Middle-East
Israel resists US pressure to pause the war to allow more aid to Gaza, wants hostages back first
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday pushed back against growing U.S. pressure for a “humanitarian pause” in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza, insisting there would be no temporary cease-fire until the roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas are released.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterating American support for Israel's campaign to crush Hamas after its brutal Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. He also echoed President Joe Biden’s calls for a brief halt in the fighting to address a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Alarm has grown over spiraling Palestinian deaths and deepening misery for civilians from weeks of Israeli bombardment and a widening ground assault that risks even greater casualties. Overwhelmed hospitals say they are nearing collapse, with medicine and fuel running low under the Israeli siege. About 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes, the U.N. said Friday.
Palestinians are increasingly desperate for the most basic supplies.
The average Gaza resident is now surviving on two pieces of bread per day, much of it made from stockpiled U.N. flour, said Thomas White, Gaza director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Demands for drinking water are also growing.
“People are beyond looking for bread,” he told U.N. diplomats in a video briefing from Gaza. "It’s looking for water.”
After talks with Netanyahu, Blinken said a temporary halt was needed to boost aid deliveries and help win the release of the hostages Hamas took during its brutal incursion nearly a month ago.
But Netanyahu said he told Blinken that Israel was “going with full steam ahead," unless hostages are released.
U.S. officials initially said they were not seeking a cease-fire, but short pauses in specific areas to allow aid deliveries or other humanitarian activity, after which Israeli operations would resume. Netanyahu has not publicly addressed the idea and has instead repeatedly ruled out a cease-fire.
On Friday, however, a senior U.S. administration official said policymakers believe a “fairly significant pause” in fighting will be needed to allow for releases. The idea is modeled on a smaller-scale pause that allowed the freeing of two American hostages from Hamas captivity last month.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said that release was a “testing pilot” for how a broader deal could be struck and said negotiations on a “larger package” of hostages are ongoing. The official emphasized it would require a significant pause in fighting to ensure their safety to the Gaza border.
Read: Israeli airstrikes crush apartments in Gaza refugee camp, as ground troops battle Hamas militants
Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City amid continued battles with Hamas militants as airstrikes wreaked havoc around the city, the largest in the tiny Mediterranean territory. Al Jazeera TV reported that a strike late Friday hit a school in Gaza City where many were taking refuge, causing casualties.
Strikes hit near the entrances of three hospitals in northern Gaza just as staff were trying to evacuate wounded to the south, hospital directors said. Footage showed the aftermath outside Gaza's largest hospital, Shifa, where more than a dozen bloodied bodies of men, women and young children were strewn next to damaged cars and ambulances. One bleeding boy screamed as he huddled on top of a woman sprawled on the pavement.
At least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded outside Shifa Hospital, said Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. At least 50 others were killed or wounded in a strike outside the Indonesian Hospital, its director said, without providing more precise figures.
The Israeli military said its aircraft Friday hit an ambulance that Hamas fighters were using to carry weapons. The claim could not be independently verified. It was not clear whether the strike was connected to the one by Shifa Hospital. The military said it took place “near a battle zone,” suggesting it was close to ongoing ground battles.
Al-Qidra said a convoy of ambulances left Shifa, carrying wounded to Rafah, when a strike hit a vehicle on the edges of Gaza City. The convoy turned around, and another strike hit another ambulance. He denied that any of the ambulances were used by Hamas fighters.
Read: UN agency in Gaza says urgent cease-fire is `matter of life and death' for millions of Palestinians
FEARS OVER NEW FRONTS
Throughout the war, Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily along the Lebanon border, raising fears of a new front opening there.
In his first public speech since the war began, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the cross-border fighting showed his group had “entered the battle.”
He suggested escalation was possible: “We will not be limited to this.” But he gave little sign that Hezbollah would fully engage in the fighting. So far, Hezbollah has taken calculated steps to show backing for Hamas without igniting an all-out war that would be devastating for Lebanon and Israel.
Thursday saw one of the heaviest exchanges over the border yet. Hezbollah attacked Israeli military positions in northern Israel with drones, mortar fire and suicide drones, and Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships retaliated with strikes in Lebanon. Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said civilians were wounded in the Hezbollah attacks.
“We are in a high state of readiness in the north, in a very high state of alert,” he said.
The exchanges since the start of the war have killed 10 Lebanese civilians and 66 fighters from Hezbollah and other militant groups, as well as seven Israeli soldiers and a civilian in northern Israel.
GAZA CITY ENCIRCLED
More than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far, two thirds of them women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters.
More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack. Rocket fire by Gaza militants into Israel has continued, disrupting life for millions of people and forcing an estimated 250,000 people to evacuate towns in northern and southern Israel. Most rockets are intercepted.
Twenty-four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.
The toll is likely to rise dramatically. Israeli military officials said their forces have encircled densely built-up Gaza City and began Friday to launch targeted attacks within the city on militant cells.
Read: Gaza receives largest aid shipment so far as deaths top 8,000 and Israel widens military offensive
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the city and nearby parts of northern Gaza. Israel says Hamas has extensive military infrastructure in the city, including a network of underground tunnels, bunkers and command centers. It says its strikes target Hamas and the militants endanger civilians by operating among them.
Friday's strike outside Shifa Hospital came after Israel said Hamas has a command center at the facility — a claim that could not be independently verified and that Hamas and hospital officials deny. The Palestinian Red Crescent said a strike damaged one of its ambulances carrying wounded to southern Gaza on the coastal highway. The agency posted images of the vehicle with its hood destroyed and blood on the side.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli strikes have destroyed 25 ambulances, Qidra said.
The military said its troops have killed numerous Hamas militants exiting tunnels. Footage released by the military showed soldiers and tanks advancing toward bombed out buildings.
Israel has repeatedly told residents of Gaza's north to evacuate to the south for greater safety. But many have been unable to leave or to stay in the south, fearing continued airstrikes there.
The military on Thursday told residents to evacuate the Shati refugee camp on Gaza City’s edge. On Friday, shells hit a convoy of evacuees on the coastal road they were told to use, killing around a dozen people, doctors said. Footage from the road showed dead children lying in the sand.
Further south, workers pulled 17 bodies from the rubble of a building leveled by a strike in Khan Younis, witnesses said. Associated Press images showed rescuers digging with bare hands to save someone completely buried, with one arm protruding from the wreckage. At a hospital, a crying man held up the dead body of a small girl whose lower limbs appeared to be missing.
In the occupied West Bank overnight, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in different places and arrested many more, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian health officials.
More than 386 Palestinian dual nationals and wounded exited Gaza into Egypt on Friday, according to Wael Abou Omar, the Hamas spokesman for the Rafah border crossing. That brings the total who have gotten out since Wednesday to 1,115.
Israel has allowed more than 300 trucks carrying food and medicine into Gaza, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough. Israeli authorities have refused to allow fuel in, saying Hamas is hoarding fuel for military use and would steal new supplies.
Gaza receives largest aid shipment so far as deaths top 8,000 and Israel widens military offensive
Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza on Sunday in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war ignited by Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 incursion. The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.
Communications were restored to most of Gaza's 2.3 million people Sunday after an Israeli bombardment described by residents as the most intense of the war knocked out phone and internet services late Friday.
Israel has allowed only a trickle of aid to enter. On Sunday, 33 trucks carrying water, food and medicine entered the only border crossing from Egypt, a spokesperson at the Rafah crossing, Wael Abo Omar, told The Associated Press.
Read: Israeli settler shoots and kills Palestinian harvester as violence surges in the West Bank
After visiting the Rafah crossing, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court called the suffering of civilians “profound" and said he had not been able to enter Gaza. “These are the most tragic of days,” said Karim Khan, whose court has been investigating the actions of Israeli and Palestinian authorities since 2014.
Khan called on Israel to respect international law but stopped short of accusing it of war crimes. He called Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack a serious violation of international humanitarian law. “The burden rests with those who aim the gun, missile or rocket in question,” he said.
The Israeli military said Sunday that it had struck more than 450 militant targets over the past 24 hours, including Hamas command centers and anti-tank missile launching positions. Huge plumes of smoke rose over Gaza City. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said dozens of militants were killed.
Hagari, who said ground operations were intensifying, also reiterated calls for Gaza residents to move south, saying they'd have better access to food, water and medicine there.
“This is a matter of urgency,” he said.
Read: Internet, phone service gradually returns after vanishing for most of Gaza amid heavy bombardment
Israel says most Gaza residents have heeded its orders to flee to the southern part of the besieged territory, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north, in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.
The Hamas military wing said its militants clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest Gaza Strip with small arms and anti-tank missiles. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.
The aid warehouse break-ins were “a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza," said Thomas White, Gaza director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. "People are scared, frustrated and desperate.”
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the crowds broke into four facilities on Saturday. She said the warehouses did not contain any fuel, which has been in critically short supply since Israel cut off all shipments. Israel says Hamas would use it for military purposes and that the militant group is hoarding large fuel stocks for itself in the territory. That claim couldn't be independently verified.
One warehouse held 80 tons of food, the U.N. World Food Program said. It emphasized that at least 40 of its trucks need to cross into Gaza daily just to meet growing food needs.
President Joe Biden in a call with Netanyahu on Sunday “underscored the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” the U.S. said.
Israeli settler shoots and kills Palestinian harvester as violence surges in the West Bank
A Jewish settler shot dead a Palestinian man harvesting olives near the West Bank city of Nablus, the man’s uncle said Sunday. This brings the number of Palestinians reported killed by settlers to seven since Hamas’s bloody incursion into Israel three weeks ago.
Tayseer Mahmoud said his nephew, Bilal Saleh, was working in the grove in the village of Sawiya with his wife and their four children on Saturday when a group of settlers attacked them. Saleh, concerned about the safety of his children, tried to leave the area, but a settler shot him in the chest, Mahmoud said.
Read:Syria, Lebanon call for immediate stop to deadly Israel-Hamas conflict
Mahmoud said he didn't witness the confrontation but was close by and reached the scene within minutes of the shooting. Saleh died before he could be taken for medical care, he said.
Settler leader Yossi Dagan said in a video posted on the social media p(platform Facebook Saturday that the shooter was accompanied by family members and fired in self-defense after they were “attacked with rocks by dozens of rioting Hamas supporters.”
The deadly shooting took place amid a spike in settler violence since Hamas militants infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and taking over 230 others hostage. The incursion touched off a war that has killed more than 7,700 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Read: UNGA adopts resolution with 2/3rd majority calling for humanitarian truce in Gaza
In addition to the killings, Palestinians in the West Bank have reported attacks on people and property, as well as denial of access to their land.
The violence has gotten so intense that it has drawn condemnation from U.S. President Joe Biden. Attacks by extremist settlers, Biden said, amounted to “pouring gasoline” on fires already burning in the Middle East since the Hamas attack.
The Israeli military said it received a report of a “violent confrontation” between Palestinians and Israeli civilians, and that a Palestinian was reported killed. Police have opened an investigation, it said.
Read: Parts of Gaza look like a wasteland from space following relentless Israeli bombing raids
This year has been the deadliest in the West Bank since the second Palestinian uprising against Israel two decades ago.
Since the outbreak of the war alone, more than 100 Palestinians, including civilians, have been killed, most during military arrest raids and violent protests in the West Bank.
Internet, phone service gradually returns after vanishing for most of Gaza amid heavy bombardment
Two days after cellular and internet service abruptly vanished for most of Gaza amid a heavy Israeli bombardment, the crowded enclave was coming back online Sunday as communications systems were gradually being restored.
That's a welcome development for Gaza following a communications blackout that began late Friday as Israel expanded ground operations and launched intense airstrikes that illuminated the night sky with furious orange flashes. A rare few Palestinians with international SIM cards or satellite phones took it upon themselves to get the news out.
By Sunday morning, though, phone and internet communications had been restored to many people in Gaza, according to telecommunications providers in the area, Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmation on the ground.
Read: Israel steps up air and ground attacks in Gaza and cuts off the territory's communications
After weeks of a total Israeli siege, Palestinians in Gaza felt the vise tightening. Social media had been a lifeline for Palestinians desperate to get news and to share their terrifying plight with the world. Now even that was gone. Many were consumed with hopelessness and fear as the Israeli military announced a new stage in its war, launched in a response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, and troops crossed into Gaza.
Exhausted and afraid her link to the world was so tenuous it could drop at any moment, 28-year-old Palestinian journalist Hind al-Khoudary said the massive airstrikes that shook the ground exceeded anything she had experienced over the past three weeks or any of the four previous Israel-Hamas wars.
“It was crazy," she said.
Residents on Saturday darted across dilapidated neighborhoods under heavy bombardment to check on loved ones. Medics chased the thunder of artillery and bombs because they couldn't receive distress calls. Survivors pulled the dead from the rubble with bare hands and loaded them into cars and donkey-drawn carts.
“It’s a catastrophe,” said Anas al-Sharif, a freelance journalist. “Entire families remain under the rubble.”
Reached by WhatsApp, freelance photojournalist Ashraf Abu Amra in northern Gaza said panic and confusion surrounded him.
“It’s barely possible to send this message,” he said. “All I want to convey is that the international community must intervene and save the people of Gaza from death immediately.”
Local journalists posting daily on social media scavenged the 360-square-kilometer (140-square-mile) territory to find even a spotty connection. Some moved closer to the southern border with Egypt, hoping to pick up that country's network. Others had foreign SIM cards and special routers that connected to Israel's network.
Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a journalist in northern Gaza, kept track of Israeli airstrikes all night, noticing the raids were concentrated along the strip's northern border with Israel.
Read: Parts of Gaza look like a wasteland from space following relentless Israeli bombing raids
“A new bombing is happening right now as we speak,” he said, as the roar of explosions resounded in the background. “There is an explosion, gunfire, and clashes are heard near the border."
“We do not know if there are (dead) or wounded because of the lack of communication,” Abdel Rahman added.
When the pace of bombardment slowed Saturday morning, residents rushed to the homes of loved ones with whom they had lost touch overnight.
“People right now are walking, using their cars because there isn’t internet," al-Khoudary said. “Everyone is checking on us, seeing us, and now we are going to check on others.”
She went directly to Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, where doctors, exhausted from operating on patient after patient with dwindling fuel and medical supplies, pressed on, despite the crowds of some 50,000 people sheltering in the compound.
The wounded poured in from Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, al-Khoudary said, where Israeli bombs wrought destruction the night before.
Health authorities in Gaza and U.N. agencies warned that the blackout has exacerbated Gaza's humanitarian crisis.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said the communication outages had paralyzed an overwhelmed health system. As ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra addressed reporters at a press conference livestreamed by the Al Jazeera satellite network from the hospital, an older bespectacled man positioned himself just behind the podium.
While al-Qidra spoke, the man waved into the camera and pointed his hands upward to the heavens — apparently hoping to reassure someone far away that he was alive.
International aid organizations, whose limited operations inside the enclave have teetered on collapse, said they couldn't reach their staff nearly 24 hours after the blackout.
The chief of the U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency, Philippe Lazzarini, penned a public letter to his staff in Gaza expressing “immense worry” for their safety.
Read: Israeli troops launch brief ground raid into Gaza ahead of expected wider incursion
“I am constantly hoping that this hell on earth will soon come to an end and that you and your families are safe,” he wrote. “You are the face of humanity during one of its darkest hours.”
Doctors Without Borders said the group had not communicated with its team in Gaza since since 8 p.m. Friday.
“We are not able to send our team to different facilities because we have no way to coordinate with them,” Guillemette Thomas, the regional medical coordinator, said from Paris. “That's really a critical situation."
UNGA adopts resolution with 2/3rd majority calling for humanitarian truce in Gaza
After the continuous failure of the UN Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution, with a 2/3rd majority, calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza.
In the last three weeks, the Security Council has repeatedly failed to take decisions regarding humanitarian ceasefires despite having a series of meetings.
Also read: Humanitarian crisis in Gaza at unprecedented level: UN
Since October 7, more than 7,000 civilians, including 3,500 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip due to a heinous and barbaric attack by Israel. More than one million people have been displaced. In the last 20 days, several proposals were tabled in the Security Council.
However, not a single proposal succeeded in passing. Finally, today, in the resumed 10th Emergency Special Session of the UNGA, a resolution with the proposal of a humanitarian truce was adopted with 2/3rd majority.
Also read: At least 60% of Gaza's population displaced due to Israeli attacks: UN
In the voting, 121 countries voted in favour of the resolution, 14 voted against it, and 45 countries abstained.
The Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, Ambassador Muhammad Abdul Muhit, represented Bangladesh in the voting.
Also read: UN chief 'horrified' by strike on Gaza hospital
After the adoption of the resolution, Ambassador Muhit said the instructions of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the Palestine issue were very clear.
"In her statement delivered at the high level of the 78th UNGA, she strongly urged the international community to work together to realise the rights of the people of Palestine and reiterated Bangladesh’s unflinching commitment to the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine,” he said.
According to the kind instruction of the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Bangladesh voted in favour of this resolution, said Muhit.
“We have not only voted yes for the resolution but also played an instrumental role in organising this emergency session. When the Security Council fails to adopt any resolution regarding the maintenance of international peace and security, it becomes urgent to hold an emergency session in the General Assembly."Ambassador Muhit also mentioned.
"In this regard, we sent a written letter to the President of the General Assembly to hold that emergency session. We mobilised support for the resolution. Earlier, in the Security Council Open Debates, we reiterated Bangladesh’s unwavering support for Palestine and urged all the permanent and non-permanent members of the Council to work together for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
Bangladesh will continue to extend unwavering and steadfast support for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian brothers and sisters for a just and lasting solution to their legitimate aspirations through the establishment of an independent, viable, and sovereign Palestinian State, according to a media release on Saturday.The main focus of the UNGA resolution was immediate truce; immediate, continuous, sufficient, and unhindered provision of essential goods and services to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip; and protection of civilians and civilian objects, as well as the protection of humanitarian personnel, persons hors de combat, and humanitarian facilities and assets.
The resolution also called for the rescinding of the order by Israel, the occupying power; firmly rejected any attempts at forced transfer of the Palestinian civilian population; and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all civilians who are being illegally held captive. It also referred to the two-state solution as a basis for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As mentioned, an amendment proposal to the resolution that proposed to condemn Hamas for attacking on October 7 was tabled by Canada. However, the amendment proposal failed to get adopted due to a lack of support from the majority (2/3rd) of the member states, as it did not refer to the horrific crimes being committed by Israeli defence forces.
Parts of Gaza look like a wasteland from space following relentless Israeli bombing raids
Apartment buildings are crumpled. Neighborhoods lie in ruins. Terrain is transformed into moonscape.
The destruction of areas of northern Gaza is visible from space in satellite images taken before and after Israeli airstrikes, which followed the raids carried out by Hamas militants on Oct. 7.
Also read: Humanitarian crisis in Gaza at unprecedented level: UN
In images shot Saturday by Maxar Technologies, four- and five-story buildings in the Izbat Beit Hanoun neighborhood are in various states of collapse. Huge chunks are missing from some, others are broken in half and two large complexes lie in piles of rubble.
The pattern of destruction in the Al Karameh neighborhood can be traced by a widespread pattern the color of ash.
Tightly packed streets in Beit Hanoun look obliterated, with a rare white structure standing out in the gray wasteland.
Also read: Israel vows again to destroy Hamas, rejecting calls for a cease-fire in Gaza at a major UN meeting
Israel has carried out thousands of airstrikes since the war began following a cross-border raid that killed 1,400 people in Israel and took over 200 others hostage. Palestinian health officials say over 7,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the fighting erupted.
With the airstrikes continuing around the clock, the full extent of the damage remains unknown. The satellite photos provide a glimpse of the devastation, particularly in the hard-hit northern Gaza Strip.
Also read: Israeli airstrikes surge in Gaza, killing dozens at a time in destroyed homes, witnesses say
US strikes Iran-linked sites in Syria in retaliation for attacks on US troops
The U.S. military launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.
The U.S. strikes reflect the Biden administration's determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel's war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.
Also read: Israeli troops launch brief ground raid into Gaza ahead of expected wider incursion
Information about the specific targets and other details were not yet provided.
According to the Pentagon, there have been at least 12 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in Iraq and four in Syria since Oct. 17. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults that used drones to target al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf Garrison in Syria.
In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the "precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17."
Also read: Humanitarian crisis in Gaza at unprecedented level: UN
He said President Joe Biden directed the narrowly tailored strikes "to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests." And he added that the operation was separate and distinct from Israel's war against Hamasa.
Austin said the U.S. does not seek a broader conflict, but if Iranian proxy groups continue, the U.S. won't hesitate to take additional action to protect its forces.
According to the Pentagon, all the U.S. personnel hurt in the militant attacks received minor injuries and all returned to duty. In addition, a contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died while seeking shelter from a possible drone attack.
The retaliatory strikes came as no surprise. Officials at the Pentagon and the White House have made it clear for the past week that the U.S. would respond, with Ryder saying again Thursday that it would be "at the time and place of our choosing."
"I think we've been crystal clear that we maintain the inherent right of defending our troops and we will take all necessary measures to protect our forces and our interests overseas," he told reporters during a Pentagon briefing earlier in the day.
The latest spate of strikes by the Iranian-linked groups came in the wake of a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, triggering protests in a number of Muslim nations. The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel nearly three weeks ago, but Israel has denied responsibility for the al-Ahli hospital blast and the U.S. has said its intelligence assessment found that Tel Aviv was not to blame.
Also read: Death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza approximates 5,800: Hamas-run Health Ministry
The U.S., including the Pentagon, has repeatedly said any strike response by America would be directly tied to the attacks on the troops, and not connected to the war between Israel and Hamas. Such retaliation and strikes against Iranian targets in Syria after similar attacks on U.S. bases are routine.
In March, for example, the U.S. struck sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard after an Iranian-linked attack killed a U.S. contractor and wounded seven other Americans in northeast Syria. American F-15 fighter jets flying out of al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar struck several locations around Deir el-Zour.
U.S. officials have routinely stressed that the American response is designed to be proportional, and is aimed at deterring strikes against U.S. personnel who are focused on the fight against the Islamic State group.
U.S. officials have not publicly tied the recent string of attacks in Syria and Iraq to the violence in Gaza, but Iranian officials have openly criticized the U.S. for providing weapons to Israel that have been used to strike Gaza, resulting in civilian death.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, has beefed up air defenses in the region to protect U.S. forces. The U.S. has said it is sending several batteries of Patriot missile systems, a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and additional fighter jets.
The THAAD is being sent from Fort Bliss, Texas, and the Patriot batteries are from Fort Liberty in North Carolina and Fort Sill in Oklahoma. An Avenger air defense system from Fort Liberty is also being sent.
Officials have said as much as two battalions of Patriots are being deployed. A battalion can include at least three Patriot batteries, which each have six to eight launchers.
Ryder said Thursday that about 900 troops have deployed or are in the process of going to the Middle East region, including those associated with the air defense systems.
Israeli troops launch brief ground raid into Gaza ahead of expected wider incursion
Israeli troops and tanks launched a brief ground raid into northern Gaza overnight into Thursday, the military said, striking several militant targets in order to "prepare the battlefield" ahead of a widely expected ground invasion after more than two weeks of devastating air raids.
The raid came after the U.N. warned it is on the verge of running out of fuel in the Gaza Strip, forcing it to sharply curtail relief efforts in the territory, which has also been under a complete siege since Hamas' bloody rampage across southern Israel ignited the war earlier this month.
Hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources. Health officials said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets pounded Gaza. Workers pulled dead and wounded civilians, including many children, out of landscapes of rubble in cities across the territory.
Also read: Humanitarian crisis in Gaza at unprecedented level: UN
Gaza's Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said Wednesday that more than 750 people were killed over the past 24 hours, higher than the 704 killed the previous day. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death toll, and the ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military, which accuses Hamas of operating among civilians, said its strikes killed militants and destroyed military targets. Gaza militants have fired unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started.
During the overnight raid, the military said soldiers struck fighters, militant infrastructure and anti-tank missile launching positions. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either aide.
The rising death tolls in Gaza are unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even greater loss of life could come if Israel launches an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and survived four previous wars with Israel.
Also read: Death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza approximates 5,800: Hamas-run Health Ministry
The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war. That figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.
The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas also holds some 222 hostages in Gaza.
The warning by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, over depleting fuel supplies raised alarm that the humanitarian crisis could quickly worsen.
Gaza's population has also been running out of food, water and medicine. About 1.4 million of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have fled their homes, with nearly half of them crowded into U.N. shelters.
In recent days, Israel let a small number of trucks with aid enter from Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power generators — saying it believes Hamas will take it.
UNRWA has been sharing its own fuel supplies so that trucks can distribute aid, bakeries can feed people in shelters, water can be desalinated, and hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment working.
Also read: Israel vows again to destroy Hamas, rejecting calls for a cease-fire in Gaza at a major UN meeting
If it continues doing all of that, fuel will run out by Thursday, so the agency is deciding how to ration its supply, UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai told The Associated Press.
"Do we give for the incubators or the bakeries?" she said. "It is an excruciating decision."
More than half of Gaza's primary health care facilities and roughly a third of its hospitals have stopped functioning, the World Health Organization said.
At Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, the lack of medicine and clean water have led to "alarming" infection rates, the group Doctors Without Borders said. Amputations are often required to prevent infection from spreading in the wounded, it said.
One surgeon with the group described amputating half the foot of a 9-year-old boy with only "slight sedation" on a hallway floor as his mother and sister watched.
The conflict has also threatened to spread across the region. The Israeli military said it struck military sites in Syria in response to rocket launches from the country. Syrian state media said eight soldiers were killed and seven wounded.
Strikes in Syria also hit the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups, including Lebanon's Hezbollah. Israel has been exchanging near daily fire with Iranian-backed Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.
Hamas' surprise rampage on Oct. 7 in southern Israel stunned the country with its brutality, its unprecedented toll and the failure of intelligence agencies to know it was coming. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech Wednesday night that he will be held accountable, but only after Hamas was defeated.
"We will get to the bottom of what happened," he said. "This debacle will be investigated. Everyone will have to give answers, including me."
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said his country will stop issuing visas to U.N. personnel after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Hamas' attack "did not happen in a vacuum." It was unclear what the action, if implemented, would mean for U.N. aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.
"It's time to teach them a lesson," Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the U.N. chief of justifying a slaughter.
The U.N. chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that "the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation." Guterres said "the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
Guterres said Wednesday he is "shocked" at the misinterpretation of his statement "as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas."
"This is false. It was the opposite," he told reporters.
Death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza approximates 5,800: Hamas-run Health Ministry
The death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to 5,791, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, 16,297 Palestinians were wounded in the coastal enclave, the ministry said in a statement.
Read: Israel vows again to destroy Hamas, rejecting calls for a cease-fire in Gaza at a major UN meeting
The Israeli airstrikes were triggered by a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli military targets and towns on Oct. 7, which has so far killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.
Read: Hamas frees two Israeli women as US advises delaying ground war to allow talks on captives
Leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah holds talks with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group held talks on Wednesday with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures in a key meeting of three top anti-Israel militant groups amid the war raging in Gaza.
A brief statement following the meeting said that Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah agreed with Hamas' Saleh al-Arouri and Islamic Jihad's leader Ziad al-Nakhleh on the next steps that the three — along with other Iran-backed militants — should take at this “sensitive stage."
Read: Israel vows again to destroy Hamas, rejecting calls for a cease-fire in Gaza at a major UN meeting
Their goal, according to the statement that was carried on Hezbollah-run and Lebanese state media, was to achieve “a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine” and halt Israel's "treacherous and brutal aggression against our oppressed and steadfast people in Gaza and the West Bank”.
No other details were provided. The discussions in Beirut came as the war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, is now in its third week. The fighting, triggered by Hamas' deadly incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, has killed more than 5,700 Palestinians in Gaza.
As the Gaza death toll spirals, tensions have also been rising along the tense Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah members have been exchanging fire with Israeli troops since the day after Hamas' rampage into Israel.
Read: Israeli airstrikes surge in Gaza, killing dozens at a time in destroyed homes, witnesses say
For now, those exchanges remain limited to a handful of border towns and Hezbollah and Israeli military positions on both sides. Lebanese army soldiers and United Nations peacekeeping forces have deployed in large numbers.
Dozens of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the clashes so far, the group says, while the Israeli military has also announced some deaths among its ranks.
Nasrallah has yet to publicly speak about the war in Gaza and clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border. However, other Hezbollah top officials have warned Israel against its planned ground invasion into the besieged territory.
Israeli officials have said they would retaliate aggressively in case of a cross-border attack by Hezbollah from Lebanon.
Read: 40 years after bombing that killed Americans in Beirut, US troops again deploy east of Mediterranean
“We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state (will be) devastating," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while visiting Israeli troops along the border with Lebanon on Sunday.
Lebanon's cash-strapped caretaker government, along regional and international figures, has been scrambling to keep the country out of the war.
Hezbollah and Israel fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a tense stalemate. Israel sees Iran-backed Hezbollah as its most serious threat, estimating it has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.