Israel-Hamas war latest: Blinken says US will keep pressing Israel to spare Gaza humanitarian sites

The U.S. secretary of state said Thursday that the United States will continue to press Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip, a day after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed 14 people, including six U.N. staffers.

Meanwhile, Turkey announced its own investigation into the death of a Turkish American activist who was shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank. And a Syrian pro-government media outlet and an opposition war monitor said an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria on Thursday, killing two people.

The Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. They abducted another 250 and are still holding around 100. Around a third of them are believed to be dead.

Here's the latest:

UN chief condemns killing of at least 18 people in Israeli airstrike on UN school

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief is condemning the death of at least 18 people including six U.N. staff members in an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school serving as a shelter in Gaza, and is calling for an independent investigation to ensure accountability, his spokesman said.

The airstrike, which also killed women and children, raised the death toll of staff from the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Gaza, known as UNRWA, to 220, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday.

The Israeli Defense Forces said they had targeted a Hamas command-and-control center in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

According to the secretary-general, “the continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza is unconscionable,” Dujarric said.

“Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on must be protected and meet the essential needs of the civilian population,” the spokesman said.

“The secretary-general calls upon all parties to refrain from using schools, from using shelters, and the areas around them for military purposes,” Dujarric said. “All parties to the conflict have the obligation to comply with international humanitarian law at all times.”

Guterres reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire and release of all hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, the spokesman said, adding “this horrific violence must stop.”

4 killed in car explosion in Israel as gang violence surges in Arab communities

Medics say four people were killed and eight others injured when a car exploded Thursday in central Israel, an incident described as criminal that comes as gang violence surges within Israel’s Arab communities.

The deadly car blast in the city of Ramle set off a wave of anger against Israeli security forces, whom residents accuse of failing to fight the escalating internal gang wars and gun violence affecting Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sought to deflect blame Thursday, claiming that Israel’s attorney general refused his request to place suspects in pre-trial detention. As he arrived at the crime scene to speak with residents, he was drowned out by angry hecklers. Scuffles between victims’ family members and police erupted outside the hospital where the injured were being treated.

Critics say that Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted of anti-Arab incitement and supporting a Jewish terrorist organization, has done little to fulfill his campaign promises of fighting violent crime in Arab communities. Palestinian citizens of Israel accuse authorities of prioritizing fighting crime in Jewish areas and neglecting Palestinian ones. On Wednesday, two other residents were killed in the same city. It’s unclear if the two incidents in Ramle were related.

Israeli police pledged to take the case seriously and hunt down the perpetrators.

“We will not let go of any criminal or anyone that is trying to hurt innocent civilians,” police Chief Dani Levi said.

Israeli airstrike kills 3 in southern Lebanon, officials say

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon killed three people, including a child.

The ministry says the Thursday night airstrike on the southern village of Kfar Joz also wounded three people.

The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing daily exchanges for nearly a year as Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says it’s backing up its ally Hamas in Gaza.

More than 500 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Oct. 8, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and other armed groups but also more than 100 civilians. In northern Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed by strikes from Lebanon.

Israeli military says Hamas brigade in Rafah has been dismantled

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday that it has completed the destruction of Hamas’ brigade in the city of Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

The military said in a statement that Israel had killed 2,000 militants and destroyed 13 kilometers (8 miles) of underground tunnel routes dug deep under the area. It also said that it had killed over 250 militants in Rafah’s western Tel al-Sultan district in recent weeks, including the commander of the battalion and most of the chain of command.

Israel began its operation in Rafah in early May, forcing more than a million Palestinian civilians to flee the city. The Israeli offensive over the past 11 months has killed 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities that do not distinguish between civilians and militants.

Top Israeli intelligence commander has resigned, the military says

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says that a top Israeli intelligence commander has announced his resignation, the second such senior figure to step down amid the fallout from Hamas’ devastating Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel last year.

In a statement Thursday, the Israeli military said that Brig. Gen. Yossi Sariel, leader of Israel’s vaunted military intelligence Unit 8200, notified the army of his plans to step down and leave his post “in the near future.” The military confirmed to The Associated Press that he resigned over the security failure of the Oct. 7 attack.

Earlier this year, the head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, announced his resignation over his role in the army’s stunning failure to anticipate or quickly respond to the deadliest assault in Israel’s history.

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants blasted through Israel’s border defenses, rampaged through communities unchallenged for hours, and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, while taking roughly 250 hostages into Gaza.

The attack set off the war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its 11th month.

The 8200 division’s long-held reputation as a formidable spy unit that produced some of the country’s top high-tech entrepreneurs and chief executives has suffered since its apparent failure to detect the Hamas-led attack.

Israeli military says it has killed two Hezbollah militants in southern Syria

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday that its warplanes struck and killed two Hezbollah militants in southern Syria, the latest in a series of attacks on the Iran-backed Shiite group near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The military identified one of those killed as Ahmed al-Jabr. It accused al-Jabr of conducting militant operations in the Syrian province of Quneitra near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Hezbollah did not announce the deaths of any militants Thursday. But a Syrian pro-government radio, Sham FM, and an opposition war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria, killing two people in the village of Khan Arnabeh.

Israel has frequently carried out such airstrikes over the past months on the edge of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981.

Israel says it is targeting Iran-linked militants. Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, where thousands of Iran-backed fighters are deployed. Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated throughout the past 11 months of the Israel-Hamas war, largely along Israel’s tense northern border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah on Thursday claimed several attacks on northern Israel and the Israeli military reported air raid sirens set off by the militant group’s explosive drones falling in open areas. The Israeli military also said it intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

Medical teams in Gaza wrap up their final day of a polio vaccination campaign

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The World Health Organization says medical teams in Gaza are wrapping up the final day of an emergency polio vaccination campaign following the discovery of the territory’s first-known case of the illness in more than 25 years.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the U.N. health agency’s representative, told reporters in a news conference from Gaza that the health workers had reached more than an estimated 552,000 children under the age of 5. They used a new oral polio vaccine targeting the specific type of polio seen in Gaza, which is a mutated strain that originated in an older oral vaccine.

Peeperkorn said WHO and its partners have yet to do a final analysis of how many children were actually covered, but added that it was more than expected. On Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said more than half a million Gaza children have been vaccinated.

“We are quite confident that we reached an enormous amount of children in this short time,” Peeperkorn said, referring to the four-day vaccination campaign. He said authorities were aiming to cover more than 90% of children in this immunization round and in the second one, to be held next month.

Blinken says U.S. will continue to press Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in Gaza

WARSAW — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States will continue to urge Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed six U.N. staffers.

When asked on Thursday at a news conference in the Polish capital about Israel’s bombing of the school complex in central Gaza the day before, Blinken told reporters that “we need to see humanitarian sites protected.”

“That’s something we continue to raise with Israel,” he said.

Wednesday's strike on the U.N.-supported al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, hospital officials said. Among those killed were six staffers from the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, known as UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza.

UNRWA described the strike as the deadliest single incident for its staff members. Among those killed at the school, it said, were the manager of the shelter and others working to help the thousands of displaced people taking refuge there, including teachers.

The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said at least 220 UNRWA staffers have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military offensive began in response to Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school.

Blinken blamed Hamas for continuing to hide its fighters among civilians and said the bombing “underscores the urgency" of reaching a cease-fire in the embattled territory.

WHO says the Emiratis have evacuated nearly 100 wounded and sick Palestinians from Gaza

CAIRO — The World Health Organization says the United Arab Emirates has evacuated nearly 100 critically wounded and sick Palestinians from Gaza, including cancer patients, for medical treatment in the Gulf Arab state.

The U.N. health agency said on Thursday that a total of 252 Palestinians from Gaza, including 97 patients and their relatives, flew the previous day to Abu Dhabi in the UAE from the Ramon airport in Israel.

It was the biggest exit of Palestinian medical patients in Gaza through Israel since the war began.

WHO said that the patients, among them 45 children and 52 adults, were suffering from severe injuries or critical conditions such as brain tumors and amputations. It was the second such evacuation flight that the UAE has coordinated to provide advanced medical care to Palestinians.

With few exceptions, Israel has barred Gaza’s Palestinians from entering Israel throughout the war.

Gaza has been completely sealed off since May, when Israeli forces captured the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, including the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the coastal strip, leading to its closure.

A UN report says Palestinian economy is in ‘free fall’ since the Israel-Hamas war erupted

GENEVA — The Palestinian economy is “in free fall,” the United Nations reported on Thursday, with production in Gaza plunging to one-sixth of its level before Israeli forces began a blistering military response to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The report from the U.N. Trade and Development also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements, land confiscations, demolition of Palestinian buildings and violence by settlers as dampening economic prospects.

Economic output in Gaza plunged to just over $221 million in the half-year, including the last quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024 — the last quarter for which figures are available — or about 16% of the total figure for the same half-year period in 2022 and 2023, when the total was just over $1.34 billion, the agency said.

“The Palestinian economy is in free fall,” Pedro Manuel Moreno, the agency’s deputy secretary-general, told reporters and urged the international community to "address the humanitarian crisis and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development.”

That would include a “comprehensive recovery plan” for Palestinian areas, more international aid, the lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, as well as the release of revenue and withheld funds for Palestinians retained by Israel, he said.

Israel will revoke press accreditations for Al-Jazeera reporters working in the country

JERUSALEM — The Israeli body that accredits journalists said on Thursday that it will revoke the press cards of Al-Jazeera reporters working in the country.

The move comes after Israel shut down the Qatar-based broadcaster’s local operations in May. Authorities already prevent Al-Jazeera broadcasts and block its websites.

Israel accuses Al-Jazeera of incitement and threatening national security over its coverage of the war in Gaza.

Nitzan Chen, the director of the Government Press Office, said “the use of GPO cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself jeopardize state security at this time of military emergency.”

Al-Jazeera denies the allegations and has accused Israel of trying to silence its coverage.

With several correspondents reporting from inside Gaza, the channel has provided round-the-clock coverage of the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that ignited it. Its coverage has focused on civilian casualties in Gaza, and it often airs Hamas videos and statements in their entirety.

Israeli strikes have killed four Al-Jazeera reporters since the start of the war. The government office said the revocation of the press cards would be subject to a hearing. It will apply to Al-Jazeera journalists and broadcasters but not producers or photographers.

Turkey launches its own probe into the killing of Turkish American activist in the West Bank

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s justice minister says his country is investigating the death of a Turkish American activist shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The 26-year-old activist from Seattle was taking part in a demonstration against settlements in the Palestinian territory when she was fatally shot last Friday. Israel is investigating the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and its military later said she was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by soldiers.

Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Thursday that the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office was leading the Turkish probe. He also called on U.N. agencies, including the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to investigate.

Tunc said Turkey would present its findings to a U.N. court overseeing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa over the war in Gaza.

“We will take every judicial step for our martyred daughter, Aysenur,” Tunc said.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Eygi’s body was likely to be brought to Turkey on Friday. Her burial is scheduled to take place in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, in western Turkey, in line with her family’s wishes.

An uncle of the slain Turkish American activist says the US should protect the rights of its citizens everywhere

DIDIM, Turkey — An uncle of the Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces during a protest in the occupied West Bank said the United States needs to protect the rights of its citizens everywhere.

Ali Tikkin also welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris’s remarks about the shooting that killed Aysenur Ezgi Eygi in which the U.S. vice president said the activist's death was unacceptable and demanded “complete accountability” for it.

The U.S. should “protect the rights of its citizens and follow them to the end,” said Tikkin, who is married to Eygi’s aunt.

He spoke on Thursday in the Turkish Aegean coastal town of Didim, where Eygi is expected to be buried, describing the 26-year-old from Seattle as a “free-spirited person” who began traveling the world on her own at an early age.

“Even at the age of 18 or 19, she went to different countries of the world on her own. First she started traveling out of curiosity. Later she took part in organizations by the United Nations,” he said. “She was sensitive to events happening around the world.”

The Israeli military said this week that Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by soldiers. But Tikkin stressed that her family believes she was deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers.

“There was no error or accident," he said. “I think it was a message to the world.”

An airstrike hits a car in southern Syria, killing 2 people, pro-government media and a war monitor say

BEIRUT — A Syrian pro-government radio and a war-monitoring group say an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria, killing two people. The Sham FM didn’t give further details on the Thursday morning strike on the village of Khan Arnabeh, near Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also reported that two people were killed in the airstrike, without giving further details.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has carried out such airstrikes over the past months on the edge of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981. Israel says it is targeting Iran-linked militants.

Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, where thousands of Iran-backed fighters are deployed. Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.