Palestinians are fleeing large areas around Khan Younis in southern Gaza where the Israeli military began a new assault after ordering another mass evacuation.
Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier in the year. The enclave faces a severe humanitarian crisis with Israeli restrictions on aid and ongoing fighting limiting access to food, medical supplies and clean water. The Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll in the territory is nearing 40,000 in the 10 months since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
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.
World leaders are pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza. Late Thursday, Israel confirmed it will send negotiators for indirect discussions with Hamas in response to a proposal by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to resume stalled cease-fire talks on Aug. 15.
___
Here’s the latest:
Iran’s mission to the U.N. hopes that Tehran’s response is ‘not to the detriment of the potential cease-fire.’
UNITED NATIONS — Asked whether Iran would delay its highly anticipated retaliation until after the next round of cease-fire talks called for Aug. 15, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said it hoped that Tehran’s response “will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential cease-fire.”
“Our priority is to establish a lasting cease-fire in Gaza; any agreement accepted by Hamas will also be recognized by us,” the U.N. mission said, stressing that Iran had “the legitimate right to self-defense — a matter totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire.”
U.S. official criticizes far-right Israeli minister who opposes cease-fire deal
WASHINGTON — U.S. national security adviser John Kirby told reporters Friday that Senior Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich’s criticism of the latest proposed cease-fire deal is “dead wrong.”
“Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely without pause and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all,” Kirby said. Smotrich voiced opposition to the deal and said the terms would amount to an Israeli surrender.
“The views expressed by Mr. Smotrich would in fact sacrifice the lives of Israeli hostages, his own countrymen, and American hostages as well,” Kirby said.
Kirby said U.S. President Joe Biden “won’t allow extremists to blow things off course, including extremists in Israel, making these ridiculous charges against the deal.”
The far-right minister this week suggested that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.
His comments drew condemnation from Israel’s Western allies.
Hamas’ military wing pledges to carry out its new leader’s wishes
BEIRUT — The military wing of Hamas has paid allegiance to the group’s new leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was chosen earlier this week.
In a statement posted online, spokesman Abu Obaida added that the Qassam Brigades is ready to carry out all of Sinwar’s decisions.
He added that choosing Sinwar to replace “our martyred leader Ismail Haniyeh shows that Hamas is coherent and strong.”
Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel, was chosen earlier this week to lead Hamas after his predecessor, Haniyeh, was killed in an attack in Iran. The attack has been blamed on Israel.
American pro-Palestinian activist says he was shot by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank
JERUSALEM — An American pro-Palestinian activist says he was shot by Israeli soldiers Friday while protecting Palestinians at a demonstration in the West Bank.
Activist Amado Sison bore a gunshot wound in his right thigh but was in stable condition Friday following the shooting. He spoke to The Associated Press from his hospital bed in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Sison said Israeli forces shot him at a protest in the West Bank village of Beita, which he’d attended to guard Palestinian protesters from Israeli forces and to film any acts of violence.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the shooting.
The soldiers shot live ammunition and teargas at the activists, he said, hitting him in the back of the leg as he tried to flee.
“We ran to the olive groves, through the olive groves, and they shot me in the back of the legs,” Sison said.
Sison is from New Jersey and traveled to the West Bank earlier this week, he said.
“As internationals, we support Palestinians, we take their lead, we are nonviolent,” he said.
When asked about the incident by the AP, a U.S. government spokesperson said they were aware of reports that an American citizen had been injured, but could not provide information due to privacy considerations.
Though violence in the West Bank has flared since Oct. 7, shootings of foreigners by Israeli forces are rare.
Since Oct. 7, 620 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, many in stepped-up Israeli raids on Palestinian towns and cities.
Hamas official killed in Lebanon by an Israeli drone strike
BEIRUT — An Israeli drone strike hit a car in a southern Lebanese city on Friday, killing a Hamas official.
Hamas said in a statement that the strike occurred before sunset on the southern entrance of the port city of Sidon and near one of the roads that lead to the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, Lebanon’s largest.
Samer al-Haj, a Hamas official in charge of security in Ein el-Hilweh, was killed in the strike, Hamas said.
The Israeli military confirmed it targeted al-Haj, saying he was recruiting people to carry out attacks against Israel. The military vowed to target Hamas officials everywhere.
The strike turned the SUV to a ball of fire on a main road and one body was seen being taken away minutes after the drone strike.
Over the past months, several Hamas officials were killed in Lebanon in airstrikes blamed on Israel.
In January, the most senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Saleh Arouri, was killed in a Beirut airstrike that was blamed on Israel.
Lebanon welcomes call for more talks between Israel and Hamas
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker government has welcomed the call by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar for Israel and Hamas to return to stalled talks, saying this reflects Beirut’s vision for de-escalation in the region.
The government said in a statement Friday that “it is necessary to put an end to the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
The Lebanese government added that pressure should be put on Israel, saying it’s the only side that is escalating the situation and putting obstacles to block the reaching of a deal.
There was no comment from the militant Hezbollah group that has been attacking Israeli military posts since early October. Hezbollah has said that it will only stop firing toward Israel once the war in Gaza comes to and end.
France and Germany back call to resume cease-fire talks
PARIS — France and Germany expressed their support Friday for a call by the United States, Egypt and Qatar for a new round of talks either in Doha or Cairo on reaching a cease-fire in the war in Gaza and a release of hostages.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the war in Gaza must end amid fears of it morphing into a regional conflict following the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran and in Beirut.
“The war in Gaza must stop,” Macron said in a post in English and French on X. He added: “It’s crucial for the people of Gaza, for the hostages, and for the stability of the region, which is at stake today.”
In Germany, a spokesman said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also strongly supported the call issued Thursday by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar for the stalled cease-fire talks to resume without delay.
Quds Force chief says Iran will avenge killing of Hamas leader
BEIRUT — Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force chief Ismail Qaani says in a letter to the new leader of Hamas that Tehran will avenge the killing of his predecessor who was killed in the Iranian capital last week.
The letter, of which a copy was seen by The Associated Press, came days after the leadership of Hamas chose Yahya Sinwar as its new leader replacing the late Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed during a visit to Iran.
Since Haniyeh was killed in an explosion during a visit to Iran, tension has been rising in the region as Tehran blamed Israel for his death and vowed to retaliate.
“We are preparing to avenge his blood, a painful and difficult incident that happened in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is our duty,” Qaani told Sinwar about Haniyeh. He didn’t elaborate on how Teheran will avenge Haniyeh’s death.
Qaani said that Haniyeh’s blood will “make the harsh punishment to the Zionist entity at the hand of the Islamic Republic” harsher that previous ones.
He was apparently referring to the mid-April missile and drone attack that Iran launched against Israel to avenge an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian Consulate in the Syrian capital in which two Iranian generals were killed.
Qaani vowed in the letter to Sinwar that Tehran “will be with you on the road of resistance until we achieve the divine promise which is to clear Jerusalem.”
Man wounded in Hezbollah drone attack on Israel earlier this week has died
JERUSALEM — A man who was seriously wounded by a Hezbollah drone attack on Israel earlier this week succumbed to his wounds Friday, hospital officials said.
The man was identified as Michail Samara, 27, by the spokesperson for Galilee Medical Center, Gal Zaid.
Samara was brought to the hospital in serious condition after Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a drone attack Tuesday on northern Israel, wounding at least seven people, in response to the killing of one of its fighters in an Israeli airstrike.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged cross-border fire since Oct. 8. On the Israeli side, the fighting has killed more than 20 soldiers and more than 20 civilians. In Lebanon, around 100 civilians and more than 430 militants have been killed.
UN official condemns Israeli official’s comments about starving Palestinians
GENEVA — The U.N. human rights chief is adding his voice to condemnation of comments by Israel’s far-right finance minister, who alluded to allowing Gaza’s population to starve until hostages are released.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a speech Monday that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk was “shocked and appalled” by the comments that “incite hatred against innocent civilians,” rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said Friday.
“The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime. The collective punishment of the Palestinian population is also a war crime. This direct and public statement risks inciting other atrocity crimes,” Laurence told a briefing in Geneva. Some of Israel’s Western allies have already condemned Smotrich comments.
International court judges mull arguments over arrest warrants
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dozens of countries, academics and rights groups have filed legal arguments either rejecting or supporting the International Criminal Court’s power to issue arrest warrants in its investigation into the war in Gaza and the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.
The submissions filed this week come as a panel of judges considers a request by the court’s chief prosecutor for warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the recently promoted leaders of Hamas.
Israel strongly rejects the court’s request for warrants for its leaders and insists it adheres to international law in the devastating conflict in Gaza that was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks.
11 killed and 9 wounded in eastern Syria
BEIRUT — Pro-government Syrians attacked a village held by United States-backed fighters in eastern Syria early Friday, killing at least 11 people, including children, the U.S.-backed force and an opposition war monitor said.
Pro-government media outlets, meanwhile, blamed a separate attack in which nine were injured in the village of Bouleil on members of the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The SDF and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said seven people under the age of 18 were part of the 11 total killed in Dahla and Jdaidet Bakkara. The SDF said pro-government Syrian fighters fired rockets from their positions from Bouleil.
Syrian state-run media said the SDF shelled Bouleil with mortar rounds, wounding nine people. It gave no further details.
Some Western envoys boycott Japan’s 79th anniversary of atomic bombing
TOKYO — Nagasaki marked the 79th anniversary of its atomic bombing at the end of World War II at a ceremony Friday that was eclipsed by the absence of the American ambassador and other Western envoys in response to the city’s refusal to invite Israel.
Mayor Shiro Suzuki, in a speech at Nagasaki Peace Park, called for nuclear weapon states and those under their nuclear umbrellas, including Japan, to abolish the weapons.
He warned that the world faces “a critical situation” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and accelerating conflicts in the Middle East.
More than 2,000 people, including representatives from 100 countries, attended Friday’s ceremony. But ambassadors from the United States and five other Group of Seven nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom — and the European Union were absent. Their countries sent lower-ranking envoys in response to Suzuki’s decision not to invite Israel.
The atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, killed 70,000 people, three days after it bombed Hiroshima and killed 140,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, ending World War II and its nearly half-century of aggression across Asia.
3 suspected Houthi attacks target a ship off Yemen, authorities say
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Three suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, including one that saw private security guards shoot and destroy a bomb-loaded drone boat, authorities said Friday.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a monthslong campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over the war in Gaza.
After a recent two-week pause, their attacks resumed following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, amid concerns of a wider regional war. Iran backs the Houthis as part of what it calls a regional “Axis of Resistance.”
“The operations are ongoing — our operations toward occupied Palestine to target the Israeli enemy, our operations at sea, the inevitable forthcoming response,” warned Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi in a speech Thursday.
The Houthis have targeted more than 70 vessels with missiles and drones in a campaign that has killed four sailors since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The rebels maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of a campaign they say seeks to force an end to the war. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the war, including some bound for Iran.