NO PAUSE: An Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy near the entrance of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least 13, according to both Gazan and Israeli authorities. Video from the scene verifies that it was a horrific scene.  The convoy was preparing to carrying wounded people to the Gaza border and into Egypt for treatment.

  The Israeli military said it targeted one ambulance “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell,” and claiming that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike.” 

  UN Secretary General António Guterres said he is “horrified” by the ambulance attack, describing images from the scene as “harrowing.”

  “Now, for nearly one month, civilians in Gaza, including children and women, have been besieged, denied aid, killed, and bombed out of their homes,” Guterres said in a statement and renewed his call for a humanitarian cease fire. “This must stop.”

  With many in the world beginning to question the ferocity of the Israeli response to the October 7^thHamas attacks, and the killing of thousands of civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have dismissed the request by Secretary of State Antony Blinkin to pause hostilities in Gaza, saying any cessation would be contingent on the release of hostages taken by Hamas militants.

  Blinken said he had told Israeli leaders that “it matters” how Israel carries out its campaign to defeat Hamas. “We provided Israel advice that only the best of friends can offer on how to minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas terrorists,” Blinken told reporters. 

  Anger over the Israeli pummeling of Gaza threatens a wider war. Fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants has escalated along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a fiery speech yesterday denouncing both Israel and the United States.

ORANGE ALERT: A three-judge federal appeals panel has placed a two-week lift on the gag order put on Donald Trump in the case accusing him of trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election. The court says it will take time to consider the larger issue of whether the gag order is legal.

  Prosecutors have said Trump’s accusations about court and Justice department staff have put them in danger. 

  But the gag order is still on in New York. The judge in the Trump company civil fraud trial warned the defense lawyers against making public statements, in or out of court, about his private communications and working relationship with his law clerk, Allison Greenfield.

  Donald Trump has been fined for his out of court complaints, but judge Arthur Engoron said lawyers’ complaints about Greenfield being a biased Democrat have no basis and repeating them would result in “serious sanctions.”

  Engoron said he’s concerned about the safety of his staff after his office has been “inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages” since the trial began.

  Meanwhile, the judge in writer E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against Trump is keeping the names of jurors anonymous for their safety.

THE OBIT PAGE: David Kirke, an adventurer and thrill-seeker who is believed to have performed and survived the first “bungee jump,” leaping off a bridge in Bristol, England with elastic ropes tied to his ankles, died at home in Oxford, England last month at 78.

  Kirke jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge on April Fools’ Day in 1979. He got the idea from the local tradition on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu in which young men dive from towers with vines tied to their ankles to break their fall. Kirke used elastic rope used by the military to catch fighter jets landing on aircraft carriers. He took the dive wearing a top hat and tails with a bottle of champagne in his hand. The jump insired an international sport, but Kirke landed in jail for a couple of nights. 

THE SPIN RACK: President Biden yesterday met in Maine with families of the Lewiston mass shooting in which 18 people were killed. He said the attack should motivate Congress to tighten gun laws. — At least 130 people have died in an earthquake in western Nepal. Authorities are still searching villages and the toll might rise. — University of Michigan football staffer Connor Stalions has resigned after refusing to cooperate with investigations into sign stealing. He was suspected of attending games of opponents and deciphering their play calling signals. Stalions’ lawyer told The Athletic that neither Coach Jim Harbaugh, nor any other coach or staff member, was involved in breaking rules. — The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about the legality of so-called “bump stocks” that can cause a semi-automatic rifle to fire like a machine gun with one pull of the trigger. The case stems from the Trump administration’s decision to classify bump stocks as illegal after the 2018 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people.

BELOW THE FOLD: A foundation has been established in the name of the late actor Matthew Perry, whose funeral was yesterday, to help people fight addiction. The foundation’s website quotes the former “Friends” actor saying, “”When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned. And I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”

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