Live updates | UN aid resolution and diplomatic efforts could yield some relief for Gaza
The U.N. Security Council has a long-delayed vote scheduled for Thursday on a new resolution about desperately needed aid to Gaza, where the Israel-Hamas war has created a dire humanitarian crisis.
Tens of thousands of people are crammed into shelters and tent camps amid shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies. Israel’s foreign minister traveled to Cyprus to discuss the possibility of establishing a maritime corridor that would allow the delivery of large amounts of humanitarian aid.
At least 46 people were killed and more than 100 wounded Wednesday after Israel bombarded the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, according to a senior official in the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The Israeli military said its troops located “ a vast tunnel network ” under Gaza City that included command and control positions, meeting rooms and hideout apartments for the most senior Hamas leaders.
Nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel says more than 130 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking about 240 hostages.
Currently:
— US and Arab nations engage in diplomacy to avoid veto of UN resolution on aid for Gaza
— Israel says it uncovered an underground Hamas command center in Gaza City
— U.S. defense secretary makes an unannounced visit to an aircraft carrier stationed near Israel
— Israel wants to fast-track humanitarian aid to Gaza via a maritime corridor from Cyprus
— A Palestinian baby born during the Gaza war is killed with her brother in an Israeli strike
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
UN HEALTH OFFICIAL SEES RISE IN AMPUTATIONS AT GAZA HOSPITALS
JERUSALEM — A World Health Organization official who visited two hospitals in Gaza’s devastated north in recent days described dire conditions there.
Sean Casey said in a briefing that the Al-Ahli Hospital and Shifa Hospital were overwhelmed with sick and critically wounded people. WHO says the hospitals are barely able to function because of a shortage of staff, electricity and basic supplies.
Casey described a rise in amputations in the north, including among small children, that would not have been necessary if proper health services were available.
“There’s no surgery happening right now in northern Gaza,” Casey said. He also said nearly everyone he met was hungry.
Israel ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, which includes Gaza City and was home to over 1 million people, in the early days of the war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Ground troops isolated the north later that month.
But tens of thousands of residents remain there, including many who were unable to leave or did not feel anywhere else would be safer as Israel bombards all parts of the besieged territory.
ISRAELI SHELLING TARGETING HEZBOLLAH KILLS LEBANESE WOMAN
BEIRUT — Israeli shelling in the Lebanese border town of Maroun El-Ras Thursday killed an elderly woman in her 80s and wounded her husband, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.
The Israeli military said that it launched artillery and airstrikes on Hezbollah militant positions in southern Lebanon late Wednesday and early Thursday. It did not immediately comment on the strike that was reported to have killed the Lebanese civilian.
Israeli forces and members of Hezbollah have clashed along the Lebanon-Israel border almost daily since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. Lebanese state media said Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes deep inside Lebanon late Wednesday, hitting a forested area more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border.
Earlier in the day, Hezbollah announced it had launched surface-to-air missiles at Israeli military helicopters. The group later announced that one of its fighters had been killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the town of Markaba.
More than 110 Hezbollah fighters and at least 16 civilians have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border, while at least nine soldiers and five civilians have been killed on the Israeli side during the Israel-Hamas war.
ISRAELI TROOPS ENTER ‘VAST TUNNEL NETWORK’ UNDER GAZA CITY
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said troops located “a vast tunnel network” under Gaza City that included command and control positions, meeting rooms and hideout apartments for the most senior leaders of Hamas, including Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.
Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said on Wednesday that the rooms were 20 meters (60 feet) underground with elevators, stairs, separate water and electricity shafts, and with water, food, weapons and communications equipment stored for a prolonged stay. He said one of the rooms was an “underground hall” 150 meters (yards) across.
The military shared videos of what it said were the underground structures, showing tunnels with concrete walls, blast doors, ventilation systems, security cameras, electronic equipment, and long staircases descending deep into the earth. The military said the complex was centered on Palestine Square in central Gaza City, under stores, government offices and civilian apartment buildings.
Hamas is known to have built kilometers (miles) of tunnels, dubbed the “Gaza metro”, under the coastal enclave to operate in safety from Israeli aircraft.
HAMAS LEADER’S TRIP TO CAIRO AROUSES HOPES FOR ANOTHER CEASE-FIRE
Hamas’ top leader traveled to Cairo on Wednesday for talks on the war in Gaza, part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at securing another cease-fire and swap of hostages for Palestinian prisoners at a moment when Israel’s offensive shows no signs of slowing.
Hamas militants in Gaza have put up stiff resistance as the Israeli army claims to be making great progress in eradicating them. The visit to Cairo by its top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, came a day after Hamas fired rockets that set off air raid sirens in central Israel.
Israel has called on the rest of the world to blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organization, saying it must be removed from power in Gaza in the wake of its Oct. 7 rampage across southern Israel that triggered the war.
But the sides have recently relaunched indirect talks, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States.
“These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere,” the White House’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, said Wednesday aboard Air Force One while traveling with President Joe Biden.
