GAZA STRIP, — The Israeli military has ordered another mass evacuation in large areas around Khan Younis in southern Gaza, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian rocket fire. Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier this year.
Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to heavily destroyed areas of Gaza where they had fought earlier battles against Hamas and other militants since the start of the 10-month-old war.
Gaza faces a severe humanitarian crisis with Israeli restrictions on aid and ongoing fighting limiting access to crucial medical, food and other supplies. The Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll in the territory is nearing 40,000.
Regional tensions have soared since Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed July 31 in Iran by a presumed Israeli strike. Retaliation has been expected. French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call to do everything in his power to avoid a new military escalation that he said would do lasting damage to regional stability.
World leaders have been pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza, and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Tuesday about their hopes for a deal calming tensions in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet over the weekend that Israel is already in a “multi-front war” with Iran and its proxies.
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Here’s the latest:
BEIRUT — Four Syrian army soldiers were injured in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, Syrian state media reported.
Syrian state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, said strikes targeted “a number of military points in the central region.”
The UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported explosions near a military airport in the countryside of Homs province that were “likely caused by an Israeli targeting of weapons storage warehouses.”
There was no immediate statement from Israel, which frequently targets the sites of the Syrian army and Iran-backed groups in Syria but rarely announces the strikes.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli military court Thursday extended the detention of five soldiers who allegedly sexually assaulted a Palestinian detainee in a detention facility.
The military said there is “reasonable suspicion” that the soldiers committed the acts they are accused of and extended their detention until Sunday.
It’s the latest in a case that has stoked divisions between hardliners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and the military establishment. New information about the case has recently surfaced in Israeli media, including a video purporting to show the alleged attack and testimony from Dr. Yoel Donchin, who saw the detainee afterward and reported the case to Israeli authorities.
Donchin confirmed in an interview with Israeli media that the detainee had fractured ribs, showed signs of beating and bore evidence of being sodomized, leading to a tear in the lower part of the intestines.
Rights groups say the case is just the tip of the iceberg and are petitioning Israel’s highest court to shut down the Sde Teiman facility, where the attack allegedly occurred.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Thousands of Palestinians in eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza began evacuating to other areas Thursday afternoon after the Israeli military ordered another mass evacuation.
The orders cover large areas in and around Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier this year. The Israeli Defense Forces said they plan to launch operations there in response to Palestinian rocket fire.
Associated Press footage shows crowds walking down a dusty road filled with piled-up trash and rubble on the side. A few Palestinians are seen using cars, bicycles, donkey carts, and motorbikes to relocate, while many others, including children and elderly, are evacuating on foot.
Those evacuating carried essential items such as small gas cylinders, mattresses, tents, backpacks and blankets, as well as plastic containers and buckets, which are often used to fill up water.
Ghazi Abu Daka, one of the evacuees, told the AP that he and his family have been displaced four times from the eastern part of Khan Younis.
“Every day there is war. Every day there are rockets. There is no safe place in the eastern area. Now, we are displaced in the streets and don’t know where to go,” he said as he carried his son and had a piece of cloth on his head apparently to protect him from excruciating heat.
Yasser Abu Alyan, another evacuee, said he was displaced around six times from the Beni Seheila area east of Khan Younis. He said he took nothing with him except his two little girls: “Everything is gone.”
“There is no safe place. The last time they ordered us to go evacuate to Muwasi and then struck us there,” evacuee Ahmed al-Rakab said as he carried heavy belongings on his back.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jets have arrived in the Mideast from a base in the United Kingdom, authorities said Thursday.
U.S. Central Command posted images online of the fighters, saying their presence in the region was “to address threats posed by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.”
The F-22s come after what Iran has described an Israeli assassination operation that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week. Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the killing, which has inflamed regional tensions and comes after the Israelis also recently killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon.
Central Command did not identify where the fighters landed, likely out of deference to the host country amid the regional tensions.
ROME — Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni talked with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian over the phone on Thursday, stressing “the need to avoid an expansion of the ongoing conflict in Gaza" and de-escalate the Israeli-Lebanon border exchanges.
Meloni also urged the Iranian leader to intensify efforts to prevent “a further escalation and to reopen the path of dialogue.”
Meloni reiterated Italy’s constant commitment to promoting peace and stability in the region through the necessary achievement of a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, the release of hostages held by Hamas and the strengthening of humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the battered coastal territory.
JERUSALEM — The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he met with West Bank settler leaders to address their concerns about international sanctions against them.
From the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Netanyahu on Thursday spoke with the heads of various Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and said he takes “very seriously” the financial and travel sanctions against those accused of attacks on Palestinians.
“We are working to stop it,” Netanyahu said of the high-level sanctions imposed earlier this year on violent settlers and settler organizations by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Canada.
“This is a matter for the entire State of Israel and not just the settlements council,” he added.
Netanyahu’s office said that the Jewish settlers expressed “strong support” for the prime minister and gratitude for “his firm stand in the face of domestic and foreign pressures.”
Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has occupied it ever since. Some 500,000 Israelis, who consider the land their biblical birthright, have settled in the territory. The international community largely considers their presence illegal. But under Netanyahu’s government coalition, settlement expansion has been turbocharged.
JERUSALEM — The Palestinian emergency response agency says Israeli airstrikes on two schools functioning as shelters in Gaza City have killed at least a dozen people, the latest in a string of attacks on Gaza schools that Israel says provide cover to Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas “command and control centers” hidden within the Zahraa and Abdelfattah Hamouda school compounds in eastern Gaza City. It said it had taken “numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” such as by precision munitions, surveillance and intelligence, but did not elaborate on how it had done so.
The Palestinian Civil Defense, which sent crews to recover bodies from the scene, said 16 people were killed in the two school compounds in eastern Gaza City and several more were still missing under the rubble. It was not clear if any of those killed were militants.
The latest strikes add to the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which is now nearing 40,000 according to the the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
A recent assessment by the United Nations found that nearly 85% of schools in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has ordered another mass evacuation in southern Gaza, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian rocket fire.
The orders announced Thursday cover large areas in and around Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier this year.
Associated Press video captured loud blasts and smoke rising over the city on Thursday.
Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to heavily destroyed areas of Gaza where they had fought earlier battles against Hamas and other militants since the start of the 10-month-old war. The military ordered an evacuation of much of Khan Younis in early July. The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced in the war, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps.
Others have remained in their homes despite being ordered to leave, saying nowhere in the isolated coastal territory feels safe.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Thursday that the Scandinavian government was told that Israel "will no longer facilitate Norwegian diplomats to work in Palestine.”
“This is an extreme act that primarily affects our ability to help the Palestinian population,” Barth Eide said, adding that it showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "actively opposes the work for a two-state solution.”
He said at a news conference that it meant that Norway can no longer work from its representations in the occupied territories. Its representation in the West Bank town of Al Ram was opened in 1995.
Thursday's decision will have consequences for Norway’s relationship with the Israeli government and they are considering the next steps, he said.
In May, Norway — together with Spain and Ireland — announced they would recognize a Palestinian state.
JERUSALEM — Human Rights Watch says Israeli soldiers killed at least seven people and severely wounded two, including a 5-year-old, when they attacked a home in Gaza City where a Palestinian family was sheltering in December.
The New York-based rights group released a report Thursday based on interviews with two members of the al-Khalidi family who witnessed the attack, and video footage released by the Israeli military that placed forces in the vicinity of the home at the time.
The family members said there were no militants or weapons inside the house, and that the family had no connection to any armed group. They said the troops barged in without warning, hurling grenades and opening fire.
A pregnant woman was among those killed, and the 5-year-old is being treated for severe injuries in Qatar.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, and Human Rights Watch said the army had not responded to detailed questions sent in July.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians as it seeks to destroy Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack into Israel, which triggered the ongoing war. But Israel’s relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have wiped out entire Palestinian families. The International Court of Justice is investigating allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, something Israel has adamantly denied.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia has condemned the targeted killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran as a “flagrant violation” of international law.
The statement issued early Thursday by Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed ElKhereiji came after the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the largest bloc of Muslim countries, issued a similar statement following a high-level meeting the day before.
Iran has vowed to avenge the July 31 explosion that killed Ismail Haniyeh, which was widely blamed on Israel, raising fears of a regional war. Israel has not said whether it was involved.
ElKhereiji said the killing of Haniyeh was a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and constitutes a threat to regional peace and security.”
The statement did not directly blame Israel but referred to Israeli attacks against Palestinians “inside and outside the Palestinian territories.”
