The civilian suffering in Gaza has gripped the world. But their plight shows no sign of easing. Israel has softened its initial 24-hour deadline for more than 1 million Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City and its environs for the strip’s south. But as fears of a ground invasion persist, the death toll from airstrikes is climbing, the hospitals are direly short on supplies, and Israel and Egypt’s closure of crossings into the coastal enclave have created extreme shortages of food and fuel. Here’s what you need to know this morning.

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• Israeli and Egyptian officials agreed to let U.S. citizens in Gaza cross into Egypt between noon and 5 p.m.today. 

• But Egypt and Jordan, which respectively border Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, resisted calls to create a broader escape route into the countries for Palestinian residents.

• Israel did open two corridors for Palestinians to move to Gaza’s south, pledging it would not conduct airstrikes on those routes between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time (3 to 9 a.m. ET).

• The Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes killed 70 Palestinians who were trying to follow the call to move south. In total, Gaza officials have counted 2,215 Palestinians, including 724 children, killed in Gaza since the war began a week ago, and nearly 9,000 wounded.

• President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both expressed concern about the toll of Israel’s actions in Gaza on its citizens. Leftist lawmakers asked Biden to lean on Israel to follow international law and work to establish a humanitarian corridor.

• Five Israelis were injured, two seriously, by a rocket strike on a town near the Gaza border.

• Israel’s military and Shin Bet internal security service said they had killed Ali Kachi, a Hamas commander who helped lead last Saturday’s attacks on Israel’s border towns. Kachi was among the more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Israeli released in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been taken captive by Hamas five years earlier.

• A Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah, was killed in an airstrike on Lebanon; six other journalists were injured. The airstrike came from the direction of Israel, although Reuters could not confirm its source; the IDF said it would investigate.

ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Louise Gluck at the 2014 National Book Awards in New York City. (Robin Marchant/Getty Images)

More journalism about the war is below. For those who need a small respite from that story, we offer two others this Shabbat morning:

Louise Glück saw humanity in God. Glück, a poet, died Friday at 80. After she won the Nobel Prize in literature three years ago, I wrote about the deep, complicated spirituality of her work, with its vision of a god who “doesn’t dole out eternal punishment, but rather the everyday subjection of simply being human, with human flaws.” Read my essay ➤

Why one actor threatened to boycott the Seinfeld circumcision episode. “The Bris” aired 30 years ago today —and Jason Alexander, a Jewish actor who starred as George Costanza in the show, has regrets. “The version of it that came to the table, the character of the mohel was disgusting,” he said, referring to the original script at the actors’ table read. “I think it remains disgusting in the show that we did.” Read the story ➤

OUR ISRAEL-GAZA COVERAGE

Smoke rises during an Israeli strike on the northern Gaza Strip Saturday. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

You can read all our stories from the war here, and follow the latest news from our partners at Haaretz here. Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, answered kids’ questions about the war in her latest column. 

‘No safety to be found’: Americans with family in Gaza watch and worry. Hani Almadhoun, who moved from Gaza to Utah two decades ago, told our Arno Rosenfeld that friends have been sending him requests for forgiveness in preparation for death. Like many Palestinian-Americans, Almadhoun has been glued to his phone for updates from his relatives. As of Friday, his parents and six siblings were sheltering in Gaza City. “They just want to stay together — or die together,” he said. Read the story ➤

Plus:

• Saudis reportedly suspend peace talks with Israel in the wake of war with Hamas

• George Santos calls man ‘human scum’ for asking question about Gaza

Opinion | I’m a Jewish Harvard student. A right-wing doxxing mob is attacking my peers. An initial statement from Harvard student groups that failed to condemn Hamas’ terror attack was reprehensible, writes Maya Bodnick. But so is a right-wing campaign disseminating the identities and contact information of peers suspected to be part of those groups. “These doxxing attacks have not only endangered the students,” she says, but also “created immense fear and danger for the whole Harvard Muslim community,” much of which deeply disagreed with the statement. Read her essay ➤

Plus:

• Jewish groups demand schools pull funding from Students for Justice in Palestine for cheering Hamas’ attack

Schumer: Hamas massacre reminds him of his family’s plight during Holocaust. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the nation’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, is heading to Israel today with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. He called our senior political correspondent, Jacob Kornbluh, yesterday, and said he is “sad and angry” and the “viciousness and brutality” of the Hamas attack, and determined to get an emergency aid package through Congress despite the political paralysis plaguing the House. Read the story ➤

Plus:

• As news of American victims in Israel trickled in, these sisters’ fates diverged

• Jewish NYC council member arrested for carrying gun near pro-Palestinian rally

FLOWERS FOR SHABBAT

(Reuben Dattner)

Every Friday for the last decade, the Israeli artist Reuven Dattner has shared an original painting on social media. Here’s the bouquet he posted yesterday.  

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Thanks to Jodi Rudoren for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].