Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip flee from parts of Khan Younis following an evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave the eastern part of Gaza Strip's second largest city, Monday, July 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of part of a crowded area in the Gaza Strip it had designated a humanitarian zone, while the Health Ministry in Gaza says over 39,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the nine-month war.

The military said Monday it plans an operation against Hamas militants who have embedded themselves in the area and used it to launch rockets toward Israel. The area includes the eastern part of the Muwasi humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.

Earlier this month, Israel said it estimates at least a million Palestinians are now in the humanitarian zone that covers about 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) along the Mediterranean. Much of the area is full of tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid.

The announcements came during delicate negotiations seeking a cease-fire. Egypt, Qatar and the United States are pushing Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would stop the fighting and free the remaining hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has said a negotiating team will be sent to continue talks on Thursday.

Netanyahu left Monday for Washington, where he will make a speech before the U.S. Congress and meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Here’s the latest:

Israeli airstrikes damaged Yemeni fuel storage facilities, U.N. official says

UNITED NATIONS — Israeli airstrikes on western Yemen’s port city of Hodeida damaged fuel storage facilities that burst into flames still visible on Monday and also damaged cranes and at least one vessel docked in the key port controlled by Houthi rebels, a senior U.N. official says.

Retired Maj. Gen. Michael Beary, head of the U.N. mission in Hodeida, told the Security Council that a mission patrol observed the impact of Saturday’s airstrikes on Monday, including fire and thick smoke and some ongoing firefighting activities.

He said there were four vessels in the port, including the Neptune J, which was carrying food from the U.N. World Food Program for Yemenis who are facing a dire humanitarian crisis. Fortunately, he said, the ship only suffered minor damage from a falling crane.

Beary said that shortly after 6 p.m. local time on Saturday the U.N. mission “registered loud explosions lasting over 10 minutes” at its headquarters in the port area, which Israel subsequently said were targeted at Hodeida, a crucial entry point for aid and commercial goods.

The Israeli airstrikes targeted Hodeida’s ports, fuel storage facilities and port cranes 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) north of the U.N. mission’s headquarters, he said. The strikes also hit the Ras Khatib power station 20 kilometers (12 miles) from U.N. headquarters, and military police offices 12 kilometers (7 miles) northwest of the U.N. offices.

Israel said the strikes, carried out by dozens of aircraft, including U.S.-made F-15 and F-35 warplanes, were a response to hundreds of Houthi attacks.

The Health Ministry in Yemen said the Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 83 others, many with severe burns from the fire.

Yemen’s civil war erupted in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and took over the capital, forcing the government to flee to the south and then exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power. Since then, the conflict has turned into a proxy war between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran, which backs the Houthis.

The U.N. mission was established to monitor and support a 2018 truce agreement reached at U.N.-brokered talks in Sweden that called on both sides to withdraw from Hodeida and its outskirts – which has not happened.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions agree to form a unity government

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Hamas and Fatah, the main faction in the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, said they and other Palestinian factions had agreed to form a unity government during talks in China on Tuesday.

The broad agreement is the latest move to revive long-stalled efforts between the rival factions to form a government for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. With Israel vowing to destroy Hamas in the war on Gaza, the Palestinians could try to present a unity government as an alternative to Hamas’ rule over the territory.

But a joint statement issued after the talking in Beijing gave no details on how or when the government would be formed, saying only that it would be done “by agreement among the factions.” Since Hamas and Fatah first promised to end their rivalry in 2011, repeated attempts at unity governments have fallen apart.

Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007, forcing out the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which administers scattered pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel has refused any scenario that would see Hamas participating in governing in the West Bank or Gaza and has rejected U.S. calls for the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza after the war is over. The lack of a post-war vision for running Gaza has complicated negotiations over a cease-fire in the nearly 10-month-old war in Gaza.

Tuesday’s joint statement from Beijing was signed by 14 Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad, which fights alongside Hamas in Gaza, and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Frequent evacuation orders are devastating Gaza's health system, U.N. says

UNITED NATIONS – Families have started fleeing an eastern Gaza area toward already overcrowded Deir al Balah, and in southern Khan Younis the Nasser Medical Complex issued a new call for blood donations for dozens of new casualties on Monday, the U.N. says.

The Israeli military ordered the evacuation earlier Monday of part of the eastern area that had been designated a humanitarian zone, saying it was planning an operation against Hamas militants there.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. humanitarian officials report that the frequent evacuation orders and relentless hostilities are further devastating Gaza’s health system – making it increasingly difficult for people who have been repeatedly displaced to access essential services.

He said humanitarian officials are also warning that aid workers in Gaza continue to face enormous risk.

The U.N. spokesman pointed to Israeli forces shooting at a clearly marked U.N. convoy from the agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA that was heading north to Gaza City on Sunday.

According to Dujarric, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini reported that UNRWA personnel had to duck and one of the U.N. armored vehicles was severely damaged while waiting just ahead of the Israeli forces’ checkpoint south of Wadi Gaza.

“He said the convoy’s movement was coordinated with the Israeli authorities – and those responsible for yesterday’s incident must be held to account,” Dujarric said.

U.N. humanitarian officials also report severe water shortages in Gaza.

Between July 8 and July 21, Dujarric said, the daily average supply of water in the territory was about 90,000 cubic meters, about a quarter of the amount produced before Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war.

“Damage to infrastructure, the lack of electricity, and shortages of fuel, spare parts and chlorine continue to hamper water production and purification, as well as sewage pumping,” Dujarric said.

Gaza death toll now tops 39,000

The toll in Gaza since the war began is now over 39,000. That's according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry doesn't distinguish between Palestinian civilians and combatants in its count.

The new toll comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes his way to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden and address Congress to make his case in the nine-month war against Hamas.

New Israeli strikes near the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least 37 people on Monday, according to the ministry, the morgue at Nasser Hospital and journalists who saw the bodies. The strikes took place as hundreds of people were evacuating following a new order from the Israeli military.

Deaths of two Israeli hostages announced

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military announced on Monday the deaths of two Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.

The military said that they had determined the deaths of Yagev Buchshtab, 35, and Alex Dancyg, 76, who were kidnapped from their homes in southern Israel on Oct. 7, based on intelligence.

The military did not say when the hostages had died.

Dancyg, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, marked his 76th birthday on Sunday. According to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, Dancyg worked for over 30 years at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and passed time in captivity by giving history lectures to the other hostages.

Yagev Buchstab, 35, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nirim on Oct. 7 along with his wife, Rimon Buchshtab-Kirsht. Rimon was released during the November ceasefire deal after 50 days in captivity.

There are approximately 120 hostages still being held in Gaza, though Israel believes more than 40 are no longer alive.

Monday’s announcement heightens pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire proposal that could secure the return of the hostages still held in Gaza and end the nine-month war.

Netanyahu left for a trip to the United States on Monday morning, accompanied by some of the families of the hostages and released hostages. Other families of the hostages pleaded with Netanyahu to reach a deal before he left for the trip, worried that time was running out.

A negotiating team will be sent to continue talks on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

Displaced Palestinians evacuate once again from parts of the Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Thousands of Palestinians collected their belongings and once again began evacuating part of the area of the Gaza Strip designated by the Israeli military as a humanitarian zone.

“We were displaced from the eastern regions, they called us to evacuate, we took our children and left,” said Osama Qudeih. “There was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip … We went out walking in the streets, not knowing where to go.” Thousands of families carrying backpacks and children walked down dusty roads under the scorching summer sun, navigating dilapidated cars filled with belongings tied on top.

Another woman collapsed in exhaustion after saying it was her seventh or eighth displacement. “Every day we are displaced,” said Kholoud al-Dadas, as she clutched her children. “Where are the countries? Where is the world, where are the presidents, where are they? Come and see how we are, our children, and what is happening to us.”

The area slated for evacuation included the eastern part of the al-Muwasi humanitarian zone, in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military called for an evacuation because it said that Hamas militants had embedded themselves in the area and launched frequent rockets towards Israel.

Additionally, one person was killed and three injured in a strike outside the Al Aqsa hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah on Monday morning, according to an Associated Press journalist on the scene.

Overnight, at least 15 people, including four women and six children, were killed in strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials and a body count by an Associated Press journalist. The Israeli military did not have immediate comment.

Israeli military says 1 person killed after he tried to stab Israeli forces

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said that one person was killed after he attempted to stab Israeli security forces with a knife at the entrance to an Israeli town along the Gaza border on Monday morning.

According to Israel’s Army Radio, the attacker arrived at the security checkpoint by car and in English started accusing Israel of carrying out atrocities in Gaza, before reaching into his car and taking out a knife. Security forces shot and killed the man. There were no other injuries reported.

The attack took place at the entrance of the Israeli town of Netiv Haasara, which is just 300 meters (yards) north of the Gaza border. Israeli police confirmed that the attacker was a Canadian citizen.

On Oct. 7, Netiv HaAsara was attacked and 20 residents were killed, after the gunmen passed over the concrete border wall using paragliders, according to Israeli military officials. Israel has experienced a wave of stabbing attacks across the country during the nine-month war in Gaza, though few have taken place along the Israel-Gaza border, which has heavy military presence.

Israel's Netanyahu heads to Washington

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington on Monday, leaving behind a brutal war to make a politically precarious speech before the U.S. Congress at a time of great uncertainty following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race.

With efforts ongoing to bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, raising concerns about the war spreading to Lebanon and Yemen, and the U.S. in the midst of a dizzying election campaign, Netanyahu’s speech has the potential to cause disarray on both sides of the ocean.

The risks only increased with Biden’s decision Sunday to drop out of the race for president, especially since the choice of a replacement Democratic nominee — and the potential next American leader — are still up in the air.

Before stepping on the plane, Netanyahu said he would emphasize the theme of Israel’s bipartisanship in his speech and said Israel would remain America’s key ally in the Middle East “regardless who the American people choose as their next president.”

“In this time of war and uncertainty, it’s important that Israel’s enemies know that America and Israel stand together,” he said, adding that he will meet Biden during his trip and thank him for his support for Israel.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday. He is also expected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Israel shoots down a missile fired from Yemen

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen early Sunday, hours after Israeli warplanes struck several Houthi targets in the Arabian Peninsula country.

The Israeli airstrikes — in response to a deadly Houthi drone strike on Tel Aviv — were the first time Israel is known to have responded to repeated Houthi attacks throughout its nine-month war against Hamas. The burst of violence between the distant enemies has threatened to open a new front as Israel battles a series of Iranian proxies across the region.

The Israeli army late Saturday confirmed the airstrikes in the western Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold and crucial entry point for aid and other supplies. It said the strikes, carried out by dozens of aircraft, including U.S.-made F-15 and F-35 warplanes, were a response to hundreds of Houthi attacks.

The Health Ministry in Yemen said the Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 83 others, many with severe burns from a major fire. Another three people were missing, the ministry said in a statement shared by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024