The Israeli military hit Rafah in southern Gaza twice overnight, residents said, as United Nations officials warned there are no safe places left in the besieged territory.
The center of Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, has also seen fighting amid Israel’s widening air and ground offensive in the southern part of the territory that has displaced tens of thousands more Palestinians and worsened dire humanitarian conditions.
Distribution of food, water and medicine have been prevented outside a sliver of southern Gaza, and new military evacuation orders are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas.
The United Nations said 1.87 million people — more than 80% of Gaza’s population — have been driven from their homes since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, triggered by the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel.
Around 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the territory has surpassed 16,200, with more than 42,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70% of the dead were women and children.
Currently:
— U.N. chief uses rare power to warn Security Council of impending ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza.
— Israel and US at odds over conflicting visions for postwar Gaza.
— Rights groups say Israeli strikes on journalists in Lebanon were likely deliberate.
— Senior U.N. official denounces ‘blatant disregard’ in Israel-Hamas war after many U.N. sites are hit.
— Hanukkah message of light in darkness feels uniquely relevant to U.S. Jews amid war and antisemitism.
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
RIGHTS GROUPS SAY ISRAELI STRIKES ON JOURNALISTS WERE LIKELY DELIBERATE
BEIRUT — Two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the strikes should be investigated as a war crime. Their findings were released simultaneously with similar investigations by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Israeli officials have said that they don’t deliberately target journalists.
The investigations by the rights groups found that two strikes 37 seconds apart targeted the group of journalists near the village of Alma al-Shaab on Oct. 13.
The strikes killed Issam Abdallah and wounded Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and AFP’s photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.
The seven journalists were among many who deployed in southern Lebanon to cover the daily exchange of fire between members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Israeli troops. The violence began a day after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war.
Amnesty International said it had verified more than 100 videos and photographs, analyzed weapons fragments from the site, and interviewed nine witnesses. It found that the group “was visibly identifiable as journalists and that the Israeli military knew or should have known that they were civilians yet attacked them.”
ISRAEL SAYS IT’S ATTEMPTING TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF AID TRUCKS IN GAZA
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel says it is working to increase the number of aid trucks allowed into the Gaza Strip.
The U.N. says its ability to distribute aid inside Gaza has been severely impaired by fighting and road closures linked to Israel’s widening offensive against Hamas.
The military body in charge of civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, says it plans to open the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza for inspections in the coming days. The aid would still enter Gaza through Egypt via the Rafah crossing.
Before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack across the border, which ignited the war, Kerem Shalom was the main crossing for cargo into Gaza. It has been closed since then.
Col. Elad Goren, a COGAT official, said Thursday that Israel can currently inspect up to 250 trucks per day at the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, and that the number could increase to 400 with the opening of Kerem Shalom for inspections.
But he expressed doubt that international agencies would be able to distribute larger amounts of aid.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says efforts to bring aid into Gaza and distribute it have been impaired by fighting and road closures since Israel expanded its ground offensive into the south, with some of its staff and trucks stranded in central Gaza.
It says agencies have been unable to deliver aid north of the southernmost governorate of Rafah for four days.
ISRAEL FOREIGN MINISTER CRITICAL OF U.N. CHIEF
JERUSALEM — Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen is sharply criticizing the U.N. secretary-general after he issued a dire warning over the situation in the Gaza Strip, calling Antonio Guterres’ tenure at the world body “a danger to world peace.”
Guterres wrote to the 15-member Security Council on Wednesday urging it to use its influence to avert “a humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. He also reiterated an urgent call for a humanitarian cease-fire and warned that Israel’s bombardment will soon lead to a complete breakdown of public order.
Posting on the social media platform X, Cohen said Guterres’ call for a cease-fire and request to activate Article 99 of the U.N. Charter “constitutes support of the Hamas terrorist organization and an endorsement of the murder of the elderly, the abduction of babies and the rape of women.”
“Anyone who supports world peace must support the liberation of Gaza from Hamas,” Cohen concluded.
It was the first time since Guterres took the helm of the United Nations in 2017 that he has written to the Security Council under Article 99, which lets him bring to the council’s attention any matter he believes threatens international peace and security.
ISRAEL’S SECURITY CABINET APPROVES FUEL DELIVERIES TO GAZA
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his Security Cabinet has approved small deliveries of fuel into the Gaza Strip to prevent a humanitarian crisis and the spread of disease in the crowded southern part of the besieged territory.
Netanyahu says the “minimal amount” of fuel will be set by the three-member authority in charge of managing the war against Hamas.
Israel has greatly restricted fuel shipments into Gaza, saying that Hamas diverts it for military purposes. Humanitarian officials say the fuel shortages have crippled the health care system and hindered deliveries of basic humanitarian supplies.
Netanyahu’s office said shipments would be approved “from time to time” for the southern Gaza Strip, where the vast majority of Gaza’s population is concentrated.
The decision comes as Israel faces mounting pressure from the United States to ramp up aid to Gaza to avoid mass civilian casualties.
JERUSALEM MARCH PLANNED FOR THURSDAY
JERUSALEM — Ultranationalist Jews plan to march through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday in a demonstration that risks igniting new violence in the holy city.
Israeli police on Wednesday confirmed that they gave permission for a march of 200 people to pass through the Muslim Quarter and the Old City to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. The march coincides with the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
Ultranationalist activists have called on supporters to honor the memory of fallen soldiers who died in the latest Gaza war and to push for expanded Jewish access to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
Jews call the site the Temple Mount, the spot where the biblical Temples once stood. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock.
Police said Thursday’s march will not enter the compound.
Former Jerusalem police Chief Yair Yitzhaki told Army Radio he couldn’t understand why police approved the march. He added that the route through the Muslim Quarter was “an attempt to anger and inflame the area.”
Jerusalem has been the site of multiple Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks since Israel’s war with Hamas began on Oct. 7.
A similar march in 2021 boiled over into an 11-day Gaza war.