The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas officials, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza and the October 2023 attacks that triggered Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory. The decision turns Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects and is likely to further isolate them and complicate efforts to negotiate a cease-fire to end the 13-month conflict. But its practical implications could be limited since Israel and its major ally, the United States, are not members of the court and several of the Hamas officials have been subsequently killed in the conflict. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have condemned ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for warrants as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also blasted the prosecutor and expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. Hamas also slammed the request. “The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity,” the three-judge panel wrote in its unanimous decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in September that it had submitted two legal briefs challenging the ICC's jurisdiction and arguing that the court did not provide Israel the opportunity to investigate the allegations itself before requesting the warrants. US vetoes a Gaza cease-fire resolution “No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein wrote on X. He said Israel remained “steadfast in its commitment to the rule of law and justice” and would continue to protect its citizens against militancy. The ICC is a court of last resort that only prosecutes cases when domestic law enforcement authorities cannot or will not investigate. Israel is not a member state of the court. The country has struggled to investigate itself in the past, rights groups say. Despite the warrants, none of the suspects is likely to face judges in The Hague any time soon. The court itself has no police to enforce warrants, instead relying on cooperation from its member states.  

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” and called for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. The prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran  at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders. In a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, he warned Israel against launching attacks on Iranian soil, reports BBC. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation in the territory Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: "Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.” The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Read more: Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon's children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children. Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel's “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza. In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region. In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed. He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights.

Egypt’s president announced Sunday his country has proposed a two-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas during which four hostages held in Gaza would be freed. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected in Qatar, another key mediator. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said the proposal includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. It aims to “move the situation forward,” he said, adding that negotiations would continue to make the cease-fire permanent. Talks in pursuit of a longer, phased cease-fire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces out of Gaza as a precondition, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said they will remain until destroying Hamas. There hasn’t been a cease-fire since November’s weeklong pause in fighting in the earliest weeks of the war. Israel’s Mossad chief was traveling to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar's prime minister and the CIA chief in the latest attempt to end the fighting and ease regional tensions that have built since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. Those tensions now see Israel at war with both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and openly attacking Iran, their backer, for the first time this weekend. Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said Israel's strikes — in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack this month — “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation. During a government memorial for the Hebrew anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “not every goal can be achieved through only military operations," adding that “painful compromises will be required” to return the hostages. At the same event, protesters disrupted Netanyahu's speech, shouting “Shame on you." Many Israelis blame him for the security failures that led to the attack and hold him responsible for not yet bringing hostages home. Inside Gaza, the latest Israeli strikes in the north killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said, as an offensive in the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week. The U.N. secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.” Israel said it targeted militants. Netanyahu says strikes on Iran achieved Israel's goalsNetanyahu in his first public comments on the strikes said “we severely harmed Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed toward us.” Satellite images showed damage to two secretive Iranian military bases, one linked to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was discontinued in 2003. The other is linked to Iran's ballistic missile program. Iran said a civilian had been killed, with no details. It earlier said four people with the military air defense were killed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, said “it is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime.” Khamenei would make any final decision on how Iran responds. The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Monday at Iran’s request. Switzerland, which holds the council’s rotating presidency, said Russia, China and Algeria, the council's Arab representative, supported the request. Iran's most powerful proxy is Hezbollah, which has stepped up firing on Israel in response to Israel's ground invasion in southern Lebanon in recent weeks. Two Israeli strikes killed eight people in Sidon in southern Lebanon, with 25 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The Israeli military said four soldiers, including a military rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, without providing details. An explosive drone and a projectile fired from Lebanon wounded five people in Israel, authorities said. Truck ramming in Israel wounds dozensA truck rammed into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel and had been “neutralized.” The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the attack but did not claim it. Tensions have soared since the war in Gaza began, and Israel has carried out regular military raids into the occupied West Bank that have left hundreds dead. ‘Harrowing levels of death’ in northern GazaThe Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said 11 women and two children were among 22 killed in strikes late Saturday in Beit Lahiya in the north. Israel's military said it carried out a strike on militants. Ministry official Hussein Mohesin said 11 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Shati refugee camp in the north, with many injured. “Most of the injuries are children and women, and most of them are in very serious condition," he said. Israel's military did not immediately comment. Israel has waged a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since early October, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled in the latest wave of displacement. Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation. Israel has severely limited the entry of humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north say they have been overwhelmed. The U.N. secretary-general noted “harrowing levels of death.” The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages remain in Gaza, around a third of whom thought to be dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. The offensive has devastated much of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Freedom of expression has been threatened more seriously in Gaza than in any recent conflict, with journalists targeted in the war-torn territory and Palestinian supporters targeted in many countries, a United Nations expert said Friday. Irene Khan, the U.N. independent investigator on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, pointed to attacks on the media and the targeted killings and arbitrary detention of dozens of journalists in Gaza. UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon staying put despite Israeli warnings to move “The banning of Al Jazeera, the tightening of censorship within Israel and in the occupied territories, seem to indicate a strategy of the Israeli authorities to silence critical journalism and obstruct the documentation of possible international crimes,” she said. Khan also sharply criticized the “discrimination and double standards” that have seen restrictions and suppression of pro-Palestinian protests and speech. She cited bans in Germany and other European countries, protests that were “crushed harshly” on U.S. college campuses, and Palestinian national symbols and slogans prohibited and even criminalized in some countries. The U.N. special rapporteur also pointed to “the silencing and sidelining of dissenting voices in academia and the arts,” with some of the best academic institutions in the world failing to protect all members of their community, “whether Jewish, Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, Muslim, or otherwise.” While social media platforms have been a lifeline for communications to and from Gaza, Khan said, they have seen an upsurge in disinformation, misinformation and hate speech — with Arabs, Jews, Israelis and Palestinians all targeted online. She stressed that Israel’s military actions in Gaza and its decades of occupation of Palestinian territories are matters of public interest, scrutiny and criticism. Khan earlier presented her report on “the global crisis of freedom of expression arising from the conflict in Gaza” to the General Assembly’s human rights committee. She said Israel responded to it, explained the country’s laws, and “took the position that the conflict in Gaza was not really of global significance, and my mandate should not engage with it.” Israel’s U.N. mission declined to comment on her press briefing. The surprise attacks in southern Israel led by Hamas militants who controlled Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and led to the abduction of about 250 others, around 100 of whom are still hostages. Israel’s military offensive in retaliation has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority were women and children. Khan, a former secretary-general of Amnesty International, stressed that “no conflict in recent times has threatened freedom of expression so seriously or so far beyond its borders than Gaza.” She said attacks on the media “are an attack on the right to information of people around the world who want to know what is happening there.” Khan said she has called on the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council to take measures to strengthen the protection of journalists “as essential civilian workers.” “ Journalism should be seen as essential as humanitarian work,” she said. The information industry has changed, Khan said, and the issue of access to conflict situations by international media representatives — who have been banned from Gaza by Israel — must also be affirmed. “It has to be clarified that it is not okay to just deny access to international media,” she said. Without naming any countries, Khan asked why nations that pride themselves as champions of the media have been silent in the face of unprecedented attacks on journalists in Gaza and the West Bank. “My main message is that what is happening in Gaza is sending signals around the world that it is okay to do these things because it’s happening in Gaza and Israel is enjoying absolute impunity — and others around the world will believe that there will be absolute impunity, too,” Khan said.

Yahya Sinwar masterminded an attack on Israel that shocked the world, unleashing a still-widening catastrophe with no end in sight. In Gaza, no figure loomed larger in determining the war’s trajectory than the 61-year-old Hamas leader. Obsessive, disciplined and dictatorial, he was a rarely seen veteran militant who learned Hebrew over years spent in Israeli prisons and who carefully studied his enemy. On Thursday, Israel said troops in Gaza had killed Sinwar. A top Hamas political official confirmed the death Friday. The secretive figure feared on both sides of the battle lines engineered the surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel, along with the even more shadowy Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’ armed wing. Israel said that it killed Deif in a July airstrike in southern Gaza that killed more than 70 Palestinians. How Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was found and killed by Israel Soon after, Hamas’ leader in exile, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed while visiting Iran in an explosion that was blamed on Israel. Sinwar was then chosen to take his place as Hamas’ top leader, though he was in hiding in Gaza. Palestinian militants who carried out the October 2023 attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others, catching Israel’s military and intelligence establishment off guard and shattering the image of Israeli invincibility. Israel’s retaliation was crushing. The conflict has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. It also has caused widespread destruction in Gaza, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and many on the verge of starvation. Sinwar has held indirect negotiations with Israel to try to end the war. One of his goals was to win the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, much like the deal that got him released more than a decade ago. He worked on bringing Hamas closer to Iran and its other allies across the region. The war he ignited drew in Hezbollah, eventually leading to another Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and led Iran and Israel to trade fire directly for the first time, raising fears of an even more expansive conflict. To Israelis, Sinwar was a nightmarish figure. The Israeli army’s chief spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, called him a murderer “who proved to the whole world that Hamas is worse than ISIS,” referring to the Islamic State group. Always defiant, Sinwar ended one of his few public speeches by inviting Israel to assassinate him, proclaiming in Gaza, “I will walk back home after this meeting.” He then did so, shaking hands and taking selfies with people in the streets. Among Palestinians, he was respected for standing up to Israel and remaining in impoverished Gaza, in contrast to other Hamas leaders living more comfortably abroad. But he was also deeply feared for his iron grip in Gaza, where public dissent is suppressed. In contrast to the media-friendly personas cultivated by some of Hamas’ political leadership, Sinwar never sought to build a public image. He was known as the “Butcher of Khan Younis” for his brutal approach to Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. Israel confirms killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in Gaza Sinwar was born in 1962 in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp to a family that was among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. He was an early member of Hamas, which emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987, when the coastal enclave was under Israeli military occupation. Sinwar convinced the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, that to succeed as a resistance organization, Hamas needed to be purged of informants for Israel. They founded a security arm, then known as Majd, which Sinwar led. Arrested by Israel in the late 1980s, he admitted under interrogation to having killed 12 suspected collaborators. He was eventually sentenced to four life terms for offenses that included the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers. Michael Koubi, a former director of the investigations department at Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar, recalled the confession that stood out to him the most: Sinwar recounted forcing a man to bury his own brother alive because he was suspected of working for Israel. “His eyes were full of happiness when he told us this story,” Koubi said. But to fellow prisoners, Sinwar was charismatic, sociable and shrewd, open to detainees from all political factions. He became the leader of the hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society. He was known for feeding fellow inmates, making kunafa, a treat of shredded dough stuffed with cheese. “Being a leader inside prison gave him experience in negotiations and dialogue, and he understood the mentality of the enemy and how to affect it,” said Anwar Yassine, a Lebanese citizen who spent about 17 years in Israeli jails, much of the time with Sinwar. Yassine noted how Sinwar always treated him with respect even though he belonged to the Lebanese Communist Party, whose secular principles conflicted with Hamas’ ideology. During his years in detention, Sinwar wrote a 240-page novel, “Thistle and the Cloves.” It tells the story of Palestinian society from the 1967 Mideast war until 2000, when the second intifada began. “This is not my personal story, nor is it the story of a specific person, despite the fact that all the incidents are true,” Sinwar wrote in the novel’s opening. In 2008, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer after treatment at a Tel Aviv hospital. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released him in 2011 along with about 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid. Netanyahu was harshly criticized for releasing dozens of prisoners held for involvement in deadly attacks. Back in Gaza, Sinwar closely coordinated between Hamas’ political leadership and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. He also cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness. He is widely believed to be behind the unprecedented 2016 killing of another top Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtewi, in an internal power struggle. He also married after his release. In 2017, he was elected head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza. Sinwar worked with Haniyeh to realign the group with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. He also focused on building Hamas’ military power.  

An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the school. The strike hit the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week. Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza's escalating humanitarian crisis Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry's emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties. "Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said. The military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of dozens of names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.

The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to U.S. weapons funding. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates U.S. policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and reports Israel had conducted a strike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people. A senior defense official said Tuesday that Blinken and Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts as they saw a recent decrease in assistance reaching Gaza. The official said a similar letter sent by Blinken in April triggered a constructive response and “concrete measures from the Israelis.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the latest letter was a way to similarly address the problem. Read more: The US is building a pier off Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid. Here's how it would work For Israel to continue qualifying for foreign military financing, the level of aid getting into Gaza must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, Israel must institute additional humanitarian pauses and provide increased security for humanitarian sites, Austin and Blinken said. They said Israel had 30 days to respond to the different requirements. An Israeli official confirmed a letter had been delivered but did not discuss the contents. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, confirmed the U.S. had raised “humanitarian concerns” and was putting pressure on Israel to speed up the flow of aid into Gaza.

A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago. The Lebanon-based Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It later said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones. Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air-defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles. Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated. Israel launched its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month with the goal of weakening Hezbollah and pushing the militant group away from the border to allow thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes. Inside Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people including children at a school Sunday night, according to two local hospitals. The school in Nuseirat was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the war. Meanwhile, explosions hit early Monday outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing three people and injuring about 50 others, the hospital said. Tents caught fire, and residents of the Central Gaza community carried the injured into the hospital. Hezbollah's deadly strike in Israel came the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to help bolster protection against missiles, along with troops needed to operate it. An Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack. Netanyahu calls UN peacekeepers ‘human shield’ for Hezbollah The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one position early Sunday and destroyed the main gate. They later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL called the incident a “further flagrant violation of international law.” Read: UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon are in the crosshairs of Israel’s war on Hezbollah International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, called Sunday's incident “deeply worrying” and said attacks against peacekeepers may constitute a war crime. Israel’s military says Hezbollah operates in the peacekeepers' vicinity, without providing evidence. Military officials said a tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers backed into a U.N. post Sunday while under fire. A smoke screen was used to provide cover, they said. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani asserted that Israel has tried to maintain constant contact with UNIFIL, and any instance of U.N. forces being harmed will be investigated at “the highest level.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. “We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel. Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. Israeli strike in Lebanon destroys Ottoman-era market Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 58 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers. Read more: Israeli strike on Gaza kills a family of 8 Israeli airstrikes overnight destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatiyeh, killing at least one person and wounding four. “Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed. Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating, and said it continued to target the militants on Sunday. Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances. The Red Cross said the operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. Bodies rot in the streets in northern Gaza Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza almost daily. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas. In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, and other areas. Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war's opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1. The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers. Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble. “We are unable to reach them,” he said, asserting that dogs are eating some remains. The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead. Israel's bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn't distinguish between militants or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

A large-scale Israeli operation in northern Gaza has killed and wounded dozens of people and threatens to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said Wednesday. Heavy fighting is underway in Jabaliya, where Israeli forces carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by Israeli forces since late last year. The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, comes as Israel expands a week-old ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran. Residents of Jabaliya, a refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, say heavy airstrikes and evacuation warnings have driven hundreds of people from their homes. An airstrike early Wednesday killed at least nine people, including two women and two children, according to the Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies. Strikes in central Gaza killed another nine people, including three children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza since the start of the war has surpassed 42,000, with more than 97,000 others wounded. Palestinians huddle inside as fighting rages Residents of Jabaliya said thousands of people have been trapped in their homes since the operation began Sunday, as Israeli jets and drones buzz overhead and troops battle militants in the streets. “It’s like hell. We can’t get out,” said Mohamed Awda, who lives in Jabaliya with his parents and six siblings. He said there were three bodies in the street outside his home that could not be retrieved because of the fighting. “The quadcopters are everywhere, and they fire at anyone. You can’t even open the window,” he told The Associated Press by phone, speaking over the sound of explosions. Read: Hezbollah steps up rocket fire as Israel sends more troops into Lebanon He and other residents fear Israel’s aim is to depopulate the north and turn it into a closed military zone or a Jewish settlement. Israel has blocked all roads except for the main highway leading from Jabaliya to the south, according to residents. “We are concerned about the displacement to the south,” Ahmed Qamar, who lives in Jabaliya with his wife, children and parents, said in a text message. "People here say clearly that they will die here in northern Gaza and and won’t go to southern Gaza.” Hospitals are under threat Fadel Naeem, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it has received dozens of dead and wounded people from across the northern half of the Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its air and ground operation. Israel's offensive has gutted Gaza's health sector, forcing most of its hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning. “The situation is tense,” Naeem told The Associated Press in text message. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable.” He said three hospitals further north — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital - have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to U.N. data. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the hospitals or the apparent suspension of aid delivery in the north. Read more: Marcon calls for halt on arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military spokesperson, said late Tuesday that Israeli forces were operating in Jabaliya “to prevent Hamas' regrouping efforts" and had killed around 100 militants, without providing evidence. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it fights in residential areas. Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel reiterated those instructions over the weekend, telling people to flee south to an expanded humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps. The war began just over a year ago, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. They are still holding around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel's offensive has killed 42,010 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters. It has said women and children make up over half of the dead. The offensive has also caused staggering destruction across the territory and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Israel warns Lebanon that it could end up like Gaza Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the captives. On Tuesday, he warned that Lebanon would meet a similar fate if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israel after the initial Hamas attack. That set in motion a cycle of escalation that ignited a full-scale war last month. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu said, addressing the Lebanese people. In recent weeks Israel has waged a punishing air campaign across large parts of Lebanon, targeting what it says are Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. In a matter of days, strikes killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. Read more:Israel intensifies bombardment of Gaza and southern Lebanon ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary So far, ground operations appear to be focused on a narrow strip along the border, but Israel has warned people to evacuate dozens of cities and towns across southern Lebanon, many of them north of a buffer zone declared by the United Nations after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Hezbollah's acting leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a televised statement Tuesday that the group has replaced its slain commanders and was preventing Israeli ground forces from advancing. The militants have extended their rocket fire deeper into Israel, disrupting life but causing few casualties. Israel is meanwhile considering options for a strike on Iran that could potentially escalate the war on yet another front. Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched a wave of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top militants from both groups.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for an immediate halt to arms shipments to Israel for use in the ongoing Gaza conflict, drawing swift condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an interview with France Inter radio, Macron said, “the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza.” He expressed concern over the continuation of violence in Gaza despite calls for a ceasefire and criticized Israel's deployment of ground troops in Lebanon during a summit in Paris, reports BBC. Netanyahu responded sharply, declaring that “Israel will win with or without their support,” and labeled the call for an arms embargo as “a disgrace.” He condemned Macron and other Western leaders who support such measures, stating, “Shame on them.” Macron reiterated in his interview, recorded on Tuesday and aired on Saturday, that France is not supplying weapons to Israel. He warned that the ongoing conflict is inciting “hatred” and stressed that preventing escalation in Lebanon is crucial, stating, “Lebanon cannot become a new Gaza.” Read: Israel intensifies bombardment of Gaza and southern Lebanon ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary In response to Netanyahu's office, which claimed that nations failing to support Israel are aiding Iran and its allies, Macron's office reaffirmed France's steadfast friendship with Israel and characterized Netanyahu's reaction as “excessive and detached from the friendship between France and Israel.” Macron acknowledged both the U.S. and France’s calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, expressing regret over Netanyahu’s decision for ground operations there. He reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defense and planned to meet with relatives of Franco-Israelis held hostage in Gaza. During their recent call, Netanyahu emphasized that Israel's fight against Hezbollah would transform the situation in Lebanon and promote stability across the Middle East, stating that Israel's allies should support it without imposing restrictions that would bolster Iran's influence. Read more:Israel strikes Gaza and southern Beirut as attacks intensify As the first anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel approaches, which resulted in around 1,200 deaths and 251 hostages, the humanitarian toll in Gaza has reportedly exceeded 41,000 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.