Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Israel said Monday that it has terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza, in what appeared to be a step to implement legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency and prevent it from operating in Israel.

Israel says the agency, known as UNRWA, has been infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA denies the allegations and says it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

On Sunday, Israel said its troops had carried out a ground raid into Syria to seize a Syrian it accuses of working with Iran. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced its troops operated in Syrian territory.

Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last year, at least 2,900 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports, not including Friday’s toll. Health authorities say that a quarter of those killed were women and children.

More than a year of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

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Here’s the latest:

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is stepping up criticism of Israel for not doing enough to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza as a 30-day deadline for Israeli officials to meet certain requirements or face potential sanctions looms.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday gave Israel a “fail” grade in terms of meeting the conditions for an improvement in aid deliveries to Gaza laid out in a letter last month to senior Israeli officials by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He said there were still roughly nine days until the deadline expires, but that limited progress thus far has been insufficient.

“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around,” Miller told reporters. “We have seen an increase in some measurements. But if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met.”

Miller also said the U.S. is studying a decision by the Israeli government to sever ties with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

At the same time, Miller said the U.S. is “deeply concerned” by a recent escalation in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank.

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has responded to Israel’s announcement that it is terminating the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres on Monday stressed that UNRWA is essential and there is no alternative.

Israel sent a letter notifying the U.N. General Assembly that it was terminating its agreement for UNRWA to operate in the Palestinian territories that has been in effect since the end of the 1967 Mideast war.

The letter follows the Israeli parliament’s adoption of two laws banning UNRWA from operating in the Palestinian territories. The laws take effect in 90 days.

Dujarric said that if the laws are fully implemented and it is impossible for UNRWA to operate, Israel will be responsible for providing Palestinians in the territories with humanitarian goods and services as well as education and health care.

“Obviously, our lawyers and UNRWA’s lawyers are also taking a closer look at the letter,” the U.N. spokesman said.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric delivered Guterres’ reaction Monday to the letter notifying the U.N. General Assembly, which established UNRWA in 1949, that Israel was withdrawing its agreement for the agency to operate in the Palestinian territories that has been in effect since the end of the 1967 Mideast war.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A senior Hamas official said Monday members of the militant group held a meeting with a delegation from the rival Fatah party in Cairo to discuss the war in Gaza and the enclave’s future governance, though the meeting did not lead to any major breakthroughs.

Osama Hamdan described the talks between the two heavyweights of Palestinian politics as “positive” but “frank.” He said the two sides discussed the formation of a future government for the Palestinian territories but provided few details as to how and when that would occur.

“During this meeting, many ideas were discussed, including the formation of a body to follow up on Gaza’s affairs and needs on various issues until the conditions are ready to form a national consensus government,” Hamdan said.

In July, Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a government together, in its latest attempt at resolving a longstanding rivalry that looms over any potential vision for the rule of Gaza after the war with Israel. Israel has said it will not allow Hamas or Fatah to have any role in the future governance of Gaza

Hamdan reiterated Hamas’ position on the cease-fire talks, demanding that any deal bring about a complete end to the war and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syria’s state news agency reported an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus, saying it caused material damage but not casualties.

SANA says the Monday airstrike hit near the suburb of Sayida Zeinab. Iran-backed groups are active in the area south of the capital, which is home to a holy Shiite Muslim shrine.

The Israeli military said the air force struck Hezbollah targets belonging to the group’s intelligence headquarters in Syria.

The military said in a statement that the target hit was Hezbollah’s central intelligence body, responsible for intelligence assessments, the direction of intelligence activities, and the intelligence gathering and detection capabilities.

The military said the body was led by Mahmoud Mohammed Shaheen, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb last month.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 3,000 people have been killed during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. At least 13,492 have been injured.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel the day after Hamas’ surprise attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the war in Gaza. Hezbollah and Hamas are both allied with Iran.

The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on south and east Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, leaving hundreds dead and leading to the displacement of nearly 1.2 million people.

Israel began a ground invasion of south Lebanon on Oct. 1, causing wide destruction in border villages but making little advances on the ground inside Lebanon.

In Israel, 72 people have been killed from Hezbollah attacks, including 30 soldiers.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Gaza Health Ministry says ambulances are no longer operating in the north of the enclave, where Israel has been waging a renewed offensive for nearly a month.

Eyad Zaqout, a senior ministry official, told reporters Monday that “a large number of injured people are bleeding on the roads.”

The ministry also said in a statement that Israeli forces continue to bombard Kamal Adwan Hospital with strikes on Monday, injuring some staff and patients.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said last week that they were no longer able to operate in the north because crews had been fired upon by Israeli forces.

Israel launched its latest offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped. It has also carried out strikes in nearby Beit Lahiya.

Israel has ordered the entire population in northern Gaza to evacuate, and tens of thousands have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks.

The three hospitals serving the northern areas are barely functioning and have been largely cut off by the fighting. Israeli forces raided one of them, saying militants were sheltering there, allegations denied by Palestinian officials.

Israel has also sharply reduced the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, even after a warning from the United States that it could jeopardize American military support.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials said Israeli settlers were behind an attack in which several cars were torched overnight just a few kilometers (miles) away from the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

No one was wounded in the attack overnight into Monday in Al-Bireh, a city adjacent to Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered. An Associated Press reporter counted 18 burned-out cars.

Settler attacks on Palestinians and their property have surged since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel.

But attacks in and around Ramallah, home to senior Palestinian officials and international missions, are rare.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers population centers in the territory, condemned the attack. Israeli police, who handle law enforcement matters involving settlers in the West Bank, said they were investigating.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. The territory’s 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy over less than half of the territory.

Over 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in scores of settlements across the West Bank, which most of the international community considers illegal.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel said Monday it had terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza.

It appeared to be the first step in implementing legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency, which Israel says has been infiltrated by Hamas, and prevent it from operating in Israel.

The agency, known as UNRWA, denies the allegations and says it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had notified the U.N. of the cancellation of an agreement dating back to 1967 that facilitates UNRWA’s work. It said UNRWA “is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution.”

Aid groups have warned that the legislation could severely hamper UNRWA’s work, creating further obstacles to addressing a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel has said other U.N. agencies and aid groups can fill the gap, but those organizations say UNRWA is essential.

The agency provides education, health and other basic services to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

The air and ground operation has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry. After Palestinian terrorist group Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on October 7, 2023, Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in Gaza.

As a result, the number of Palestinians fleeing to other nations seeking refuge-including Australia-has increased. But there’s a sharp difference in Australia when it comes to visa approval statistics; most Palestinian applications are turned down, but a disproportionately high number of Israeli visas are approved.

According to News Corp Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed that out of the 10,033 applications launched in the past 10 months, 7111 were rejected, while 2922 Palestinians were granted entry into Australia. Out of the 2922 figure, about 1300 refugees have resettled into Australia, who are understood to largely be on short-term visas.

Meanwhile, 8746 Israeli citizens have been granted visas since the October 7 attacks, with 235 applications rejected.

The report was released concurrently with calls by main opposition leader Peter Dutton to stop the entry of Palestinians from Gaza on the grounds that they were a threat to national security.

“I don’t think people should be coming in from that war zone at all at the moment,” Dutton said on Wednesday. “It’s not prudent to do so, and I think it puts our national security at risk.”

His remarks were a reaction to what happened on Tuesday, when Coalition Members of Parliament wrote to Tony Burke, urging him to tighten the process of evaluating visa applications from Gaza to make sure they had no support for Hamas. As it stands, applicants are only rejected if they are found to have given financial or material support to Hamas.

People search the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment at the Jaouni school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

Israel’s military said its aircraft had targeted “terrorists” operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which condemned the strike as an “odious massacre”, said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.

Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.

The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were “children, women, and elderly”.

“This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning,” said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Koran in a class when the missile hit.

Also read | Israeli strikes in Rafah: At least 37 Palestinians, most in tents, killed

“Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured,” she told AFP.

Hamas called the attack “a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people”.

The Israeli military said in a statement it “struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA’s Al-Jawni school”.

“This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,” it added, insisting that “steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

‘No place is safe’

Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.

The Al-Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.

The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.

An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency’s facilities have been hit and many were shelters. “As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,” the spokesperson told AFP.

Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.

“Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry there.

Cairo:

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Monday Israel had blocked him from entering the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip where the UN has warned of impending famine.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said he had “intended to go into Rafah today, but was informed my entry had been declined,” speaking in a Cairo joint press conference with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

Lazzarini later wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities”, a claim Israel did not immediately comment on.

The UN agency, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

This led multiple donor nations including the United States to suspend funding although some of them have since resumed or increased it including Spain, Canada and Australia.

Israeli authorities did not respond to an AFP request for comment, but government spokesman Avi Hyman earlier Monday reiterated what he called Israel’s position, that “UNRWA is a front for Hamas”.

Shoukry expressed Cairo’s “complete support” for the agency and criticised “unilateral actions to restrict UNRWA funding due to baseless accusations”.

The Hamas attack of October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Hamas-controlled Gaza has killed at least 31,726 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

‘Man-made starvation’

Among the dead are 168 UNRWA employees, according to the agency’s latest figures.

Lazzarini on Monday said the UN has paid a “massive price in Gaza”.

“More than 150 of our facilities have been completely destroyed in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“And a number of our staff were arrested and endured ill-treatment and humiliation during investigation.”

In more than five months of war and siege, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated to what the UN has repeatedly warned is an imminent famine.

“This is man-made starvation,” Lazzarini said.

The Gaza health ministry has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.

The UN said Monday that half of the territory’s 2.4 million people are experiencing “catastrophic hunger and starvation”.

Humanitarian aid operations have intensified in recent weeks, including airdrops and efforts for a maritime humanitarian corridor from Cyprus, but UN and other aid agencies warn that these are insufficient to meet the desperate needs in Gaza.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told a UN emergency meeting on Monday “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” accusing Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians and the forced displacement of civilians.

Philippe Lazzarini warned that a further breakdown of civil order after the agency’s warehouses were broken into by Palestinians searching for food and other aid “will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the largest UN agency in Gaza to continue operating.”

Briefings to the Security Council by Mr. Lazzarini, the head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF and a senior UN humanitarian official, painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza 23 days after Hamas’ surprise October 7 attacks in Israel, and its ongoing retaliatory military action aimed at “obliterating” the militant group, which controls Gaza.

According to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 8,300 people have been killed — 66% of them women and children — and tens of thousands injured, the UN humanitarian office said.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell that toll includes over 3,400 children killed and more than 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day — a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she said.

Mr. Lazzarini said: “This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” And he stressed, “This cannot be ‘collateral damage.’”

Many speakers at the council meeting denounced Hamas’ October 7 surprise attacks on Israel that killed over 1,400 people, and urged the release of some 230 hostages taken to Gaza by the militants. But virtually every speaker also stressed that Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and their essentials for life including hospitals, schools and other infrastructure — and Israel was criticized for cutting off food, water, fuel and medicine to Gaza and cutting communications for several days.

Mr. Lazzarini said “the handful of convoys” allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt in recent days “is nothing compared to the needs of over 2 million people trapped in Gaza.”

“The system in place to allow aid into Gaza is geared to fail,” he said, “unless there is political will to make the flow of supplies meaningful, matching the unprecedented humanitarian needs.”

The commissioner-general of the U.N. agency known as UNRWA said there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza, warning that basic services are crumbling, medicine, food, water and fuel are running out, and the streets “have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.”

UNICEF oversees water and sanitation issues for the U.N., and Russell warned that “the lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the divided Security Council — which has rejected four resolutions that would have responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the ongoing war — to come together, saying “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing more dire by the day.”

Stressing that all innocent civilians must be protected, she said the council must call “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, address the immense humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, affirm Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, and remind all actors that international humanitarian law must be respected.” She reiterated President Joe Biden’s calls for humanitarian pauses to get hostages out and allow aid in, and for safe passage for civilians.

“That means Hamas must not use Palestinians as human shields — an act of unthinkable cruelty and a violation of the law of war,” the U.S. ambassador said, “and that means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians.”

In a sign of increasing U.S. concern at the escalating Palestinian death toll, Thomas-Greenfield told the council Biden reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday “that while Israel has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism, it must do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.”

“The fact that Hamas operates within and under the cover of civilians areas creates an added burden for Israel, but it does not lessen its responsibility to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians,” she stressed.

Following the rejection of the four resolutions in the 15-member Security Council — one vetoed by the U.S., one vetoed by Russia and China, and two for failing to get the minimum nine “yes” votes — Arab nations went to the U.N. General Assembly last Friday where there are no vetoes.

The 193-member world body adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian truces leading to a cessation of hostilities by a vote of 120-14 with 45 abstentions. Now, the 10 elected members in the 15-member Security Council are trying again to negotiate a resolution that won’t be rejected. While council resolutions are legally binding, assembly resolutions are not though they are an important barometer of world opinion.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan was sharply critical of the council’s failure to condemn Hamas’ attacks and asked members: “Why are the humanitarian needs of Gazans, the sole issue, the sole issue you are focused on?”

Recalling his grandfather who survived Nazi death camps but whose his wife and seven children perished in the Auschwitz gas chamber, Erdan told the council he will wear a yellow star — just as Hitler made his grandfather and other Jews wear during World War II — “until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.”

The ambassador then put a large six-pointed yellow star of David saying “Never Again” on his suit jacket, as did other Israeli diplomats sitting behind him, and said: “We walk with the yellow star as a symbol of pride, a reminder that we swore to fight back to defend ourselves. Never again is now.”

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, also urged the Security Council to follow the General Assembly, end its paralysis, and demand “an end to this bloodshed, which constitutes an affront to humanity, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and a clear and imminent danger for regional and international peace and security.”

“Save those who still can be saved and bury in a dignified manner those who have perished,” Mansour said.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned on October 25 that without immediate deliveries of fuel it will soon have to sharply cut back relief operations across the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded and hit by devastating Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.

The warning came as hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources, and health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets continued striking the territory overnight into Wednesday.

The Israeli military said its strikes had killed militants and destroyed tunnels, command centres, weapons storehouses and other military targets, which it has accused Hamas of hiding among Gaza’s civilian population. Gaza-based militants have been launching unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the airstrikes killed at least 704 people between Monday and Tuesday, mostly women and children. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death tolls cited by Hamas, which says it tallies figures from hospital directors.

The death toll was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even greater loss of life could come when Israel launches an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants.

In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the U.S. could not verify the one-day death toll. “The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, and I think that all needs to be factored into anything that they put out publicly.”

Israel said on Tuesday it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, an increase from the 320 strikes the day before. The U.N. says about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now internally displaced, with almost 6,00,000 crowded into U.N. shelters.

Gaza’s residents have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the attack on southern Israel by Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

In recent days, Israel allowed a small number of trucks filled with aid to come over the border with Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power hospital generators — to keep it out of Hamas’ hands.

The U.N. said it had managed to deliver some of the aid in recent days to hospitals treating the wounded. But the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the largest provider of humanitarian services in Gaza, said it was running out of fuel.

Officials said they were forced to reduce their operations as they rationed what little fuel they had.

“Without fuel our trucks cannot go around to further places in the strip for distribution,” said Lily Esposito, a spokesperson for the agency. “We will have to make decisions on what activities we keep or not with little fuel.”

Meanwhile, more than half of Gaza’s primary healthcare facilities, and roughly a third of its hospitals, have stopped functioning, the World Health Organization said.

Overwhelmed hospital staff struggled to triage cases as constant waves of wounded were brought in. The Health Ministry said many wounded are laid on the ground without even simple medical aid and others wait for days for surgeries because there are so many critical cases.

The Health Ministry says more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors. The figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas is also holding some 222 people that it captured and brought back to Gaza.

The conflict threatened to spread across the region, as Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military sites in the south on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding seven, according to Syria’s state-run SANA news agency.

The Israeli military said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, its jets had struck Syrian military infrastructure and mortar systems in response to rocket launches from Syria.

Israel has launched several strikes on Syria in recent days, including strikes that put the Damascus and Aleppo airports out of service, in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has been fighting the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah across the Lebanese border in recent weeks.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met on Wednesday with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in their first reported meeting since the war started. Such a meeting could signal coordination between the groups, as Hezbollah officials warned Israel against launching a ground offensive in Gaza.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Iran was helping Hamas, with intelligence and by “whipping up incitement against Israel across the world.” He said Iranian proxies were also operating against Israel from Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Fighting also erupted in the West Bank, which has seen a major spike in violence.

Islamic Jihad militants said they fought with Israeli forces in Jenin overnight. The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israel killed four Palestinians in Jenin, including a 15-year-old, and two others in other towns. That brought the total number of those killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 102.

Across central and south Gaza, where Israel told civilians to take shelter, there were multiple scenes of rescuers pulling the dead and wounded out of large piles of rubble from collapsed buildings. Graphic photos and video shot by the AP showed rescuers unearthing bodies of children from multiple ruins.

A father knelt on the floor of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah next to the bodies of three lifeless children cocooned in bloodied sheets. Later, at the nearby morgue, workers prayed over 24 dead wrapped in body bags, several of them the size of small children.

“Buildings that collapsed on residents killed dozens at a time in several cases, witnesses said. Two families lost 47 members in a levelled home in Rafah,” the Health Ministry said.

In Gaza City, at least 19 people were killed when an airstrike hit the house of the Bahloul family, according to survivors, who said dozens more remained buried. The legs of a dead woman and another person, both still half buried, dangled out of the wreckage where workers dug through the dirt, concrete and rebar.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the proportionate response to the October 7 attack is “a total destruction” of the militants. “It is not only Israel’s right to destroy Hamas. It’s our duty,” he said.

On Wednesday, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said his country will stop issuing visas to U.N. personnel after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” It was unclear what the action, if followed through with, would mean for U.N. aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.

“It’s time to teach them a lesson,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the U.N. chief of justifying a slaughter.

The U.N. chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Mr. Guterres also said “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian Territories:

As Gaza’s hospital morgues overflow with victims killed in Israel’s bombardment triggered by a deadly Hamas attack, even an ice-cream truck has been used to hold corpses before their burial.

Israel has been pounding Gaza targets for days, seeking to wipe out the enclave’s rulers, Hamas, after its militants broke through the militarized border barrier on October 7 to kill more than 1,400 people in southern Israel.

Israel’s air strikes have claimed at least 2,750 lives in Gaza, where mortuaries with capacity only for dozens are filling up more quickly than relatives can claim them.

At the carpark of the hospital in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, a white truck covered with posters of ice-cream sticks is now packed with corpses wrapped in white body bags.

Among them are multiple members of Talaat Abu Lashine’s family.

“Two shells fell on the house at dawn. Sixteen people were at home, including eight children who were sleeping peacefully,” he said.

In Gaza City, a little further north, where tens of thousands of inhabitants have heeded Israel’s warning to flee south ahead of an expected ground invasion, many bodies were simply left behind in the mortuaries.

“Given the large number of martyrs lying unclaimed in the morgue of al-Shifa hospital, the deterioration of the corpses, and the continued arrival” of dozens more, “a common grave has been prepared to bury around 100” of them, said Salama Maruf, head of the media bureau for the Hamas government that runs Gaza.

‘Lots of children’

Even body bags are now in short supply, said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

“Every story coming out of Gaza is about survival, despair, and loss,” he said.

“Sometimes we don’t even have time to write the names” of the dead because there are just too many of them, said Ihsan al-Natour, who works at a cemetery in southern Gaza’s Rafah.

“There are lots of children among the martyrs,” he said, adding that “we are burying three or four in each grave.”

Gaza’s ministry of religious affairs has recommended using common graves because of the large numbers of deaths and a shortage of burial space, as Muslim funeral rites also require burials to take place as quickly as possible.

Hamas, which has controlled the enclave since 2007, said Monday that 1,000 bodies could still be under rubble and warned of diseases spreading.

In Rafah, residents prepared new graves, placing bricks and tiles around mounds of freshly dug earth.

In one of them, three bodies of children were stacked on top of each other. There wasn’t enough space to lay them to rest separately.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)