Israeli airstrikes hit apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City for a second day in a row, causing many deaths and injuries, the Hamas-run government said. The toll from Wednesday’s strikes was not immediately known.
Meanwhile, dozens of people with foreign passports entered the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt. It appeared to be the first time that foreign passport holders have been allowed to leave the besieged territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war more than three weeks ago.
Communications and internet services were gradually being restored after the second major cut in five days, according to Paltel, the main telecommunications provider. Humanitarian aid agencies have warned that such blackouts severely disrupt their work in an already dire situation in Gaza.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached more than 8,700, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, 130 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them civilians slain in the initial Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that started the fighting. In addition, around 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group. One of the captives, a female Israeli soldier, was rescued in a special forces operation.
Currently:
1. 5 hostages of Hamas are free, offering some hope to families of more than 200 still captive.
2. Has Israel invaded Gaza? The military has been vague, even if its objectives are clear.
3. Bolivia severs diplomatic ties with Israel as Chile and Colombia recall their ambassadors.
4. Amnesty International says Israeli forces wounded Lebanese civilians with white phosphorus.
5. A media freedom group accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes and reports deaths of 34 journalists.
6. Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
CAIRO — Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, crossed into Gaza Wednesday, where he met with Palestinian communities and other UNRWA colleagues working in the territory.
He said he was shocked by the scale of humanitarian needs Gaza and called for scaling up assistance delivered to the strip’s 2.3 million population.
“I was shocked by the fact that everyone there was asking for food, was asking for water … I never, ever have seen something similar in Gaza,” he said in comments to journalists.
Lazzarini is the most senior U.N official to enter the besieged enclave since the conflict erupted on Oct. 7.
ROME — Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says a handful of Italian citizens have crossed out of the Gaza Strip.
“I just spoke with the first four Italians who departed from the Gaza Strip,” Tajani wrote on the social media platform X. “They are tired but in good condition, assisted by the Italian consul in Cairo. We will continue to work so all the others can get out.”
Tajani last week said there were 14 Italians in the Gaza Strip — seven with Italian citizenship and seven with dual Italian citizenship.
JERUSALEM — A 65-year-old Palestinian father with mental disabilities was killed in the occupied West Bank with a single shot to the head Wednesday as Israeli forces operated nearby, according to an Israeli rights group with footage of the shooting.
The video, which came from a CCTV camera in the flashpoint city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, shows a Palestinian man — identified as Majdi Awad by human rights group B’Tselem — walking down an alley in the early morning, before suddenly being shot and collapsing to the ground.
B’Tselem spokesperson Roy Yellin said it was not yet clear whether the man was shot by Israeli forces, but that the incident occurred just 100 meters (328.08 feet) from an area where Israeli forces stood. Awad was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital and identified by his family members, Yellin said, adding that B’Tselem’s preliminary investigation showed that Awad was likely shot by a sniper.
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank either by Israeli forces or by Jewish settlers. U.N. monitors say the period is the deadliest on record in the territory.
The military did not immediately respond to request for comment on the video or confirmation that soldiers had operated in Tulkarem Wednesday morning.
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan, a key U.S. ally, said Wednesday it has recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to remain out of the country in protest over the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
Jordan’s deputy prime minister, Ayman al-Safadi, who is also the foreign minister, said the return of the ambassadors is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.”
Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994, the second Arab country after Egypt to do so.
Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank early Wednesday, killing three Palestinians, injuring scores more, and arresting a high-ranking Palestinian official, Palestinian health and Israeli military officials said.
The raid, which the military said was to root out militancy, included a drone strike — a once rare, but now increasingly common attack mode in the West Bank. The military said the strike targeted and hit several militants. Soldiers and militants exchanged fire in the camp. The military said soldiers found and destroyed an underground shaft full of ammunition.
In the overnight raid, soldiers arrested Ata Abu Rmeileh, Jenin’s highest-ranking Fatah official. Fatah is the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’ main rival. The military said that Rmeileh, who was arrested with his son, was involved in promoting militancy in the area. Israel’s military arrested 70 Palestinians overnight, bringing the total number of Palestinians arrested since the war began to 1,830, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Videos circulating on social media showed lines of Israeli military vehicles streaming into the city, Israeli bulldozers traversing the camp’s narrow streets and a puddle of blood on the floor of a major hospital.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on Oct. 7. Since then, Israeli forces and settlers killed 125 Palestinians there, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Hamas-run government in Gaza says Israeli airstrikes have hit apartment blocks in a refugee camp near Gaza City for a second day in a row, causing many deaths and injuries.
Al Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza, aired videos of devastation in the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City and of several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital. The Hamas-run government said the strikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known.
The Al Jazeera videos showed nearly identical scenes as the day before, with dozens of men digging through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.
The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes killed dozens of militants — including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the bloody Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war — and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister said Wednesday that time is of the essence in stopping the Hamas-Israel war from “going out of control” and affecting Lebanon and the wider region.
Najib Mikati has been scrambling with international governments to keep Lebanon away from the war, as militants from the Hezbollah group and Israeli troops have been clashing along the tense Lebanon-Israel border since the onset of the war on Oct. 7. The clashes so far have mostly been limited to areas along the border.
Mikati’s comments come days before Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give his first speech since the start of the war. Lebanon is experiencing political paralysis and economic turmoil, leaving many worried about the consequences of a full-fledged war in the crisis-hit country.
He condemned both Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon and attacks in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
“A humanitarian cease-fire for five days is necessary, where there can be active international talks to secure prisoner swaps and reach a permanent truce in order to reach an agreement on the conditions for regional peace,” Mikati said before a government meeting.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a draw. Israel sees Hezbollah as its most immediate threat, estimating that it has some 150,000 precision-guided missiles pointed at it.
“Enough war in Lebanon, for we are with the choice of peace,” Mikati said.
JERUSALEM — Heads of Israeli universities sent a letter to colleagues around the world expressing deep concern over anti-Israel and antisemitic discourse at some universities following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel and the war it triggered in the Gaza Strip.
The Association of University Heads in Israel also criticized what it sees as the inadequate response of some academic leaders.
“It’s unsettling to note that many college campuses have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments, largely fueled by a naïve and biased understanding of the conflict,” the letter said.
“Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of academic freedom, but it should not be manipulated to legitimize hate speech or to justify violence.”
Tensions on campuses in the U.S. and Europe have been inflamed since the Hamas attack. Some students and faculty have expressed support for the militant group and its attack.
At Harvard, a coalition of more than 30 student groups said Israel was “entirely responsible” for the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 people.
At Cornell University, police were sent to guard the Center for Jewish Living over intimidating posts.
The comments have raised fundamental questions about free speech and its limits.
“Just as it would be unthinkable for an academic institution to extend free speech protections to groups targeting other protected classes, so too should demonstrations that call for our destruction and glorify violence against Jews be explicitly prohibited and condemned,” the Israeli university heads said in their letter.
CAIRO — The group Reporters Without Borders says 34 journalists have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas, accusing both sides of committing possible war crimes.
In a statement Wednesday, the media watchdog called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the killings.
“The scale, seriousness and recurring nature of international crimes targeting journalists, particularly in Gaza, calls for a priority investigation by the ICC prosecutor,” said Christophe Deloire, head of the group.
It said it filed a complaint with the ICC’s prosecutor regarding eight Palestinian journalists it said were killed in Israel’s bombardment of civilian areas in Gaza, and an Israeli journalist killed during the bloody Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel by Hamas that ignited the war.
It said the complaint cited “the deliberate, total or partial, destruction of the premises of more than 50 media outlets in Gaza” since the war began.
It’s the third such complaint to be filed by the group since 2018 alleging war crimes against Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Israel says it makes every effort to avoid killing civilians and accuses Hamas of putting them at risk by operating in residential areas.
