A benefit concert and the construction of 30 new homes are among the many events marking President Jimmy Carter 's 100th birthday on Oct. 1. Considering the former president's long legacy as a philanthropist, it's no surprise that he wants any gift-giving to go to other people.
The star-studded concert at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre earlier in September has raised $1.2 million so far to support the international programs of The Carter Center, which Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982 with the mission to “ wage peace, fight disease, and build hope.” The concert airs on Georgia Public Broadcasting on Oct. 1.
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FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter answer questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity project, Oct. 7, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter helps cut wood for home construction at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Oct. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter works with other volunteers on site during the first day of the weeklong Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, their 35th work project with Habitat for Humanity, in Mishawaka, Ind., Aug. 27, 2018. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter answer questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity project Monday, Oct. 7, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter helps cut wood for home construction at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Wednesday Oct. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
FILE- In this Aug. 27, 2018 file photo, former President Jimmy Carter works with other volunteers on site during the first day of the weeklong Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, their 35th work project with Habitat for Humanity, in Mishawaka, Ind. Carter turns 95 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP, File)
Meanwhile, thousands of Habitat for Humanity volunteers gathered Monday to build 30 homes in St. Paul, Minnesota, over five days, led by country music giants Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who worked alongside the Carters for years, beginning with projects in Hurricane Katrina's disaster area.
The Carters' relationship with Habitat for Humanity stretches back 40 years, to when the couple went to New York City on a build in 1984.
“The image of a president of the United States sleeping in a church basement and physically helping rehab a tenement building captured the world,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. The Carters went on to build homes annually for 35 years. Carter repeatedly said that working with the organization was a way he put his Christian faith into action, Reckford recalled.
Cleora Taylor, a medical assistant, met the Carters in August 2018 when they helped build 41 new homes in South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana.
Years later, Taylor recalled how the former president greeted her by name and knew about her children, including her daughter, who was 11 at the time and has autism.
“It means so much to me that he knew me,” said Taylor, speaking from her living room in the home The Carters helped her build, on a street named Carter Court. “He’s just such a good, welcoming, humble guy. I’m just glad to be a part of a legacy that he’s leaving behind.”
Presidential historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander, professor of Virginia Black history and culture at Norfolk State University, said the strength of Carter’s legacy is in his morality. Unlike many who claim to care about the disadvantaged, Carter has shown that they — and not power or money — are his main concern, Newby-Alexander said.
“I think he has probably done more personally in his post-presidency than anyone else because he’s not out there looking for attention,” she said. “He’s looking to change things. He’s not out there trying to make money for himself. He’s out there trying to live the life of a Christian — a true Christian, one who cares about the poor and the homeless and the children.”
While leadership in philanthropy is often gauged by the size of donations or the heft of assets under management, Carter’s giving came in the form of his seemingly ceaseless personal effort. From building homes to monitoring elections and pursuing the elimination of a painful but neglected disease, Carter used his stature and presence to rally resources and attention to his causes.
“In so many ways, he set the standard for how presidents should be in their post-presidency, as someone who is going to continue to do good, someone who’s going to continue to positively impact society,” Newby-Alexander said.
Carter’s legacy of giving back also includes working to eradicate Guinea worm, a commitment The Carter Center has made since 1986. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified the disease as a candidate for eradication after smallpox. Carter took up the mantle, vowing to outlive the last such parasite.
“To the demise of the worm” is the catchphrase, according to Dr. Jordan Tappero, deputy director for neglected tropical diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given $263 million to The Carter Center since 2000, mostly to support its work on Guinea worm.
The number of cases has fallen from 3.5 million when the center started to only 13 known cases in humans in 2022, and now focuses on closing the “last mile” of infections in several African countries. Even after Carter entered hospice in February 2023, Tappero said, Carter was still contacting his team.
“He still wants updates and wants to know what’s going on because his mind will never stop until the last heartbeat,” Tappero said, speaking in March 2023.
Carter engaged directly with health ministries and heads of state to muster their commitment to public health interventions, said Steven M. Hilton of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Since 1991, the foundation said it has committed nearly $50 million to The Carter Center for eradicating Guinea worm and to support its work treating and controlling trachoma, a disease that can cause irreversible blindness.
Hilton considers Carter to be “a remarkable man with a deeply compassionate heart.”
“I feel fortunate to have witnessed firsthand the strength of his character, including his dedication to seeing enormous humanitarian challenges through to the end,” Hilton said in a statement.
Tappero draws inspiration from the Carters’ humility, energy and dedication. “If we all had one-fifth of his energy, commitment and passion,” he said, “the world would be a much better place.”
Taylor, who lives near South Bend, Indiana, said she saw that commitment firsthand as Carter, 93 at the time, helped her put up a kitchen wall in her four-bedroom home.
“It was just so amazing that he still was out here, outside at that age, working with us,” she said. “It made us want to work harder.”
She still gets emotional thinking about that week, an incredible opportunity for her and her four kids.
“Not only did I get to meet Jimmy Carter and his wife and his children and hundreds of volunteers, other celebrities, I get to own a piece of the world. I get to own a piece of land,” she said.
“I never thought that I would be able to do something like that, being a single mother. And for them to have to put so much into it, the volunteers and for Jimmy Carter to actually be here? It was amazing for people to care like he cares.”
Associated Press Writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this story.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter answer questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity project, Oct. 7, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter helps cut wood for home construction at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Oct. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter works with other volunteers on site during the first day of the weeklong Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, their 35th work project with Habitat for Humanity, in Mishawaka, Ind., Aug. 27, 2018. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter answer questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity project Monday, Oct. 7, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter helps cut wood for home construction at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Wednesday Oct. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
FILE- In this Aug. 27, 2018 file photo, former President Jimmy Carter works with other volunteers on site during the first day of the weeklong Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, their 35th work project with Habitat for Humanity, in Mishawaka, Ind. Carter turns 95 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP, File)
Israeli strikes killed at least 30 people in Gaza, including on a home where displaced families were sheltering, according to Palestinian health officials.
Ten people were killed early Tuesday, including four children and two women, and a strike late Monday on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, including eight women and six children, health officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted a weapons storage facility from which a militant had operated, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month.
Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports.
More than a year of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
Here’s the latest:
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it conducted an airstrike on a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in Syria on Tuesday.
The military said the strike targeted the facility run by Hezbollah’s munitions unit in the Syrian town of al-Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon. It said Hezbollah had recently expanded its facilities in the area to step up weapons smuggling into Lebanon from Syria.
The strikes hit an industrial zone in al-Qusayr, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a conflict-monitoring group. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria over recent years, primarily targeting government-controlled areas, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses these operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike struck near the Sayida Zeinab suburb, south of Damascus, an area where Iran-backed groups are active. The Israeli military claimed responsibility for killing the head of Hezbollah’s military branch in Syria, whom it identified as Mahmoud Mohammed Shaheen.
For the past month, Israel has been carrying out an escalated bombardment campaign in Lebanon, aiming to cripple the Hezbollah militant group, which is allied with Syria and Iran. Israel has also launched ground incursions just across the Israel-Lebanon border, saying it aims to put an end to a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Dozens of Palestinians trickled southward from war-ravaged northern Gaza, recounting how they had hardly eaten in days with aid long cut off to the area under heavy Israeli bombardment and military campaign.
Leaving the far northern town of Beit Lahiya, the families -- mostly women and children -- dragged rucksacks and satchels with belongings as they walked down a street entering Gaza City, where every building had been completely flattened or partially destroyed.
“We came barefoot. We have no sandals, no clothes, nothing. We have no money. There is no food or drink,” said Huda Abu Laila.
Israel launched a fresh offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped. Other areas also hit include Beit Lahyia and Beit Hanoun, situated just north of Gaza City, like Jabaliya.
The U.N. estimated last week that some 100,000 people remain in the affected area. It has said no aid has reached the far north of the enclave for weeks. On Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that there are no ambulances or emergency crews currently operating north of Gaza City.
Israel has repeatedly issued evacuation warnings for the entirety of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where several hundred thousand more Palestinians remain.
GENEVA — The World Health Organization says it’s working to arrange medical evacuations for more than 100 people from Gaza on Wednesday, which would be the largest such operation of its kind in six months.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said the U.N. health agency was helping coordinate the evacuations through the Kerem Shalom crossing based on a list of priority candidates drawn up by the Health Ministry in Gaza.
Speaking by video from Gaza to reporters in Geneva, Peeperkorn said medical evacuations have been arranged for 282 people since Israeli forces forced the closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 6.
Before the Rafah closure, nearly 4,700 people were ferried out of Gaza in medical evacuations since the Oct. 7 attacks last year, he said.
The largest one since May involved 97 people who were evacuated on Sept. 11. Thousands of people remain on waiting lists to get out.
WHO said people with chronic conditions like cancer as patients from trauma cases – injuries -- were among those to be evacuated. Peeperkorn said most would be taken to the United Arab Emirates for further care, while about 30 were to go to Romania. (edited)
ISLAMABAD — Iran’s foreign minister on Tuesday reiterated that his country does not seek an escalation in the Middle East but reserved the right to defend itself against Israel’s attack with a “measured and calculative” response.
Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking at a news conference during a visit to Pakistan, said that “unlike the Israeli regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not seek escalation.”
“We reserve our inherent rights to legitimate defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and we will certainly respond to the Israeli aggression in a proper time and in a proper manner in a very measured and very calculated manner,” he said.
Araghchi met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who called for an urgent cease-fire to de-escalate tensions in the region.
BEIRUT — The Lebanese Red Cross will send another convoy Tuesday to Wata al-Khiam in southern Lebanon to search for and remove the bodies of 15 people killed in an Israeli airstrike, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.
Paramedics accessed the site of the strike two days prior and removed five other bodies, but needed to return with larger vehicles to remove the rubble. The NNA said the deployment is in coordination with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which is the usual procedure.
The Red Cross did not immediately comment on the news, but expressed concern in recent weeks over several instances where Israel has struck in or close to areas where they have deployed paramedics to search for wounded people and casualties.
The Israeli military said it issued warnings to the residents there in late October to evacuate ahead of strikes on Hezbollah militant targets, and told ambulances to avoid the area.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip has killed at least 20 people, mostly women and children.
Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of a nearby hospital that received the casualties, said the strike late Monday hit a home in the town of Beit Lahiya where multiple families were sheltering.
The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
The Israeli military said it targeted a weapons storage facility from which a militant had operated, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month. It ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun, and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and has allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the war, which began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes early Tuesday killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip, including four children and two women.
One strike hit a house in the Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City, killing two children and their parents, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service. Two other children were wounded, it said.
In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent where a displaced family was sheltering, killing four people, including a mother and her two children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.
Another strike hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital morgue.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. It rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says over half were women and children. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed four people in the occupied West Bank.
Two were killed in an airstrike early Tuesday near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. Two other people were fatally shot in the village of Tamoun, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it called in an airstrike on a militant cell near Jenin. It also said it killed two armed militants in an airstrike in the Tamoun area.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the Israel-Hamas war. The Health Ministry says at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli forces, but the dead also include civilian bystanders and people killed during protests.
Israel says the raids are aimed at dismantling Hamas in the West Bank and preventing attacks. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Israeli army investigators arrive at the site of the early morning attack of Israeli settlers, that left at least 18 burnt vehicles, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of al-Bireh Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinians inspect vehicles that were burnt during an early morning attack by Israeli settlers, that left at least 18 burnt vehicles, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of al-Bireh Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Palestinians inspect vehicles that were burnt during an early morning attack by Israeli settlers, that left at least 18 burnt vehicles, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of al-Bireh Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Mourners carry the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
