MOCKSVILLE, N.C. — The pilot of a small plane that crashed near a North Carolina airport this month had raised a wheel after landing to avoid hitting a turtle on the runway, according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report.

The pilot of the Universal Stinson 108 and a passenger were killed in the June 3 crash near Sugar Valley Airport in Mocksville, officials said. A second passenger was seriously injured in the crash.

A communications operator looking out the airport office window advised the pilot that there was a turtle on the runway, according to the report released this week. The operator reported that the pilot landed about 1,400 feet down the 2,424-foot runway, then lifted the right main wheel to avoid the turtle. The operator heard the pilot advance the throttle after raising the wheel, but the airplane left her view after that.

A man cutting the grass at the end of the runway reported seeing the pilot raise the right wheel to avoid the turtle, then the wings rocked back and forth and the plane took off again, according to the report. The man lost sight of the plane and then he heard a crash and saw smoke.

The plane crashed in a heavily forested area about 255 feet from the runway and caught fire, officials said. The plane was wedged between several trees and remained in one piece except for a few pieces of fabric found in a nearby stream. It came to rest on its left side with the left wing folded underneath the fuselage and the right wing bent toward the tail.

Preliminary reports contain facts collected on scene, but don’t speculate on probable causes, according to the NTSB’s website. Those are included in final reports, which can take one to two years to complete.

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Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food

toggle caption Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Each day, Palestinians in Gaza run a deadly gantlet in hopes of getting food. Israeli troops open barrages of gunfire toward crowds crossing military zones to get to the aid, they say, and knife-wielding thieves wait to ambush those who succeed. Palestinians say lawlessness is growing as they are forced into a competition to feed their families.

A lucky few manage to secure some packets of lentils, a jar of Nutella or a bag of flour. Many return empty-handed and must attempt the ordeal again the next day.

“This isn’t aid. It’s humiliation. It’s death,” said Jamil Atili, his face shining with sweat as he made his way back last week from a food center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed private contractor. He had suffered a knife cut across his cheek amid the scramble for food and said a contractor guard pepper-sprayed him in the face. Still, he emerged with nothing for his 13 family members.

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“I have nothing to feed my children,” he said, nearly crying. “My heart is broken.”

Israel began allowing food into Gaza this past month after cutting it off completely for 10 weeks, though United Nations officials say it is not enough to stave off starvation. Most of the supplies go to GHF, which operates four food distribution points inside Israeli military zones. A trickle of aid goes to the U.N. and humanitarian groups.

Both systems are mired in chaos. Daily gunfire by Israeli troops toward crowds on the roads heading to the GHF centers has killed several hundred people and wounded hundreds more in past weeks, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

At the same time, in past weeks, hungry crowds overwhelm most of the U.N.’s truck convoys and strip away the supplies. Israeli troops have opened fire to disperse crowds waiting for trucks near military zones, witnesses say — and on Tuesday, more than 50 people were killed, according to the ministry. The Israeli military says it is investigating.

“I don’t see how it can get any worse, because it is already apocalyptic. But somehow it does get worse,” said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.

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Israel and GHF downplay the violence

Israel says it has only fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces along the roads to the GHF food centers.

Palestinian witnesses say the troops fire to prevent crowds from moving past a certain point before the centers open or because people leave the road designated by the military. They describe heavy barrages from tanks, snipers, drones and even guns mounted on cranes.

Asked how its soldiers control movement, the military told The Associated Press its “operational conduct … is accompanied by systematic learning processes.” It said it was looking into safety measures like fences and road signs.

GHF says no shootings have taken place in or near its hubs. A spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity under GHF rules, said incidents take place before sites open involving aid-seekers who move “during prohibited times … or trying to take a short cut.” They said GHF is trying to improve safety, in part by changing opening times to daylight hours.

Israel intends for GHF to replace the U.N.-led aid network in Gaza, contending that Hamas diverts large amounts of aid from it. The U.N. denies the claim.

Ducking under fire

Thousands of people must walk miles to reach the GHF centers, three of which are in the far south outside the city of Rafah. Palestinians said the danger begins when the crowds enter the Israeli military zone encompassing Rafah.

Mohammed Saqer, a father of three who risked the trip multiple times, said that when he went last week, tanks were firing over the heads of the crowds as drone announcements told everyone to move back.

It’s “like it was ‘Squid Game,'” Saqer said, referring to the dystopian thriller TV series in which contestants risk their lives to win a prize. Just raising your head might mean death, he said.

He and others crawled forward, then left the main road. A shot rang out nearby and they ducked, he said. They found a young man on the ground, shot in the back. The others assumed he was dead, but Saqer felt his chest — it was still warm, and he found a pulse. They carried him to a point where a car could pick him up.

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Saqer said he stood for a moment, traumatized by the scene. Then people shouted that the site had opened.

The mad dash

Everyone broke into a crazed run, he said. He saw several people wounded on the ground. One man, bleeding from his abdomen, reached out his hand, pleading for help. No one stopped.

“Everyone is just running to get to the aid, to get there first,” Saqer said.

Omar al-Hobi described the same scene the four times he went last week. Twice, he returned empty-handed; once, he managed to grab a pack of lentils. On the fourth day, he was determined to secure flour for his three children and pregnant wife.

He said he and others inched their way forward under tank fire. He saw several people shot in the legs. One man fell bleeding to the ground, apparently dead, he said.

Horrified, al-Hobi froze, unable to move, “but I remembered I have to feed my children.”

He took cover in a greenhouse, then heard the announcement that the center was open and began to run.

Avoiding thieves

At the center, food boxes are stacked on the ground in an area surrounded by fences and earthen berms. Thousands rush in to grab what they can in a frantic melee.

You have to move fast, Saqer said. Once supplies run out, some of those who came too late rob those leaving. He swiftly tore open a box and loaded the contents into a sack — juice, chickpeas, lentils, cheese, beans, flour and cooking oil.

Then he took off running. There’s only one route in and out of the center. But, knowing thieves waited outside, Saqer clambered over a berm, running the risk of being fired on by Israeli troops.

“It all depends on the soldiers’ mood. If they are in a bad mood … they will shoot at me. If not, they will let me be,” he said.

Heba Jouda said she saw a group of men beat up a boy of 12 or 13 years old and take his food as she left one of the Rafah centers. Another time, she said, thieves attacked an older man, who hugged his sack, weeping that his children had no food. They sliced his arm with a knife and ran off with the sack.

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The finish line

Al-Hobi said he was trampled in the scramble for boxes. He managed to grab a bag of rice, a packet of macaroni. He snagged flour — but much of it was ruined in the chaos.

At his family tent outside Khan Younis, his wife, Anwaar Saleh, said she will ration it all to make it last a week or so.

“We hope he doesn’t have to go back. His life is the most important thing,” she said.

Al-Hobi remains shaken — both by his brushes with death and the callousness that the race for food has instilled in everyone.

“No one will show you mercy these days. Everybody fends for themselves.”

Beirut: After Israeli strikes landed near the hotel where he was staying in the Iranian province of Qom, Aimal Hussein desperately wanted to return home. But the 55-year-old Afghan businessman couldn’t find a way, with Iranian airspace completely shut down. He fled to Tehran after the strike Sunday, but no taxi would take him to the border as the conflict between Iran and Israel intensified.

“Flights, markets, everything is closed, and I am living in the basement of a small hotel,” Hussein told The Associated Press by cellphone on Monday. “I am trying to get to the border by taxi, but they are hard to find, and no one is taking us.”

Israel launched a major attack Friday with strikes in the Iranian capital of Tehran and elsewhere, killing senior military officials, nuclear scientists, and destroying critical infrastructure. Among the targets was a nuclear enrichment facility about 18 miles from Qom. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of drones and missiles.

The days-long attacks between the two bitter enemies have opened a new chapter in their turbulent recent history. Many in the region fear a wider conflict as they watch waves of attacks across their skies every night.

The conflict has forced most countries in the Middle East to close their airspace. Dozens of airports have stopped all flights or severely reduced operations, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and others unable to flee the conflict or travel home.

Airport closures create ‘massive’ domino, tens of thousands stranded

“The domino effect here is massive,” said retired pilot and aviation safety expert John Cox, who said the disruptions will have a huge price tag. “You’ve got thousands of passengers suddenly that are not where they’re supposed to be, crews that are not where they are supposed to be, airplanes that are not where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

Zvika Berg was on an El Al flight to Israel from New York when an unexpected message came from the pilot as they began their descent: “Sorry, we’ve been rerouted to Larnaca.” The 50-year-old Berg saw other Israel-bound El Al flights from Berlin and elsewhere landing at the airport in Cyprus. Now he’s waiting at a Larnaca hotel while speaking to his wife in Jerusalem. “I’m debating what to do,” Berg said.

Israel has closed its main international Ben Gurion Airport “until further notice,” leaving more than 50,000 Israeli travelers stranded abroad. The jets of the country’s three airlines have been moved to Larnaca.

In Israel, Mahala Finkleman was stuck in a Tel Aviv hotel after her Air Canada flight was canceled, trying to reassure her worried family back home while she shelters in the hotel’s underground bunker during waves of overnight Iranian attacks.

“We hear the booms. Sometimes there’s shaking,” she said. “The truth, I think it’s even scarier … to see from TV what happened above our heads while we were underneath in a bomb shelter.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warned Israelis not to flee the country through any of the three crossings with Jordan and Egypt that are open to the Israeli public. Despite having diplomatic ties with Israel, the statement said those countries are considered a “high risk of threat” to Israeli travelers.

Iran on Friday suspended flights to and from the country’s main Khomeini International Airport on the outskirts of Tehran. Israel said Saturday that it bombed Mehrabad Airport in an early attack, a facility in Tehran for Iran’s air force and domestic commercial flights.

Many students unable to leave Iran, Iraq and elsewhere

Arsalan Ahmed is one of thousands of Indian university students stuck in Iran, with no way out. The medical student and other students in Tehran are not leaving the hostels where they live, horrified by the attacks with no idea of when they’ll find safety.

“It is very scary what we watch on television,” Ahmed said. “But scarier are some of the deafening explosions.” Universities have helped relocate many students to safer places in Iran, but the Indian government has not yet issued an evacuation plan for them.

Though airspace is still partially open in Lebanon and Jordan, the situation is chaotic at airports, with many passengers stranded locally and abroad with delayed and canceled flights even as the busy summer tourism season begins. Many airlines have reduced flights or stopped them altogether, and authorities have closed airports overnight when attacks are at their most intense. Syria, under new leadership, had just renovated its battered airports and begun restoring diplomatic ties when the conflict began.

Neighboring Iraq’s airports have all closed due to its close proximity to Iran. Israel reportedly used Iraqi airspace, in part, to launch its strikes on Iran, while Iranian drones and missiles flying the other way have been downed over Iraq. Baghdad has reached a deal with Turkey that would allow Iraqis abroad to travel to Turkey — if they can afford it — and return home overland through their shared border.

Some Iraqis stranded in Iran opted to leave by land. College student Yahia al-Suraifi was studying in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, where Israel bombed the airport and an oil refinery over the weekend.

Al-Suraifi and dozens of other Iraqi students pooled together their money to pay taxi drivers to drive 200 miles (320 kilometers) overnight to the border with northern Iraq with drones and airstrikes around them. “It looked like fireworks in the night sky,” al-Suraifi said. “I was very scared.”

By the time they reached the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, it was another 440 miles (710 kilometers) to get to his hometown of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. Back in Tehran, Hussein said the conflict brought back bitter memories of 20 years of war back home in Afghanistan. “This is the second time I have been trapped in such a difficult war and situation,” he said, “once in Kabul and now in Iran.”