At least six people were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crammed into Rafah, one of the areas where Israel has told people to seek refuge. But Israeli forces continue to strike all parts of the besieged territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says several thousand Hamas fighters remain in northern Gaza, where entire neighborhoods have been blasted into rubble. Heavy fighting is also underway in central Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israeli officials say Hamas’ military structure is still largely intact.
Meanwhile, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief says Gaza has become “uninhabitable” and “a public health disaster is unfolding.”
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack from Gaza into southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, and some 250 others were taken hostage. Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 22,400 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Currently:
— Hezbollah leader says his group must retaliate for suspected Israeli strike in Beirut.
— Families in Gaza search desperately for food and water.
— Israeli defense minister lays out vision for next steps of Gaza war.
— Blinken heads to the Mideast again as fears of regional conflict surge.
— Israel’s Mossad chief vows to hunt down Hamas members.
— Find more of AP’s coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
UNAUTHORIZED JEWISH SETTLEMENTS HAVE INCREASED, WATCHDOG GROUP SAYS
JERUSALEM — With the world’s attention focused on the war in Gaza, Jewish settlers have quietly established an unprecedented number of unauthorized outposts in the occupied West Bank, according to a new report from Peace Now, an Israeli watchdog group.
The report found that settlers have built nine unauthorized settlement outposts since the start of the war. The group estimates it’s the largest number of settlements built over a three-month time frame since outposts began to be established in the 1990s.
Most of the new outposts are primitive. Most consist of only a few tents and an Israeli flag, the report said. But many such outposts have evolved into more permanent developments over the years, often with tacit government support.
Israel’s government is dominated by supporters of the settler movement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline settler leader, holds special authority over settlement planning.
The report said the outposts sit in parts of the West Bank that are under full Israeli control according to interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Israel says the territory is disputed and the fate of the settlements should be resolved in negotiations. The international community considers all settlements illegal.
“The three months of war in Gaza are being exploited by settlers to establish facts on the ground,” the report said.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements in addition to 200,000 others in east Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek both areas, captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state.
GAZA HAS BECOME ‘UNINHABITABLE,’ U.N. HUMANITARIAN CHIEF SAYS
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations humanitarian chief says Gaza has become “uninhabitable” three months after Hamas’ horrific attacks against Israel and “a public health disaster is unfolding.”
Martin Griffiths said in a statement Friday that “people are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded (and) famine is around the corner.”
And Gazans are “witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on,” he said.
The U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet, and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed.
The few partially functioning hospitals are overwhelmed and critically short of supplies, infectious diseases are spreading, and amidst the chaos some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth every day, he said.
Griffiths reiterated U.N. demands for an immediate end to the war and the release of all hostages, declaring, “It is time for the international community to use all its influence to make this happen.”
He said the humanitarian community is facing an “impossible mission” of supporting more than 2 million people in Gaza while aid workers are killed, communications blackouts continue, roads are damaged, truck convoys are shot at, and vital commercial supplies “are almost non-existent.”
Gaza has shown “the worst of humanity,” Griffiths said, and it’s long past time for the war to end.
FRANCE AND JORDAN AIRDROP MEDICAL AID INTO GAZA
PARIS — France announced that a French and a Jordanian military transport aircraft airdropped 7 metric tons (7.7 tons) of medical aid to a Gaza Strip field hospital during a joint operation.
“The humanitarian situation remains critical in Gaza,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday on X, formerly Twitter. “In a difficult context, France and Jordan delivered aid to the population and to those who are helping them.”
The operation overnight Thursday to Friday was meant to deliver medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital of the southern city of Khan Younis.
The airdrop, a first from a Western country in the Gaza strip, had been agreed during Macron’s recent visit to Jordan, where he met with King Abdullah II last month, the French presidency said.
Both C-130 planes had French and Jordanian troops onboard as the operation was closely coordinated, the French presidency said.
In November, Jordan already airdropped some medical aid to another field hospital the country is operating in the city of Gaza.
The airdrop comes in addition to over 1,000 metric tons (1,100 tons) of humanitarian aid sent by France to the Gaza civilian population since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, including emergency medical kits and medical supplies, highly nutritious food, shelters and family kits.
The French foreign ministry said this week that a ship carrying 350 metric tons (385 tons) of food is expected to arrive in Port Said, in Egypt, on Monday as part of the U.N. World Food Program’s efforts to provide aid to Gaza civilians. Another ship with a similar shipment left the French port of Le Havre this week.
UNICEF SAYS NUTRITION NEEDS OF CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN ARE UNMET IN GAZA
JERUSALEM — The U.N. children’s agency says most young children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are not able to meet their basic nutrition needs.
Only a trickle of humanitarian aid has entered the Palestinian territory Oct. 7, when Hamas’ deadly attack into southern Israel ignited the war. Fewer than 200 aid trucks enter each day, less than half the prewar level, and aid groups say the fighting hinders distribution.
A survey by UNICEF released Friday found that 90% of children under age 2 are eating two or fewer food groups each day, mainly bread or milk. A quarter of pregnant women said they only eat from one food group per day.
U.N. officials previously said that one in four Gazans were enduring famine-like levels of starvation.
UNICEF says cases of diarrhea among children under 5 have risen from 48,000 to 71,000, an indication of poor nutrition. Normally, only 2,000 cases of diarrhea are reported each month in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli authorities say there is enough food in the territory, and that they have taken the necessary steps to allow aid in, blaming any shortages on U.N. bodies.
U.N. officials say aid operations are hindered by the Israeli inspections, as well as fighting and road closures within the territory, and have long been calling for a humanitarian cease-fire.
ISRAELI ALLY GERMANY PRESSES FOR BETTER PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN GAZA
BERLIN — Germany’s foreign minister is insisting ahead of a trip to the Middle East that “Israel must do more for the protection of the civilian population” in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Annalena Baerbock reiterated staunch ally Germany’s solidarity for Israel in its fight against “blind terror” and underlined its right to defend itself.
But she called for more “humanitarian pauses” and said Friday that “peace can’t be won if the prospect of a life in dignity dries up, if Gaza is uninhabitable after the war.”
Baerbock said there must be no postwar occupation of the Gaza Strip, no expulsion of Palestinians and no reduction of the territory’s size, but “at the same time there must no longer be any danger to Israel from the Gaza Strip.”
The minister is due to depart Sunday on a trip to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt and Lebanon.
6 KILLED IN APPARENT ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE ON SOUTHERN GAZA HOME
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — At least six people were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight. Officials at the local morgue say the strike occurred late Thursday, just before midnight.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crammed into Rafah, one of the areas where Israel has told people to seek refuge. But Israeli forces continue to strike all parts of the besieged territory.
Sohad al-Derbashi, whose sister was killed in the strike, said, “They were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with what is going on.” She says the man who was the apparent target of the strike was a civil servant in the Hamas-run government and not a fighter.
Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Some 1.9 million people, about 85% of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes, and U.N. officials say one in four Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing famine-like starvation.
The war was ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and around 250 were taken hostage.
SOUTHERN ISRAELI COMMUNITY SAYS ONE OF ITS RESIDENTS HAS DIED IN CAPTIVITY
JERUSALEM — A community that was attacked during Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault into southern Israel says one of its residents, who was taken hostage, has died in captivity.
The Kibbutz Nir Oz community did not give a cause of death Friday for Tamir Adar, 38. Of some 250 people captured during Hamas’ attack, around 80 were taken from Nir Oz alone, out of a population of around 400.
Tamir’s grandmother, 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, was also abducted by militants that day. She was among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.
The Israeli government says militants are still holding 113 hostages, including 19 women and two children under the age of 5, as well as the bodies of 24 others.
Hamas has said it will not release any more hostages until Israel ends its military offensive and withdraws from Gaza. Israel has vowed to crush the militant group and return all the captives.
IRAQ’S PRIME MINISTER CONDEMNS US STRIKE ON A HIGH-RANKING MILITIA COMMANDER
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Friday condemned the United States’ strike in central Baghdad that killed a high-ranking militia commander as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. He reiterated recent calls for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.
A U.S. defense official confirmed Thursday that U.S. forces carried out the strike, saying that Abu Taqwa was targeted because he was actively involved in attacks on U.S. personnel. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, a group of Iranian-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has carried out more than 100 attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. The group has said the attacks are in retaliation for Washington’s support of Israel and that they aim to push U.S. forces out of Iraq.
Sudani said Friday that the U.S. had bypassed the Iraqi government, which is “the body authorized to impose the law.” He added that the Popular Mobilization Force “represent an official presence affiliated with the state … and an integral part of our armed forces” and that “attacks targeting our security forces go beyond the spirit and letter of the mandate that created the international coalition,” referring to a U.S.-led coalition that assisted in the fight against the Islamic State militant group and maintains forces in Iraq.
He said his government is following up on procedures that would end in the coalition’s withdrawal from Iraq.