News Wrap: Israel declares major city in southern Gaza a ‘dangerous combat zone’

John Yang:

Good evening, I'm John Yang. Tonight, Israel has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza and says its ground operations have expanded to include every part of the Gaza Strip. Over Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city Israel dropped leaflets declaring the area a dangerous combat zone, that residents say was followed by heavy bombardment.

Some of those under evacuation orders have already been displaced at least once before. The United Nations estimates that nearly 80 percent of the Gaza strips 2.3 million people have fled their homes and Gazans say they're running out of safe places to go.

Nabil Al-Ghandour, Gazan Resident (through translator):

There's no safe place in Gaza. We were in the tomb. It was shelled. We were in the Shakti camp. It was shelled. We move because what can we do? We have children and all night there's shelling so we move from area to area. But there's no safety anywhere in Gaza.

John Yang:

In the face of the mounting death toll in Gaza, Biden administration officials have repeatedly stressed Israel's responsibility to protect civilians. On the Sunday talk shows today, National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby pointed to the evacuation orders as evidence the message is getting through.

And fears that the conflict could widen across the region were stoked by reports that a U.S. Navy destroyer the USS Carney shot down a drone in self-defense and the Red Sea. The action came during an attack claimed by Houthi rebels on commercial vessels off the coast of Yemen.

It's the latest in a series of low intensity attacks on U.S. forces by Iranian proxies since the war began. Pentagon officials said the Carney suffered no damage and that its crew reported no injuries.

Two incidents half a world apart are being investigated for links to terrorism. In the Philippines, at least four people were killed and about 50 others injured when a bomb went off during a Catholic mass at a university gymnasium.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blamed foreign terrorists but didn't say why. And in Paris, a German tourist was stabbed to death near the Eiffel Tower. The suspect told police he was upset over Muslims being killed, notably in Afghanistan and Gaza. The French interior minister said the suspect had previously been convicted for planning violence was being watched for suspected Islamic radicalization, and it was under psychiatric treatment.

One of the three students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last weekend is paralyzed from the chest down. The mother of 20-year-old Hisham Awartani says the Brown University student is to be moved from the hospital to rehabilitation care later this week. His family has set up a GoFundMe page. The two other students all longtime friends from the West Bank have already been released from the hospital.

And in the United Kingdom, heavy snow left thousands without power and stranded people in their cars overnight. Across Bavaria record snowfall in Germany this weekend sent some to the ski slopes and in Munich when transportation shut down some just swapped buses and trains for skis.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, what researchers are learning from the hibernation habits of the Arctic Brown Squirrel, and writer Stephanie Land atalks about her new memoir "Class."