DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said again Saturday that Israel has “no choice” but to continue fighting in Gaza and will not end the war before destroying Hamas, freeing the hostages and ensuring that the territory won’t present a threat to Israel.

The prime minister also repeated his vow to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

Netanyahu is under growing pressure at home not only from families of hostages and their supporters but also from reservist and retired Israeli soldiers who question the continuation of the war after Israel shattered a ceasefire last month. In his statement, he claimed that Hamas has rejected Israel’s latest proposal to free half the hostages for a continued ceasefire.

The prime minister spoke after Israeli strikes killed more than 90 people in 48 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday. Israeli troops have been increasing their attacks to pressure Hamas to release the hostages and disarm.

Children and women were among the 15 people killed overnight, according to hospital staff. At least 11 dead were in the southern city of Khan Younis, several of them in a tent in the Muwasi area where hundreds of thousands of displaced people stay, hospital workers said. Israel has designated it as a humanitarian zone.

Mourners cradled and kissed the faces of the dead. A man stroked a child’s forehead with his finger before body bags were closed.

“Omar is gone … I wish it was me,” one brother cried out.

Four other people were killed in strikes in Rafah city, including a mother and her daughter, according to the European Hospital, where the bodies were taken.

Later on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a group of civilians west of Nuseirat in central Gaza killed one person, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

Israel’s military in a statement said it killed more than 40 militants over the weekend.

Separately, the military said a soldier was killed Saturday in northern Gaza and confirmed it was the first soldier death since Israel resumed the war on March 18. Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said it ambushed Israeli forces operating east of Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighborhood.

Israel has vowed to intensify attacks across Gaza and occupy indefinitely large “security zones” inside the small coastal strip of over 2 million people. Hamas wants Israeli forces to withdraw from the territory.

Israel also has blockaded Gaza for the past six weeks, again barring the entry of food and other goods.

This week, aid groups raised the alarm, saying thousands of children have become malnourished and most people are barely eating one meal a day as stocks dwindle, according to the United Nations.

The head of the World Health Organization’s eastern Mediterranean office, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, on Friday urged the new U.S. ambassador in Israel, Mike Huckabee, to push the country to lift Gaza’s blockade so medicines and other aid can enter.

“I would wish for him to go in and see the situation firsthand,” she said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Hamas currently holds 59 hostages, 24 of them believed to be alive.

Israel’s offensive has since killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food production capabilities. Around 90% of the population is displaced, with hundreds of thousands of people living in tent camps and bombed-out buildings.

Frustration has been growing on both sides, with rare public protests against Hamas in Gaza and continued weekly rallies in Israel pressing the government to reach a deal to bring all hostages home.

Thousands of Israelis joined protests Saturday night pressing for a deal.

“Do what you should have done a long time ago. Bring them all back now! And in one deal. And if this means to stop the war, then stop the war,” former hostage Omer Shem Tov told a rally in Tel Aviv.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Federman from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli aircraft struck a residential block in war-ravaged northern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people, health officials said, as the renewed fighting in the devastated Palestinian enclave showed no signs of slowing.

The Al-Ahly hospital said at least 23 people were killed in the strike, including eight women and eight children. The territory’s Health Ministry confirmed the figures.

The strike hit a four-story building in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, and rescue teams were searching for victims under the rubble, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. The civil defense, a rescue group that operates under the Hamas-run government, said other neighboring buildings were damaged in the strike.

The Israeli military said it struck a senior Hamas militant who it said was behind attacks emanating from Shijaiyah, but it didn’t name him or provide further details. Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on the militant group, because it embeds itself in dense urban areas.

As it ratchets up pressure on Hamas to agree to free hostages, Israel has issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of Gaza, including Shijaiyah. It imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. It has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.

The U.N. said the Israeli military has denied aid workers permission for more than two-thirds of 170 attempts to move humanitarian supplies within the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire ended. U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said efforts to get dwindling aid supplies to Palestinians were “severely strained.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Earlier this week, Hamas fired its strongest volley of rockets since the ceasefire collapsed, lobbing 10 projectiles toward southern Israel.

Israel resumed its war against Hamas in Gaza last month after an eight-week ceasefire collapsed. The ceasefire brought a much-needed reprieve from the fighting to war-weary Palestinians in Gaza and sent an infusion of humanitarian aid to the territory. It also led to the release of 25 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the return of the remains of eight others, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Mediators have since attempted to bring the sides to a bridging agreement that would again pause the war, free hostages and open the door for talks on the war’s end, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he won’t agree to until Hamas is defeated. Hamas wants the war to end before it frees the remaining 59 hostages it holds, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

The war, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel, has seen the deadliest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in their history. It has ignited a humanitarian crisis in already impoverished Gaza, and has sent shockwaves across the region and beyond.

Netanyahu traveled to Washington this week to meet with President Donald Trump. In their public statements, they offered sympathy for the plight of the hostages but shed little light on any emerging deal to suspend the fighting.

Trump has said he wants the war to end. But his postwar vision for Gaza — taking it over and relocating its population — has stunned Middle East allies, who say any talk of transferring the Palestinian population, by force or voluntarily, is a nonstarter. Israel has embraced the idea.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, is under pressure from his far-right political allies to continue the war until Hamas is crushed, an aim Israel has yet to achieve 18 months into the conflict.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France should move toward recognizing a Palestinian state in the coming months. The goal is to do that by June, when France and Saudi Arabia co-host an international conference about implementing a two-state solution, Macron told broadcaster France-5 in an interview aired Wednesday.

The war has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry there, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

Hamas killed 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 attack, mostly civilians, and took 250 people captive, many of whom have been freed in ceasefire deals.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Angela Charlton in Paris; and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Israeli forces bombed a tent full of Palestinian media workers on Monday in Gaza, killing at least two and wounding nine more — just days after a new report concluded that more journalists have been killed in the territory’s crisis than in most other major wars combined.

An Israeli strike hit the media tent overnight near a hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze and killing Palestine Today journalist Helmi Al-Faqawi, according to local media. Reports have also identified civilian Yousef Al-Khazandar as the second person killed in the strike.

Gruesome footage taken and shared online by other journalists shows a man burning alive in the tent while some witnesses try putting out the fire. The man, now identified as Palestine Today editor Ahmad Mansour, is still alive but in critical condition with “catastrophic burns,” according to Quds Network.

In addition to Mansour, the Monday strike reportedly wounded freelance photographer Hassan Aslih, Alam24 photographer Ali Aslih, Anadolu photographer Abdallah Al-Attar, BBC Arabic contributor Ahmad Al-Agha, freelance photojournalist Mohammed Fayeq, ABC News cameraman Ihab Al-Bardini, Al Jazeera cameraman Mahmoud Awad and Radio Algerie correspondent Majid Qudeih.

The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate said it “appeals to all human rights organizations, as well as institutions dedicated to press freedom and freedom of expression worldwide, and all media organizations, to expose to the world the horrific massacres and atrocities being committed by the Israeli occupation forces against journalists in Gaza – crimes that rank among the most heinous in the history of journalism.”

The attacks come after Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs released a report concluding that the rate of journalists killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, has rendered the territory a “news graveyard” and turned the ongoing crisis into the deadliest ever for members of the press. The institute’s Costs of War project released the analysis on April 1.

To break it down, Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza over the last year and a half than if one combines the number of journalists killed in the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

“It’s unclear how many Palestinian reporters in Gaza have been intentionally killed because of their work and how many were simply the victims, like tens of thousands of fellow civilians, of Israel’s bombardment of a densely populated 140-square mile strip of land,” the report said, adding that Palestinian journalists’ work is especially critical as Israel has barred foreign correspondents from entering the territory.

As of March 26, the death toll for journalists in Gaza stands at 232 since Israel launched its current military campaign that international commissions and human rights groups have labeled a genocide. That death toll equates to an average of 13 Palestinian journalists killed per month by Israel, according to the analysis. Several journalists have been killed or wounded since the report’s release, including Islam Maqdad and Hossam Shabat.

“The survivors reporting in the news graveyard of Gaza continue to work under threat of death, injury, arrest and cyberattack. They have endured the loss of family, friends, colleagues and homes. They have persevered in the face of intolerable hardships,” the report said. “Solidarity in the profession demands that international reporters call out repression, break blockades and support embattled journalists in Gaza and beyond.”

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people, including over a dozen women and children, local health officials said Sunday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to the United States to meet with President Donald Trump about the war.

Israel last month ended its ceasefire with Hamas and renewed its air and ground offensive, carrying out waves of strikes and seizing territory to pressure the militant group to accept a new deal for a truce and release of remaining hostages. It has also blocked the import of food, fuel and humanitarian aid for over a month to the coastal territory heavily reliant on outside assistance.

“Stocks are getting low and the situation is becoming desperate,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said on social media.

The latest Israeli strikes overnight into Sunday hit a tent and a house in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing five men, five women and five children, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.

A female journalist was among those killed. “My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” said her mother, Amal Kaskeen.

The body of one child, under 2 years old, took up just one end of an emergency stretcher.

“Trump wants to end the Gaza issue. He is in a hurry, and that is clear from this morning,” said Mohammad Abdel-Hadi, cousin of a woman killed.

Israeli shelling killed at least four people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The bodies of seven people, including a child and three women, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to an Associated Press journalist there.

And a strike in Gaza City hit people waiting outside a bakery and killed at least six, including three children, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israel’s military said about 10 projectiles were fired from Gaza and most were intercepted, in the largest barrage from the territory since Israel resumed the war. Hamas’ military arm claimed responsibility. Israeli police said some fragments fell in Ashkelon city. There were no reports of injuries.

Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in Jabaliya for a new round of anti-war protests. Footage circulating on social media showed people marching and chanting against Hamas. Such protests, while rare, have occurred in recent weeks.

There is also anger inside Israel over the war’s resumption and its effects on remaining hostages in Gaza. Families of hostages along with some of those recently freed from Gaza and their supporters on Saturday urged Trump to help ensure the fighting ends.

Netanyahu on Monday will meet with Trump for the second time since Trump began his latest term in January. The prime minister said they would discuss the war and the new 17% tariff imposed on Israel, part of a sweeping global decision by the new U.S. administration.

“There is a very large queue of leaders who want to do this with respect to their economies. I think it reflects the special personal connection and the special connection between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time,” Netanyahu said while wrapping up a visit to Hungary.

The U.S., a mediator in ceasefire efforts along with Egypt and Qatar, expressed support for Israel’s resumption of the war last month.

Hundreds of Palestinians since then have been killed, among them 15 medics whose bodies were recovered only a week later. Israel’s military this weekend backtracked on its account of what happened in the incident, captured in part on video, that caused anger by Red Cross and Red Crescent and U.N. officials.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Fifty-nine hostages are still held in Gaza — 24 believed to be alive — after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 50,695 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants but says more than half were women and children. It says another 115,338 people have been wounded. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Phone video from one of 15 Palestinian medics killed by Israeli forces last month appears to contradict Israeli claims that the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire on them in southern Gaza.

The footage shows the Red Crescent and Civil Defense teams driving slowly with their emergency vehicles’ lights flashing, logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward the stricken ambulance.

Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire, which goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses. The owner of the phone can be heard praying.

“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose, mother, to help people,” he cries, his voice weak.

Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by Israeli troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s vice president, Marwan Jilani, said the phone with the footage was found in the pocket of one of its slain staffers. The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations distributed the video to the U.N. Security Council. The Associated Press obtained the video from a U.N. diplomat on condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.

One paramedic who survived, Munzer Abed, confirmed the veracity of the video to the AP. Two block-shaped concrete structures visible in the video are also seen in a U.N. video released Sunday showing the recovery of the bodies from the site — a sign they are in the same location.

Asked about the video, the Israeli military said Saturday that the incident was “under thorough examination.”

The Israeli military earlier said it opened fire on the vehicles because they were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals.

The initial account of the vehicles not having emergency lights on was mistaken, an Israeli military official told journalists Saturday evening. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Younes Al-Khatib, called for an independent investigation. “We don’t trust any of the army investigations,” he told a briefing at the U.N. on Friday.

One medic, Assaad al-Nassasra, is still missing, the Red Crescent says. Abed said he saw al-Nassasra being led away blindfolded by Israeli troops. Al-Khatib said the organization has asked the military where it is holding the staffer.

Al-Khatib said the slain men had been “targeted at close range” and that a forensic autopsy report would be released soon.

Israel has accused Hamas of moving and hiding its fighters inside ambulances and emergency vehicles, as well as in hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, arguing that justifies strikes on them. Medical personnel largely deny the accusations.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 150 emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, most of them while on duty, as well as over 1,000 health workers, according to the U.N. The Israeli military rarely investigates such incidents.

Ambulances started heading to Tel al-Sultan at around 3:50 a.m. on March 23, responding to reports of wounded, Jilani said. The first ambulance returned safely with at least one casualty, he said. But, he said, subsequent ambulances came under fire.

His hands trembling, Abed told the AP on Saturday that as his ambulance entered the area, its siren lights were on. “All of a sudden, I am telling you, there was direct shooting at us,” so intense that the vehicle ground to a stop, he said.

A 10-year veteran of the Red Crescent, Abed said he was sitting in the back seat and ducked to the floor. He said he could hear nothing from his two colleagues in the front seat — the only others in the vehicle. They appear to have been killed instantly.

Israeli troops, some with night goggles, dragged Abed out of the ambulance and onto the ground, he said. They made him strip to his underwear, beat him all over his body with their rifle butts, then tied his hands behind his back, he said.

They interrogated him, asking him about his paramedic training and how many people were in the ambulance with him, he said. One soldier pressed the muzzle of his automatic rifle into his neck. Another pressed his knife blade into Abed’s palm, almost cutting it, until a third soldier pulled them away and warned Abed, “They’re crazy.”

Abed said he witnessed them opening fire on the next vehicles to arrive. Soldiers forced him onto his stomach and pressed a gun into his back, he said, and amid the shooting in the darkness, so he could only see two Civil Defense vehicles.

The phone video shows a rescue convoy of Red Crescent and Civil Defense vehicles that was sent out after contact was lost with the stricken ambulance. Taken from the dashboard of one vehicle, it shows several ambulances and a fire truck moving down a road through a barren area in the darkness. The emergency lights on their roofs are flashing the entire way.

They arrive at an ambulance on the side of the road and stop next to it, their lights still flashing. No Israeli troops are visible.

“Lord, let them be OK,” a man in the car says. Then he cries out, “They’re tossed around on the ground!” — apparently referring to bodies. Three men in orange Civil Defense clothing can be seen getting out of the vehicles and walking toward the stopped ambulance.

A shot rings out and one of the men appears to fall. Gunfire erupts.

The man holding the phone appears to scramble out of the car and onto the ground, but the screen goes black, though the audio continues. The gunfire goes on for nearly five and a half minutes, with long, heavy barrages followed by silences punctuated by individual shots and shouts and screams.

Throughout, the man with the phone says over and over, “There is no God but God and Muhammad is God’s prophet” — the profession of faith that Muslims say when they fear they are about to die. Near the end of the six-minute, 40-second video, voices can be heard shouting in Hebrew. “The Jews are coming,” the man said, referring to Israeli soldiers, before the video cuts off.

The Israeli military official asserted there was “no mistreatment,” and said he didn’t know why the vehicles had been buried. He had no information about the medic who remained missing.

The Israeli military says that after the shooting, troops determined they had killed a Hamas figure named Mohammed Amin Shobaki and eight other militants. However, none of the 15 slain medics has that name, and no other bodies are known to have been found at the site.

The military has not said what happened to Shobaki’s body or released the names of the other alleged militants. The Israeli military official said Israel was “working to bring evidence” that Hamas operatives were killed.

Jonathan Whittall, interim head in Gaza of the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA, dismissed allegations that the slain medics were Hamas militants, saying staff had worked with the same medics previously in evacuating patients from hospitals and other tasks.

“These are paramedic crews that I personally have met before,” he said. “They were buried in their uniforms with their gloves on. They were ready to save lives.”

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Keath from Cairo. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Areej Hazboun contributed to this report.

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 100 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 27 or more sheltering at a school in the north, according to Palestinian medical authorities, in a stepped-up offensive that Israel’s military said is intended to put new pressure on Hamas and eventually expel the militant group.

The bodies of 14 children and five women were recovered from the school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City and the death toll could rise because some of the 70 wounded sustained critical injuries, said Health Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi. More than 30 other Gaza residents were killed in strikes on homes in the nearby neighborhood of Shijaiyah, he said, citing records at Ahli Hospital.

The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas command and control center” in the Gaza City area, and said it took steps to lessen harm to civilians. Israel gave the same reason — striking Hamas militants in a “command and control center” — for attacking a United Nations building used as a shelter a day earlier, killing at least 17 people.

Hamas condemned the strike on the school, calling it a “ heinous massacre” of innocent civilians.

The strikes came as Israel’s military ordered more residents in parts of northern Gaza to move west and south to shelters, warning that it planned to “work with extreme force in your area.” A number of the Palestinians leaving the targeted areas did so on foot, with some carrying their belongings on their backs and others using donkey carts.

“My wife and I have been walking for three hours covering only one kilometer,” said Mohammad Ermana, 72. The couple, clasping hands, each walked with a cane. “I’m searching for shelters every hour now, not every day,” he said.

Israel has issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza ahead of expected ground operations. The United Nations humanitarian office said around 280,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas last month.

The fresh evacuation orders came a day after senior government officials said Israel said it would seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor across it. To pressure Hamas, Israel has imposed a month-long blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime.

Hamas says it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout from Gaza. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave the territory.

Overnight strikes by Israel killed at least 55 people in the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said Thursday.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, officials said the bodies of 14 people had been taken to Nasser Hospital – nine of them from the same family. The dead included five children and four women. The bodies of another 19 people, including five children aged between 1 and 7 years and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European hospital near Khan Younis, hospital officials said. In Gaza City, 21 bodies were taken to Ahli hospital, including those of seven children.

Later in the day, strikes killed four more people in Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, and another two people were killed in central Gaza and taken to Al Aqsa Hospital.

The attacks came as the Israeli military promised an independent investigation of a March 23 operation in which its forces opened fire on ambulances in southern Gaza. U.N. officials say 15 Palestinian medics and emergency responders were killed, and their bodies and ambulances were buried by Israeli soldiers in a mass grave.

The military initially said the ambulances were operating suspiciously and that nine militants were killed. The military said the probe would be led by an expert fact-finding body “responsible for examining exceptional incidents” during the war. Rights groups say such investigations are often lacking and that soldiers are rarely punished.

The head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Younes Al-Khatib, said Thursday that he believed some of the medics were still alive when they were overtaken by Israeli forces. The organization’s radio dispatchers heard a conversation in Hebrew between medics and Israeli soldiers after the ambulances had come under fire, Al-Khatib told members of the U.N. Security Council.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that he was turning over a video he obtained, allegedly showing the moments leading up to the Israeli killing of 15 humanitarian workers in Gaza.

Mansour said the video shows that the aid workers, including eight members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, were traveling in emergency vehicles with the lights on at night to deconflict with Israeli Defense Forces. But, Mansour said, the video “found on the body of one of the martyrs,” shows that the Israeli army ambushed the vehicle despite the emergency lights.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel was establishing a new security corridor across Gaza to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

Israel has also reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, a military zone that separates the northern third of Gaza from the rest of the narrow strip. Both that and another corridor, along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, run from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.

Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel plans to maintain overall security control of Gaza after the war and implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary emigration.”

Palestinians have rejected the proposal, viewing it as expulsion from their homeland after Israel’s offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced around 90% of the population.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.

Netanyahu arrived in Hungary early Thursday on his second foreign trip since the world’s top war crimes court issued an arrest warrant against him in November over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the International Criminal Court has said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.

ICC member countries, such as Hungary, are required to arrest suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no way to enforce that and relies on states to comply. As Netanyahu arrived in Budapest, Hungary said it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the ICC.

Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Israel launched airstrikes on several locations in Lebanon on Saturday in retaliation for a rocket attack, killing six people in the heaviest exchange of fire since its ceasefire with the militant group Hezbollah began nearly four months ago.

The exchange sparked concern about whether the ceasefire would hold, days after Israel relaunched war with another Iran-backed militant group, Hamas, in Gaza. In a statement, Hezbollah denied being responsible for the attack, saying it was committed to the truce.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it instructed the army to respond forcefully against dozens of targets in Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah is based. Israel’s army said six rockets were fired toward Metula, a town along the border with Lebanon. Three crossed into Israel and were intercepted.

In a statement, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam asked the Lebanese military to take all necessary measures in the south but said the country did not want to return to war.

Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict boiled over into all-out war in September as Israel carried out massive waves of airstrikes and killed most of the militant group’s senior leaders. The fighting killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced about 60,000 Israelis.

Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw from all Lebanese territory by late January under a ceasefire struck on Nov. 27. The deadline was extended to Feb. 18.

But Israel has remained in five locations in Lebanon, across from communities in northern Israel. It has carried out dozens of airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, saying it attacked Hezbollah, while continuing drone attacks that have killed several members of the militant group.

Lebanon has appealed to the U.N. to pressure Israel to fully withdraw from the country.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said it was alarmed at the possible escalation of violence and urged all parties to avoid jeopardizing the progress made.

The army said it “cannot confirm the identity of the organization that fired the rockets.” It said it struck Hezbollah command centers and dozens of rocket launchers.

An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese village of Touline killed five people, including a child, and wounded 10 others, including two children, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Another Israeli strike Saturday night hit a garage in the coastal city of Tyre, the NNA reported, with one person killed and seven wounded. It was the first attack on the city since the ceasefire took effect Nov. 27. And a strike on Hawsh al-Sayed Ali village along the border with Syria wounded five people, according to the NNA.

In a statement, Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, asked the country’s military to take all necessary measures in the south, but said the country does not want to return to war.

Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict boiled over into all-out war in September as Israel carried out waves of airstrikes and killed most of the militant group’s senior leaders. The fighting killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced about 60,000 Israelis.

Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw from all Lebanese territory by late January under the ceasefire deal. The deadline was extended to Feb. 18, but Israel has remained in five locations in Lebanon across from communities in northern Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has carried out dozens of airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, saying it attacked Hezbollah, while continuing drone attacks that have killed several members of the militant group.

Lebanon has appealed to the U.N. to pressure Israel to fully withdraw. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said it was alarmed at the possible escalation of violence and urged all parties to avoid jeopardizing the progress made.

The strikes came a day after Israel said it would carry out operations in Gaza “with increasing intensity” until Hamas frees the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israeli strikes on Friday night killed at least nine people, including three children, in a house in Gaza City, according to Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies.

“Rubble and glass started falling on us,” said Sameh al-Mashharawi, who lost his brother in the attack. He mourned with his young nephew Samir al-Mashharawi, whose parents and siblings were killed. The 12-year-old, his head and wrists bandaged, sat in the back of a truck and cried.

Israel’s military said Friday that its forces were planning fresh assaults into three neighborhoods west of Gaza City and issued warnings on social media for Palestinians to evacuate the areas.

“Hamas, unfortunately, understands military pressure,” Netanyahu’s foreign policy advisor Ophir Falk told The Associated Press.

Around 600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel relaunched the war on Tuesday. Israel had already cut off the supply of food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, aiming to pressure Hamas over ceasefire negotiations.

The international community has condemned the resumed attacks.

The initial 2023 attack by Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Tens of thousands of Israelis on Saturday again protested the government’s failure to negotiate a hostage deal and its move to fire the head of the country’s Shin Bet internal security service. They called for new elections.

The Supreme Court has ordered a temporary halt to Ronen Bar’s dismissal until an appeal is heard. Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss him.

Netanyahu said in a statement late Saturday that Bar “will not remain the head of the Shin Bet” and “Israel will remain a democratic state.” He argued that his loss of confidence in Bar long predates the Shin Bet investigation into illicit ties between several of his aides and Qatar.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid called for a tax rebellion and general strike if the government defies the court ruling, saying: “If this happens, the entire country needs to grind to a halt.”

Shurafa reported from Deir Al-Balah, Gaza. Associated Press writers Ibrahim Hazboun in Kfar Haoranim, West Bank; Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel; Samy Magdy in Cairo and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Warning: This story contains graphic and distressing content throughout.

Doctors and hospitals that were already barely functioning in Gaza have been thrown back into chaos, with Palestinian casualties rapidly climbing as a result of what local health officials say is now the deadliest bombing campaign of Israel’s 17-month offensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the slew of airstrikes across Gaza early Tuesday, shattering the fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas that began two months ago. The strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians overnight, at least 180 of whom were children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“We received many bodies and body parts, most of them children and women,” Dr. Mohammed Qishta, who was at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said in a recording to Doctors Without Borders, or MSF. “The bodies were everywhere in the emergency room, with complete confusion.”

Qishta is among the many doctors — both Gazan and foreign — who recounted to HuffPost, aid groups and on social media the mass-casualty nightmare they faced this week.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal in January that included exchanging hostages from both sides over three phases, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza. Despite sporadic attacks that mostly consisted of Israeli gunfire, displaced Palestinians had a chance to return to what little was left of home — retrieving loved ones’ bodies for burial and even beginning to rebuild.

But amid the truce, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa told HuffPost he had still been treating injuries that ultimately stemmed from the initial shootings and explosions, including buildings that collapsed after Israeli strikes rendered them structurally unsound.

“The first trauma operation I did here was for a 24-year-old guy who was trying to retrieve his dad’s dead body from inside their apartment,” said the surgeon, who entered Gaza with a MedGlobal team on March 6. “It had been bombed months before, and while he was doing that the apartment collapsed on him and tore his left kidney off of his aorta. He almost bled to death from this.”

The Israeli military killed at least 150 people during the ceasefire in Gaza, according to Euro-Med Monitor. The human rights group’s field team said Palestinians were usually targeted when they tried to return to their homes near the border.

Dr. Sabrina Das arrived in Gaza for the first time last week as part of a training mission to help doctors in the territory learn specific obstetrics tools. Before Tuesday’s bombardment, Das was at a United Nations clinic teaching doctors how to use handheld ultrasound devices on pregnant women — 50,000 of whom are currently trapped in Gaza, according to UNFPA, the U.N. agency focused on global reproductive health.

On March 2, Israel cut off all aid from entering Gaza, leaving Palestinians without access to food, water, fuel, shelter, medicine and other basic supplies. Dozens of ultrasound devices, some of which could save the lives of these women and their unborn children, have been stalled at the border for weeks now, says UNFPA, and Das said the blockade means pregnant women have no reliable access to pain relief.

“We have a lot of NGOs that are carrying basic infant nutrition, basic medicines,” the OB-GYN said. “And when you don’t allow them to come in, then you have bare shelves in the pharmacy, and you have bare shelves in the hospital.”

In the middle of the night, Israel began raining bombs across the entire Palestinian territory, killing hundreds of people in a matter of hours. Netanyahu said the attack was “only the beginning,” blaming Hamas for refusing to free half the remaining hostages as a precondition of extending the ceasefire, despite it not being what either party had initially agreed to.

Das was asleep in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi area when the strikes began. She recalled the bombs hitting so close to her that the doors shook with every explosion, describing her reaction as “an out-of-body experience” where “your brain knows what’s happening but you don’t want to believe it.”

Before Tuesday, Sidhwa had not heard a single bomb since his arrival — so when the door to the medical team’s living quarters at Nasser Hospital smashed open, the surgeon leaped out of bed.

“I jumped up and all of a sudden it was, I couldn’t tell you how many, but it was a lot of explosions in very rapid succession, and it continued all night long,” he said. “I kind of expected this to happen while I was here, but at the same time I don’t wanna pretend it’s not frightening to be in a place that’s being bombed to smithereens.”

Sidhwa and his colleagues ran downstairs to Nasser’s emergency room, an area he described as initially well-prepared ahead of the incoming flood of mass casualty patients.

Normally the first wave of people coming into the hospital for care aren’t in the most desperate need, he explained, since they were likely able to transport themselves. It’s the patients who are brought in by emergency personnel who usually need hospital resources the most.

But as the sheer number of casualties climbed, hospitals began struggling to keep up.

“The situation was very tense, and the doctors in the emergency room fell down and collapsed,” Qishta said. “They were crying due to the intensity and the difficulty of the situation.”

Hospitals across Gaza — most of which are only partially functioning, at most — became quickly overwhelmed. The situation is even worse due to the continued aid blockade and the Israeli military’s latest ground invasion, which has resulted in Gaza’s north and south again being cut off from each other.

Below are graphic details of some of the cases these doctors encountered.

“We’ve run out of ketamine, we’ve run out of propofol, we’ve run out of all painkillers,” Dr. Mohammed Mustafa said in a video he recorded from a hospital in the north and shared on Instagram. “We can’t sedate anyone, we can’t give them any analgesia. When we intubate people, they wake up and they’re choking because we have no sedation.”

The Gaza Health Ministry says most of the casualties from this week’s bombardment have been children and women, including the pregnant people Das and other OB-GYNs were hoping they could help.

An OB-GYN who has chosen to be publicly identified only as “Dr. Yacoub” for their security recalled a 30-year-old woman who was 22 weeks pregnant when she came to Kuwaiti Hospital with a head injury, only to be pronounced dead. Upon examination, Yacoub found that the baby was also dead.

At Nasser, Sidhwa and fellow trauma surgeon Dr. Morgan McMonagle went to what they called the “red area,” where patients are at the most immediate risk of death. Sidhwa himself worked on at least seven cases within seven hours, including a 29-year-old woman who had a hole in her sacrum, a rectum torn in half, and a wounded vagina, bladder and colon.

At the time he spoke to HuffPost, the surgeon said that the woman had died about a half hour earlier — and that she was the sister of another physician there.

“Almost every health care worker in Gaza has had somebody from their own family, either immediate or extended, come into the hospital while they were working in the ER, dead,” he said.

McMonagle also operated on startling cases, including a 6-year-old child with shrapnel wounds all over his chest and abdomen. The boy had two holes in his heart; a laceration in his left lung; his liver’s right side split in half; two holes in his colon; three holes in his stomach; and five holes in his small bowel. He did not survive.

Mustafa said that many of the people his hospital received were women and children “burned head to toe,” with limbs and sometimes heads missing from their bodies. Seven girls were getting their legs amputated without anesthesia, he added.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I was here in June – nothing to this intensity. This is unbelievable, and the bombing is still going on. The rooms are still shaking. The screams are everywhere. It’s insane,” he said.

“I need to just take 15 minutes or even an hour, just to rest to go back in there and go back down again,” he continued. “I feel awful to leave but I’ve been there all night and I haven’t stopped, and my legs are shaking. And I feel dizzy and lightheaded. The smell of burnt flesh is still in my nose.”

The carnage from Tuesday’s barrage of Israeli airstrikes is hardly over, with local health officials saying the military killed at least 85 more Palestinians over Wednesday night into Thursday. The victims were targeted in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and Rafah, as well as northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.

Nasser Hospital received the bodies of several people killed in the new attack. Sidhwa said he operated on a young patient who needed a splenectomy, a left kidney repair, and a repair of holes in his transverse colon — all from shrapnel. He also had to break up a fight between a doctor and a patient’s husband, and “everybody said before the war that kind of thing would never have happened.”

Das is now helping at Nasser’s maternity ward, along with extra residents from the now-destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital. On Wednesday, she saw 110 people in the outpatient department, where droves of pregnant women are coming for scans due to their anxiety and the illusion that it’s safer to walk in the daytime. Cleanliness also remains an issue, she added.

“The stories are heartbreaking — like I said, the long-term impact of war on women — the nurse I was working with has 4 children and has to leave them alone to come to work,” Das updated HuffPost in a Thursday message. “Her husband was a teacher and was captured by the Israelis. Her 16 year old daughter is the same age as my daughter. Has to look after her siblings.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s aid blockade on Gaza has entered its 18th day and led to the closure of community kitchens and water desalination plants in the territory. Hospitals have either run out of supplies or are dangerously close to doing so.

“If this continues, we will absolutely be out of supplies, and quickly. I couldn’t tell you the number of hours or days, but it would not be very many,” Sidhwa said. “I cannot imagine we would have enough supplies that I would be able to operate competently to any kind of standard … for even another week.”

Humanitarians have accused Israel this week of violating international law, including in the killing of a U.N. staffer the agency called “no accident.” A slew of countries, human rights organizations, the U.N. and others in the international community have already accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

The U.S. has so far continued to support Israel, with President Donald Trump openly pushing to “take over” the territory and forcibly resettle residents. The White House admitted to signing off on Tuesday’s attack.

Israel has come under particular scrutiny for its targeting of Gaza’s health care system, laying siege to multiple hospitals and either killing doctors or taking them captive. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch released a report that claimed Israel had committed war crimes by causing deaths and unnecessary suffering while occupying Gaza’s hospitals.

Sidhwa recalled speaking with several doctors who were interested in helping Palestinians in Gaza, stressing to potential volunteers what they must consider before doing so.

“Look, if you want to, that’s good and you should. I wish more people did,” the surgeon said. “But you have to accept if you come here, that if the Israelis want to kill you they will, and nothing will happen to them for doing it. The U.S. won’t care, your own congressman won’t care, your president won’t care – whether it’s Biden or Trump, doesn’t matter.”

“And that’s just what it is,” he continued. “Don’t have any illusions about you being safe when you’re here.”

DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes killed at least 85 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to local health officials. Hours later, Hamas fired three rockets at Israel without causing casualties, in the first such attack since Israel broke their ceasefire.

Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January. Israeli bombardments in the past three days have killed at least 592 people, said Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the records department at the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said it was again enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City. Palestinians were not being ordered to leave northern Gaza but can no longer enter, the military said, and are only allowed to move south on foot using the coastal road. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remains of their homes in the north during the ceasefire.

Israeli ground forces are also pushing into Gaza near the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah, the military said Thursday. The operations come a day after Israel moved to split Gaza in two by retaking the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south.

The military ordered Palestinians to evacuate an area in central Gaza near the city of Khan Younis, saying it would operate there in response to Thursday’s rocket fire from Hamas. The Palestinian militant group said it targeted Tel Aviv. One rocket was intercepted and two fell in open areas, according to the army.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels also launched two missiles at Israel, one early Thursday morning and another in the evening, the military said. Both were intercepted before reaching Israeli airspace, according to the army, and no injuries were reported. Air raid sirens rang out and exploding interceptor rockets were heard in Jerusalem. There have been three such attacks since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the Houthis earlier this week.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said overnight Israeli strikes killed at least 85 people, mostly women and children. The ministry’s records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The Indonesian Hospital said it received 19 bodies after strikes in Beit Lahiya, near Gaza’s northern border, which was heavily destroyed and largely depopulated earlier in the war.

“It was a bloody night for the people of Beit Lahiya,” said Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency service in northern Gaza, adding that rescuers were still searching the rubble. “The situation is catastrophic.”

Israel’s military said Thursday its airstrikes in Gaza had killed the head of Hamas’ internal security apparatus and two other militant commanders. Israel has said it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. A United Nations-backed group of human rights experts accused Israel last week of “disproportionate violence against women and children” during the war in Gaza.

One of the strikes early Thursday hit the Abu Daqa family’s home in Abasan al-Kabira, a village outside Khan Younis near the border with Israel. It was in an area the Israeli military ordered evacuated earlier this week, encompassing most of eastern Gaza.

The strike killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European Hospital, which received the dead. Those killed included a father and his seven children, as well as the parents and brother of a month-old baby who survived along with her grandparents.

“Another tough night,” said Hani Awad, who was helping rescuers search for more survivors in the rubble. “The house collapsed over the people’s heads.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration reiterated its support for Israel, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay.”

Israel, which cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, has vowed to intensify its operations until Hamas releases the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed alive — and gives up control of the territory.

Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Hamas says it’s willing to hand over power to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority or a committee of political independents but will not lay down its arms until Israel ends its decades-long occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

The breakdown of the ceasefire has been met with anger in Israel, where many support the plight of the hostage families to free their loved ones.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered Thursday outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security. Police used a water canon to disperse the crowd after protesters tried to break through police barricades.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive, among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants, but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war at its height displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population and has caused vast destruction across the territory.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key Gaza corridor that bisects northern Gaza from the south.

The move into the Netzarim corridor appeared to deepen the renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has shattered the two-month-long ceasefire with Hamas. The wave of heavy strikes Tuesday killed more than 400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, nearly two-thirds of them women and children, the Health Ministry said. Its records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s records department, said Tuesday was the deadliest day in Gaza since the start of the war. The strikes have continued into Wednesday but at a lower intensity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims — destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel ignited the war. Hamas has yet to respond militarily.

The Israeli military says it launched a ’limited ground operation to retake part of a key Gaza corridor

As part of the ceasefire, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor, which it had used as a military zone and which bisected northern Gaza from the south.

The move appeared to deepen the renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza, which shattered the two-month-long ceasefire with Hamas.

Israeli defense minister says evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza combat zones will start again soon

In a statement Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Israel was preparing to step up its new offensive.

Katz said that if the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are not freed, “Israel will act with an intensity that you have not seen.”

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remained of their homes and Israeli forces had pulled back to a buffer zone during the ceasefire in Gaza, which began in late January.

Lebanese army deploys in northeast border town after dayslong clashes

The clashes along the Lebanon-Syria border, where smuggling is widespread, was the worst fighting there since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in December.

The fighting happened after Syria’s interim government accused militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group of crossing into Syria on Saturday, abducting and killing three soldiers. Hezbollah denied involvement and some other reports pointed to local clans in the border region that are not directly affiliated with Hezbollah but have been involved in cross-border smuggling. The Lebanese government said the three Syrians killed were smugglers.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said seven people in Lebanon were killed in the fighting, and 52 others were wounded. Four Syrian journalists embedded with the Syrian army were lightly wounded after an artillery shell fired from the Lebanese side of the border hit their position.

UN says an international staffer was killed and at least 5 others wounded by a strike in the Gaza Strip

An international United Nations staffer was killed and at least five others were wounded in a strike on a U.N. guesthouse in the Gaza Strip, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the U.N. Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike but said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired” and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity. UNOPS operates the mechanism tracking aid trucks into Gaza, does demining and helps bring fuel in.

He did not provide the nationalities of those killed and wounded.

The Israeli military, which has carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes since early Tuesday, denied earlier reports that it had targeted the U.N. compound. There have been no reports of rocket fire or other Palestinian militant attacks.

Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, when the staffer was killed. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that it was aware of the facility’s location.

“Israel knew this was a U.N. premise, that people were living, staying and working there,” he said.

At least 436 dead in airstrikes, Gaza Health Ministry says

The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 436 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes early Tuesday.

The ministry said another 678 people have been wounded in the strikes, which continued into Wednesday but at a lower intensity.

The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.

The ministry said at least 183 children and 94 women have been killed since the strikes began early Tuesday. Its records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israeli military denies striking UN compound in Gaza

The Israeli military has denied striking a United Nations compound in central Gaza.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said an Israeli strike on a U.N. building in Gaza on Wednesday wounded five international staffers.

There was no immediate comment from U.N. officials.

“Contrary to reports, the (Israeli military) did not strike a U.N. compound” in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the army said in a statement.

Macron calls Israeli strikes in Gaza ‘tragic step backwards’

French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel’s airstrikes are “tragic step backwards” for the Palestinian people and for Gaza, and for Israeli hostages and their families.

Macron, speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II on a visit to France, called for an immediate end to hostilities and resumption of negotiations including with the U.S. administration toward a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages.

The two leaders were also expected to discuss the need to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and restoring access to water and electricity in the Palestinian territory, Macron’s office said.

Malaysia will accept 15 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons

Malaysia said it will accept 15 Palestinians who were released from Israeli jails and exiled as part of the January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said in remarks published Wednesday in The Star newspaper that the move was a small contribution from Malaysia, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, to ensure peace in Gaza.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil told local media that security agencies would strictly monitor the Palestinians’ movement once they arrive.

A UN peacekeeper wounded in a mine explosion in southern Lebanon

Lebanon’s state news agency said a U.N. peacekeeper was wounded when a mine exploded in the country’s south.

National News Agency did not give further details about the blast between the villages of Zibqine and Yater, near the border with Israel.

Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, confirmed that a peacekeeper was wounded during an operational activity and was taken to a Beirut hospital for surgery.

An Israeli strike wounds 5 UN workers, Gaza medics say

The Gaza Health Ministry says an Israeli strike has wounded five international U.N. workers.

It says they were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in central Gaza after their headquarters was struck on Wednesday.

It was not clear which U.N. body they were affiliated with. There was no immediate comment from U.N. spokespeople or the Israeli military.

Israel launched a wave of airstrike across Gaza on Tuesday, killing over 400 Palestinians, according to the ministry. Israel says it targeted Hamas militants.

Thousands in Jerusalem protest the resumption of war

Thousands of Israelis marched in Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest a resumption of the war in the Gaza Strip, fearing it could further endanger some two dozen hostages held by Hamas.

A sea of Israeli flags could be seen outside the Israeli parliament a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shattered a fragile ceasefire by launching heavy strikes on Gaza.

Families and supporters of the hostages fear renewed fighting could be a death sentence for their loved ones in captivity. The hostages “are waiting for us to take them out and to bring them home, but war will not do it. Only negotiations will do it,” protester Alon Shirizly said.

Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, including 24 who are believed to be alive.

The demonstrators are also protesting Netanyahu’s plan to fire the head of Israel’s internal security agency, the latest in a series of moves that his critics view as an assault on Israeli democracy.

Ben-Gvir returns to Netanyahu’s government

A government statement on Wednesday said Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Power party, regained his portfolio as national security minister. He had left the coalition in January to protest the ceasefire with Hamas.

His return strengthens Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition ahead of a crucial budget vote this month and improves its chances of surviving until the next scheduled elections in October 2026.

Ben-Gvir supports the full resumption of the war with the aim of annihilating Hamas, depopulating Gaza through what he refers to as the voluntary migration of Palestinians and rebuilding Jewish settlements there.