Live updates | Israel rejects genocide case as Mideast tensions rise after US-led strikes in Yemen

In the second day of hearings Friday at the United Nations' top court, Israel rejected allegations levied by South Africa that its campaign against Hamas amounts to genocide against the Palestinian people, saying that, if anything, it is Hamas that is guilty of genocide.

Although the case is likely to take years to resolve, South Africa is asking the International Court of Justice to order an immediate suspension of Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip. It’s unclear if Israel would comply with any court order.

Meanwhile, the United States and British militaries have launched strikes on sites used by the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen in retaliation for their attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis say their attacks are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas, but their targets increasingly have little or no connection to Israel and imperil a crucial trade route linking Asia and the Middle East with Europe.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack from Gaza into southern Israel that triggered the war killed around 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage by militants. Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 people, some 70% of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Currently:

— The U.S. military strikes another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen after warning ships to avoid parts of Red Sea. How Houthi attacks on ships there are crimping global trade.

— Israel defends itself at the U.N.’s top court against allegations of genocide.

— U.S. defense secretary ordered Yemen strikes from hospital where he's receiving prostate cancer care.

— Israel kills three Palestinians after they attack inside West Bank settlement, army says.

— Blinken sees a path to peace in Gaza, reconstruction and regional security after his regional tour.

— Find more of AP's coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here's the latest:

THOUSANDS RALLY IN INDONESIA DEMANDING CEASE-FIRE

JAKARTA, Indonesia — At least 5,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied Saturday in front of the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy in downtown Jakarta to demand a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Organized by the Indonesian Mass Organization Council, a conservative Muslim forum, the protesters wore black and white as they joined the Global Day of Action Stop the War on Gaza. Waving Indonesian and Palestinian flags, they held signs that read “Boycott Israel,” “End the Genocide of Palestinians” and “Ceasefire Now.”

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has long been a strong supporter of Palestinians and does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

U.S. SAYS ITS MILITARY STRUCK ANOTHER HOUTHI SITE IN YEMEN

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has struck another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen that was determined to be putting commercial vessels in the Red Sea at risk.

The strike happened early Saturday, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an operation that hadn’t yet been publicly announced.

Associated Press journalists in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, heard one loud explosion.

The first day of strikes on Friday hit 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets. However the U.S. determined the additional location, a radar site, still presented a threat to maritime traffic, one official said.

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By Tara Copp, Lolita C. Baldor, Jon Gambrell and Aamer Madhani.

ISRAEL'S ORDERS FOR DISLACEMENT IN GAZA POTENTIALLY AMOUNT TO A WAR CRIME, U.N. SAYS

UNITED NATIONS – Israel’s orders for massive displacement of more than 1 million people in Gaza without ensuring access to food, health care, shelter or safety fail to meet international legal requirements and “potentially amount to forcible transfer, a war crime,” a senior U.N. official said Friday.

Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris also expressed alarm at “incendiary statements” by some Israeli officials pushing for Palestinians to be resettled overseas.

“Palestinians’ right to return to their homes must be subject to an ironclad guarantee,” she told a Security Council meeting on the threat of forced displacement.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the council that “what has been unfolding in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory is a war conducted with almost no regard for the impact on civilians.”

As a result of Israel’s unrelenting evacuation orders, he said, more people “are being crammed into an ever-smaller sliver of land, only to find yet more violence and deprivation, inadequate shelter and a near absence of the most basic services.”

Griffiths also said the statements by Israeli officials on encouraging Palestinians to go to other countries raise “grave concerns” about possible “forcible mass transfer or deportation … something that would be strictly prohibited under international law.”

U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY WAS IN HOSPITAL WHEN HE ORDERED STRIKES ON YEMEN, PENTAGON SAYS

WASHINGTON — From his hospital room, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first orchestrated and then watched in real time as the U.S. retaliatory attack on Yemen-based Houthi militants unfolded Thursday night.

It was the latest in a series of responsibilities Austin has carried out from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he has been recovering from complications due to treatments for prostate cancer that he initially did not disclose.

On Friday, President Joe Biden said it was a lapse in judgment for Austin to keep his hospitalization a secret, but said he still has confidence in the Pentagon chief.

Austin’s delays in disclosing his prostate cancer and his hospitalization have roiled the administration, Pentagon and Congress. Pentagon officials have repeatedly said that Austin has been performing his duties for the last week, even as he remains hospitalized.

GERMANY TO JOIN U.N. CASE ON ISRAEL'S BEHALF, SAYS ‘NO BASIS’ FOR GENOCIDE CHARGE

BERLIN — Germany’s government said Friday that it will request to join the International Court of Justice case as third party on Israel’s behalf, saying there is “no basis whatsoever” for genocide accusations.

Under the court’s rules, if Germany files a declaration of intervention in the case, it will be able to make legal arguments to support Israel at the merits phase of this case to address how the genocide convention should be interpreted, legal expects say.

"That would come after the court issues its decision on South Africa’s request for urgent measures to protect the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said international lawyer Balkees Jarrah, associate director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, in an interview from The Hague where she attended the ICJ hearings.

Berlin's support for Israel carries some symbolic significance given Germany’s Nazi history.

“Hamas terrorists brutally attacked, tortured, killed and kidnapped innocent people in Israel,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement Friday. “Since then, Israel has been defending itself against the inhumane attack by Hamas.”

“We know that different countries assess Israel’s operation in Gaza differently,” Hebestreit said. “However, the Federal Government firmly and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel at the International Court of Justice.”

Hebestreit said Germany “sees itself as particularly committed to the Convention against Genocide.” He added: “We firmly oppose political instrumentalization,.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the announcement, saying the gesture “touches all of Israel's citizens.”

ISRAEL KILLS 3 PALESTINIANS AFTER THEY ATTACK WEST BANK SETTLEMENT, ARMY SAYS

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army said Friday it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired on soldiers.

The soldiers were attacked while patrolling the settlement of Adora in the southern West Bank and they returned fire, killing three men, according to Israel’s Army Radio.

One 34-year-old Palestinian man involved in the attack was wounded with a shot to the leg, Israel’s medical rescue service said, without providing more information.

The attack came amid surging violence in the occupied territory nearly 100 days into Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Israel has held the West Bank under a tight grip ever since Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The army frequently stages deadly military raids it says are aimed at stamping out militancy.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed 344 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7.

U.N. SAYS ‘DESPERATION’ AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN, NEW MOTHERS AND OTHERS IN GAZA

UNITED NATIONS – Returning from a week in Gaza, a senior official for the U.N. agency that focuses on sexual and reproductive rights for women warned that the situation “is beyond any of our worst nightmares – and it’s getting worse.”

Dominic Allen, the U.N. Population Fund’s representative covering the Palestinian territories, told reporters in a video briefing from East Jerusalem on Friday that “desperation is everywhere,” from pregnant women, doctors and midwives to humanitarian workers and people who have fled their homes and are moving to the southern part of Gaza.

Many pregnant women who should be getting extra nutrition are suffering from thirst, malnutrition and lack of health, Allen said. “If the bombs don’t kill them, if disease hunger and dehydration don’t catch up with them, simply giving life will — and we can’t let this happen.”

He repeated his message several times: “The world needs to help Gaza. It needs to help at scale, and it needs to help now.”

Allen said he is “terrified for the 1 million women and girls in Gaza,” including 690,000 who are of menstruating age but have almost no sanitary supplies, and 5,500 pregnant women due to give birth in the coming months – which means 180 births every day in Gaza.

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise invasion of south Israel and Israel’s military response, UNFPA estimates there have been 18,000 births, he said. While the agency has been able to provide supplies for more than half of those deliveries, “much more is needed.”

One of the few functioning hospitals in southern Gaza that he visited is overwhelmed with 70 to 80 births a day, including 20 cesarean sections, Allen said, and women can only spend a few hours in the hospital because of the overcrowding. That means the mothers and their mainly underweight babies aren’t getting the post-natal care they need, he said.

IRAN PRAISES YEMEN’S HOUTHIS IN WAKE OF U.S.-LED BOMBING

TEHRAN — Iran’s foreign minister on Friday praised Yemen's Houthi rebels for their support for the Palestinians in Gaza, an apparent reference to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping that the Houthis say are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas.

However, Hossein Amir Abdollahian also said in a post on X that the Houthis are “fully committed to marine and shipping security,” without elaborating.

The foreign minister said the United States, instead of striking Yemen, should halt its military support for Israel's operations in Gaza and the West Bank in order to restore security to the entire Mideast.

In Tehran, a group of people gathered outside the British Embassy in Iran to protest London's role in this week's airstrikes on Yemen. Carrying Palestinian flags, they burnt flags of Britain, U.S. and Israel. Similar rallies were held earlier on the day after Friday prayer ceremonies in the capital Tehran and other major cities of the country.

KEY HOSPITAL LOSES POWER IN CENTRAL GAZA, DOCTORS WARN PATIENTS WILL DIE WITHIN HOURS

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Power cut off at the main hospital in central Gaza on Friday after it ran out of fuel for its main generator, according to an Associated Press journalist at the hospital, and doctors warned that patients would soon die if electricity isn’t restored.

The cut came soon after Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah warned that its fuel supply was about to run out. It said the U.N. had told it a fuel delivery was expected but it had not arrived by Friday night.

After the facility went black after nightfall, staff kept ventilators and incubators operating using batteries charged by solar power during the day. But they warned that would last only a few hours. “In two hours at most, if the electricity doesn’t come back, and the oxygen, these patients you see here will die,” said one doctor, Taiseer Abu Sweirih, speaking to the AP in front of bed-ridden patients on life support.

The hospital has been overwhelmed with wounded from Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive across the central portion of Gaza.

Last week, the WHO said half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are out of action, while the remaining 13 are only partially functional.

Gaza’s health sector has been decimated by the three month war between Israel and Hamas, with many hospitals unable to treat the rising number of casualties or re-stock supplies including basic medicine.

U.N. CHIEF SAYS YEMEN'S HOUTHIS MUST HEED CALL TO STOP ATTACKING SHIPS

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief says Yemen’s Houthi rebels must comply with the Security Council resolution demanding an immediate halt to all attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took note of Thursday’s U.S. and British airstrikes, with support from other countries, said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Friday. Guterres called on all nations that are “defending their vessels from attacks to do so in accordance with international law, as stipulated in the resolution.”

The Security Council approved the resolution by a vote of 11-0 vote Wednesday with Russia and China among the four countries that abstained. In addition to condemning and demanding a halt to Houthi attacks, it implicitly condemned the Houthi’s main weapons supplier, Iran.

Dujarric said the secretary-general also calls on all parties ”not to escalate even more the situation in the interest of peace and stability in the Red Sea and the wider region” and “to avoid acts that could further worsen the situation in Yemen itself.”

DEAL TO DELIVER MEDICINE TO HOSTAGES IN GAZA IS IN THE WORKS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND QATAR

JERUSALEM — Israel and Qatar are working on a deal to deliver much-needed medication to Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli government and a diplomat said Friday.

Hamas and Israel have both shown willingness to allow the delivery of the medicine, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were still ongoing. Logistics are still being worked out, including the types of medications needed and how to deliver them, the diplomat said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had assigned the head of the Mossad intelligence service, David Barnea, to discuss the entry of medicines to the hostages with the Qataris, who have acted as mediators with Hamas in previous negotiations over hostage releases. In a statement, the office said the delivery could take place in the coming days.

The diplomat said the move for a deal came after families of hostages met with Qatar’s prime minister and raised their worry that some of their loved ones are in need of important prescription medication.

Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 men, women and children during their Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. During a cease-fire, around 100 hostages were freed in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, leaving around 130, mostly men, including 10 over the age of 75. Since then, Israel has announced that 20 died in captivity, leaving around 110.

The diplomat said discussions were also underway with international NGOs about delivering the medicines. During a round of swaps of hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel in November, the International Committee of the Red Cross served as the go-between, receiving freed hostages from Hamas and transporting them out of the territory.

The ICRC’s spokesperson in Geneva, Jason Straziuso, would not comment on the reported deal but said that since the start of the war, the group has been calling for three things — “that the hostages be released, barring that, that we be allowed to visit them and deliver medications as needed, and that the hostages be able to communicate with their family.”