Israel-Hamas war: Palestinians flee Gaza ahead of an expected Israeli ground invasion

A South Korean military plane evacuating 220 South Korean and other Asian nationals from Israel has departed Tel Aviv and was expected to land in South Korea later Saturday, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said.

The people transported on the KC-330 military transport plane included 163 South Koreans, 51 Japanese nationals and six Singaporean nationals, the ministry said.

South Korea had also sent a civilian plane earlier this week to evacuate 192 South Korean nationals. About 470 South Koreans remain in Israel, most of them long-term residents who have chosen to stay.

No South Korean casualties have so far been reported from the violence in Israel and Gaza.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported 16 Palestinians killed Friday in the occupied West Bank, bringing to 51 the total number of West Bank Palestinians killed since Hamas waged its brutal assault on Israel last Saturday.

The United Nations says attacks by Israeli settlers have surged there since the Hamas assault.

The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors on Friday to discuss the Israel-Hamas war as Palestinians stream out of northern Gaza on orders from the Israeli military.

Friday’s meeting was scheduled before the evacuation order, which added still more urgency to the discussion. The U.N. has said the order affects about half Gaza’s population and could turn an already dire humanitarian crisis into a calamity.

He implored all parties “and those with influence over them” to do their utmost to enable humanitarian access to the besieged Gaza Strip, to release all hostages immediately and to protect civilians.

The council emerged without any collective message or action from another private session Sunday on the Israel-Hamas fighting. Divisions in the council, the U.N.’s most powerful body, where have sharpened amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas as the army prepares for an expected ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu delivered the threat in a nationally televised address late Friday.

Israel has been pounding Gaza with airstrikes since Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack last Saturday, killing over 1,300 people in a brutal rampage. Early Friday, Israel ordered half of Gaza’s population to evacuate their homes.

“This is just the beginning,” Netanyahu said. “We will end this war stronger than ever.”

“We will destroy Hamas,” he added, saying Israel has widespread international support for the operation.

The Israeli military says for the first time that ground troops have been operating inside the Gaza Strip.

In a statement Friday, the army said troops had entered Gaza to battle militants, destroy weapons and search for evidence about the missing hostages held by Hamas.

The announcement did not appear to be the beginning of an expected ground invasion of Gaza. Israel has been massing troops along the Gaza border since last Saturday’s deadly incursion by Hamas militants.

The World Health Organization says the forced evacuation of severely ill or badly injured people from hospitals in northern Gaza would amount to a “death sentence” for some.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Friday that the two major hospitals in northern Gaza have already exceeded their combined 760-bed capacity, and warned of a shortage of blood in hospital blood banks across Gaza. Furthermore, several medications are in short supply, including for diabetes, seizures and asthma, as well as painkillers and dialysis solution.

In general, “hospital corridors are overflowing. Dead bodies are piling up as there is no more space in morgues,” he said.

Jasarevic said some patients — many of whom are children — were on life support systems like mechanical ventilators, “so moving those people is a death sentence. Asking health workers to do so is beyond cruel.”

After Hamas’ deadly surprise attack, Israel has destroyed entire neighborhoods in Gaza.

The death toll is soaring on both sides of civilians, soldiers, militants and hostages – and intensified violence is set to continue.

Here’s a look back at how it happened, and the latest from the region.

Confrontations across the West Bank continued into late Thursday night, with Palestinian health officials reporting three Palestinians had been killed overnight. That brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank up to 35 in the seven days since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war, with 650 Palestinians wounded in that time.

The highest ever monthly total for West Bank deaths since the U.N. started recording in 2005 is 47.

Overnight, Israeli forces arrested at least 26 Palestinians in a large-scale detention raid in the southern region of the volatile territory, Palestinian state media reported. Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to the request for confirmation.

The area has seen violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces. Israeli authorities have sealed off the territory, closing crossings and checkpoints between cities.

The United Nations opened an appeal Friday for $294 million that it says it needs to aid and protect 1.2 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

The U.N. said it hopes to deliver the relief funds to dozens of partners in the Palestinian territories, including U.N. agencies now struggling to provide basic services to over a million people in Gaza as Israeli attacks on the enclave intensify, along with several aid groups including the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Residents in northern Gaza awoke to panic Friday after its 1.1 million residents, including hundreds of thousands in Gaza City, were ordered to evacuate south.

“This is chaos, no one understands what to do,” said Inas Hamdan, an officer at the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza City while she grabbed whatever she could throw into her bags amid the panicked shouts of her relatives. She said all the U.N. staff in Gaza City and northern Gaza had been told to evacuate south to Rafah.

“Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel, the only concern now is just if you’ll make it, if you’re going to live,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City said, breaking into heaving sobs. She said there was no possible way that 1.2 million people could be safely evacuated.

Imad Abu Alaa, U.N. Palestinian refugee agency officer in charge of shelters in northern Gaza, echoed that there were too many people to evacuate on too short notice for it to work. “What about U.N. shelters? We’re talking about civilians. Suddenly that doesn’t even matter?” he said.

Farsakh said there are hospital patients who cannot be moved under the current conditions, and many of the medics were refusing to leave and abandon their patients. Instead, she said, they called their colleagues to say goodbye.

Half an hour after a massive evacuation order was called in Gaza, veteran Egyptian politician Mustafa Bakri accused Israel of trying to drive Palestinians into Egypt.

“It seems that this warning foretells the imminent ground aggression and forced displacement of the people of the Gaza Strip towards the border with Egypt, so that they can eliminate the dream of establishing a Palestinian state,” Bakri said on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Cash-strapped Egypt fears a mass influx of migrants on its eastern border. It has called for international aid to be funneled through its Rafah crossing with Gaza.

India’s first chartered flight brought over 200 Indian nationals back home from Tel Aviv on Friday, nearly a week after the latest Israel-Hamas war erupted.

“Everyone is scared. We have no idea what would happen there. We had to move to shelters when there were missile attacks. This was not normal,” said Deepak Sharma, a 20-year-old student who was studying physics at a college in north Israel.

There are about 18,000 Indian citizens living in Israel, a small percentage of them students, according to India’s External Affairs Ministry. Nearly one-third of them have registered with the Indian embassy ready to fly back home.

New Delhi has not heard of any Indian casualties since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 incursion, the ministry said.

Israeli warplanes pounded the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City early Thursday, reducing entire swaths of the crowded camp to ruins.

A prominent civilian member of Hamas defended the group’s rampage through Israeli communities in a video released by the group Thursday and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from the six days of Israeli airstrikes that have followed.

The solemn video lacked the bravado of a recording aired by Hamas’ military wing Saturday hailing “the greatest battle” as the massacres still played out.

Basem Naim, a physician and former Hamas government minister, said in the “swift collapse” of the Israeli military on Saturday, “chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation” between Israeli and Hamas combatants.

The claim is contradicted by countless videos and survivor accounts of Hamas militants deliberately targeting and killing hundreds of civilians.

Naim said the 150 hostages taken back into Gaza would be treated according to religious values and international laws. “At the same time we are really worried … they might be the victims of the Israeli army bombardment, like our people,” he said.

He added that Hamas would not consider freeing the captives until Israel stopped its bombardment.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amirabdollahian said Thursday that if Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, the war may open on “other fronts,” an apparent reference to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Amirabdollahian arrived in Beirut late Thursday evening, where he was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad along with Lebanese officials.

“In light of the continued aggression, war crimes, and siege on Gaza, opening other fronts is a real possibility,” Amirabdollahian said, speaking to journalists on his arrival.

Early Thursday, Amirabdollahian had visited Iraq, where he made similar statements after a meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

Questions have swirled around the extent of Iran’s role in the unprecedented surprise attack launched by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on Saturday.

Hamas officials have denied that Iran was directly involved in planning the attack or green-lighted it, and to date no government worldwide has offered direct evidence that Iran orchestrated the attack. However, many have pointed to Iran’s long sponsorship of Hamas that has included training, funding and providing it with weapons.

The militant Hezbollah group sent a drone over Israel on Thursday, according to an official with a Lebanese group familiar with the situation along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The drone was shot down over Israel, the official said, without elaborating further. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to comment to the news media.

An Israeli military spokesman wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, Thursday afternoon that an air-defense missile was fired in northern Israel but it turned out there was no target in the air.

The death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza has risen to 1,537, with 6,612 people wounded, the Gaza-based Health Ministry reported Thursday.

Of those killed, 276 were women and 500 were under the age of 18, the ministry said.

The jump in the death toll comes as Palestinians report heavy Israeli airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip, with bombardment on residential buildings in densely populated city districts and refugee camps killing many family members at a time in their homes.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry is warning Israelis abroad to avoid demonstrations said to have been called for by Hamas in cities around the world, saying they could become violent.

In a joint statement with Israel’s National Security Council, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday that there is a concern that Israelis or Jews could be targeted during the protests. The ministry statement said protests are expected on Friday and urged Israelis to be cautious.

The Israeli military bombarded a residential building in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 45 people and injuring dozens more, Gaza’s interior ministry said.

A late-afternoon airstrike hit the al-Shihab family house at the center of the Jabaliya camp, interior ministry spokesperson Eyad Bozum told The Associated Press. The al-Shihab house was packed with dozens of relatives at the time of the airstrike, Bozum said. Some family members had fled heavy bombing from other parts of the Gaza Strip and taken refuge there

Bozum said the death toll was likely to rise from that airstrike as civil defense workers were still pulling bodies from the rubble and counting the dead.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has no plans to send troops to Israel, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.

“There is no intention, no plan, and frankly, no desire by the Israelis,” Kirby said.

Kirby also said there have been ongoing conversations with Israel “about the continued need for continued flow of humanitarian assistance” into Gaza.

He said establishing corridors to provide safe passage out of Gaza for civilians is “the right thing to do for innocent victims who are actually being held hostage as well by Hamas.”

BAGHDAD — During a visit to Iraq Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister said that if Israel fails to stop its attacks on civilians in Gaza, the region will face “new conditions.”

“They cannot put Gaza under complete siege and bomb the citizens and commit war crimes, and expect no response,” Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a statement released by the foreign ministry.

Amirabdollahian met with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani Thursday and was expected to travel to Lebanon, where he will meet with officials on Friday.

Questions have swirled around Iran’s role in the attack launched by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel Saturday. Hamas officials have denied Iran’s direct involvement, and to date no government worldwide has offered direct evidence that Iran orchestrated the attack. However, many have pointed to Iran’s long sponsorship of Hamas.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government will begin operating evacuation flights to help Americans leave Israel as Israel prepares to escalate retaliatory action against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, according to the Biden administration.

White House National Security spokesman, John Kirby confirmed Thursday that the U.S. would arrange charter flights from Israel to sites in Europe. “We’re still working through some of the details of that to assist U.S. citizens and their immediate family members,” he said.

The evacuation flights are expected to begin operating as early as Friday. The U.S. government is arranging for at least four charter flights a day out of Israel through Frankfurt, Germany.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister is calling on all Lebanese groups to exercise self-restraint and to not be pulled into “Israel’s plans.”

Najib Mikati’s comments Thursday after a Cabinet meeting in Beirut were apparently meant to encourage the militant group Hezbollah to avoid inciting any conflict with Israel.

“Lebanon is in the eye of the storm and what is happening along our southern border leaves us deeply worried,” Mikati said.

He said the incidents along Lebanon’s border with Israel over the past few days are the result of Israel’s “provocations and continuous violations” of a United Nations Security Council resolution that ended a monthlong was between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

Mikati said Lebanon condemns “criminal acts committed by Israel.”

The number of people fleeing attacks on Gaza is continuing “in very, very large numbers,” with a 30% increase in the past 24 hours, the United Nations humanitarian office says.

Two-thirds of the people displaced by the violence — 218,000 — have taken refuge in 92 schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday.

Dujarric said the humanitarian situation, with the Israeli cutoff of fuel, food and electricity, is getting more dire “by the day, if not by the hour.”

Dujarric said discussions about opening a humanitarian corridor from Gaza are ongoing, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland are engaging “with all relevant actors.”

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced millions of pounds in extra funding to boost security at schools and synagogues and protect them against antisemitic attacks in the wake of Hamas’ attacks in Israel.

Sunak’s office said Thursday that 3 million pounds ($3.7 million) of additional funding will be provided to the Community Security Trust, an organization established to protect British Jews from antisemitic threats. The funding will enable the group to provide more guards in the schools it supports, as well as outside synagogues during prayer times.

The Community Security Trust said it recorded 139 antisemitic incidents in the U.K. over the past four days — a fourfold increase compared to the same period last year.

The funding announcement came after Sunak met with senior officials and police chiefs to discuss security and policing protests and rallies by pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups planned across the U.K. this weekend.

Israel’s military said Thursday that 247 soldiers have been killed since the start of the war last weekend — an increase from 222 earlier in the day.

The military previously confirmed to The Associated Press that the 222 soldiers had all been identified and their families notified.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian expressed his country’s support for the rights of the Palestinian people, saying that the ongoing war in Gaza will affect the whole region.

Amirabdollahian said there is a need for an end to the “killing of children and civilians in Palestine.”

The Iranian official made his comments Thursday during a meeting with Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji in Baghdad.

Amirabdollahian’s comments were carried in a statement released by al-Araji’s office.

Al-Araji said demonstrations will be held in different parts of Iraq on Friday in support of the Palestinians.

Iran is a main supporter of Palestinian factions based in Gaza, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group.

A former Israeli defense official told the Associated Press Thursday that Israel should continue bombarding Gaza for as long as militants remain in the territory, even if it incurs massive casualties to Israeli soldiers.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired General and senior fellow at JINSA, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, said that Israel would “bomb any attempt to build military capability in the in the Gaza Strip for the next hundred years,” raising the specter of an unending military engagement in Gaza.

“We need to crush Hamas to ashes, no matter how many casualties,” Amidror said. “Of course, we will give all means to our soldiers to defend themselves. but I don’t think casualties are the main element in decision-making.”

The Israeli military said Thursday it had dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. While Israel says it is striking Hamas targets, many civilians in the pounded strip have been killed. Hospitals and U.N. shelters have also been hit.

The airstrikes have also killed entire families in their homes. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said Thursday that 22 entire families had been killed. An airstrike in the northern city of Jabalia Thursday killed 44 members of the same family, leaving just six survivors.

A high-ranking Hamas official warned Thursday that any Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip will prove catastrophic for the Israeli army.

“For every action the enemy takes, there is a plan we have,” said Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas.

Israeli defense officials have yet to order a ground invasion of the pummeled territory, but have been planning for the possibility of it. The military has called over 300,000 reservists into action in preparation.

Several hundred people gathered for a rally in Romania’s capital on Thursday to pledge their support for Israel in what its embassy called the country’s “fight against terrorism.”

Held at a central Bucharest park, many attendees waved Israeli flags and some brandished signs that read: “We stand with Israel.”

Israel’s ambassador to Romania, Reuven Azar, told reporters there that “we are going to tackle this evil, because without tackling this evil, we are all in danger.”

“We are now in a very difficult moment in our history. We’ve been attacked by one of the most ferocious, barbaric, savage forces in the world that is killing innocent civilians, families, babies, children, taking hostages, (and) burning people alive,” he said. “It’s a kind of savagery that we haven’t seen before.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday that the U.S. is placing no specific conditions on how Israel uses the American-provided munitions. Israel has a professional military and “we would hope and expect that they would do the right things,” he told reporters at the close of the NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels.

He was asked if the U.S. would put conditions on the weapon, specifically that they would not be used against civilians. Austin said he would leave it to the Israelis to define their operations.

Austin also said that the U.S. is working to provide Israel whatever it needs, even as America continues to support Ukraine.

Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland has called for establishing demilitarized zones in Gaza amid unrelenting bombardment by Israel following last weekend’s unprecedented attack by Hamas.

Writing Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter, Egeland said urgent life-saving support is needed for civilians trapped in Gaza.

Egeland also called for the international community to facilitate a deal to release all civilians held by both sides, “with immediate release of children, mothers with infants, the wounded & sick.”

Fourteen health facilities have been damaged and 10 health care workers killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli airstrikes since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, Palestinian health officials said Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Blinken offered a statement with Herzog that touched on the same themes as his earlier statement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“There really are two paths before countries in this region and in many ways, countries in this world. But here in the Middle East, there’s the path of integration, cooperation, normalization and equal measures of justice, opportunity, dignity for all peoples, including the Palestinians,” Blinken said.

He added: “Or there’s the path that Hamas has shown to the world these last few days — terror, destruction, nihilism, a path that leads to nowhere for anyone except to the darkest places in our souls.”

Every Israeli soldier killed by Hamas militants so far in the latest Israel-Palestinian war has been identified, the Israeli military confirmed Thursday.

A total of 222 Israeli soldiers have died and their families have all been notified, a spokesperson for the military said.

At least 1,417 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and over 6,200 have been injured since the Israel-Hamas war began, Palestinian health officials said Thursday.

Of the dead, nearly 450 are children and 250 are women.

The war has claimed at least 2,600 lives on both sides since Hamas launched its attack on Israel last Saturday.

Palestinian residents of the city of Beit Lahiya in the northern region of the Gaza Strip said Thursday that Israeli planes dropped flyers warning them to evacuate their homes and to head to “known shelters.”

“Anyone who is near Hamas terrorists will put their lives in danger,” the flyers said. “Adhering to IDF instructions will prevent you from being exposed to danger.”

The area had already been heavily struck by the time the flyers were dropped. Shelters in the Gaza Strip are not safe from airstrikes — the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has seen 10 of its shelters struck since the start of the operation.

Palestinians living the pummeled Strip have said that the military often has not alerted them before striking homes, or will alert them but not with enough time to evacuate before their homes are struck. Israeli defense officials have said that they attempt to provide warning before strikes.

The number of U.S. citizens who have died in the Israel-Palestinian war has risen to at least 25, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday during a visit Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That’s an increase from 22 on Wednesday. The State Department previously said at least 17 more Americans remain unaccounted for.

Syria’s pro-government media reports that Israeli airstrikes have targeted the airports of the capital city Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, damaging their runways.

Al-Watan Daily and Dama Post did not give further details other than both airports are out of service.

They were the first Israeli strikes on Syria since the militant Palestinian group Hamas carried out its deadly attacks in southern Israel.

Earlier this year, the airports of Damascus and Aleppo were hit several times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed journalists on Thursday in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu praised Blinken’s visit as a “tangible example of America’s unequivocable support of Israel.”

“President Biden was absolutely correct in calling this ‘sheer evil,’” Netanyahu said, referring to Hamas’ unprecedented attack Saturday on Israel.

They shook hands after Netanyahu’s remarks.

Blinken said that he came before journalists “not just as secretary of state, but also a Jew” while recounting his own family’s history of surviving the Holocaust.

“So prime minister, I understand on a personal level, the harrowing echoes that Hamas’ massacres carry for Israeli Jews, as well as Jews everywhere,” Blinken said.

The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Thursday strongly condemned what it called the “ongoing Israeli military aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

“The OIC considers this brutal aggression against the Palestinian people a blatant international and humanitarian law violation and a war crime,” it said in a statement. It cited the killing and wounding of women and children, the destruction of civilian buildings and other locations.

The OIC said it held Israel “fully responsible” for the “repercussions of the continuation of this sinful aggression.”

The OIC, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, broadly aligns itself with the thinking of Saudi Arabia’s rulers. That suggests the ongoing war likely will affect the ongoing efforts by the United States to broker a deal that could see Saudi Arabia diplomatically recognize Israel.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry denied Thursday it had officially closed the Rafah crossing and said Israeli airstrikes have prevented it from operating.

In the statement, the ministry called on all countries and international organizations wishing to provide humanitarian aid to deliver supplies to el-Arish International Airport, in Egypt’s northern Sinai. Hamas’ border authorities said Tuesday that an Israel airstrike hit the no-man’s land between Gaza and Egypt, blocking the road with a large crater.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday said it was in touch with Hamas and Israeli authorities as part of efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages who are believed to be held in the Gaza Strip.

“As a neutral intermediary we stand ready to conduct humanitarian visits, facilitate communication between hostages and family members and to facilitate any eventual release,” said Fabrizio Carboni, the group’s Middle East regional director.

The Mideast emirate of Qatar, a frequent mediator between Israel and Hamas, has also confirmed its involvement in the negotiations.

Carboni appealed to Israel to allow badly needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza as Palestinians face staggering supply shortages following Israel’s decision to impose a siege on the crowded territory.

Fabrizio Carboni, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director, said the aid group’s first aim is to mobilize the medical supplies, fuel and staff already within Gaza — particularly those that could support medical facilities.

Speaking to journalists at an online presser, he said that aid delivery through the Rafah crossing requires both a political agreement and also a security deal so that needed supplies can safely reach affected areas.

“I fear that what’s coming next is going to be at least as challenging as what we’re seeing now.” Carboni said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported Thursday that two Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank when Israeli settlers sprayed bullets at a funeral for three Palestinians who had been killed in a settler rampage the day before. Footage showed Jewish settlers in their cars swerving into the funeral procession and cutting off the road to the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, before stopping and opening fire.

Health authorities identified the two men killed as father and son: 62-year-old Ibrahim al-Wadi, a local official in the secular nationalist Fatah party; and 25-year-old Ahmed al-Wadi, an off-duty Palestinian security officer.

Residents near the northern West Bank city of Nablus and north of Ramallah reported that armed settlers have rampaged through villages and hurled stones at passing Palestinian cars after the unprecedented Hamas militant attack on Israel on Saturday.

The Israeli official overseeing the effort to return hostages taken by Hamas says the government is still trying to identify all of those missing or taken captive in Saturday’s attack.

In a statement, Gal Hirsch said his office is working “to formulate an assessment of the situation” and to assist the families of the captives and missing. “The searches in the field are continuing and the difficult work of identifying the bodies continues,” said Hirsch, a former general who was appointed after the incursion by Hamas on Saturday.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesperson, said Thursday that the army has notified the families of 97 Israelis believed to be in Hamas captivity.

The presidents of Iran and Syria have discussed by telephone the situation in the Gaza Strip, expressing both countries’ support for the Palestinian people.

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that Syria’s Bashar Assad and Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi said they stand behind the Palestinian people who are “being subjected to crimes and have the right to resist to defend their legitimate cause to gain back their rights.”

Assad was quoted by SANA as saying that Israel’s policies are leading to bloodshed in the region and called on Arab and Muslim countries to work on defending the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, at one point late Wednesday killing Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Moussa Naseer in an airstrike on his family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, according to media linked to Al-Quds Brigades, the group’s armed wing.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spoken by phone to Iran’s president to discuss the Gaza war.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported Thursday that President Ebrahim Raisi had called the crown prince. The crown prince “underscored the Kingdom’s unwavering stance in standing up for the Palestinian cause and supporting efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive and fair peace that ensures the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights,” it said.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are longtime rivals that recently restored diplomatic relations in an agreement brokered by China.

Before the outbreak of hostilities, the U.S. had been negotiating with the Saudis over normalizing relations with Israel, a potentially historic agreement that would build on the so-called Abraham Accords with other Arab states. Iran has long supported Palestinian militant groups, and its leaders praised the wide-ranging attack into Israel launched by Hamas militants over the weekend, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed and dozens captured.

Germany will give Israel up to two combat drones that were already in Israel for the training of German servicepeople.

Germany’s military is currently leasing five Heron TP drones. The Defense Ministry said that it agreed to an Israeli request to use up to two of the aircraft. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday that Israel has asked Germany for ammunition for warships.

Pistorius said that the request will be discussed with Israel and stressed that “we stand beside the Israelis.”

The State Department upgraded its travel warning for Israel and the West Bank on Wednesday to Level 3, “reconsider travel.” It kept its travel advisory for Gaza at the department’s highest warning level, Level 4, meaning “do not travel.” The State Department cited extremists continuing to plot attacks, the possibility of violence erupting without warning, and increased demonstrations. The travel warning comes as five days of rocket fire and missile barrages between the Hamas militant group and Israel already have led many airlines to suspend commercial flights.

More than a hundred far-right protesters rioted outside one of the main hospitals in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night after hearing reports that doctors there were treating a militant from Hamas, according to Hagai Levine, Chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians.

Protesters from La Familia — a group of notoriously racist Jerusalem fans of the “Beitar” soccer team — blocked the main entrance to the emergency room for three hours, according to videos circulated by doctors on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The ultranationalist soccer fans clashed violently with police and disrupted the passage of emergency crews into the hospital.

At the time of the riot, Sheba hospital was not treating any militants from Hamas, Levine said. It’s unclear if militants have been treated in Israel’s public hospitals since the Hamas rampage on Saturday.

The protest came on the heels of a letter circulated Wednesday by Israeli health minister Moshe Arbel that barred Israel’s public hospitals from treating militants. Arbel wrote that injured militants should be referred to the Israeli military or Israel’s intelligence services.

U.S. President Joe Biden called the Hamas attack on Israel “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” and a campaign of “pure cruelty.”

Biden was addressing a roundtable with Jewish community leaders convened at the White House on Wednesday.

“This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty, not just hate, but pure cruelty, against the Jewish people,” Biden said. He added: “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.”

Biden thanked the leaders for their efforts combating anti-Semitism in the nation, and reiterated continued U.S. support for Israel.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Hamas beheaded soldiers and raped women in their attack on Israel, and he vowed that Israel would “crush and destroy” the militant group.

Speaking in a late-night televised address as Israeli planes pounded Gaza, Netanyahu said every Hamas member was a “dead man.”

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Hamas militants beheaded soldiers and raped women in their attack on Israel.

Netanyahu, in a late night televised address, detailed some of the atrocities that took place during the attack. He said boys and girls were shot in the head and that people had been burned alive.

At least 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack, which set off fierce Israeli response in the Gaza Strip.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians who have been expelled from their workplaces in Israel have begun showing up in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where a temporary shelter was set up to house them.

The sudden influx of about 600 workers created an “overwhelming situation” that is bound to get worse as more arrive, Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam said Wednesday.

At the shelter where men sat on mattresses, some workers said they had been abused by Israeli soldiers.

“We were working and everything was fine, and suddenly they came to us and detained us,” said Raed Al-Moghribi. “When we told them that we are from Gaza, they started beating us.”

The workers began arriving in Ramallah on Wednesday after Israeli security forces brought them to checkpoints in the West Bank.

Khader Achour, another Gaza resident who had worked in Israel, said he wanted to return home but it had been demolished and his nephew, cousin and neighbor had all been killed.

“I wish to return to my family in Gaza to die among them,” Achour said.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said that he and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden, who is set to meet with Jewish leaders later in the day, sought to connect the weekend attacks by Hamas militants that have left hundreds dead directly to decades of antisemitism and violence endured by Jews around the world.

“This attack has brought to the surface the painful memories and scars left by a millennium antisemitism and genocide against the Jewish people. And this moment we have to be crystal clear: There is no justification for terrorism, no excuse and the type of terrorism that was exhibited here is just beyond the pale. Beyond the pale,” he said.

It was at least the fourth call between Biden and Netanyahu since Saturday’s attack.

The Israeli military said Wednesday night that hostile aircraft had entered the country from Lebanon, setting sirens blaring across northern Israel as it urged citizens there to shelter.

The military did not specify the kind of aircraft. But Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Palestinian militants are known to have drones and gliders.

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group on Wednesday blasted the United States for its support of Israel, saying that sending an aircraft carrier to the region “will not scare our people or the resistance movements that are ready for the confrontation.”

Hezbollah said that the U.S. “is a full partner of the Zionist aggression and is responsible for the killings, crimes, siege, the destruction of homes and horrifying crimes against innocent civilians.”

The group added in a statement that sending an aircraft carrier to the region reveals the weakness of Israel’s military and its need for continuous foreign support.

Hezbollah criticized President Joe Biden’s “flagrant” support to Israel “killing machine.”

It called on Arab and Muslim nations to condemn the American intervention in the region.

Al-Azhar al-Sharif, the Sunni world’s foremost seat of religious learning, on Wednesday called for an international investigation into allegations of war crimes by Israel against civilian Palestinians in Gaza.

In a strong worded statement, the Cairo-based religious institution called for Arab and Islamic countries to take “a serious and unified position against the West’s inhuman rally” behind Israel’s attacks against “innocent Palestinian civilians.”

It said Israel’s “inhuman siege,” which included cutting off electricity and water, and preventing the delivery of food and humanitarian aid to the strip, is a “genocide and war crimes.”

The statement urged Arab and Islamic countries to quickly provide humanitarian aid and “ensure its crossing” to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday afternoon, forcing it to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said. That leaves only generators to power the territory — but they also run on fuel that is in short supply.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Israeli shelling of southern Lebanese villages has wounded three civilians and damaged about 10 homes.

The agency said the shelling hit the villages of Marwaheen and Duhaira.

The Israeli shelling came after the militant Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli army position.

The leader of a prominent Iranian-backed militia in Iraq threatened Wednesday to attack American bases in retaliation if the United States intervenes in the latest war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

“Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle,” Ahmad “Abu Hussein” al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

Al-Hamidawi called on Iraqis to demonstrate and collect donations in support of the Hamas military campaign.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the AP on Wednesday that nine of its staffers have been killed in airstrikes since the the start of the Israeli bombardment on Gaza on Saturday, with several killed late Tuesday.

“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict,” said Juliette Touma, director of communications of the agency, known as UNRWA. “They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.”

Touma said the strikes killed the U.N. staffers at their homes across the territory. She also said that 18 UNRWA schools-turned-shelters were damaged in the bombing, and that its headquarters in Gaza City was also damaged, without causing casualties.

Pope Francis on Wednesday called for the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas fighters in the most serious assault on Israel in half a century.

Francis said during a weekly audience that he is following events in Israel and the occupied territories with “pain and apprehension,” with “many dead and injured,’’ and said he is praying for those who saw “a day of celebration transformed into a day of mourning.”

The pope said that “whoever is attacked has the right to defend himself. But I am very worried about the total siege under which the Palestinians in Gaza are living, where there are also many innocent victims.”

Aircraft struck the Islamic University of Gaza on Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces said.

According to Israel, the university was being used as a Hamas training camp for military intelligence operatives, as well as for the development and production of weapons. The IDF also says Hamas used university conferences to raise funds for terrorism, and that the university maintained close ties with the senior leadership of Hamas.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired missiles at an Israeli military position in a northern border town of Aramsha. The group claimed in a statement Wednesday that the attack led to a “large number” of wounded as well as some killed troops, without specifying any numbers.

The Israeli military said that anti-tank missiles were fired at a position in the northern border town of Aramsha, but did not mention anything about casualties. The Israeli army shelled the Lebanese border town of Duhaira and surroundings where the missile attack came from.

Hezbollah said the attack was in response to Israeli shelling Sunday that killed three Hezbollah militants. The Iran-backed group, a key ally of Hamas, has endorsed the Palestinian groups’ attacks on Israel, but has not officially joined the war.

Hamas officials say Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday struck the family house of Mohammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing. The attack killed his father, brother and at least two other relatives in the southern town of Khan Younis, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim confirmed to The Associated Press. The whereabouts of Deif himself have long been unknown.

There are 20 Thai nationals feared dead, 13 injured and 14 kidnapped, the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Wednesday during a news briefing, citing reports from workers and their employers.

About 30,000 Thais have been working as low wage laborers in Israel, especially engaged in farm work. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kanchana Patarachoke says 5,019 have registered so far to be evacuated back to their homeland.

Two Filipinos have been killed as a result of the attacks by Hamas militants on Israel, where thousands of Filipinos live and work, said Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo.

Manalo condemned the killings in a brief statement he posted Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, but did not provide other details, including the circumstances of the deaths and the identities of the victims.

“The Philippines condemns the killing of two Filipino nationals and all other acts of terrorism and violence as a result of Hamas actions against Israel,” Manalo said.

He added that the Philippines is ready to work with other countries toward a long-lasting resolution to the conflict, in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Canadian citizens will be flown out of the country from the Tel Aviv, Israel, airport in coming days in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel, Canada’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

The government plans to conduct the evacuation using aircraft from the Canadian Armed Forces, and is working on other options for people who are unable to reach the airport in Tel Aviv, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The post did not mention those Canadians who are believed to be trapped in Gaza after Israel closed off the Hamas-controlled territory.

Canada is trying to determine how many of its citizens are among the dead or missing. Friends and family have confirmed that 22-year-old Ben Mizrachi from Vancouver and former Montreal resident Alexandre Look, who recently celebrated his 33rd birthday, were two of the hundreds killed while attending a music festival in southern Israel.

A son of two Italian-Israeli citizens unaccounted for after Hamas’ incursion into Israel believes they were kidnapped by Hamas militants.

Eviatar Moshe Kipnis, 65, who has an autoimmune disease and uses a wheelchair, and his wife, Lilach Lea Havron, 60, were holed up in their safe room on Saturday morning at their home in the Kibbutz Be’eri, Nadav Kipnis told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said that was the last time he and his brother Yotam heard from them.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani briefed parliament about the incursion on Tuesday, identifying the two Italians by name and saying they were “probably taken hostage.”

The family also has lost contact with Havron’s sister and her extended family who lived nearby. All together, 11 people from two family households at the kibbutz are unaccounted for, including children ages 3, 8 and 12, Nadav Kipnis said.

The family has been working ever since to try to draw attention to their plight, hoping in particular that the Kipnises’ Italian citizenship will bring diplomatic pressure to bear.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky visited Israel on Tuesday to show his country’s support after the Hamas attack and brought more than 30 Czech nationals home from Israel on his plane, the Foreign Ministry said.

Lipavsky met his Israeli counterpart Eli Kohen and President Isaac Herzog, the Ministry said.

“Israel is one of us, the attacks and kidnappings unleashed by Hamas terrorists are an attack on all of us,” Lipavsky said in a statement.

Lipavsky also met the relatives of a woman kidnapped by Hamas.

The Israeli military said it shelled Syria on Tuesday after rockets hit open land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

The military did not accuse any group of the rocket attack.

The Syrian government did not comment. However, Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says a Palestinian faction conducted the rocket attack from Syrian territory.

U.S. intelligence did not pick up signs of the Hamas attack on Israel, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday.

“We did not see anything that suggested an attack of this type was going to unfold any more than the Israelis did,” Sullivan told reporters.

As other White House officials have done in recent days, Sullivan also reiterated that the U.S. government has also not seen any direct linkage between Iran and the Hamas attack over the weekend.

“While Iran plays this broad role — sustained, deep and dark role — in providing all this support and capabilities to Hamas, in terms of this particular, gruesome attack on Oct. 7, we don’t currently have that information,” Sullivan said.

Twenty or more U.S. citizens are unaccounted for as U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration continues to determine how many were killed in the Hamas attacks or are being held hostage, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday.

Sullivan said the U.S. does not know precisely how many citizens are being held hostage, or their conditions.

Biden confirmed earlier Tuesday that 14 Americans have been killed in the bloody Hamas incursion.

U.S. President Joe Biden is dispatching his top diplomat to Israel on an urgent mission to show U.S. support after the unprecedented attack by Hamas militants, the State Department said Tuesday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will leave Wednesday and is expected to arrive Thursday to deliver a message of solidarity and support, and will “talk about what additional resources we can give them,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday.

Israeli airstrikes since Saturday have resulted in 900 deaths in Gaza, including 260 children and 230 women, with an additional 4,500 individuals wounded, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said Tuesday.

The airstrikes have caused the deaths of 150 members of 22 families, six health workers, and eight journalists, while 15 health workers and 20 journalists have been wounded, the ministry said.

Airstrikes on residential neighborhoods have displaced approximately 140,000 citizens to U.N. shelters and hospitals, the ministry said. The U.N. is reporting that at least 200,000 residents have been displaced.

The strikes have targeted nine health institutions, including the Ministry of Health building, the Rimal Clinic, and the International Eye Center, and bombed 15 ambulances, the ministry said.

The situation is further complicated by fuel shortages and electrical outages affecting generators, the ministry said.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro angered Jewish groups after he compared the Gaza strip to a World War II concentration camp.

Responding to a video where Israel’s Defense Minister announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, that includes cutting off electricity and water supplies to the enclave, Petro wrote on his X account Monday that “no democrat in the world should accept that the Gaza strip be turned into a concentration camp.”

His comments were rejected by the World Jewish Congress, which wrote on X that Petro’s remarks were “an insult to the six million victims of the Holocaust and to the Jewish People”.

Colombia’s Confederation of Jewish Communities also criticized Petro for not condemning Hamas’ attacks on Israeli citizens.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that a small group of U.S. special operations forces is now working with the Israelis to help with planning and intelligence in their counteroperations against Hamas.

Austin released the information to reporters traveling with him to a Ukraine contact group meeting in Brussels.

AP is live from Ashkelon, Israel, where rockets were seen in the night sky.

Hamas militants streamed into Israel and killed hundreds in an unprecedented attack, catching Israel off guard on a major Jewish holiday.

The Ford carrier strike group has arrived in the far Eastern Mediterranean, within range to provide a host of air support or long-range strike options for Israel if requested, but also to surge U.S. military presence to prevent the now four-day old war with Hamas from spilling over into a more dangerous regional conflict, a U.S. official told the Associated Press.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the arrival ahead of an official announcement.

The Pentagon has said that the U.S. warplanes, destroyers and cruisers that sailed with the Ford will conduct maritime and air operations which could range from intelligence collection and interdictions to long range strike.

Along with the Ford, the U.S. is sending the cruiser USS Normandy and destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt, and augmenting regional Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized Israel’s blockade of Gaza saying cutting off electricity and water is against the Palestinians’ human rights.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Tuesday, Erdogan criticized U.S. plans to send an aircraft carrier to the region, saying the deployment could lead to “massacres.”

The Turkish leader reiterated his offer to mediate between the sides and said he would continue his efforts to end the war. He said he also would hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres later on Tuesday.

A Lebanese security official said six rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel Tuesday evening.

The officials said it was not immediately clear who fired the rockets from the area of the Lebanese southern village of Qlaileh. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. A statement from UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, also confirmed the rocket fire and urged “everyone to exercise restraint at this critical time.”

Officials from the Hezbollah militant group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said they had no information on the rockets.

The firing of the rockets from southern Lebanon came a day after three Hezbollah fighters were killed along the border and an Israeli army officer as well.

Israel pounded downtown Gaza City with relentless bombardments Tuesday after it vowed a retaliation that would “reverberate for generations” against the Hamas militant group for its surprise weekend attack.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt said Tuesday the ongoing escalation between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza “is very serious,” warning of repercussions on the region’s “security and stability.”

El-Sissi, whose government maintains ties with Israel and Hamas, said they have intensified their efforts to reach a cease-fire of the ongoing war, according to the state-run MENA news agency.

The Egyptian leader affirmed his country’s position on establishing a “just and comprehensive peace” based on the two-state solution.

An official at the International Committee of the Red Cross says his organization has been in touch with both Hamas and Israeli officials about accessing prisoners, but so far have had no access to them.

Fabrizio Carboni, the regional director for the Near and Middle East for the ICRC, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that included the Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during their unprecedented incursion into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

“The level of violence is still very high but we’ve asked for access,” Carboni said from Geneva. “We ask also for the civilians who have been captured to have an opportunity to communicate with their family, to tell them that they are safe and well. We also ask that some people who have nothing to do in prison or shouldn’t be captured to be released”

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described the latest Israel-Palestinian war as a result of failed U.S. foreign policy.

Speaking at the start of his talks with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani, Putin said in his first comment on the war that “many will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of the U.S. policies in the Middle East.”

He added that the U.S. has “tried to monopolize the settlement, but, regrettably hasn’t bothered to search for compromises that would be acceptable to both parties and, just the opposite, sought to enforce their own view of how it should be done, exerting pressure on both parties.”

Putin said the U.S. has failed “to take vital interests of the Palestinian people into account,” ignoring U.N. General Assembly resolutions envisaging the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

The head of Doctors Without Borders for the Palestinian territories said he is concerned their team in Gaza will soon run out of medical supplies now that the enclave’s borders have closed.

Leo Cans told The Associated Press that he is particularly concerned about the supply of surgical equipment, bandages, antibiotics and fuel. The group, otherwise known as MSF, are currently operating from Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

“We are just running on the stock we have,” Cans said. The group had previously brought in all its supplies through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing.

In Gaza, MSF has 300 local staff and 23 international workers, he said.

German prosecutors are investigating after German citizens were apparently kidnapped in the attack by Hamas on Israel.

The federal prosecutor’s office said in an emailed statement the investigation of unknown members of Hamas on suspicion of hostage-taking, murder and membership in a foreign terrorist organization was opened on Tuesday.

The German Foreign Ministry has said it has to assume that an unspecified number of German-Israeli dual citizens were among those kidnapped by Hamas on Saturday.

It is standard practice for German prosecutors to open an investigation when the country’s citizens are harmed abroad.

Russia’s ambassador to Israel said two Russian citizens have been killed in of the latest Israel-Palestinian war.

Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov didn’t name the victims, saying in remarks broadcast by Russia’s state Channel 1 that the embassy isn’t aware of the circumstances of their deaths and hasn’t contacted their families yet.

Viktorov said that four other Russian citizens remain missing. He said the embassy has no information confirming Hamas’ claim that several Russian citizens were among the hostages it has taken.

French President Emmanuel Macron says his country has no evidence that Iran was directly involved in Hamas’ attack on Israel but the militant group does appear to have had outside help and cooperation.

Iran has been a longtime supporter of Hamas other militant groups, and senior Iranian officials have openly praised Saturday’s incursion.

Asked what Iran’s role in the crisis was after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Hamburg on Tuesday, Macron said France has “no formal trace” that Iran was directly involved in the attacks.

“It seems that there was help for and cooperation with Hamas but I will stay cautious on this point as long we haven’t consolidated intelligence that is totally certain,” he added, but didn’t elaborate further.

Macron said: “We condemn with a lot of clarity all the countries that congratulated the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, which was the case with Iran.”

The influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr in a speech Tuesday from the city of Najaf urged “all Arabs, especially Egyptians, to open their borders and break the inhumane siege imposed on Gaza, allowing water and food to reach the civilians” and said Iraq stands ready to send supplies to the besieged coastal enclave, although it was unclear how it would do so.

He criticized “Arab rulers who kept silent and did not show any reaction towards this righteous case in order to keep their position,” in reference to Arab countries that have normalized ties with Israel in recent years.

The Rafah Crossing administration on the Egyptian side informed the Rafah Crossing crews on the Palestinian side to evacuate the crossing immediately due to threats to bomb the crossing, spokesperson for the Hamas Ministry of Interior and National Security Iyad Al-Bazm said Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Moscow has been talking to both Israel and the Palestinians to help search for a settlement.

Asked about a claim by the Palestinian ambassador to Moscow that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will visit Moscow soon, Peskov said that the visit had been planned before the war. He added that Moscow will announce the date after it’s finally determined.

Peskov rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s claim that Moscow was interested in fueling the war as “totally baseless.”

The United Nations health agency says the medical supplies that it had pre-positioned in seven hospitals in Gaza have already been used up, as needs balloon in the wake of Israel’s military strike against the militant group Hamas.

Spokesperson Tarik Jazarevic of the World Health Organization told a briefing Tuesday that affiliate hospitals had triggered emergency plans to better manage the surge of casualties, “but with the number of casualties currently coming in, these hospitals are now running beyond their capacity.” He said WHO was reprogramming $1 million of its funds to allow for purchases of medical supplies from the local market to fill gaps in need.

The health agency has already called for a humanitarian corridor to be opened to allow new supplies to be ferried into Gaza.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says the building housing its headquarters in Gaza city suffered significant damage because of an airstrike nearby. No casualties among staff were recorded.

UNRWA said Tuesday that all U.N. international staff present in Gaza are taking shelter in another building within the same compound.

Since October 7, UNRWA recorded both collateral and direct damage to at least 18 of its facilities including schools sheltering displaced civilians. It said that until Tuesday, the U.N. estimates that over 187,500 people have been displaced within Gaza, and more than 137,000 people are sheltering in over 80 UNRWA schools across the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected allegations Tuesday about his country’s role in Hamas attacks against Israel, but said Iran will continue supporting Palestinians, media reported. It was the first reaction to the war by Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in the country.

However, Khamenei said, “We defend Palestine, we defend the fights.” He praised Palestinian “capable, smart and courageous” young Palestinians. He said the disaster for Israel came because mistakes by Israel against Palestinians.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group announced Tuesday that two of its members were killed by Israeli fire after crossing from Lebanon into Israel on Monday as part of the Hamas-led attack that started over the weekend. Funerals were set to be held in Ein el-Hilweh on Tuesday.

Islamic Jihad said in a statement that seven Israeli soldiers were wounded in Monday’s cross-border operation, while the Israeli army reported that its troops shot and killed several gunmen who crossed into the country from Lebanon. Israel also intensified shelling of southern Lebanon in response to the incident.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed two Palestinian journalists early Tuesday, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Wafa identified the journalists as editor Saeed Al-Taweel and photographer Mohammed Sobih. The airstrike occurred close to an area housing several media offices.

Three Palestinian journalists reportedly were shot and killed while reporting in Gaza on Saturday. The Committee to Protect Journalists, citing Palestinian press freedom groups, identified two of them as photographer Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi and reporter Mohammad Jarghoun. CPJ said it confirmed that freelance reporter Mohammad El-Salhi also was killed.

Lafi worked for Ain Media, and Jarghoun reported for Smart Media, CPJ said.

As retaliatory Israeli airstrikes continue, more than 187,500 people have been displaced in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict, according to a report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is hosting more than 137,000 people in schools across the territory. The report says airstrikes have razed 790 housing units and severely damaged 5,330 in the territory of 2.3 million people.

OCHA said damage to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in Gaza has disrupted service for more than 400,000 people.

Following the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas militants, Israeli authorities directed residents to leave dozens of towns near the Gaza Strip.

At least 11 U.S. citizens have been confirmed dead in the surprise Hamas attacks, U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

Biden also said the U.S. government believes it is “likely” that Americans are among those currently being held hostage by Hamas militants, while other U.S. citizens are still unaccounted for after the deadly assault.

“My heart goes out to every family impacted by the horrible events of the past few days,” Biden said in a statement. “The pain these families have endured, the enormity of their loss, and the agony of those still awaiting information is unfathomable.”

He stressed that the State Department is offering assistance for U.S. citizens who are currently in Israel, and air and ground options to leave the country are still available for those who choose to do so. He also said federal law enforcement officials are “closely monitoring” potential domestic threats stemming from the weekend attacks.

The war’s death toll rose to nearly 1,600 on both sides on Monday.

Around 900 people, including 73 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to media. In Gaza, more than 680 people have been killed, according to authorities there. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel has “only started” a fierce offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack.

Netanyahu delivered the pronouncement in a nationally televised address as Israel pressed ahead with a third day of heavy airstrikes in Gaza.

Israeli rescue service Zaka says more than 100 bodies have been recovered from a small farming community that was the scene of a hostage standoff during Hamas’ attack against Israel.

The figure is part of the total 900 reportedly killed in Hamas’ multi-pronged attack. Beeri, a kibbutz, had a population of about 1,000 people before the attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden plans to speak with several allies Monday regarding the situation in Israel, according to the White House.

Earlier Monday, Biden convened a meeting with top national security aides, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.

During that meeting, Biden urged continued coordination with Israel and other regional partners, the White House said.

The White House has called a “lid” for the day, meaning the public won’t lay eyes on the U.S. president until Tuesday.

Biden has spoken at least twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House says his top national security aides have been in regular contact with their counterparts in the region since the surprise Hamas attack on Saturday.

The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas has warned that it will kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel’s military bombs civilian targets in the Gaza Strip without warning.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman of the Qassam Brigades, said in an audio released Monday night that the threat was a response to intense air strikes by Israel on civilian areas.

“We have decided to put an end to this and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,” he said.

In a video statement Monday, Israel’s foreign minister warned Hamas against harming any of the hostages who were taken from Israel and being held in Gaza. Eli Cohen said Israel was committed to bringing the hostages home “in the spirit of mutual responsibility.”

“We demand Hamas not to harm any of the hostages, Cohen said. “This war crime will not be forgiven,” he added.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres says he’s “deeply distressed” by Israel’s announcement of a complete siege on the Gaza Strip.

He spoke after the Israeli defense minister said he had ordered a cutoff of electricity and deliveries of food, fuel and other supplies to the territory.

Guterres called for U.N. access to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. He pressed the international community to provide immediate support for the humanitarian effort.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held back-to-back telephone calls with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, according to Erdogan’s press office.

Erdogan and Abbas discussed the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas. “President Erdogan stated that Turkey is making every effort to end the conflicts in the region and ensure calm as soon as possible,” a statement from his press office said.

In his call with Herzog, “President Erdogan emphasized that any step that could harm the people of Gaza collectively and indiscriminately will further increase the suffering and spiral of violence in the region.” the presidential office statement said.

Erdogan also told his Israeli counterpart that it’s “necessary to act with common sense and that establishing tranquility in the region as soon as possible is of great importance for the well-being of the entire region.”

The secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an international aid organization, warns that the Israeli government’s vow to besiege and blockade the Gaza Strip would spell “utter disaster” for the more than 2 million Palestinians living in the small territory.

Jan Egeland’s comments came after Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza after an unprecedented incursion by Hamas fighters into Israel early Saturday. Israel formally declared war on Sunday and has since retaliated against Hamas for the attack.

Egeland also slammed donor countries for halting humanitarian assistance to Gaza after the unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on Saturday.

French police have arrested 10 people in connection with antisemitic acts that were reported since the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas militants began.

The 20 reported incidents included threats to synagogues or people frequenting Jewish stores, the interior minister said Monday.

Prosecutors have also opened 44 investigations into antisemitic hate speech online or posts glorifying terrorism in connection with the violence, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin’s office.

While France’s sees sporadic acts targeting Jews or Muslims, Darmanin said the number of antisemitic incidents since Saturday was ″dramatic.″

France has the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the U.S.

Two French citizens are confirmed dead in Israel following the outbreak of violence. At least eight others are missing or believed held hostage, according to a lawmaker who represents French people abroad.

A Palestinian militant group claims it sent four gunmen across Lebanon’s border into Israel as part of the Hamas-led attack that started over the weekend.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement that seven Israeli soldiers were wounded in Monday’s cross-border operation.

The Israeli Defense Forces reported earlier that its troops shot and killed several gunmen who crossed into the country from Lebanon. Israel also intensified shelling of southern Lebanon in response to the incident.

The Lebanese military called on residents of border towns to “take the utmost precautions.” Families in several towns in southern Lebanon started fleeing north as the Israeli shelling continued.

Dozens of students held a rally in support of the Palestinian people Monday at the prestigious American University in Egypt’s capital.

The students rallied across the university campus in Cairo’s upscale 5th Settlement neighborhood.

Students were seen waving Palestinian flags and holding banners with slogans such as “Free Palestine.”

The rally came as fighting raged for a third day between Israel and Palestinian militant groups following Hamas’ unprecedented Saturday attack on southern Israel.

The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, says it is near maximum capacity in accommodating internally displaced people in Gaza.

The agency’s director of external communications, Tamara Alrifai, said Monday that nearly 137,000 people have sheltered so far in over 70 U.N. schools around Gaza. Alrifai said the agency can host up to 150,000 people at up to 79 schools around the territory.

She added there is fuel in Gaza that could last for up to 10 days.

Families in several border towns in southern Lebanon have started fleeing north as Israeli shelling continues in the area.

An Associated Press team saw several cars packed with people and belongings departing Monday. “We tried to flee Ait el-Shaab to Rmeish, but they told us everyone has to stay in their area,” a man said as he and his family tried to flee.

Israeli shelling intensified after four militants crossed over the border and clashed with Israeli Defense Forces troops on Monday. Several rockets were fired from near the Lebanese border earlier. A Hezbollah spokesperson denied the militant group’s involvement in the operation.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that at least nine American citizens have been killed in the weekend Hamas attacks on Israel, raising the toll from four.

The State Department says an undetermined number of American citizens remain missing and unaccounted for. It is not clear whether the missing had been taken hostage, were killed or are in hiding.

The State Department is in touch with families “and providing all appropriate consular assistance,” spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday that the tiny country’s priority is to maintain stability along its southern border with Israel following an exchange of attacks between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants over the weekend.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing rockets at three Israeli positions in a disputed territory along the border of the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, before Israel returned fire.

Mikati called on the international community to “take responsibility” in pressuring Israel to return to peace talks under the Arab Peace Initiative. “Anything other than that is a further spiraling of violence that will not benefit anyone,” he said.

Iran-backed Hezbollah has praised key ally Hamas for its unprecedented incursion into Israel but not said if it would attempt to join forces.

Israel has estimated that Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at the country.

The Kremlin is “extremely concerned” by the “spiral of violence” in Israel, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

“We believe that this situation needs to be put onto a peaceful track as soon as possible. And the continuation of such a spiral of violence, of course, is fraught with further escalation and expansion of this conflict. This is a great danger for the region, so we are extremely concerned,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin spokesman added that Russian authorities were not aware of any Russian nationals injured in the conflict.

Austria’s foreign minister says his country will freeze development aid for the Palestinian areas following the attack by Hamas on Israel. Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told Oe1 radio on Monday that all development aid payments will be “put on ice for now” and that the affected funds are worth around 19 million euros ($20 million).

Schallenberg also said he will summon Iran’s ambassador to the Austrian Foreign Ministry on Monday to complain about the country’s “abhorrent reactions” to the Hamas attack.

On Sunday, Germany’s development minister said her country would review its financial aid for the Palestinian areas. Her ministry put the amount currently pledged at 250 million euros ($265 million) and said no payments are currently being made.

The leaders of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on Monday discussed the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed on “the importance of … advancing diplomatic efforts that aim to de-escalate violence, protect civilians, spare blood,” a statement from the Egyptian president’s office said. Such efforts should include establishing “a comprehensive, just and permanent peace,” it added.

Egypt was the first Arab country to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in the 1970s, and shares borders with both Gaza and Israel. The UAE normalized ties with Tel Aviv as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020. The Arab Gulf nation has frayed ties with Hamas.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says 245 Romanian citizens including two groups of pilgrims have been repatriated from Israel on two separate flights by a commercial carrier.

The repatriation on Sunday came after 346 were also flown back to Romania over the weekend, bringing the total number in the past two days to nearly 600 after Hamas launched its unprecedented attacks against Israel.

Israel’s central bank says it will sell up to $30 billion in foreign exchange to prop up the country’s shekel currency following market uncertainty in the wake of Hamas’ incursion from the Gaza Strip.

The shekel has fallen to a near eight-year low against the U.S. dollar in early trading Monday.

Jonathan Conricus made the statement in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. His words appeared to go further than those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said Sunday that his security cabinet had made the decision to destroy Hamas’ ability to govern in a way that posed a threat to Israeli civilians.

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there is bipartisan unity in Congress “in support of what we need to do” to support Israel.

Speaking at an event in San Francisco on Sunday organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, Pelosi condemned the attacks on Israel as “acts of cowardice.”

“I want you to know that in the Congress of the United States … there is unity, bipartisan unity in support of what we need to do, whether it’s militarily, whether it’s diplomatically, whether it’s financially to help our friends, the Israelis,” Pelosi said, according to a recording of her remarks provided by her office.

Pelosi said the surprise attack from the Gaza Strip was “outside the circle of civilized human behavior.”

“This assault on these children, on these grandmas, on these families, is something that takes us to a different threshold of how we deal with this subject,” she said.

Three British men were said to either be dead or missing after the Hamas attack on Israel.

Nathanel Young, 20, was killed while serving in the Israel Defense Forces, his sister, Gaby Shalev, said on Facebook. His death was later confirmed by the Israeli Embassy in London.

British photographer Danny Darlington, who lived in Berlin, and his German girlfriend, Carolin Bohl, had not been heard from after hiding out in a bunker at kibbutz Nir Oz, according to Sam Pasquesi, who is Bohl’s brother-in-law.

Pasquesi said his family learned later Sunday from a man working at the kibbutz that the bodies of the two had been identified.

Jake Marlow, 26, had been providing security at a music festival near kibbutz Re’im when he called his mother, Lisa, before dawn to say rockets were flying overhead.

He texted her an hour later but that was the last she heard from him, she told Jewish News. The Israeli Embassy in London did not know if Marlowe “is taken hostage or dead or in a hospital,” a spokesperson said.

The U.K. Foreign Office did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the three.

A French woman in Israel has died “in the context of the terrorist attacks,” France’s foreign ministry said Sunday, without providing details. French teams in Israel and Paris are trying to clarify the situations of several citizens who have not been located, the statement said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry says it has to assume that German citizens are among those kidnapped by Hamas on Saturday. It didn’t say how many people that might be, but said they are all believed also to be Israeli citizens.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said two Ukrainian women had been killed. Both had lived in Israel for a long time, he said without elaborating on the circumstances of their death.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said two Belarusians were injured during the shelling of the city of Ashkelon, and one of them was in serious condition.

Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, said American citizens are among those who were taken captive but gave no details about them, nor about Americans who might have been killed.

“Unfortunately I can’t. We have a lot of dual citizens in Israel. I suspect there are several, but we’re still trying to sort through all of all this information after this horrific surprise attack and we’ll make sure to put that information out so that the loved ones of these people who were killed and who are held hostage, they know as quickly as possible,” Dermer told CNN’s ‘’State of the Union.’’

Germany’s development minister says her country will review its aid for the Palestinian areas following the attack by Hamas on Israel.

The development ministry says Germany does not finance the Palestinian Authority directly, but a total of 250 million euros ($265 million) is currently pledged in German aid – half of that for bilateral projects via Germany’s overseas aid agency and development bank, and the other half for the U.N. agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA.

Development Minister Svenja Schulze said in a statement Sunday that Germany already took great care that its aid for Palestinians “serves peace and not the terrorists.”

“But these attacks on Israel are a terrible watershed, so we will review our whole commitment to the Palestinian areas,” she added.

Schulze noted that Israel also has an interest in Palestinians being able to live in long-term stability, and said Germany will also coordinate with its international partners.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is looking at additional requests for assistance that the Israelis have made, and there could be developments on that front later Sunday.

He told CNNS President Joe Biden’s “direction was to make sure that we’re providing Israel everything it needs in this moment to deal with the attacks from Hamas.’’

Blinken, who gave interviews to multiple U.S. television news shows Sunday, also talked about how the Hamas attack could have been motivated in part to derailed an emerging diplomatic deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“It’s no surprise that those who are opposed to the talks, those who are opposed to Israel normalizing relations with its neighbors and the countries beyond the region are Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. And so it’s entirely possible that one of the motivations for this attack was to try to derail these efforts to advance normalization,” Blinken said.

He said Washington had seen reports that Americans were missing or had been killed and “we’re working overtime to verify that.”

German Chancellor OIaf Scholz is stressing the need to avoid a wider “conflagration” in the Middle East after Hamas attacked Israel.

Scholz said he spoke Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and assured him that Israel’s security is a cornerstone of German policy. He pledged that “we will act accordingly.” He said he plans to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and will support Egypt in efforts to mediate and de-escalate.

Scholz said he also will talk by phone with the leader of the U.S., France and the U.K. to evaluate the situation.

He added: “It is clear that we condemn the actions of Hamas in the strongest terms, but above all we are doing everything so that this attack doesn’t turn into a conflagration with incalculable consequences for the whole region — and we warn everyone in this situation against fueling terrorism.”

The Israeli flag was raised Sunday at the chancellery, the German parliament’s Reichstag building and the German president’s office. Germany has increased protection for Jewish and Israeli facilities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says his Security Cabinet has declared the country at war following a deadly Hamas assault in southern Israel.

The decision, announced on Sunday, formally authorizes “the taking of significant military steps,” it said it a statement.

“The war that was forced on the State of Israel in a murderous terrorist assault from the Gaza Strip began at 06:00 yesterday,” it said.

It gave no further details. But Netanyahu had previous declared the country at war, and the military has promised a harsh response in Gaza.

Israeli media say at least 600 people have been killed in the surprise cross-border incursion by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, said over 20,000 people were sheltering in 44 of its schools around Gaza by Saturday evening.

“The number (of displaced) is rapidly increasing, “ said Inas Hamdan, acting public information officer in Gaza.

The agency said three of its schools suffered “collateral” damage from Israeli airstrikes. The agency also said its operations of nine water wells around the Gaza Strip were stopped early Saturday. Operations in three wells resumed Sunday, said Hamdan. The agency’s food distribution centers, which provide for over 540,000 of Gaza residents, have been closed since Saturday.

In an UNRWA school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood northwest of Gaza city center, residents described overnight Israeli strikes that hit the school’s courtyard causing panic and light injuries among those sheltering there.

At another school serving as a shelter in central Gaza city, people were piling blankets and food stuff in the three-story building. New arrivals brought in mattresses, packing their children into small and crowded classrooms.

“We didn’t know where to go,” said Umm Mohammad, or mother of Mohammad, a resident of a district on the eastern borders of Gaza. She described waking up in the middle of the night to screams, strikes and calls for evacuation. “We arrived at the schools miraculously because there was no transport.”

The death toll in Israel following a surprise attack by the militant group Hamas stands at 600, according to several Israeli media outlets.

The Kan public broadcaster and Channel 12, as well as the Haaretz and Times of Israel newspapers, reported the toll Sunday.

There has been no official confirmation of the number of deaths on the Israeli side since the fighting erupted early Saturday.

Palestinian officials say more than 300 people have been killed in Gaza, without differentiating between fighters and civilians.

Hamas gunmen used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza on Saturday, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast.

The leaders of Israel’s neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, discussed the ongoing fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

According to a statement by the Egyptian president, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi received a phone call from King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Both leaders agreed on working to avoid further deterioration of the situation, the statement said.

Both Egypt and Jordan are close allies with the U.S. and are the first Arab nations to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.

The latest round of violence began with an unprecedented surprise attack in which Hamas militants raced into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking captives back to Gaza.

Israel responded by rushing troops to the border area and launching airstrikes across the blockaded territory. Palestinian officials say more than 300 Gazans have been killed.

We’re live from Gaza City.

Israeli soldiers are battling Hamas fighters in the streets of southern Israel and launching retaliation strikes across Gaza.

In the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday, residents heard a loud explosion, apparently from an Israeli airstrike that hit a target close to the borders with Egypt. It was not immediately clear what was targeted. Residents said a house in the area had been evacuated.

Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Rafah overnight. One of the strikes hit three homes in one of the most crowded refugee camps, Shaboura, killing 19 members of the same family, according to a family member who posted their names on his social media. Surviving family members and neighbors filled al-Farouk mosque, holding funeral prayers as the bodies of those killed wrapped in white shrouds lined the floor. The crowd then marched to the nearby cemetery for burial, some carrying the bodies.

Also on Sunday, loudspeakers from mosques and moving cars in Rafah blared with condolences and praise for fighters from Hamas, believed to be natives of Rafah, who were killed during the assault on Israel.

The world’s largest bloc of Muslim countries has condemned what it refers to as “Israeli military aggression” amid ongoing fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation said Sunday that it is “greatly concerned about the developments on the ground and the dangerous Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The 57-member bloc went on to condemn “the Israeli military aggression that led to the fall of hundreds of martyrs and wounded among the Palestinian people.”

The latest round of violence began with an unprecedented surprise attack in which Hamas militants raced into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking captives back to Gaza.

Israel responded by rushing troops to the border area and launching airstrikes across the blockaded territory. Palestinian officials say more than 300 Gazans have been killed.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Hezbollah fighters have set up a tent in a disputed area along the country’s tense southern border hours after an Israeli drone destroyed another one in the same place.

Hezbollah initially erected the tent over the summer in a disputed area along Lebanon’s border with Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that Lebanon claims is Lebanese territory.

That has led to tensions with Israel over the past months and the U.N. has been working to persuade Hezbollah to remove the tent.

Earlier Sunday, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets and shells at three Israeli positions in the disputed area of Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba hills and Israel’s military fired back using armed drones.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that 346 Romanian citizens and other foreigners were repatriated from Israel overnight on two separate flights.

The ministry said Sunday that a mobile consular team was sent to Ben Gurion Airport from the Romanian Embassy in Tel Aviv and Romania’s representative office in Ramallah to provide consular assistance.

On Saturday, the ministry “strongly condemned” Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel, “including against the civilian population, terrorist infiltrations and hostage-taking.” It said Israel has a sovereign right to defend itself.

An Egyptian policeman opened fire on Israeli tourists Sunday in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing at least two Israelis and one Egyptian, local media reported.

Extra News television channel, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies, quoted an unidentified security official as saying that another person was injured in the attack which took place in the Pompey’s Pillar tourist site in Alexandria. The suspected assailant was detained, it reported.

Israel’s Zaka rescue service reported two people killed in Alexandria.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country is “deeply concerned over the current escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel.”

“The recurrence of the conflict shows once again that the protracted standstill of the peace process cannot go on,” the statement said. “The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine.”

The Chinese foreign ministry said China would continue to work with the international community to find a way to bring about peace, and urged the community to act with greater urgency and help “facilitate early resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel.”

An Egyptian official says Israel has sought help from Cairo to ensure the safety of abducted Israelis, and Egypt’s intelligence chief had contacted Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group to seek information.

According to the official, Palestinian leaders claimed that they don’t yet have a “full picture” of hostages, but said those who were brought to Gaza were taken to “secure locations” across the territory.

“It’s clear that they have a big number — several dozens,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to brief media.

Egyptian intelligence also spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, he added, but Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage.”

— By Sam Magdy in Cairo.

An Israeli military official says “hundreds of terrorists” have been killed and dozens captured in fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza and southern Israel.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari spoke to reporters on Sunday, more than 24 hours after the Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented assault into Israel, killing hundreds of people, firing thousands of rockets and taking captives back into blockaded Gaza.

Israel is battling militants in the south and launching airstrikes across Gaza that have leveled buildings.

A U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along Lebanon’s southern border called for “everyone to exercise restraint” and make use of the force’s “liaison and coordination mechanisms to de-escalate” and prevent a fast deterioration of the security situation. It said it had detected several rockets fired from southeast Lebanon toward “Israeli-occupied territory,” followed by artillery fire from Israel toward Lebanon.

The statement came shortly after Hezbollah said it fired at Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms along the border with Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The force known as UNIFIL said it is in contact with authorities on both sides of the border at all levels “to contain the situation and avoid a more serious escalation.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fired dozens of rockets and shells on Sunday at three Israeli positions in a disputed area along the country’s border with Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Hezbollah said in a statement that the attack using “large numbers of rockets and shells” was in solidarity with the “Palestinian resistance.” It said the Israeli positions were directly hit.

Israel’s military fired back at the Lebanese areas, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

At least 26 Israeli soldiers have been killed in an attack by the Hamas militant group on the country’s south, Israel’s military said Sunday.

The figure is part of a death toll of more than 250 people in the deadliest attack against Israelis in decades.

An Israeli military spokesperson said Sunday morning that two hostage situations had been “resolved,” but did not say whether all the hostages had been rescued alive.

Hamas militants had taken hostages during their surprise attack on Saturday as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response. Gun battles continued well after nightfall, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns. Militants occupied a police station in a third town, where Israeli forces struggled until Sunday morning to finally reclaim the building.

On Sunday, Israel was fighting Hamas incursions in eight places, the Israeli military said.

A Cambodian student has died in the violence in Israel, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The Southeast Asian country has some 450 students in Israel, the statement added.

Two workers from Thailand were also believed to have been kidnapped in Israel, according to a statement from Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The information came from the Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv. Israel has not been able to verify the claim.

“The Royal Thai Government is taking this matter very seriously,” the statement said. “Prime Minister [Srettha Thavisin] has issued an order for the Royal Thai Air Force to be on standby for the immediate evacuation of Thai nationals from Israel by air, as needed.”

Israel will stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza, according to a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office Saturday night. Much of Gaza was already thrown into darkness by nightfall after electrical supplies from Israel, which supplies almost all of the territories’ power, were cut off earlier in the day.

Netanyahu also said the “first phase” of the counter operation had ended, and that Israel had fought off the majority of Hamas militants.

He vowed to continue the offensive “without reservation and without respite.”

The announcement came after a surprise attack by Hamas militants into Israel on Saturday morning.

Airlines canceled more than 80 flights to and from Tel Aviv by Saturday evening — roughly 14% of all flights scheduled — because of the unprecedented attack in Israel by the militant group Hamas, according to FlightAware.

Delta Air Lines and American Airlines canceled flights Saturday night and Sunday night from New York’s JFK Airport to Tel Aviv, although a Delta return flight was able to depart Tel Aviv Saturday night. United Airlines also canceled a Saturday flight from San Francisco. An earlier United flight turned around over Greenland and returned to San Francisco.

German carrier Lufthansa canceled several flights between Frankfurt and Tel Aviv.

Backed by a barrage of rockets, dozens of Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip in an unprecedented attack Saturday. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying the country is now at war. AP’s Josef Federman explains what we know.

A mosque in Cairo that is a seat of Sunni learning has expressed its solidarity with Palestinians in the wake of an attack by the militant group Hamas that took Israel by surprise.

The Al-Azhar al-Sharif mosque houses the Sunni world’s foremost seat of religious learning. A statement by the mosque said it “stands fast with full support to the free people of Palestine, who have come to revive our self-confidence, lifeline, and a long-lost sense of aliveness,” the statement read.

The statement also criticized the global approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that the international community “adopts nothing but double standards when it comes to the Palestinian cause.”

The statement was issued in the wake of a surprise attack by Hamas on Israel on Saturday. At least 200 Israelis were killed and a number were also taken hostage. An equal number of Palestinians died amid Israel’s military response to the attack.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington announced the opening of an Israel Crisis Fund, saying it was ready to help meet the urgent needs of Israelis after “the largest terrorist attack on Israel since the Yom Kippur War.”

Gil Preuss, the federation’s chief executive officer, said in a statement that it had a responsibility to mobilize the Jewish community across the political spectrum to stand against the ongoing “deluge of terror” in Israel.

“At the holy time of Shabbat, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah, while Jews were immersed in celebration and spiritual contemplation, dozens of terrorist gunmen infiltrated communities near the Gaza border and Hamas launched a deluge of thousands of rockets at Israel cities,” he said.

“This is a terrifying moment for our family in Israel,” Preuss added, “and we fear the horror will be quite prolonged.”

Israeli rescue service Zaka said at least 200 Israelis were killed, making it the deadliest attack against Israel in decades. An equal number of Palestinians were also killed, officials in Gaza said, amid Israel’s response.

Hours after the Hamas attack on Israel, a small squad of New York City police officers stood outside Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue as a safety measure during Saturday worship services.

Inside the synagogue, which has one of the city’s largest Jewish congregations, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson began services by acknowledging the “highly coordinated attacks.”

He noted how the surprise attack by Hamas from Gaza into southern Israel was executed “in a fashion eerily reminiscent” of the Yom Kippur War five decades ago.

“No people is safe from terror,” he said.

“In moments of fear, in moments of concern,” he said, “we know we draw strength from our being together.”

In Los Angeles, Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz urged congregants at Valley Beth Shalom during Saturday services to call their elected representatives to urge support for Israel, especially in the coming days as the country responds to the attack.

New York Mayor Eric Adams and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also condemned Saturday’s attack by Hamas. Those cities have the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, whose city is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, called the attack a “cowardly action by a terrorist organization.”

The mayor said city authorities are monitoring the situation for any possible threats.

“While there is no credible threat to New York City at this time, our administration is in touch with Jewish leaders across the five boroughs, and we have directed the NYPD to deploy additional resources to Jewish communities and houses of worship citywide to ensure that our communities have the resources they need to make sure everyone feels safe,” he said in a statement.

“We extend our sincerest condolences for all the innocent lives lost in these attacks, and hope that not another family has to experience the pain of losing a loved one.”

President Joe Biden has condemning the “appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza” and says he’s spoken with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden says in a statement released by the White House that he told the Israeli leader that “we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support” to the Israeli government and the Israeli people.

Biden says that the Jewish state “has a right to defend itself and its people. The United States warns against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation.”

The president also says his administration’s support for Israel’s security is “rock solid and unwavering.”

Other Western leaders condemned the Hamas attack and expressed support for Israel.

The head of the European Union’s executive commission, Ursula von der Leyen, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday that the attack “is terrorism in its most despicable form.” She said that “Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks.”

The Israeli flag was raised at the Austrian chancellor’s office and Foreign Ministry in a gesture of solidarity, and Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a post on X on Saturday: “We stand with Israel in the fight against terrorism. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

Israel’s national rescue service said at least 70 people have been killed and hundreds more were wounded in a surprise attack by the militant group Hamas.

The casualties made Hamas’ attack on southern Israel the deadliest one in Israel in years.

The Magen David Adom said Saturday that “hundreds” of people were seriously injured and strongly urged the public to heed the directives of Israeli authorities for safety.

The wounded were being evacuated in ambulances, mobile intensive care vehicles, and by helicopter to various hospitals.

At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed in Israel’s retaliation, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said.

The U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border says it is closely monitoring the situation in Israel.

In a statement, the force said that peacekeepers are present along the border line to maintain stability and help avoid escalation.

“We have also adapted and enhanced our presence throughout our area of operations, including counter rocket-launching operations,” said the force known as UNIFIL.

It has been months since rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel. The border area has been relatively calm since a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah ended in August 2006.

UNIFIL said its leader is in contact with all sides since the violence began in southern Israel “to ensure effective coordination and avoid misunderstandings.”

The force said its primary goal is to preserve stability along the Blue Line and avoid any escalation “that could have disastrous consequences for people living in the area.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says at least 198 people have been killed and at least 1,610 wounded in the territory in Israel’s retaliation after a wide-ranging Hamas assault into Israel.

Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes in Gaza and has clashed with gunmen at the border fence around the coastal territory.

Israel’s national rescue service says at least 40 people have been killed in a wide-ranging Hamas assault into Israel.

The latest toll came from the Magen David Adom rescue service as fighting was still underway on Saturday.

Hospitals in Israel are treating hundreds of wounded people, including dozens in critical condition.

The White House said Saturday that it “unequivocally condemns” the Hamas attacks.

“We stand firmly with the Government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks,” said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

“The U.S. unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. There is never any justification for terrorism.”

Watson said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has spoken with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi. The U.S. and Israel are remaining in close touch, Watson said.

Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Israel and Egypt, told the state Tass agency Saturday that Moscow has been in touch with “all parties (of the conflict), including Arab countries” and urged “an immediate cease-fire and peace” between Hamas and Israel. Bogdanov did not specify which Arab states Russian diplomats were speaking to.

“We call for an immediate start to a peace process on the basis of existing, internationally recognized agreements,” Bogdanov said. He added that a number of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the conflict remain unimplemented, but gave no details.

The U.N. human rights chief says he is “shocked and appalled” by the firing of large numbers of rockets at Israel and the death of at least 22 people in the country.

Volker Türk called for an immediate end to the violence, appealing to all sides and “key countries in the region” to de-escalate and avoid further bloodshed.

Türk said in a statement released in Geneva he is also “deeply concerned at reports that Israeli civilians have been taken hostage.”

Türk said that “this attack is having a horrific impact on Israeli civilians” and that civilians must never be the target of attacks.

He added: “I note also that Israeli forces have responded with airstrikes into the densely populated Gaza Strip, reportedly killing at least five people. I call on them to take all precautions to avoid civilian casualties there.”

European leaders are condemning the Hamas attack and voicing solidarity with Israel.

The head of the European Union’s executive commission, Ursula von der Leyen, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday that the attack “is terrorism in its most despicable form.” She said that “Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks.”

German Chancellor OIaf Scholz said that the militants’ rocket fire and the escalating violence “shock us deeply.” He added that “Germany condemns these attacks by Hamas and stands beside Israel.”

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote that he “firmly” condemns the “terrorist attacks” against Israel and expressed “my full solidarity with the victims, their families and their loved ones.”

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italy’s government condemns the attacks on Israel “with utmost firmness.”

“At risk are the life of people, the security of the region and the resumption of any kind of political process,’’ Tajani said in a post on X platform.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah congratulated Hamas for the operation, saying it had “divine backing and pledges final and comprehensive victory.” The group said the attack is a response to “Israel’s crimes” and attacks on holy places and that “the will of the Palestinian people and the rifle of the resistance is the only alternative to face occupation.”

Hezbollah said that its military command in Lebanon is following the developments on the ground and is in direct contact with the Palestinian command and they are both “evaluating the situation and the ongoing operation.”

“We call upon the government of the Zionist enemy to take lessons from the facts that the Palestinian resistance have implemented on the ground,” Hezbollah said.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry has voiced its support for Israel’s “right to defend itself and its people” in a post Saturday on its official channel on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The ministry said it “strongly condemns the ongoing terrorist attacks against Israel, including rocket attacks against the civilian population in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.”

Ukraine has been fighting a war against Russia since its neighbor invaded in February 2022.