress on these bills has been slowed by the Democrats’ quorum break to protect voting rights, further dismantling abortion care is a priority for both Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott, who has the power to call legislators back for multiple special sessions.) 

With a mixture of gratitude for the initial boost in funding and fear of the future under depleting resources, Hughes offers a gentle reminder.

“I think some people assume that, because abortion is illegal in Texas, they don’t need to support abortion rights here—but in fact the opposite is true,” said Hughes. “We are still helping hundreds of Texans get the care they need, against all odds. Just because Texans don’t have the right to abortion in their state doesn’t mean they are not deserving of access.”

The post Abortion Funds See Dwindling Donations as Demand and Cost Rise appeared first on The Texas Observer.