WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden departed Tuesday on her final solo foreign trip as first lady, a six-day, four-country jaunt through Italy, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that wraps with her and President-elect Donald Trump joining other dignitaries in Paris to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Biden will focus throughout the trip on the issues she has championed as first lady, including support for military families, education, and research into cancer and women's health, and will also highlight U.S. partnerships in these areas with the countries hosting her, according to her office.
She is the first Italian American to become first lady and has planned a side trip to her ancestral hometown of Gesso, the tiny Sicilian village where her father's family hailed from.
Paris is the final stop to help celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame. The cathedral was painstakingly reconstructed after fire nearly destroyed it five years ago.
Trump, who was U.S. president at the time of the fire, announced Monday that he also will travel to the French capital to join other VIPs attending the high-security event.
Jill Biden has become somewhat of a world traveler as first lady. Tuesday's trip is her 10th solo excursion outside the U.S. She also has accompanied her husband, President Joe Biden, on several of his foreign trips.
On her own, she has led the U.S. delegations to both the pandemic delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as well as this year's Games in Paris, traveled to Ukraine shortly after the invasion by Russia, and has visited Latin America and Africa. In October, she attended the inauguration of Mexico's first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Biden departed Tuesday evening after teaching her English and writing classes at Northern Virginia Community College. She arrives Wednesday at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Catania, Italy, to meet with personnel and deliver remarks as part of Joining Forces, her White House initiative to support military families. Her father, Donald Jacobs, was a Navy signalman during World War II.
The first lady then stops in Gesso, Italy, before continuing on to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for a day's worth of events on Thursday. The schedule includes a tour of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot program, and participation in a conversation about the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research at the Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit.
Biden will also visit with Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, chairwoman of the General Women’s Union and the Family Development Foundation, and president of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, in Abu Dhabi.
On Friday in Doha, Qatar, the first lady will highlight the two countries' interests in education and health with separate visits to the Qatar Foundation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, respectively.
She'll also be a guest at a dinner banquet hosted by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser to celebrate the royal family wedding of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Sheikha Fatima bin Nasser bin Hassan Al Thani at the Al-Wajba Palace in Doha.
Biden is the keynote speaker Saturday at the Doha Forum, where policy leaders discuss global challenges, before she travels to Paris for the Notre Dame reopening. She is scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday.
FILE - First lady Jill Biden comments on the pardon of Hunter Biden following an event with military families in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Dec. 2, 2024. Jill Biden is departing Tuesday on her final solo foreign trip as first lady. It's a six-day, four-country haul through Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France. It ends with her and President-elect Donald Trump joining other dignitaries in Paris on Saturday for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.
There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.
The Israeli military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby. It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police, and one group entered the village and burned property.
The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war.
In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has held despite Israeli forces carrying out several new drone and artillery strikes on Tuesday, killing a shepherd in the country's south. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire.
Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas militants who are fighting in the Gaza Strip. The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.
Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war in Gaza has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Here's the Latest:
BEIT FURIK, West Bank — Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.
There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.
The Israeli military said one group entered the village, where they threw stones and burned property. An Associated Press reporter saw a blackened home and a destroyed car on Wednesday morning.
The military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby on land privately owned by Palestinians. It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police.
Settlers also attacked the village of Huwara, which has been the target of several previous attacks — even before the outbreak of the war in Gaza — and clashed with troops near Rujeib, another Palestinian village.
Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement that they were investigating the settler attacks. They said they arrested eight Israelis for suspected property damage and assaulting security forces.
The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel. Settlers have also raced to establish new farming outposts that rights groups say are among the biggest drivers of the violence.
The UN’s humanitarian office said settler attacks on Palestinian farmers during the recent olive harvest season “at least tripled” in 2024 compared to the last three years.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.
The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians who live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in cities and towns. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, many of which resemble suburbs or small towns.
Most of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medics said an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip killed at least five people, including four children, on Wednesday.
The Awda Hospital, which received the bodies, said the five were gathered outside of shelters in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
The hospital said another 15 people, mostly children, were wounded in the strike.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Wednesday it had returned the bodies of two militants who crossed into Israel from Jordan in October and shot two soldiers.
The militants entered Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea on Oct. 18, shooting and wounding two soldiers before being shot dead by Israeli troops. Hamas praised the incursion but not claim responsibility for it.
The Israeli military did not release the names of the militants who carried out the attack.
A burnt house following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
A man carries a sack of donated flour distributed by UNRWA at the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A man grabs a sack of donated flour at a UNRWA distribution center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli armoured vehicles move on in an area at the Israeli-Gaza border, seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
