Sanaa Shalaby says she had no idea what her estranged husband was up to until Israeli soldiers raided her home in the occupied West Bank last month. Now she’s waging a legal battle to prevent Israel from demolishing the two-story villa where she lives with her three youngest children. It’s drawing attention to Israel’s policy of punitive home demolitions, which rights groups view as collective punishment. Israeli security forces arrested her husband, Muntasser Shalaby, and accuse him of carrying out a May 2 drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank. Israel says demolishing family homes is one of the only ways to deter attackers, who expect to be arrested or killed and who are often glorified by Palestinian factions. The U.S. State Department has criticized such demolitions, and an internal Israeli military review in the 2000s raised questions about their effectiveness. The case of the Shalabys — who all have U.S. citizenship — could reignite the debate. Israel’s Supreme Court is expected to issue a final ruling on the demolition next week. Read:Israel arrests Jerusalem activists in contested neighborhood Sanaa and her husband had been estranged for nearly a decade. He lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he ran a profitable smoke shop and married three other women in private Muslim ceremonies not recognized by U.S. authorities. “It’s allowed in our religion,” Sanaa said. “I didn’t agree to it.” He came back to the West Bank in April for what she says was one of his yearly visits to see the children. He had also sought treatment for paranoia after having been institutionalized in the U.S. in recent years, according to a deposition he gave to her lawyer. Sanaa said she knew nothing about the attack and had no indication he was planning anything. “People commit crimes far worse than this in America and they don’t demolish their homes,” she said. “Whoever committed the crime should be punished, but it’s not the family’s fault.” When the soldiers showed up after the attack they ransacked the home and briefly detained her 17-year-old son. She said they had a large dog that terrified her and her two younger children, a 12-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. The soldiers came back weeks later to map out the house for demolition. Now Sanaa says her children spend all day in bed and refuse to go to school. “I know my children and they were never like this,” she said. “My son, Ahmed, has to take his final exams and he can’t study. He opens his book, reads a couple pages and then he walks off.” An Israeli official said the security agencies believe home demolitions are an effective deterrent. The official declined to comment on the Shalaby case, but said everyone is notified in advance and given the right to contest demolitions in court. Someone in Sanaa’s situation would have a “good legal case” if her account is independently verified, the official said. “There are clear checks and balances,” the official said. “We are using it only when we feel that it is necessary, and only because we understand that this is an effective deterrent.” Read:Jerusalem evictions that fueled Gaza war could still happen The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security procedures. HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that has represented dozens of families seeking to halt punitive demolitions and is currently representing Sanaa, says such petitions rarely succeed. Of 83 cases brought since 2014, only 10 demolitions were prevented, it said. In the remaining cases, homes were partially or completely demolished, or apartments in multi-story buildings were permanently sealed off. Jessica Montell, the group’s executive director, says that from a legal perspective the question of whether it serves as a deterrent is irrelevant. “You don’t collectively punish innocent people just because they’re related to a criminal in the hope that that will deter future criminals. It’s an illegal and immoral policy regardless of the effectiveness,” she said. The Israeli military prepared a report on punitive home demolitions in 2004 that led to a moratorium on the practice the following year, according to HaMoked, which received a Power Point presentation of the classified report in 2008 through a court petition. The presentation raises concerns about the legality of such demolitions and international criticism of them. It also questions their effectiveness, saying the demolitions might even motivate more attacks. Such demolitions were mostly halted until 2014, when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the occupied West Bank. A campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in east Jerusalem was one of the main causes of last month’s 11-day Gaza war, in which Israeli airstrikes demolished hundreds of homes in the militant-ruled territory. Both forms of displacement summon bitter memories of what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. Shalaby said she has been in continual contact with the U.S. Embassy but was told it couldn’t do anything about the demolition. Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come The State Department declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. But it said it was opposed to the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes. “The home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual,” it said in a statement. The Israeli Supreme Court will hear Sanaa’s case on June 17. She hopes she will be able to remain in the house that she and her husband built in 2006. She said she had sold her bridal jewelry to help finance the construction. She raised her youngest children in the house, and an older daughter had her wedding there last year during a pandemic lockdown. “My daughter got married here during the time of the coronavirus,” she said, pointing to the front courtyard and smiling at the memory. “It was better than any wedding hall.”

Israeli police burst into the home of a prominent family in the contested Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Sunday, the family said, arresting a 23-year-old woman who has led protests against attempts by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in the area. The young woman was later released, but her twin brother turned himself in and remained in custody. The arrests came a day after Israeli police detained a well-known Al Jazeera reporter covering a demonstration in the neighborhood. The reporter, Givara Budeiri, was held for four hours before she was released and sent to a hospital to treat a broken hand. It was not clear how her hand was broken, but her boss blamed police mistreatment. Earlier this year, heavy-handed police actions in Sheikh Jarrah and other parts of east Jerusalem fueled weeks of unrest that helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Those tensions are simmering again this week — and could flare anew if Israeli ultranationalists follow through on plans to march Thursday through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Israeli police were expected to hold consultations on whether the parade, which was originally set to take place when the war erupted on May 10, would be allowed to proceed. Read:Jerusalem evictions that fueled Gaza war could still happen Renewed violence could complicate the task of embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents, who formed a fragile and disparate coalition last week, of passing a parliamentary vote of confidence needed for them to replace him and take office. A close ally of Netanyahu oversees the police. In Sheikh Jarrah, Jewish settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods just outside the walls of the Old City. The area is one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem, which is home to sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims and which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Settler groups and Israeli officials say the Sheikh Jarrah dispute is merely about real estate. But Palestinians say they are victims of a discriminatory system. The settlers are using a 1970 law that allows Jews to reclaim formerly Jewish properties lost during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, a right denied to Palestinians who lost property in the same conflict. The al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah has been at the forefront of months of protests against the planned evictions. Early Sunday, police took Muna al-Kurd, 23, from her home. Her father, Nabil al-Kurd, said police “stormed the house in large numbers and in a barbaric manner.” “I was sleeping, and I found them in my bedroom,” he said. Police then searched the house and arrested his daughter. Video posted on social media showed her being taken away in handcuffs. Read:Netanyahu opponents reach coalition deal to oust Israeli PM “The reason for the arrest is that we say that we will not leave our homes, and they do not want anyone to express his opinion, they do not want anyone to tell the truth,” he said. “They want to silence us.” Police also searched for her brother, Muhammad al-Kurd, but he was not there. Later, he turned himself in to Jerusalem police. The siblings’ lawyer, Nasser Odeh, told journalists outside the police station that his clients were accused of “disturbing public security and participation in nationalistic riots.” Late Sunday, Muna al-Kurd was released. But before she was freed, police briefly clashed with a crowd outside the station, throwing stun grenades. Her brother remained in custody. The arrests came a day after Al Jazeera’s Budeiri, wearing a protective vest marked “press,” was dragged away by police at a protest in Sheikh Jarrah. According to witnesses, police asked Budeiri for identification. Colleagues said police did not allow her to return to her car to retrieve her government-issued press card. Instead, they said she was surrounded by police, handcuffed and dragged into a vehicle with darkened windows. In video footage posted online, Budeiri can be seen in handcuffs, while clutching her notebook and shouting, “Don’t touch, enough, enough.” Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come Israeli police said entrance to the neighborhood is limited due to the tense situation, and only accredited journalists are allowed in. They said that when Budeiri was unable to provide her press pass, police “removed her.” They added that Budeiri was arrested after becoming hostile and pushing an officer. “The Israel Police will allow the freedom of press coverage, provided that these are done in accordance (with) the law while maintaining public order,” according to a statement. The statement did not reference her broken hand. Budeiri was held for four hours before she was released and sent to the hospital, said Walid Omary, the Jerusalem bureau chief for Al Jazeera. In addition to the broken hand, Omary said Budeiri also suffered bruises on her body. He said her cameraman’s video camera was also heavily damaged by police. As part of her release, Budeiri is banned from returning to the neighborhood for 15 days, Omary said. “They are attacking the journalists in east Jerusalem because they don’t want them to continue covering what’s happening inside Sheikh Jarrah,” he said. The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of journalists working for international news organizations, said the treatment of Budeiri was “the latest in a long line of heavy-handed tactics by Israeli police” against the media in recent weeks. It said journalists have been hit by stun grenades, tear gas, sponge-tipped bullets and putrid-smelling water. “We call on police to punish the officers who needlessly injured an experienced journalist and broke professional equipment. And once again, we urge police to uphold Israel’s pledges to respect freedom of the press and to allow journalists to do their jobs freely and without fear of injury and intimidation,” the FPA said. Read:Netanyahu could lose PM job as rivals attempt to join forces Last month’s war was triggered by weeks of clashes in Jerusalem between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint holy site. The war erupted on May 10 when Hamas, calling itself the defender of the holy city, launched a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem. Some 254 people were killed in Gaza and 13 in Israel before a cease-fire took effect on May 21. Al Jazeera’s acting director general, Mostefa Souag, noted that Budeiri’s detention came after Israel’s May 15 war-time destruction of a Gaza high-rise that housed the local office of Al Jazeera. The tower also housed The Associated Press’ office. Israel has alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating from the building. The AP has said it has no indication of a purported Hamas presence and has called for an independent investigation.

A long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families in east Jerusalem is still underway, even after it fueled weeks of unrest and helped ignite an 11-day Gaza war. An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed. The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem. Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Read:Netanyahu opponents reach coalition deal to oust Israeli PM The settlers are using a 1970 law that allows Jews to reclaim properties lost during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, a right denied to Palestinians who lost property in the same conflict, including Palestinian citizens of Israel. The Israeli rights group Ir Amim, which closely follows the various court cases, estimates that at least 150 households in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan have been served with eviction notices and are at various stages in a long legal process. The plight of four extended families comprising six households in Sheikh Jarrah, who were at risk of imminent eviction, triggered protests that eventually merged with demonstrations over the policing of a flashpoint holy site. After warning Israel to halt the evictions and withdraw from the site, Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem on May 10, triggering heavy fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza. As tensions rose, Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit secured the postponement of the final hearing in the case of the four families. Another group of families requested that the attorney general also intervene in their cases, securing a delay. Israelis are currently trying to form a new government, adding more uncertainty to the process. That has bought time for the families, but nothing has been resolved. “Everything is very much hanging in the balance,” said Amy Cohen, a spokeswoman for Ir Amim. Rights advocates fear Israel will proceed with the evictions once the furor dies down and international attention turns elsewhere. Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come “We’re talking about over 1,000 Palestinians in both these two areas that are at risk of mass displacement,” Cohen said. “Because these measures are taking place in such an incremental manner, it’s so much easier to dismiss.” The families in Sheikh Jarrah are stuck in limbo. A total of at least 65 families in two areas of the neighborhood are threatened with eviction, according to Ir Amim, including a group of families set to be evicted in August. Banners hang in the street in Sheikh Jarrah, and small, occasional protests are still held there. Police man checkpoints at either end of the road and keep watch as Jewish settlers — who seized one of the homes in 2009 — come and go. The settlers say they acquired the land from Jews who owned it before the 1948 war, when Jordan captured what is now east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Jordan settled several Palestinian families on the land in the early 1950s after they fled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war. Settlers began trying to evict them shortly after Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war. For Palestinians, the evictions conjure bitter memories of what they refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of Israel’s creation, when some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the population — fled or were driven from their homes as the new state battled five Arab armies. Most ended up in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring countries. “This isn’t just about Sheikh Jarrah, it’s about the entire Israeli occupation, that’s the problem. They aren’t going to stop here,” says Saleh al-Diab, who was born, grew up, married and raised his own children in one of the homes under threat in Sheikh Jarrah. “You lose your home to them in 1948 and then they come back after 1967 and take your home again,” he said. Read:Netanyahu could lose PM job as rivals attempt to join forces Yaakov Fauci, a settler from Long Island, New York, who gained internet fame after a widely circulated video showed a Palestinian resident scolding him for stealing her home, says the Palestinians are squatting on private property. “They’ve lived here since 1956. This is not exactly ancestral land going back to the times of Abraham,” he said. Fauci says he is a tenant and has no personal involvement in the legal dispute, but he insists the land belongs to the Jewish people. “We don’t want to cause them any pain and suffering, but we need to have our land back,” he said. “If there are people there, they have to unfortunately get out.” Ir Amim estimates that settler organizations have already evicted 10 families in Sheikh Jarrah and at least 74 families in Silwan, a few kilometers (miles) away, in the last few decades. The Israeli government and a settler organization that markets properties in Sheikh Jarrah did not respond to requests for comment. Israel has previously said the evictions are a private real estate dispute and accused Hamas of seizing on the issue to incite violence. The settler movement enjoys strong support from the Israeli government and the right-wing parties that dominate Israeli politics. The settlers have benefitted from Israeli policies going back to 1967 that have encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem while severely restricting the growth of Palestinian communities. Read:Israel, Egypt talk truce with Hamas, rebuilding Gaza Strip Today, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers live in both territories, mostly in built-up residential towns and neighborhoods. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as a violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace. Ir Amim says Israeli authorities could intervene in any number of ways to prevent the Jerusalem evictions, including by modifying the law that allows settlers to take over such properties. Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, has demanded that Israel rein in the settlers as part of the informal truce brokered by Egypt that ended the Gaza war. Egyptian mediators are exploring ways to prevent the evictions, and previous cease-fires have included significant concessions to Hamas. A war that destroyed hundreds of homes in Gaza may have ensured that residents of Sheikh Jarrah can remain in theirs, at least for now.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal to form a new governing coalition, paving the way for the ouster of the longtime Israeli leader. The dramatic announcement by opposition leader Yair Lapid and his main coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, came shortly before a midnight deadline and prevented what could have been Israel’s fifth consecutive election in just over two years. “This government will work for all the citizens of Israel, those that voted for it and those that didn’t. It will do everything to unite Israeli society,” Lapid said. The agreement still needs to be approved by the Knesset, or parliament, in a vote that is expected to take place early next week. If it goes through, Lapid and a diverse array of partners that span the Israeli political spectrum will end Netanyahu’s record-setting but divisive 12-year rule. Netanyahu, desperate to remain in office while he fights corruption charges, is expected to do everything possible in the coming days to prevent the new coalition from taking power. If he fails, he will be pushed into the opposition. Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come The deal comes at a tumultuous time for Israel, which fought an 11-day war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip last month while also experiencing mob violence between Jews and Arabs in cities across the country. The country also is emerging from a coronavirus crisis that caused deep economic damage and exposed tensions between the secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox minority. Under the agreement, Lapid and Bennett will split the job of prime minister in a rotation. Bennett, a former ally of Netanyahu, is to serve the first two years, while Lapid is to serve the final two years — though it is far from certain their fragile coalition will last that long. The historic deal also includes a small Islamist party, the United Arab List, which would make it the first Arab party ever to be part of a governing coalition. In the coming days, Netanyahu is expected to continue to put pressure on hard-liners in the emerging coalition to defect and join his religious and nationalist allies. Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, may also use his influence to delay the required parliamentary vote. There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu or Likud. Lapid called on Levin to convene the Knesset for the vote as soon as possible. Netanyahu has been the most dominant player in Israeli politics over the past three decades — serving as prime minister since 2009 in addition to an earlier term in the late 1990s. Despite a long list of achievements, including last year’s groundbreaking diplomatic agreements with four Arab countries, he has become a polarizing figure since he was indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in 2019. Read:Netanyahu could lose PM job as rivals attempt to join forces Each of the past four elections was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s fitness to rule. And each ended in deadlock, with both Netanyahu’s supporters as well as his secular, Arab and dovish opponents falling short of a majority. A unity government formed with his main rival last year collapsed after just six months. The new deal required a reshuffling of the Israeli political constellation. Three of the parties are led by hard-line former Netanyahu allies who had personal feuds with him, while the United Arab List made history as a kingmaker, using its leverage to seek benefits for the country’s Arab minority. “This is the first time an Arab party is a partner in the formation of a government,” said the party’s leader, Mansour Abbas. “This agreement has a lot of things for the benefit of Arab society, and Israeli society in general.” Among the concessions secured by Abbas were agreements for legal recognition of Bedouin villages in southern Israel, an economic plan for investing 30 billion shekels ($9.2 billion) in Arab towns and cities, and a five-year plan for combating violent crime in Arab communities, according to Army Radio. Lapid, 57, entered parliament in 2013 after a successful career as a newspaper columnist, TV anchor and author. His new Yesh Atid party ran a successful rookie campaign, landing Lapid the powerful post of finance minister. But he and Netanyahu did not get along, and the coalition quickly crumbled. Yesh Atid has been in the opposition since 2015 elections. The party is popular with secular, middle-class voters and has been critical of Netanyahu’s close ties with ultra-Orthodox parties and said the prime minister should step down while on trial for corruption charges. The ultra-Orthodox parties have long used their outsize political power to secure generous budgets for their religious institutions and exemptions from compulsory military service. The refusal of many ultra-Orthodox Jews to obey coronavirus safety restrictions last year added to widespread resentment against them. Read:Israel, Egypt talk truce with Hamas, rebuilding Gaza Strip Bennett, 49, is a former top aide to Netanyahu whose small Yamina party caters to religious and nationalist hard-liners. Bennett was a successful high-tech entrepreneur and leader of the West Bank settler movement before entering politics. In order to secure the required parliamentary majority, Lapid had to bring together eight parties that have little in common. Their partners include a pair of dovish, left-wing parties that support Palestinian independence and three hard-line parties that oppose major concessions to the Palestinians and support West Bank settlements. Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Blue and White, a centrist party headed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and the United Arab List are the remaining members. The coalition members hope their shared animosity toward Netanyahu will provide enough incentive to find some common ground. “Today, we succeeded. We made history,” said Merav Michaeli, leader of the dovish Labor Party. The negotiations went down to the wire, with Labor and Yamina feuding over the makeup of a parliamentary committee. Earlier this week, when Bennett said he would join the coalition talks, he said that everyone would have to compromise and give up parts of their dreams. Read:Blinken claims progress in effort to boost Gaza truce In order to form a government, a party leader must secure the support of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament. Because no single party controls a majority on its own, coalitions are usually built with smaller partners. Thirteen parties of various sizes are in the current parliament. As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu was given the first opportunity by the country’s figurehead president to form a coalition. But he was unable to secure a majority with his traditional religious and nationalist allies. After Netanyahu’s failure to form a government, Lapid was then given four weeks to cobble together a coalition. That window was set to expire at midnight. Lapid already faced a difficult challenge bringing together such a disparate group of partners. But then war broke out with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on May 10. The fighting, along with the eruption of Arab-Jewish mob violence in Israeli cities during the war, put the coalition talks on hold. But after a cease-fire was reached on May 21, the negotiations resumed, and Lapid raced to sew up a deal. He reached a breakthrough on Sunday when Bennett agreed to join the opposition coalition.

The al-Kawlaks, a family of four generations living next door to each other in downtown Gaza City, were utterly unprepared for the inferno. Like others, they were terrified by the heavy bombing in Israel’s fourth war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers that began May 10. The explosions felt more powerful than in previous fighting. At night, parents and children slept in one room so they would live or die together. Yet the relatively well-to-do Rimal neighborhood where the family lived in a cluster of apartment buildings seemed somewhat safer than areas along Gaza’s border with Israel, which had been devastated in this and past fighting. Then one night disaster struck. Azzam al-Kawlak’s four children had gone to bed, and he and his wife were preparing to join them. At around 1 a.m. on May 16, a thunderous boom shook his top-floor apartment, followed quickly by a second and third. “The floor cracked below our feet and the furniture was thrown to the wall,” the 42-year-old engineer said. The four-story building collapsed, with Azzam’s apartment dropping to the ground. The family escaped through the kitchen balcony, now almost ground level. Bizarrely, the laundry hanging on a clothesline seemed untouched. Read:Israel, Egypt talk truce with Hamas, rebuilding Gaza Strip It took a day for the full horror to emerge, as bodies and survivors were pulled from the rubble. The family and neighbors used ropes to clear chunks of concrete, working alongside ill-equipped rescue teams. By nightfall, the family’s death toll stood at 22. Eight bodies were dug out of Azzam’s building and 14 from the one next door. The dead included 89-year-old family patriarch Amin, his son Fawaz, 62, his grandson Sameh, 28, and his great-grandson, 6-month-old Qusai. Just a day earlier, Qusai’s parents had celebrated a small milestone, his first tooth. Azzam’s two younger brothers were killed. Three nieces — 5-year-old Rula, 10-year-old Yara and 12-year-old Hala — were found in a tight embrace, their bodies the last to be pulled out, said Azzam’s surviving older brother, Awni. The bombing along several hundred meters (yards) of al-Wahda Street took just minutes. In all, it brought down three houses — two in the al-Kawlak compound and one nearby — and killed a total of 43 people, making it the single deadliest air raid of the 11-day war. Israel said the target was a Hamas tunnel underneath the street, part of what it called a roughly 350-kilometer-long (220-mile) underground network. The tunnels served offensive and defensive purposes, military officials said, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said during a war-time briefing that the military target in Rimal collapsed, causing nearby houses and their supporting structures to collapse as well. “That caused a large amount of civilian casualties, which were not the aim,” he said. Read:Blinken claims progress in effort to boost Gaza truce He said the army was reviewing the incident and “adjusting the analysis and the ordnance used in the future” to prevent similar events from occurring again. “It’s not a totally mathematic exercise in choosing the ordnance,” he said. He said Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in areas just as densely populated, with far fewer casualties.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt and Jordan on Wednesday as he presses ahead with a diplomatic mission aimed at shoring up a cease-fire that ended an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group. Blinken was wrapping up talks in Israel early Wednesday before departing to Cairo. He has vowed to “rally international support” to rebuild the destruction in hard-hit Gaza, while also promising to make sure that none of the aid destined for the territory reaches Hamas. Ahead of his departure, Blinken extended U.S. President Joe Biden’s invitation to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to visit the United States in the coming weeks. Rivlin accepted, according to a statement from his office. Blinken described Egypt and Jordan as central players in trying to bring calm to the region. Both countries are key U.S. allies that have peace agreements with Israel and frequently serve as mediators between Israel and the Palestinians. Read:Blinken in Israel on Mideast tour to shore up Gaza truce “Egypt played a critical role in helping to broker the cease-fire and Jordan has long been a voice for peace and stability in the region,” he told reporters late Tuesday. In Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza, he was scheduled to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and other top officials. Biden spoke with el-Sissi during the war to help broker the cease-fire. Blinken has set modest goals for the trip, his first official visit to the Middle East as secretary of state. During talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday, he made clear that the U.S. has no immediate plans to pursue peace talks between the sides, perhaps because previous efforts by past administrations have all failed. Instead, he expressed hope for creating a “better environment” that might lead to peace talks. That could begin with the Gaza reconstruction effort. The 11-day war killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians, and caused heavy destruction in the impoverished coastal territory. Preliminary estimates have put the damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars. One of the U.S. goals is to ensure that any assistance be kept out of the hands of Hamas, which opposes Israel’s right to exist and which Israel and the U.S. consider a terrorist group. Instead, it is trying to bolster the rival government of President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority now administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Abbas. He has been largely sidelined by recent events, is deeply unpopular at home and has little influence in Gaza. Abbas hopes to establish an independent state in all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. In a gesture to the Palestinians, Blinken on Tuesday announced plans to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem — an office that historically handled diplomatic outreach to the Palestinians. President Donald Trump downgraded the consulate and placed its operations under his ambassador to Israel when he moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018. The Jerusalem move infuriated the Palestinians, who claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as their capital, and prompted them to sever most ties with the U.S. Blinken also announced nearly $40 million in additional aid to the Palestinians. In all, the Biden administration has pledged some $360 million to the Palestinians, restoring badly needed aid that the Trump administration had cut off. Read:Israel Palestinian Conflict: UN chief welcomes cease-fire, urges negotiations At a meeting with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken made clear on Tuesday that Biden will pursue a more even-handed approach than Trump, who sided overwhelmingly with Israel in its dealings with the Palestinians. Blinken said the U.S. was committed to “rebuilding the relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, a relationship built on mutual respect and also a shared conviction that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of security, freedom opportunity and dignity.” The truce that ended the Gaza war on Friday has so far held, but it did not address any of the deeper issues plaguing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something Blinken acknowledged after meeting Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We know that to prevent a return to violence, we have to use the space created to address a larger set of underlying issues and challenges,” he said. Those challenges include a hawkish Israeli leadership that seems unwilling to make major concessions, Palestinian divisions, years of mistrust and deeply rooted tensions surrounding Jerusalem and its holy sites. The war was triggered by weeks of clashes in Jerusalem between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound revered by Jews and Muslims that has seen several outbreaks of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the years. The protests were directed at Israel’s policing of the area during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. The truce remains tenuous since tensions are still high in Jerusalem and the fate of the Palestinian families is not yet resolved. In his remarks after his meeting with Blinken, Netanyahu hardly mentioned the Palestinians, warning of a “very powerful” response if Hamas breaks the cease-fire. Netanyahu spoke of “building economic growth” in the occupied West Bank but said there will be no peace until the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” The Palestinians have long objected to that demand, saying it undermines the rights of Israel’s own Palestinian minority. Read:Biden hails Israel-Hamas cease-fire, sees ‘opportunity’ Blinken repeatedly affirmed what he said was Israel’s right to defend itself and said the U.S. would assist Israel in replenishing its Iron Dome rocket-interception system. But he also called on leaders of all sides to chart a “better course” in hopes of laying the groundwork for peace talks aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Biden administration, like most of the international community, believes the “two-state solution” is the only way to resolve the conflict. Blinken expressed hope that a successful international approach in Gaza would be an important first step and could “undermine” Hamas’ grip on power. “Hamas thrives, unfortunately, on despair, on misery, on desperation, on a lack of opportunity,” he said. If there is successful cooperation in Gaza between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international community, he said, “then Hamas’ foothold in Gaza will slip. And we know that. And I think tht Hamas knows that.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Israel at the start of a Middle East tour aimed at shoring up the Gaza cease-fire. He will face the same obstacles that have stifled a wider peace process for more than a decade, including a hawkish Israeli leadership, Palestinian divisions and deeply rooted tensions surrounding Jerusalem and its holy sites. The 11-day Gaza war killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians, and caused widespread destruction in the impoverished coastal territory. Blinken is expected to focus on coordinating reconstruction without engaging with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, who are considered terrorists by Israel and Western countries. The truce that came into effect Friday has so far held, but it did not address any of the underlying issues. Read:Gaza-based journalists in Hamas chat blocked from WhatsApp Blinken, who landed at Ben Gurion International Airport early Tuesday, is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the region since President Joe Biden assumed office. He was welcomed on the tarmac by Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and other officials. The administration had hoped to extricate the U.S. from the region’s intractable conflicts and focus on competition with China and climate change. But like so many of its predecessors, it was pulled back into the Middle East by another outbreak of violence. He will begin his visit in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life after a fourth inconclusive election in two years. Netanyahu faces mounting criticism from Israelis who say he ended the offensive prematurely, without forcibly halting Palestinian rocket attacks or dealing a heavier blow to Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers. The war was triggered by weeks of clashes in Jerusalem between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint holy site. The protests were directed at Israel’s policing of the area during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. The evictions were put on hold just before the Gaza fighting erupted, but the legal process is set to resume in the coming weeks. Police briefly clashed with protesters at Al-Aqsa on Friday, hours after the cease-fire came into effect. The site is revered by Jews and Muslims, and has seen several outbreaks of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the years. Netanyahu is unlikely to make any public concessions on Al-Aqsa or the evictions because it would be seen as giving in to Hamas’ demands. Adding to the tensions, an Israeli soldier and a civilian were stabbed and wounded in east Jerusalem on Monday before police shot and killed the assailant in what they described as a terrorist attack. Read:After another war, displaced in Gaza face familiar plight Blinken will not be meeting with the other party to the war, the Islamic militant group Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Instead, he will head to the occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has no power in Gaza and was largely sidelined by recent events. Abbas, who called off the first Palestinian elections in 15 years last month when it appeared his fractured Fatah movement would suffer an embarrassing defeat, is seen by many Palestinians as having lost all legitimacy. A crowd of worshippers at Al-Aqsa chanted against his Palestinian Authority and in support of Hamas on Friday. But Abbas is still seen internationally as the representative of the Palestinian people and a key partner in the long-defunct peace process. Blinken will also visit neighboring Egypt and Jordan, which made peace with Israel decades ago and have acted as mediators in the conflict. Egypt succeeded in brokering the Gaza truce after the Biden administration pressed Israel to wind down its offensive. Biden announced the visit, saying Blinken would work with regional partners on a “coordinated international effort to ensure immediate assistance reaches Gaza.” The administration had been roundly criticized for its perceived hands-off initial response to the deadly violence, including from Democratic allies in Congress who demanded it take a tougher line on Israel. Biden repeatedly affirmed what he said was Israel’s right to defend itself from rocket attacks from Gaza. Read:After another war, displaced in Gaza face familiar plight The administration has defended its response by saying it engaged in intense, but quiet, high-level diplomacy to support a cease-fire. In an interview with CNN over the weekend, Blinken said the administration is now focused on trying to “build something more positive,” saying Palestinians and Israelis deserve “equal measures of opportunity, of security, of dignity.” He said the time is not right for an immediate resumption in negotiations, but that steps could be taken to repair the damage from Israeli airstrikes, which destroyed hundreds of homes and damaged infrastructure in Gaza. The narrow coastal territory, home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has been under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power from Abbas’ forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to keep Hamas from importing arms, while the Palestinians and human rights groups view it as a form of collective punishment.

It took Ramez al-Masri three years to rebuild his home after it was destroyed in a 2014 Israeli offensive. When war returned to the area last week, it took just a few seconds for the house to be flattened again in an Israeli airstrike. The despondent al-Masri once again finds himself among the thousands of Gazans left homeless by another war between Israel and the territory’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers. He and the 16 others who lived in the two-story structure are scattered at relatives’ homes, uncertain how long they will remain displaced as they wait with hope for international aid to help them rebuild the home. “My children are scattered — two there, three here, one there. Things are really very difficult,” he said. “We live in death every day as long as there is an occupation,” he said, referring to Israel’s rule over Palestinians, including its blockade of Gaza. The United Nations estimates that about 1,000 homes were destroyed in the 11-day war that ended last Friday. Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the region, said hundreds of additional housing units were damaged so badly they are likely uninhabitable. Read:Israeli police escort Jews to flashpoint Jerusalem site The destruction is less extensive than in the 50-day war of 2014, in which entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble and 141,000 homes were either wiped out or damaged. But following that war, international donors quickly pledged $2.7 billion in reconstruction assistance for the battered enclave. It remains unclear this time around whether the international community, fatigued from the global COVID-19 crisis and years of unsuccessful Mideast diplomacy, will be ready to open its wallet again. It was 3 a.m. on Wednesday when the phone call from Israel came to a neighbor ordering everyone in the area to evacuate. “Leave your homes, we are going to bomb,” al-Masri says they were told. The neighborhood is home to members of al-Masri’s extended family. At the time of the warning, he said no one knew which house might be targeted. But he could not believe that the airstrike hit the two-floor home where he lived with his eight children, his brother’s family and their mother. “If we knew someone was wanted, we would not have stayed here from the outset,” he said. Al-Masri, who owns a small grocery store, said neither he nor his brother have anything to do with militant groups. The airstrike turned his home into a crater. On Sunday, the massive hole was filled with murky water spewing from broken water and sewage lines. Seven adjacent homes belonging to relatives were badly damaged. Their walls were blown up, exposing the colorful interior decorations of the living and bedrooms. The blast was so powerful that concrete support beams were weakened and the houses are likely beyond repair. On Sunday, a mobile pump was deployed to suck the stinky water out as bulldozers worked to reopen streets. City workers were removing damaged power lines. But much of the rubble remained uncleared. After the 2014 war, al-Masri bounced around between rental homes and “caravans” — small metal huts that dotted hard-hit areas of Gaza like shantytowns. He dreads the thought of returning to the temporary shelters. “Life was disastrous in the caravans. We were living between two sheets of tin,” he said. He said he hopes the international community “will stand by us, try to help us so we can rebuild quickly.” The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on why the home had been targeted. Throughout the fighting, it accused Hamas of using residential areas as cover for rocket launches and other militant activity. The army says its system of warnings and evacuation orders is meant to prevent civilians from being harmed. During the recent fighting, Israel unleashed hundreds of airstrikes across Gaza at what it said were militant targets. Hamas and other armed groups fired more than 4,000 rockets toward Israeli cities, most of which were intercepted or landed in open areas. The fighting began May 10, when Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem. The barrage came after days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at Al-Aqsa. Heavy-handed police tactics at the compound and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers had inflamed tensions. The true costs of the war will not be known for some time. Palestinian health officials said 248 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, were killed in the fighting. Twelve people in Israel, including two children, also died in the fighting. On Sunday morning, hundreds of municipal workers and volunteers started a one-week campaign to clear rubble from Gaza City’s streets. Outside a flattened high-rise building, workers loaded rubble into donkey carts and small pickup trucks. Next to a destroyed government building, children collected cables and whatever recyclable leftovers they could sell for a few shekels. In Beit Hanoun, one of the homes that was struck last week belonged to Nader al-Masri, Ramez’s cousin and a long-distance runner who participated in dozens of international competitions. Since he lost his house in the 2014 war, Nader, 41, has lived in the second of floor of a three-floor home belonging to relatives. The third and the first floors sustained heavy hits. A room filled with medals and trophies that Nader collected through his 20-year career was damaged. Fortunately, he said, many of his mementos survived. Read:Hamas defiant with military parade, appearance of top leader Nader al-Masri is familiar with loss. Beit Hanoun, situated just along the frontier with Israel, has frequently been the scene of heavy fighting, and his home has been damaged two previous times. “I had over 150 trophies. In each of the previous wars, I lost one or two or three,” he said. Some 20 glass awards have been shattered over the years. “Each war the number drops,” he said, showing a medal from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. As a world-class runner from 1998 to 2018, Nader was one of Gaza’s most famous residents, especially after Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza following Hamas’ takeover of the territory in 2007. The blockade often prevented him from traveling abroad to compete. In many cases, he arrived just in time for his races. On Sunday, debris filled his apartment. The ceiling of his daughters’ bedroom was cracked. The bright layers of paint had fallen off, exposing gloomy, dark plaster. School backpacks lay on the ground among shards and debris. Nader, now a coach with the Palestinian Athletics Federation, moved his five children to their uncle’s house. “I’m an athlete and have nothing to do with politics,” he said. “Things are difficult because we cannot build a home every day.”

Israeli police escorted more than 250 Jewish visitors Sunday to a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem where clashes between police and Palestinian protesters helped trigger a war in Gaza, according to the Islamic authority overseeing the site. The 11-day conflict between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers came to a fragile halt Friday, but left behind immense ruin in Gaza, including hundreds of homes in that have been completely destroyed and many more that were badly damaged, according to the U.N. With tensions still high, police cleared young Palestinians out of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and barred entry to Muslims under the age of 45, according to the Islamic Waqf, which oversees the site. Muslims who entered were required to leave their IDs with police at the entrance. It said six Palestinians were detained, with four later released. Israeli police denied there was any age restriction and said they arrested five people who “violated the public order.” Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the site was open for “regular visits” and that police had secured the area. Read:Hamas defiant with military parade, appearance of top leader The visits later ended without any further incident. Israeli police had briefly clashed with Palestinian protesters after Friday prayers in an early test for the truce, which had taken effect hours earlier. The cease-fire in Gaza has held, but violence in Jerusalem could set off another cycle of escalation. The Waqf said Sunday was the first time Jews had been allowed to visit the site since May 4, a week before the war broke out. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. It sits on a sprawling hilltop in Jerusalem’s Old City that is revered by Jews as their holiest site because it was the location of the biblical temples. The site has often been the scene of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the years and was the epicenter of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Israeli police repeatedly clashed with Palestinian protesters at the site in the days leading up to May 10, when Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem, saying they were protecting the city in the wake of the skirmishes. The threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families from a nearby neighborhood was cited as another major trigger of the war. In recent years, increasing numbers of religious and nationalist Jews have visited the site. Palestinians fear Israel plans to eventually take over the compound or partition it. The Israeli government has repeatedly said it has no intention of changing the status quo, in which the Waqf oversees the site under Jordanian custodianship. On Sunday, Jordan said it would pay for repairs to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as medical aid for Palestinians, including a coronavirus testing and vaccination center in the Gaza Strip. The statement from the Royal Court did not specify the amount of funding. Read:Gaza truce faces early test as clashes break out again at Al Aqsa The recent war saw Israel unleash hundreds of airstrikes across Gaza at what it said were militant targets. Hamas and other armed groups fired more than 4,000 rockets toward Israel, most of which were intercepted or landed in open areas. At least 248 Palestinians were killed, as were 12 people in Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves this week for the Mideast. He told ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday that the cease-fire offers a chance to “make a pivot to building something more positive.” Blinken said the priorities include addressing the immediate humanitarian situation in Gaza, reconstructing what was lost in the violence and “engaging both sides in trying to start to make real improvements in the lives of people so that Israelis and Palestinians can live with equal measures of security, of peace and of dignity.” The Israeli strikes leveled a number of large buildings in the impoverished coastal territory, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians, which has been under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas, an Islamic militant group, seized power from forces loyal to the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said some 300 buildings in Gaza — including an estimated 1,000 homes — had been completely destroyed. She said hundreds more had been heavily damaged. She cautioned that those were “very, very preliminary numbers” as the damage is still being assessed. Hastings said a total of six hospitals and 11 primary health care centers were damaged, and that one hospital was not functioning because of a lack of electricity. She said around 800,000 people lack access to tap water and 400,000 people do not have proper sewage treatment because of damage to local infrastructure. Read:On the sidelines, Hezbollah looms large over Gaza battle Israel says it made every effort to avoid harming civilians and only targeted militant infrastructure, including a vast tunnel network and rocket launchers. It blames the war and its devastation on Hamas. Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told “Fox News Sunday” that Israel had dealt Hamas a “heavy blow” and hoped it would serve as a deterrent. But he also expressed hope that the truce could last, noting “over half a decade of relative peace and quiet” after the last round of fighting in 2014. On Sunday morning, hundreds of municipal workers and volunteers started a one-week campaign to clear rubble from Gaza’s streets. The work began outside a high-rise building that was flattened by Israeli warplanes during the early days of airstrikes on Gaza, with workers loading rubble into donkey carts and small pickup trucks. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday that the war may have left hundreds of unexploded munitions, which could cause further casualties and hinder efforts to rebuild.

Hundreds of masked Hamas fighters brandishing assault rifles paraded in Gaza City and the group’s top leader made his first public appearance on Saturday, in a defiant show of strength after the militants’ 11-day war with Israel. Saturday marked the first full day of a cease-fire, and Egyptian mediators held talks to firm up the truce which ended the fourth Israel-Hamas war in just over a decade. In the fighting, Israel unleashed hundreds of airstrikes against militant targets in Gaza, while Hamas and other militants fired more than 4,000 rockets toward Israel. More than 250 people were killed, the vast majority of them Palestinians. In Gaza City, residents began assessing damage. Read:Gaza truce faces early test as clashes break out again at Al Aqsa One of Gaza City’s busiest commercial areas, Omar al-Mukhtar Street, was covered in debris, smashed cars and twisted metal after a 13-floor building in its center was flattened in an Israeli airstrike. Merchandise was covered in soot and strewn inside smashed stores and on the pavement. Municipal workers swept broken glass and twisted metal from streets and sidewalks. “We really didn’t expect this amount of damage,” said Ashour Subeih, who sells baby clothes. “We thought the strike was a bit further from us. But as you can see not an area of the shop is intact.” Having been in business for one year, Subeih estimated his losses were double what he has made so far. Drone video and photos showed some city blocks reduced to rubble, in between homes and businesses left standing. Both Israel and Hamas have claimed victory. On Saturday, hundreds of Hamas fighters wearing military camouflage paraded past the mourning tent for Bassem Issa, a senior commander killed in the fighting. The top Hamas leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, paid his respects in his first public appearance since the war began. Israel bombed the house of Sinwar, along with that of other senior Hamas figures, as part of its attack on what it said was the group’s military infrastructure. Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, has said Israel delivered a punishing blow to Hamas, and that top Hamas figures remained targets. Still, there was a widespread expectation that the cease-fire would stick for now, even if another round of fighting at some point seems inevitable. Underlying issues remain unresolved, including an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade, now in its 14th year, that is choking Gaza’s more than 2 million residents and a refusal by the Islamic militant Hamas to disarm. The U.N. Security Council released a statement Saturday, welcoming the cease-fire and stressing “the immediate need for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, particularly in Gaza.” Thousands rallied in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, calling for coexistence between Jews and Arabs. The fighting began on May 10, when Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem. The barrage came after days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Heavy-handed police tactics at the compound and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers had inflamed tensions. The war has further sidelined Hamas’ main political rival, the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which oversees autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas’ popularity seemed to be growing as it positioned itself as a defender of Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. Read:On the sidelines, Hezbollah looms large over Gaza battle On Friday, hours after the cease-fire took effect, thousands of Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa compound chanted against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his self-rule government. “Dogs of the Palestinian Authority, out, out,” they shouted, and “The people want the president to leave.” It was an unprecedented display of anger against Abbas. The conflict also brought to the surface deep frustration among Palestinians, whether in the occupied West Bank, Gaza or within Israel, over the status quo, with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process all but abandoned for years. Despite his weakened status, Abbas will be the point of contact for any renewed U.S. diplomacy, since Israel and the West, including the United States, consider Hamas a terrorist organization. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is to meet with Abbas and Israeli leaders when he visits in the coming week. Abbas is expected to raise demands that any Gaza reconstruction plans go through the Palestinian Authority to avoid strengthening Hamas. Abbas met Saturday with Egyptian mediators, discussing the rebuilding of Gaza and internal Palestinian relations, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. An Egyptian diplomat said that two teams of mediators were in Israel and the Palestinian territories to continue talks on firming up a cease-fire deal and securing long-term calm. The diplomat said discussions include implementing agreed-on measures in Gaza and Jerusalem, including ways to prevent practices that led to the latest fighting. He did not elaborate. He was apparently referring to violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the planned eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes deliberations. Separately, a 130-truck convoy with humanitarian aid and medical supplies reached the Gaza border from Egypt on Saturday, according to a senior Egyptian official at the border crossing. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Across Gaza, an assessment of the damage to the territory’s already decrepit infrastructure began. The ministry of public works and housing said that 769 housing and commercial units were rendered uninhabitable, at least 1,042 units in 258 buildings were destroyed and just over 14,500 units suffered minor damage. The United Nations said about 800,000 people in Gaza do not have regular access to clean piped water, as nearly 50% of the water network was damaged in the fighting. Read:Palestinians claim victory as Gaza truce faces early test Israel has said it was targeting Hamas’ military infrastructure, including a vast tunnel system running under roads and homes, as well as command centers, rocket launchers and the homes of commanders. The Israeli military has said it was trying to minimize harm to civilians and accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 248 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and 39 women, with 1,910 people wounded. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Twelve people were killed in Israel, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl. Israel has accused Hamas and the smaller militant group of Islamic Jihad of hiding the actual number of fighters killed in the war. Prime Minister Netanyahu said Friday that more than 200 militants were killed, including 25 senior commanders. Islamic Jihad on Saturday gave a first account of deaths within its ranks, saying that 19 of its commanders and fighters were killed, including the head of the rocket unit in northern Gaza.