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Israeli troops divided the northern and southern parts of Gaza, as communications across the besieged territory were temporarily cut Monday for a third time since the war started. The troops are expected to enter Gaza City on Monday or Tuesday, Israeli media reported.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 10,000, including more than 4,100 children and 2,640 women, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
The developments came after Israeli airstrikes hit two refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing scores of people, health officials said. Israel has so far rejected U.S. suggestions that it take a humanitarian pause from its relentless bombardment of Gaza and the rising civilian deaths.
In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.
Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.
Currently:
— Communications are being restored in Gaza, while Israel’s military announces it has surrounded Gaza City.
— Families of Israel hostages fear the world will forget their loved ones.
— These numbers show the staggering toll of the Israel-Hamas war.
— A U.N. official says the average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of bread a day.
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
MIAMI BEACH FIREFIGHTERS VOLUNTEER FOR ISRAEL
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Eight firefighters are leaving the United States for Israel to help fill in for Israeli firefighters who have been called up to serve in the country’s defense forces after the war against Hamas erupted.
The firefighters from Miami Beach, Florida, say it’s the first city-sanctioned such mission in the U.S.
Capt. onis Garcia, the union president who came up with the idea for this mission, said most of the volunteers heading to Israel on Monday aren’t Jewish.
Garcia said about a quarter of Israel’s firefighters have been called up since the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by the Hamas militants who rule Gaza.
Garcia and others have served before in natural disasters, including Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. But city officials said it’s the first time they’ve been authorized to go to a war zone.
ICRC SAYS IT ACCOMPANIED CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS TO RAFAH CROSSING POINT
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday accompanied a convoy of four ambulances transporting seven critically wounded patients from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to the Rafah crossing point into Egypt, Jessica Moussan, a spokesperson for the ICRC told the AP.
The patients were evacuated to Egypt for treatment as part of a deal among Egypt, Israel and Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. The deal also calls for foreign passport holders to exit the besieged territory to Egypt.
Monday’s evacuation was the first since the crossing was closed over the weekend because of a dispute among Israel, Egypt and Hamas.
HAMAS SAYS IT HAS FIRED 16 ROCKETS ON NORTHERN ISRAELI TOWN
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The military wing of Hamas says they have fired 16 rockets on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya and the southern outskirts of the city of Haifa in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The Qassam Brigades did not give further details in its statement released Monday but firing rockets toward Haifa is the furthest from Lebanon since clashes began along the border about a month ago.
Hamas fired rockets in the past on northern Israel including Nahariya from Lebanon.
FLEEING PALESTINIANS REPORT ISRAELI BOMBARDMENT OF REFUGEE CAMP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians who fled southward on Monday reported a heavy Israeli bombardment overnight of the Shati refugee camp. They said the Israeli military pounded the camp and the area around al-Shifa hospital during a communications blackout.
Houses across the sprawling camp were reduced to the ground, leaving many dead or wounded under the ruble, they said. First responders and medics worked overnight to retrieve the dead and wounded, they said.
Ghassan Abu Sitta, a surgeon at al-Shifa hospital, said the bombardment of the camp shook the hospital’s buildings.
“They pounded the camp all night. The buildings of the al-Shifa hospital were shaking all night, and we started getting the bodies and the wounded. It was horrendous,” he told The Associated Press.
ISRAELI STRIKE DAMAGES A ROOF AT GAZA’S LARGEST HOSPITAL; HAMAS DENIES USING HOSPITALS FOR MILITARY ACTIVITIES
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Mohamed Zaqout, general manager of all hospitals in Gaza, said the roof of a building at al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, was damaged by an Israeli strike, resulting in deaths and injuries.
Speaking on Al-Jazeera, Zaqout said the strike killed displaced people who were sheltering on the top floor. Solar panels that were installed on the roof were destroyed in the attack, he said.
Al-Jazeera showed a video of bloodstained wreckage inside the top floor, where the beds of displaced families were still laid out. Other videos showed smoke rising from the building.
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official on Monday denied Israeli charges that the militant group has located missiles and rocket launchers near a hospital in the Gaza Strip.
Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that Israel is trying to destroy the medical sector in Gaza to force Palestinians out of their land.
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Hamdan also denied Israeli military statements that the group has a tunnel near a hospital in Gaza, saying a hole shown in a photo presented by the Israeli military spokesperson is used for storing fuel.
Hamdan urged the U.N. to send an international committee to visit hospitals to confirm they are not being used by Hamas for military activities.
AT LEAST 2 KILLED AS AIRSTRIKE FLATTENS HOUSE IN SOUTHERN GAZA
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza — Dozens of civilians and emergency workers helped dig for survivors after an airstrike flattened at least one building in the densely populated al-Amal district of Khan Younis city in southern Gaza.
“There were no grown-ups, the house was full of children,” said local resident Soliman al-Faqawi, pausing momentarily from the communal dig.
Suddenly a teenage boy was pulled from the rubble alive, wincing in pain, his body completely covered in soot and dust. He was quickly placed on a stretcher and carried away for treatment,
At least two people were killed in the strike, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
SOUTH AFRICA RECALLS ITS DIPLOMATS FROM ISRAEL OVER GAZA BOMBARDMENT
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s government recalled its ambassador and diplomatic mission to Israel on Monday in condemnation of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling it “a genocide.”
The government also threatened action against the Israeli ambassador to South Africa over his recent remarks about the African country’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. No further details were given about the remarks.
The war broke out after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 left over 1,400 people dead. Over 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
“The South African government has decided to withdraw all its diplomats in Tel Aviv for consultation,” said minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. She said the Cabinet noted the “disparaging remarks of the Israeli ambassador to South Africa about those who are opposing the atrocities and genocide of the Israeli government.”
The South African government has called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for aid to be allowed into the bombarded enclave.
South Africa is among other countries that have recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest the military operations in Gaza, including Chile, Colombia and Honduras. Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with the country.
GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY SAYS PALESTINIAN DEATH TOLL HAS SURPASSED 10,000
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza says the Palestinian death toll from the ongoing war with Israel has jumped over 10,000.
The figures, released Monday, mark a grim milestone in what has quickly become the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence since 1948.
The war erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel from Gaza and killed over 1,400 people and took some 240 others hostage in a rampage that Israel described as the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded with a campaign of blistering airstrikes, followed by a ground invasion.
The Health Ministry said 292 people were killed in Gaza on Sunday, raising the death toll to 10,022, without distinguishing between fighters and civilians. The vast majority of the dead are believed to have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, though Israel says over 500 errant rockets launched by Palestinian militants have landed inside Gaza.
BLINKEN RECEIVES TEPID RESPONSE TO PROPOSAL FOR ‘HUMANITARIAN PAUSES’
ANKARA, Turkey — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a grueling Middle East diplomatic tour in Turkey after only limited success in forging a regional consensus on how to ease civilian suffering in Gaza as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.
Blinken met Monday in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after a weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq to build support for the Biden administration’s proposal for “humanitarian pauses” in Israel’s relentless military campaign in Gaza.
“All of this is a work in progress,” Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We don’t obviously agree on everything, but there are common views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we’re working on together.”
The Biden administration hopes that pauses in the war would allow for a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, while also preventing the conflict from spreading regionally.
Israel has rejected the pauses proposal outright while Arab and Muslim nations are instead demanding an immediate cease-fire as the Palestinian casualty toll soars from Israeli bombardments of Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack.
PHOTOS OF THAI HOSTAGES SHOW THEY ARE ALIVE, PRIME MINISTER SAYS
BANGKOK — Thailand’s government has photographs of Thai workers who are being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas following its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, showing they are alive, the prime minister said Monday.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin did not say how many hostages the photos showed. The Thai government’s official number of “abductions” is 24. Thirty-four Thais are known to have been killed and 19 injured.
“There is an update that there are photos of the hostages. So, we understand that at least they are still alive. The negotiation efforts are still ongoing,” Srettha told reporters.
Thailand is pursuing several channels to obtain the release of the hostages, including a trip last week by Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara to Egypt and Qatar.
Almost 8,000 Thai workers have returned home from Israel out of a pre-attack total of around 30,000. Most are employed as semi-skilled farm laborers who come from poorer regions of Thailand and are able to earn a much better income by working abroad.
POPE DECRIES ANTISEMITISM, WAR AND TERRORISM
ROME — Pope Francis met with European rabbis on Monday and decried antisemitism, war and terrorism in a written speech he declined to read, saying he wasn’t feeling well.
Francis said in his prepared speech that his first thought and prayers goes “above all else, to everything that has happened in the last few weeks,” a clear reference to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, including the taking away of hostages to the Gaza Strip, and the ensuring Israeli-Hamas war.
“Yet again violence and war have erupted in that Land blessed by the Most High, which seems continually assailed by the vileness of hatred and the deadly clash of weapons,” Francis wrote in the speech.
With France, Austria and Italy among the countries in Europe recently seeing a spate of antisemitic vandalism and slogans, Francis added, “The spread of antisemitic demonstrations, which I strongly condemn, is also of great concern.”
The pontiff said believers in God are called to build “fraternity and open paths of reconciliation for all.”
