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Israel said late Monday it planned to carry out more strikes in Lebanon against a Hezbollah-run financial institution that it targeted the night before and which it says uses customers' deposits to finance attacks against Israel. At least 15 branches of Al-Qard Al-Hasan were hit late Sunday in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, across southern Lebanon and in the eastern Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. One strike flattened a nine-story building in Beirut with a branch inside it. The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes, and there were no reports of casualties. UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon staying put despite Israeli warnings to move Associated Press journalists witnessed strikes late Monday in the coastal region of Ouzai, near Beirut’s airport, and Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an airstrike near Beirut’s largest public hospital killed four, including a child, and wounded 24. It was the first strike on the Lebanese capital in 10 days. Israeli ground forces invaded Lebanon earlier this month. The military said it aims to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to their homes nearby after more than a year of cross-border rocket and drone attacks. Israeli airstrikes have pounded large areas of Lebanon for weeks, forcing over a million people to flee their homes. Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel nearly every day since Hamas' deadly raid into Israel last year that sparked the war in Gaza. The United States is hoping to revive diplomatic efforts to resolve both conflicts after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week, but so far all sides appear to be digging in. Hezbollah-run lender filled gaps left by Lebanon's troubled banksThe Arabic language spokesman for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, said — without providing evidence — that Hezbollah stores hundreds of millions of dollars in the branches of Al-Qard Al-Hasan and that the money is used to purchase arms and pay fighters. The strikes were aimed at preventing the group from rearming, he said. The institution, which has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, tried to reassure customers, saying it had evacuated all branches and relocated gold and other deposits to safe areas. Many customers are civilians unaffiliated with Hezbollah. Al-Qard Al-Hasan, which is sanctioned by the United States and Saudi Arabia, has long served as an alternative to Lebanon's banks, which have imposed restrictions on customers since a severe financial crisis that began in 2019. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said late Monday that Israel planned more strikes on Al-Qard al-Hasan. Hagari said Iran funds Hezbollah by sending cash and gold to the Iranian embassy in Beirut, though he did not provide any evidence. Hagari also said, without providing evidence, that Israeli intelligence had discovered a bunker belonging to former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that is now being used as a vault under a hospital in southern Beirut. He said it held millions of dollars of gold and cash. A member of Lebanon’s parliament who is the director of the hospital, Fadi Alameh, denied the claim, and said the hospital has underground operation rooms. Alameh said the hospital was being evacuated in anticipation of strikes. Hagari said Israeli strikes in Beirut in early October and in Syria on Monday had also killed people responsible for transferring money between Iran and Hezbollah. Syrian state media said an Israeli airstrike hit a car in the capital of Damascus, killing two people and wounding three. Israeli airstrikes killed 17 people in Lebanon on Monday, including four first responders, according to the country's health ministry. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired 170 projectiles into Israel on Monday. US envoy says UN resolution that ended past war is ‘no longer enough’U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spent much of the past year trying to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, was back in Lebanon on Monday for talks with senior officials. He said U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, was “no longer enough” to ensure peace and a new mechanism was needed to enforce it. The resolution called for Hezbollah to withdraw from the border with Israel and for U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army to control southern Lebanon, without any Hezbollah or Israeli presence. Israel says the resolution was never implemented and that Hezbollah built up extensive military infrastructure right up to the border. Lebanon has long accused Israel of violating its airspace and failing to abide by other provisions of the resolution. US tries to revive Gaza cease-fire talks after Sinwar’s deathThe United States has expressed hope that last week's killing of Hamas leader Sinwar could give new impetus for a cease-fire in Gaza, which would give a major boost to parallel efforts to halt the fighting in Lebanon. The head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, visited Egypt for the second time in less than a week and met with Egyptian officials on Sunday, according to an Egyptian official who was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said Egypt, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, remains opposed to any Israeli presence along the Gaza-Egypt border, a key sticking point in talks that sputtered to a halt in August. Hamas has said its demands remain unchanged after the killing of Sinwar. The militant group has said it will only release dozens of Israeli hostages in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a lasting cease-fire and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and recover all the captives, and says Israel must maintain an open-ended security presence in Gaza to keep Hamas from rearming. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don’t distinguish combatants from civilians but say most of the dead were women and children. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

The Israeli military apologized Monday for a strike that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon the previous day, saying it is not battling the country's military and its soldiers believed they were targeting a vehicle belonging to the Hezbollah militant group. Last week, Hezbollah said it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, as the region reckoned with the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza. Sinwar was a chief architect of the attack on southern Israel that precipitated the latest escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Israel’s allies, war-weary residents of Gaza and others have expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war, but both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas have vowed to keep fighting until they achieve their goals. Netanyahu has pledged to annihilate Hamas and recover dozens of hostages held by the group. Hamas says it will only release the captives in return for a lasting cease-fire, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

Israel's military announced Sunday it is now taking aim at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah's financial arm and will attack a “large number of targets” in Beirut and elsewhere. Explosions began in Beirut's southern suburbs about an hour later. Evacuation warnings affected southern Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and parts of southern Lebanon. AP video showed strikes near Lebanon’s only airport but it continued to operate. The strikes will target al-Qard al-Hassan "all over Lebanon,” a senior Israeli intelligence official said. Al-Qard al-Hassan is a Hezbollah unit that's used to pay operatives of the Iran-backed militant group and help buy arms, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations. The registered nonprofit, sanctioned by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by ordinary Lebanese. Its name in Arabic means “the benevolent loan,” and Hezbollah has used it to entrench its support among the Shiite population in a country where state and financial institutions have failed in recent years. “It’s a big deal,” said David Asher, an expert on illicit financing who has worked at the U.S. Defense and State Departments and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “AQAH is a cash-based organization. The cash will be trash” in the event of strikes, he said, adding that it has large accounts with big Lebanese banks. Al-Qard al-Hassan in a statement called the decision to target it a sign of Israel’s “bankruptcy” and assured customers it had taken “measures” to ensure their funds were safe. A stream of people left the areas surrounding its branches in Beirut. In one evacuation notice, for the Choueifat area south of Beirut, the Israeli military mislabeled one target, causing confusion and panic. The location was labeled as Grand Cinema ABC Verdun, a theater in an upscale shopping mall in central Beirut more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away. A year of escalating tensions and frequent cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the war in Gaza turned into all-out war last month. Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon early this month. Israel's announcement came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the Israel-Hezbollah war, and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut. Lebanese army says 3 soldiers killed in Israeli strike Israel has increased strikes on southern neighborhoods of Beirut known as the Dahiyeh, a crowded residential area where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It is also home to many civilians unaffiliated with the militant group. In southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said three soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle. There was no immediate comment on that from the Israeli military, which said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in the past day and continued ground operations there. Lebanon’s army has largely kept to the sidelines in the war. The military is a respected institution in Lebanon, but isn't powerful enough to impose its will on Hezbollah or defend the country from an Israeli invasion. Israel's military said Hezbollah fired more than 170 rockets into the country on Sunday. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said three people were slightly injured from a fire sparked by a rocket attack on the northern city of Safed. In the middle is the U.N. peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, which said Israeli forces on Sunday “deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence of a U.N. position” in southern Lebanon. It again resisted Israeli pressure to leave its positions. Iran supports the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and the United States is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents indicating that Israel was moving military assets into place for a military strike in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1, according to three U.S. officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Medics warn of a catastrophic situation in Gaza Israeli strikes on homes in northern Gaza overnight and into Sunday left at least 87 people dead or missing, the territory’s Health Ministry said, as a large-scale operation continued against Hamas militants said to be regrouping. The ministry said another 40 people were wounded in the strikes on the town of Beit Lahiya, which was among the first targets of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago. The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas target. Among the dead were parents and eight children, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. He said the strike flattened a multistory building and at least four neighboring houses. The Israeli military said it used precise munitions against a Hamas target. The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week. But neither Israel nor Hamas has shown interest in such a deal after negotiations sputtered to a halt in August. In central Gaza, six people, including a child, were killed when a strike hit a car in Deir al-Balah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital officials said. The bodies were counted by AP journalists. Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend. Israel's military said it was operating near one hospital but hadn't fired directly at it. Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday, making it difficult to gather information about strikes and complicating rescue efforts. Israel ordered the entire population of the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, to evacuate to the south in the war's opening weeks and reiterated those instructions this month. Around 400,000 people are believed to have remained. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don't distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

The Israeli government said a drone targeted the prime minister’s house Saturday, though there were no casualties, as Iran’s supreme leader vowed Hamas would continue its fight following the killing of the mastermind of last year’s deadly Oct. 7 attack. Sirens wailed in Israel warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The military said dozens of projectiles were launched. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea, though neither he nor his wife were home. The barrage comes as Israel considers its expected response to an Iranian attack earlier this month and presses its offensives against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the battered northern part of the Palestinian enclave, and strikes in the strip killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there. In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted. Barrages from Lebanon target northern Israel In addition to the drone launched at Netanyahu’s private residence, Israel’s military said some 180 projectiles were fired throughout the day from Lebanon on Saturday morning. A 50-year-old man was killed after being hit by shrapnel while sitting in his car in northern Israel, and four people were injured, Israel’s medical services said. In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, sirens blared as people ran for cover and intercepted missiles exploded in the sky. One rocket landed in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were lightly injured. The Israeli fire service also said it was battling several blazes resulting from missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border. Israel's war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October. On Saturday, Israel's military issued fresh evacuation warnings for two buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hriek. Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages across parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including some 400,000 children. Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel. In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck. Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas rejects hostage release A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week. On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him. “Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said in his first comments on the killing. Since Israel claimed Sinwar’s death Thursday, confirmed by a top Hamas official Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming. Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children. More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces opened fire at the hospital’s building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff. At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement. Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight Friday, killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 people were injured. In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, the same hospital said. Associated Press journalists counted the bodies from both strikes at the hospital. A United Nations school sheltering displaced people in the west of Gaza City, was also hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders. The strikes knocked out internet networks in northern Gaza, said Paltel, the Palestinian communications company, on Facebook Saturday. The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel. Opportunity in Sinwar's death Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country. Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech Thursday announcing the killing that “our war is not yet ended.” Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting. In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.  

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said  that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces, will not stop the momentum of the "Axis of Resistance" in the Middle East.  Khamenei’s remarks came after Sinwar, the mastermind behind the deadly October 7 attack on Israel, was confirmed dead by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). "His loss is undoubtedly painful for the Axis of Resistance, but this front did not cease advancing with the martyrdom of prominent figures," Khamenei said in a statement. He reiterated Iran’s commitment to supporting Palestinian fighters, stating, "We will continue to stand by the sincere Palestinian mujahideen and fighters." Israel confirms killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, a prominent figure within Hamas, was killed on Friday, October 17, following an Israeli operation targeting him. Drone footage released by the IDF showed his final moments, where he was seen slumped in a chair with injuries, shortly before a tank shell destroyed the building where he was hiding. Sinwar’s death marks a significant moment in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, particularly after the October 7 attack that claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis. Hamas has confirmed the death of its leader and issued a statement vowing that the group will not release any hostages taken during the October 7 assault until what they describe as "the aggression in Gaza" comes to an end. The group also reaffirmed its commitment to continuing its resistance against Israel, even as it faces mounting pressure from Israeli forces. Sinwar, who had been imprisoned by Israel for many years, was a key figure in Hamas' leadership, rising to the top after the assassination of former political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year. Known for his ruthless enforcement against Palestinians seen as collaborating with Israel, Sinwar played a critical role in shaping Hamas' military strategy. His death is seen as a significant blow to the group, although Khamenei's comments suggest that Iran and other actors within the "Axis of Resistance" will continue their support for the Palestinian cause. A Palestinian student was asleep in his tent at a hospital when an Israeli strike brought an inferno The October 7 attack, which was orchestrated under Sinwar’s leadership, is considered the deadliest assault on Israel in recent history. It has plunged the region into deeper turmoil, with Israel intensifying its military response in Gaza, and international actors calling for de-escalation. As tensions continue to rise, the Middle East remains on edge, with Khamenei's defiant remarks likely to add fuel to the already volatile situation.  

Israel’s foreign minister has confirmed that Israeli troops in Gaza have killed Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year's attack on Israel that sparked the war. Sinwar has topped Israel’s most wanted list since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war just over a year ago, and his killing strikes a powerful blow to the group. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of his death. Israel DNA-testing a body to identify Hamas leader Sinwar Foreign Minister Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army.” “The assassination of Sinwar will create the possibility to immediately release the hostages and to bring a change that will lead to a new reality in Gaza - without Hamas and without Iranian control,” he said in a statement. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Thursday it was looking into whether Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza. Authorities were conducting DNA tests on a body to determine if it is him, an Israeli security official said. The military said in a statement that three people were killed during operations in Gaza, without specifying where or elaborating further. It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of them was Sinwar. The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the tests on the body had not yet confirmed if it was Sinwar’s. There was no immediate comment by Hamas on the report. Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. If confirmed, Sinwar’s death could be a heavy blow to the group. He has been Hamas’ top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities. Another Israeli security official said it appeared that the man who may be Sinwar was killed in a battle, not in a planned targeted airstrike. Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, dressed in a military-style vest, half buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed the photos were taken by Israeli security officials at the scene. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. Israeli authorities said the police, military, and Shin Bet security services were working to confirm identification through a number of different tests. So far, police have checked dental records, a police spokesperson said. They are still awaiting the full test results from DNA testing. Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel from the late 1980s until 2011, and during that time he underwent treatment for brain cancer – leaving Israeli authorities with extensive medical records. President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel’s investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and U.S. officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official. Sinwar was chosen as Hamas’s top leader in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas’ military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived. The report of his death came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 28 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency unit in the north, said the dead included a woman and four children, correcting an earlier report of five children. He said dozens of people were wounded. The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names. Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after it stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities. Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions. Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals. Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis. Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. The military says Hamas have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.

The Israeli military said Thursday it was looking into whether Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza. Authorities were conducting DNA tests on a body to determine if it is him, an Israeli security official said. The military said in a statement that three militants were killed during operations in Gaza, without specifying where or elaborating further. It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of them was Sinwar. The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the tests on the body had not yet confirmed if it was Sinwar's. There was no immediate comment by Hamas on the report. Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. If confirmed, Sinwar's death could be a heavy blow to the militant group. He has been Hamas' top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities. Sinwar was chosen as Hamas's top leader after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in July in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas' military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived. President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel's investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and U.S. officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official. The report came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Fares Abu Hamza, head of Gaza Health Ministry’s local emergency unit, 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 Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen 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. Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children. In a separate development, a building in central Beirut that houses offices of the Al Jazeera news network and the Norwegian Embassy was evacuated after a warning. Mazen Ibrahim, Al Jazeera’s Lebanon bureau chief, said the building’s administration received three calls telling everyone to leave the building, which he said also houses the embassies of Norway and Azerbaijan, as well as dozens of offices. He said it was unclear who called in the warning. Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ragnhild Simenstad said the building was evacuated after a “bomb threat,” without elaborating. Israel has ordered the evacuation of several buildings, as well as entire cities, towns and villages, as it strikes what it says are targets linked to the Hezbollah militant group. There have also been several instances of evacuation warning calls and text messages that turned out to be bogus, which Lebanese security agencies say they are investigating. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after the militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities. Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions. Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals. Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis. Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. The military says militants have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.

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.

Shaban al-Dalu was sleeping in his tent in a central Gaza hospital's courtyard, still recuperating from wounds from an Israeli strike on a mosque a week earlier, when a new strike hit, setting off an inferno. The 19-year-old university student and his 38-year-old mother, Alaa al-Dalu, were among five people killed as the blaze ripped through a tent camp sheltering hundreds of Palestinian families in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah. Dozens of others, including children, were severely burned. Al-Dalu and his mother were sleeping in the tent along with his father and three siblings when the strike hit at around 1:30 a.m. on Monday. Mohammed al-Dalu, his fifth sibling, was sleeping nearby at his vendor's table when the explosion jolted him awake. He found his father and uncle, who lived in a neighboring tent, struggling to pull their families out of the fire. Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza's escalating humanitarian crisis The father, Ahmed al-Dalu, said he managed to rescue two of his sons and his daughter, but not his wife or eldest child, Shaban. “My son was being burned in front of me,” he said, speaking at the hospital with burns on his face. “I accepted the will of God in every sense of the word.” The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding out among the displaced, without providing evidence to support its claim. It was the seventh Israeli attack on this hospital compound since March; three of them occurred in September, according to Doctors without Borders, which supports the hospital. The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. It has displaced more than 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Over the course of the war, the military has repeatedly raided hospitals and struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks, without showing evidence. Monday's strike brought chaos at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, as firefighters and displaced people attempted for hours to put out the blaze, using small fire extinguishers and buckets of water. Several secondary explosions went off, but their cause was not known. The courtyard was left covered in burned-out wreckage of shed and tents, made of wood and plastic sheets, with people's belongings inside. “It’s a scene of devastation. Tents caught on fire while people were sleeping,” said Eliza Sabatini, a nurse with Doctors Without Borders who was working at the hospital. More than 60 people, including 10 children and 8 women, were wounded, most suffering severe burns. One man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, where many wounded were rushed. Shaban al-Dalu, who would have turned 20 on Wednesday, memorized the Quran when he was young and cared for his siblings. A university student studying computer science, he would post videos on social media telling people his family’s displacement stories and his dream of leaving Gaza. In a video posted in March, filmed from their tent in the hospital's courtyard, he said his family fled their home in Gaza City's Rimal neighborhood just after the war began in October last year. Since then, he said, they had moved five times to escape fighting. “We live in a very hard circumstance,” he said in the video. He launched an online fundraiser hoping to make enough money to get his family to Egypt. By Wednesday, it had raised more than $24,200 — though no one has been been able to leave Gaza since Israeli troops seized the crossing with Egypt in May. UN says deadly Israeli strike in northern Lebanon should be investigated “I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page. “Time feels like it’s stopped in Gaza, and we’re stuck in a never-ending nightmare.” On Oct. 6, he was reciting the Quran in a mosque near the hospital when an Israeli airstrike hit the place of worship, his brother Mohammed said. Shaban suffered a head wound that required 11 stitches and was still recuperating in the tent when Monday's strike hit. Shaban's father and the three siblings in the tent have all been left severely burned, some up to 70% of their body, Mohammed said. The body of his 11-year-old brother Adbel-Rahman is completely covered in bandages, and his sister's back and the left side of her face were badly burned, he said. Shaban's uncle, Abdel-Hayy al-Dalu, recalled how the families had thought they were safe when they arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. “We built tents — me and my brother — and sheltered here,” he said. “We ruled out that it will be bombed since it’s a hospital.” After rescuing his wife and two daughters, Abdel-Hayy rushed to his brother’s tent, hoping to save his nephew and sister-in-law. “We couldn’t help them,” he said. “We were helpless.”

The top U.N. humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the U.S. ambassador demanded that its government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s ”intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.” Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the escalating humanitarian emergency, especially in northern Gaza. The council meeting, called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a U.S. warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza every day. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever” and criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.” He said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israeli strikes kill at least 15 in Qana, Lebanon Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer. “This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions.” Msuya, the top U.N. aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15 “when a trickle was allowed in,” she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.” Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one-third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.” The level of suffering in Gaza worsens every day, she said, as Israeli bombs continue to fall, fierce fighting continues, and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people. “These are crimes,” he said. “This is genocide. They must be stopped -- and they must be stopped now.” Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, pointed to some new Israeli commitments since the U.S. warning and two dozen trucks entering northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks. But she said Israel’s progress since last week is “insufficient” and stressed that it must follow through on its commitments, including opening more border crossings and routes and taking steps “to help secure delivery routes against armed gangs involved in violent looting.” “A `policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and U.S. law,” the U.S. ambassador warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.” At the council meeting, there were repeated calls by members for action by the U.N.’s most powerful body to end the more than yearlong war in Gaza. Guyana’s U.N. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett lamented that 47 Security Council meetings and four legally binding resolutions in the past year, including demands for a cease-fire, “have not had the expected results, and the situation in Gaza continues to worsen with each passing day.” UN says deadly Israeli strike in northern Lebanon should be investigated “We must not allow the shredding of the moral and legal thread that holds our organization together,” she said. “The most fundamental question then that this council faces is, what will we do to stop this tide?” Thomas-Greenfield urged all council members to support the U.N. as it works with Israel to step up aid deliveries. She said the U.S. focus in the coming months will be “getting humanitarian aid in, getting hostages out, and ending the conflict.”