Israeli troops divided the northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip as communications in the besieged area were temporarily cut off on Monday for the third time since the war began. Israeli media reported that troops were expected to enter Gaza City on Monday or Tuesday.
The developments came after Israeli airstrikes hit two refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing scores of people, health officials said. Israel has so far rejected U.S. proposals to impose a humanitarian pause because of the relentless bombardment of Gaza and the rising civilian death toll.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, the Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war exceeded 9,700, including more than 4,000 children and minors. More than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.
More than 1,400 people in Israel were killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the fighting, and 242 hostages were brought from Israel to Gaza by the militant group.
About 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday, apparently as part of an agreement between the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which is brokering with Hamas.
At the moment:
– Communications are restored in Gaza as the Israeli military announces it has surrounded Gaza City.
– Families of Israeli hostages fear the world will forget their loved ones.
– These numbers show the staggering toll of the Israel-Hamas war.
– A UN official says the average Palestinian in Gaza lives on two pieces of bread a day.
— For more AP coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the recent war between Israel and Hamas:
GAZA MINISTRY OF HEALTH SAYS 8 PEOPLE KILLED AND 3 HOSPITALS DAMAGED IN AN AIR ATTACK
CAIRO – Eight people were killed in an airstrike near three hospitals in Gaza City on Monday, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas said the airstrike damaged the Psychiatric Hospital, Eyes Hospital and Rantisi Pediatric Hospital. All three hospitals are still operational, he said.
Abbas showed pictures of damaged rooms and equipment in the psychiatric hospital. The images showed large holes in the wall and roof with debris on a hospital bed.
Turkish protesters accuse us of complicity in the deaths of civilians in Gaza
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Dozens of protesters gathered Monday outside the Turkish foreign ministry where top Turkish and U.S. diplomats were holding talks, accusing the United States of complicity in the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The protesters, members of an Islamist group, carried Turkish and Palestinian flags and held anti-US and Israel signs as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The police had previously dispersed a group of students who were marching towards the ministry shouting: “Murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”
It was the second day of protests against Blinken’s visit to Turkey.
On Sunday, police fired tear gas and a water cannon as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters tried to break into an air base used by U.S. troops in southern Turkey. Several hundred demonstrators marched to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara chanting “God is great.”
NATO member Turkey, which recently normalized relations with Israel, has recalled its ambassador to Israel as anger grows over civilian deaths in Gaza. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could no longer speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
BLINKEN receives lukewarm response to “humanitarian pause” proposal
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is ending a grueling Middle East diplomatic trip in Turkey after meeting limited success in his efforts to forge a regional consensus on how to ease the suffering of civilians in Gaza , as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.
Blinken met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara on Monday after a weekend of traveling from Israel to Jordan, the West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq to drum up support for the Biden administration’s “humanitarian pause” proposal. in Israel’s relentless military campaign to win the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and prevent the conflict from spreading.
Neither Blinken nor Fidan spoke publicly at the start of their talks.
On his mission, his second trip to the region since the war began, Blinken has found only lukewarm, if any, support for the pause concept. Israel has firmly rejected it, while Arab and Muslim nations are calling instead for an immediate ceasefire as the number of Palestinian casualties from Israeli bombings in response to Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israel skyrockets.
U.S. officials are trying to convince Israel of the strategic importance of respecting the laws of war by protecting non-combatants and significantly increasing deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s beleaguered civilians.
Communications in Gaza are gradually being restored
CAIRO – Communications services have been gradually restored across the Gaza Strip, a major telecommunications provider and advocacy group said Monday, 15 hours after the territory experienced its third communications blackout since the war began on Oct. 7.
Palestinian communications company Paltel announced that its services, including landline, mobile and internet communications, have been gradually restored.
Alp Toker, director of internet advocacy group NetBlocks.org, confirmed that internet connectivity was back to levels before Sunday’s outage. However, overall service remained well below prewar levels, he said.
The power outages disrupted the activities of aid groups operating in Gaza as humanitarian needs increased.
The UN Security Council is planning a closed session on the war between Israel and Hamas
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations Monday afternoon on the Israel-Hamas war at the request of China, which holds the council presidency this month, and the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council.
EMOTIONAL SCENES AS AUSTRALIANS WHO LEFT GAZA ARRIVE AT SYDNEY AIRPORT
SYDNEY – A dozen Australians fleeing the war in Gaza arrived in Sydney last week after traveling into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.
Excited evacuee Sara El-Masry told Nine News after arriving at Sydney Airport on Sunday: “It means a lot to me that we were able to leave safely and come here and see their (family) faces again. “I would have been honest “I didn’t think I would be able to do it.”
Seven more evacuees returned to other Australian cities on Saturday. The Australian government continues to push for more Australians to be allowed to leave Gaza. There are approximately 67 permanent residents and their family members who the Australian government says it wants to help leave Gaza.
UN agencies and humanitarian organizations are calling for an immediate ceasefire
UNITED NATIONS – The heads of 11 UN agencies and six humanitarian organizations jointly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the protection of civilians and the rapid delivery of food, water, medicine and fuel to Gaza.
In a statement released Sunday evening, they described Hamas’ surprise October 7 attacks in Israel as “horrific.”
“However, the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza are a scandal, as is the deprivation of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel to 2.2 million Palestinians,” the heads of the Interagency Standing Committee on the Situation in Israel said the occupied Palestinian territory.
According to the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, more than 23,000 injured people require immediate treatment and hospitals are overwhelmed.
“An entire population is under siege and attack, denied access to essentials, their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship bombed,” the joint statement said.
According to the United Nations and aid agencies, over a hundred attacks on health facilities were reported and 88 staff members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, were killed – “the highest death toll the United Nations has ever recorded in a single case.” Conflict.”
JORDAN DELIVERS AID FOR THE HOSPITAL IN GAZA
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Medical aid has been airdropped into Gaza from a Jordanian military cargo plane, the kingdom’s leader announced on social media Monday.
A trickle of humanitarian aid has flowed into Gaza across the land border with Egypt, but this appeared to be the first time aid was delivered from Jordan, a key U.S. ally that has a peace deal with Israel.
King Abdullah II said the aid had arrived at the Jordanian field hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. “It is our duty to help our brothers and sisters injured in the war against Gaza,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
King Abdullah II has recalled his ambassador to Israel and told the Israeli envoy not to return to Jordan until the Gaza crisis is over.
Israeli ambassador to US calls Gaza ‘largest terror complex in the world’
Michael Hertzog, the Israeli ambassador to the US, says Gaza is “the largest terrorist complex in the world” with tens of thousands of fighter jets and missiles and other weapons – and 500 kilometers of underground tunnels.
“This is what we are dealing with. And we have to uproot it because if we don’t, they’re going to strike again and again,” Hertzog said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday.
He also said Israel was making every effort to distinguish between “terrorists and civilians” in its war with the militant Hamas group, which rules Gaza.
“This is a very complex military operation in a densely populated area and we are trying to move the population away from this war zone,” he said.
Obama says all sides in conflict are ‘complicit to some extent’
Former US President Barack Obama said “no one’s hands are clean” in the Israel-Hamas war and acknowledged that in recent days he had questioned whether his administration could have done more to move towards a lasting peace push when he was in power.
“If you want to solve the problem, you have to take in the whole truth,” Obama said in an interview on “Pod Save America.” “And then you have to admit that nobody has clean hands. That we are all complicit to some degree.”
During his second term, the former president made an attempt to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but months of talks collapsed in 2014 due to disagreements over Israeli settlements, the release of Palestinian prisoners and other issues.
“I look at this and think about what I could have done during my presidency to move this forward – as hard as I tried, I have the scars to prove it,” Obama said in an excerpt posted on X was published.
The entire interview is scheduled to be published on Tuesday.