Israel is escalating its bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion against Hamas militants. The war is rapidly raising the death toll in Gaza, and the U.S. fears could the fighting could spark a wider conflict in the region.
Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the Hamas attack on Israeli towns Oct. 7. The aid convoys allowed into Gaza so far have carried a fraction of what’s needed, and the U.N. said distribution will have to stop if there’s no fuel for the trucks.
AP FACT CHECK
Navine Abu Owdah’s apartment in Khan Younis was hit by an airstrike on Tuesday, badly injuring the heavily pregnant 30-year-old. Owdah was quickly rushed to the nearby hospital of al-Amal where thankfully doctors managed to deliver a healthy baby girl.
“A cesarean section was performed in the emergency department, and her baby girl, who is in good condition, was delivered,” doctor Salim Saqer said, speaking to The Associated Press from just outside the operating room.
Navine, who suffered multiple fractures and has abdominal bleeding, remains under observation and is receiving treatment.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 704 people in the past day, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday.
That represented a massive increase in the death toll amid widening Israeli bombing attacks in the territory.
Israel has been bombing Gaza since Hamas militants attacked southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7.
That has brought the death toll from the war to 5,791, including 2,360 children, ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement. At least 16,297 others were wounded, he said.
He said they have received 1,550 reports of missing people, including 870 children, suggesting that those missing could still be under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip — An airstrike hit a bustling marketplace in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing several shoppers and wounding dozens, witnesses said.
Men used sledgehammers to break up concrete and dug with their bare hands through the jagged wreckage to save anyone they could -– or recover the dead who had been buying meat and vegetables when the explosion hit.
A man buried up to his chest in rubble looked up at his rescuers with wide eyes, his face coated in dust from the blast.
An oxygen mask was placed on his face as rescuers worked to free him. About 15 minutes, he was unearthed and placed on a stretcher.
A roar rose from the dozens of men watching, several with their arms raised in triumph as they cheered the rescue.
On Tuesday, Israel said it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, killing Hamas commanders, hitting militants as they were preparing to launch rockets into Israel and striking command centers and a Hamas tunnel shaft. The previous day, Israel reported 320 strikes. The Palestinian official news agency, WAFA, said many of the airstrikes hit residential buildings, some of them in southern Gaza where Israel had told civilians to take shelter.
Hamas’s military arm, Qassam Brigades, said it fired a salvo of rockets on southern Israeli on Tuesday afternoon, including Beersheba, Israel’s largest city in the area. There was no immediate word on any damage or casualties.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 700 people in the past day, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday.
That represented a massive increase in the death toll amid widening Israeli bombing attacks in the territory.
Israel has been bombing Gaza since Hamas militants attacked southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7.
That has brought the death toll from the war to 5,791, including 2,360 children, ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement. At least 16,297 others were wounded, he said.
He said they have received 1,550 reports of missing people, including 870 children, suggesting that those missing could still be under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
The World Health Organization said 12 hospitals out of a total of 35 in Gaza were not functioning as of Monday. It said 46 out of 72 health care facilities across Gaza, or 64%, were not operating, mostly in Gaza city and northern Gaza.
Al-Qidra said the health facilities went out of service because of the attacks or because of a lack of fuel to keep them operating. “The Health Ministry announces a total collapse of hospitals in Gaza Strip,” he said.
Al-Qidra called for the Egyptian government to open the Rafah crossing point and ensure the delivery of medical supplies and fuel to Gaza and allow the wounded to be treated in Egypt. Egypt says it didn’t close the crossing, but Israeli airstrikes on its Palestinian side forced its closure.
JERUSALEM — The U.S. is issuing a new warning to ships traveling through the Red Sea after a drone and missile attack launched from Yemen during the Israel-Hamas war.
The U.S. Maritime Administration warning on Tuesday urged vessels to “exercise caution when transiting this region.”
The U.S. Navy says it shot down missiles and drones believed to have been launched by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in recent days amid wider tensions across the Middle East over the war.
JERUSALEM — French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking after meeting Israel’s prime minister on Tuesday, proposed a coalition to fight terror groups in the region “that threaten all of us.”
He compared the proposal to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. He was referring to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran itself and the Houtis in Yemen, among others, saying they must not take the risk of opening a new front.
Macron, on a two-day visit to the region, met with families of hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip by Hamas, and said “we will neglect nothing” to obtain freedom for French citizens. Nine French citizens are being held or have disappeared. Macron said he would visit Ramallah later Tuesday and several regional leaders on Wednesday. He did not identify them.
Standing at the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Macron stressed Israel’s right to defend itself in its war with Hamas.
“The fight must be without mercy, but not without rules” because democracies “respect the rules of war,” Macron said, adding that for example democracies don’t target civilians. His statement appeared to be a message to Israel, which has been criticized by some for attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. He called for access to aid for Gaza and for electricity to be supplied to Gaza hospitals — not for making war.
Netanyahu said it is Hamas that is responsible for civilian casualties, but that “we will do every effort to avoid them.” He added, “It could be a long war.”
“Hamas must be destroyed,” Netanyahu said, calling it a condition for ending the war.
Macron said any peace “cannot be durable” without restarting a “decisive” political process with Palestinians. But he said, “Hamas does not (represent) the Palestinian cause.”
BEIRUT — A prominent Lebanese Christian politician allied with Hezbollah said Tuesday that Lebanon would not initiate a war with Israel but would defend itself if attacked.
The comments by Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement of former President Michel Aoun, came as sporadic clashes continue on the Lebanese border with Israel between Hezbollah and armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon on one side and Israeli forces on the other.
“No one can drag us into war unless the Israeli enemy attacks us, and then we will be forced to defend ourselves,” Bassil said after a meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, another Hezbollah ally. Bassil also spoke by phone to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Monday. “All the Lebanese agree that they do not want war, but that does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be attacked without a response.”
There has been widespread speculation as to whether and under what circumstances Hezbollah and its arsenal of an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles would fully enter the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The ongoing clashes on the border and anxieties about a wider conflict have internally displaced 19,646 people in Lebanon, according to the International Organization for Migration.
TEL AVIV — Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old woman released by Hamas, told reporters Tuesday that the militants beat her with sticks, bruising her ribs and making it hard to breathe, as they kidnapped her during their attack on towns in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
They drove her into Gaza, then forced her to walk several kilometers (miles) on wet ground to reach a network of tunnels that looked like a spider web, she said. Lifshitz is one of only four hostages to be released — and the first to speak publicly — of the more than 220 believed held by Hamas.
She said the people assigned to guard her “told us they are people who believe in the Quran and wouldn’t hurt us.”
Lifshitz, whose husband remains a hostage, said that after she and four other people were taken into a room, they were treated well, conditions were clean, and they received medical care, including medication. They ate one meal a day of cheese and cucumber, she said, adding that her captors ate the same.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israeli fighter jets pounded several homes overnight in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, killing at least 28 people, according to the Hamas-run Interior Ministry. The ministry reported other airstrikes across the besieged territory which it said left dozens dead.
In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike hit a building in a refugee area late Tuesday morning, leaving many casualties. An Associated Press journalist saw ambulances bringing two dead and two wounded people from the strike.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the airstrike in densely populated Khan Younis hit a house near its hospital, Al-Amal. It said the airstrike caused panic at the hospital and its shelter center, which houses 4,000 people who fled their homes in northern Gaza because of the bombardments.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have moved to southern Gaza, including Rafah, which borders Egypt, after Israel told civilians to flee southward ahead of an expected ground invasion. However, Israel has continued its attacks across Gaza’s southern areas.
GENEVA — The U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, says some of the aid trucked into Gaza is “not very usable,” such as lentils and rice that require increasingly scarce fresh water and fuel to be cooked.
UNRWA spokesperson Tamira Alrifai said a total of 54 aid trucks have entered Gaza over the last several days, a “trickle” compared to the 500-odd truck deliveries, carrying both aid and commercial goods, a day in times of relative peace.
“My colleagues told me that in one of the shipments over the last couple of days, we received boxes of rice and lentils — donated very, very generously,” she said from Amman by video call to a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “But for people to cook lentils and rice, they need water and gas. And therefore, these kinds of supplies — while very generous and well-intended — are not very usable.”
Alrifai praised the “very spontaneous giving and donations” flown into Egypt for delivery to Gaza through the Rafah crossing, from various countries, “especially Arab countries.” She called for coordination with the Egyptian Red Crescent and “very, very clear guidance from the humanitarian groups that are on the ground.”
“Of course, everything is being closely coordinated with my U.N. colleagues and with U.N. agencies. But we will need to get better as a consortium of humanitarians in sending very explicit lists of what is most needed,” Alrifai said.
She said U.N. negotiators were “very, very far away” from getting the full ability to provide needed aid to Gaza.
JERUSALEM — The ruling emir of the small Middle East nation of Qatar, which hosts an office of Hamas and has served as an intermediary in hostage negotiations, said Tuesday that it “is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill.”
The comments by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Qatar’s consultative Shura Council come as negotiations continue to free more of the approximately 200 hostages Hamas has held since its Oct. 7 assault on Israel. About 1,400 people in Israel died in the assault, while the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip says over 5,000 people have died in Israeli airstrikes since then.
“We are against attacks on innocent civilians, regardless of their nationality, by any party,” Sheikh Tamim said. “But we do not accept double standards, nor do we accept acting as if the Palestinian children’s lives are not worth to be reckoned with, as though they are faceless or nameless.”
He added: “We are saying enough is enough. It is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill, nor it is tenable to continue ignoring the reality of occupation, siege and settlement. It should not be allowed in our time to use cutting off water and preventing medicine and food as weapons against an entire population.”
Sheikh Tamim renewed calls for a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital, something long called for by other Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia.
Qatar had a trade office for Israel from 1996 until 2000, but broke ties in 2009 over an Israel-Hamas war at the time. Under arrangements stemming from past cease-fire understandings with Israel, the gas-rich emirate of Qatar has paid the salaries of civil servants in the Gaza Strip, provided direct cash transfers to poor families and offered other kinds of humanitarian aid.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — An overnight Israeli airstrike hit a 4-story residential building in the city of Khan Younis, killing at least 32 people and wounding scores of others, according to survivors.
The fatalities included 13 from the Saqallah family in the Qarraha area, east of Khan Younis, said Ammar al-Butta, a relative who survived the airstrike. He said about 100 people, including his family and many others, had sheltered there.
The victims were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. An Associated Press video showed about a dozen bodies in white body bags lying on the ground outside the main gate of the hospital. One woman was weeping while another tried to console her.
“We were hosting our relatives from Gaza and the northern cities,” al-Butta said, speaking from the hospital. “They were sheltering at our home because we thought that our area would be safe. But apparently there is no safe place in Gaza.”
Osama al-Bashity, another relative, said they couldn’t recognize the dead. “We recognized them through the clothes they wore, who wore these trousers, or that T-shirt,” he said. “They turned into pieces.”
JERUSALEM — French President Emmanuel Macron said during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Tuesday that he came to Israel “to express our support and solidarity and share your pain.”
After arriving at Tel Aviv airport, Macron met with the families of 18 Franco-Israeli people who have been killed, are being held hostage or are missing.
“The first objective we should have today is the release of all hostages without any distinction because this is an awful crime to play with lives of children, adults, old people, civilians, soldiers,” Macron said.
He said he wanted to ensure Israel it is “not left alone in the war against terrorism.”
“We will do whatever we can to restore peace, security and stability for your country and the whole region,” he added.
French authorities said 30 French nationals were killed in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and nine others are missing or are being held hostage.
CAIRO — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said six of its workers have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, bringing the total to 35 dead since Oct. 7.
In a statement late Monday, the agency, known as UNRWA, said 18 other workers were wounded.
UNRWA said it found shrapnel in its facilities in the Bureij camp and in Nuseirat in central Gaza from Israel’s bombardment of nearby areas Sunday.
The start of the academic year at Israel’s universities and colleges has been delayed again, this time by nearly a month, suggesting the country is expecting extended fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The academic year initially had been scheduled to begin Oct. 19. After two previous delays, the Association of University Heads decided that studies won’t begin until Dec. 3, Israel Army Radio reported.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Fifteen members of the same family were among at least 33 Palestinians buried in a mass grave at a Gaza hospital on Monday after they were killed by Israeli airstrikes.
A harried-looking doctor in green scrubs walked past as bodies in white sheets were loaded into the back of a pickup truck. Men discussed where to fit the shrouded corpse of a small child between two adults.
Side-by-side, the bodies were laid to rest in a shallow, sandy grave in the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, an ambulance parked nearby. “Bring them all,” a gravedigger called out.
Israel said Monday it struck 320 militant targets throughout the besieged Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours. The military says it does not target civilians. Over 5,000 Palestinians, including some 2,000 minors, have been killed since the war began, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack.
ROME — Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said the last of three Italian-Israeli citizens who had been missing in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel is also dead.
“Unfortunately, also Nir Forti is deceased,’’ the minister wrote late Monday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Forti had been attending the music festival that Hamas attacked.
“To die at 29, barbarously killed by terrorists, is deeply unjust,’’ Tajani wrote on X.
Only hours earlier Tajani had announced the death of another Italian-Israeli woman, whose husband’s death had been confirmed last week.
UNITED NATIONS — A United Nations special investigator said while Hamas’ attacks on Israel at a minimum constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israel in its response is required under international law to protect civilians and is banned from targeting schools, hospitals and people fleeing harm.
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, told a U.N. news conference Monday that when these rules of international humanitarian law are breached, “we are also in the territory of war crimes.”
She stressed that under the Geneva Conventions governing the conduct of war, it isn’t only Israel and Hamas that must respect international humanitarian law. Those “with influence” over the parties also have an obligation to ensure the rules of war are respected — and to remind the parties to comply.
Ní Aoláin, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said Israel should avoid making the same “mistake” the United States did following 9/11, when “egregious and systematic violations of human rights” were committed.
She also echoed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s view that Israel’s order for 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to move to the south “will have devastating consequences.”
Ní Aoláin, said she and many others in the U.N. system joined the secretary-general in condemning this, “as well as being clear that the cutting off of water and electricity, which indiscriminately and excessively harm civilians, may constitute a war crime.”
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Tuesday is turning into a high-level event, with ministers flying to New York and the U.S. pushing for adoption of a resolution that would condemn the Hamas attacks in Israel and violence against civilians, and reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense.
The new U.S.-drafted resolution was still being negotiated late Monday afternoon, but a recent draft obtained by The Associated Press also demands the immediate release of all hostages, urges respect for international laws on conducting war and protecting civilians, urges all countries to intensify efforts to prevent a spillover, and demands immediate humanitarian access to Gaza.
Among those expected at Tuesday’s meeting are the foreign minister of Israel, the Palestinians, Iran, Jordan, France and Brazil, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of any announcement.
A resolution proposed by Russia, which called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” and would strongly condemn all violence and acts of terrorism didn’t mention the Hamas attacks. It failed to get the minimum nine “yes” votes needed for approval by the 15-member council.
Diplomats said one issue in the U.S. draft resolution is Russia’s demand for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.