Ten Hamas fighters were killed during a large-scale Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank, the militant group said Wednesday, with troops sealing off the city of Jenin — long a militant stronghold.
Israeli forces also conducted operations, including airstrikes, in Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp. All of the locations are in the northern West Bank. Hamas said that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank.
At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the war in Gaza began nearly 11 months ago, Palestinian health officials say. Most of the fatalities come during raids that Israel says target militants.
The reports of the latest operation came a day after the Israeli military rescued a hostage who was among scores of people abducted in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, was rescued “in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip,” the military said Tuesday. Alkadi left a hospital and returned home on Wednesday.
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UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. food agency says it is “pausing” the movement of all staff in Gaza until further notice after one of its clearly marked vehicles was hit by at least 10 bullets as it was moving toward an Israeli military checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge in the center of the territory.
The World Food Program announcement Wednesday afternoon said the vehicle was struck Tuesday evening despite receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach. “None of the employees onboard were physically harmed,” WFP said.
The agency said two armored WFP vehicles were returning from the Kerem Shalom crossing after escorting a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian cargo routed to Gaza’s central area.
“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances, as per standard protocol,” the Rome-based agency said.
It called the incident “a stark reminder of the rapidly and ever shrinking humanitarian space in the Gaza Strip, where increasing violence compromises our ability to deliver life-saving assistance.”
WFP said this critical situation is exacerbated “by restricted access and heightened risks” which has led to a decrease in the amount of food reading Palestinians in desperate need.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the vehicle was struck by Israeli military gunfire, “including with bullets targeting front windows.” He said the incident shows the need for more U.N. armored vehicles, saying the two people inside the WFP vehicle were saved because it was armored.
JERUSALEM -- Israeli authorities said Wednesday that they have recovered the body of a soldier who was abducted and killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and who had since been held in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli’s military and the Shin Beit internal security agency rescued the remains of the fallen soldier in a joint operation overnight and returned them to Israel, according to a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the man’s death, saying he had fallen “in a heroic battle” on Oct. 7 while defending Israeli communities near Gaza.
“The heart of the entire nation mourns the terrible loss,” Netanyahu said.
The soldier was not identified at the family’s request.
The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. The militants are still holding 107 hostages, about a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military on Wednesday published its findings from an investigation into a deadly rampage by Israeli settlers in the West Bank earlier this month, concluding that the army did not respond decisively enough, but did not announce any punishments.
The Aug. 15 settler riot in the village of Jit, near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, killed one Palestinian and badly injured others. It triggered a rare denunciation by government leaders of the settler violence growing more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Residents said at least a hundred masked settlers entered the village, shot live ammunition at Palestinians, burned homes and cars and damaged water tankers. Video showed flames engulfing the small village, which residents said was left to defend itself without military help for two hours.
The investigation found that the first troops deployed to the scene did not assess the situation adequately, hurting the response at first.
“They attempted to disperse the rioters and prevent harm to Palestinians, but they needed to act more decisively. After a few minutes, additional reserve troops and Israel Border Police forces arrived and began to contain the rioters,” it said.
It noted that they acted to usher Palestinian families to safety.
GENEVA — The U.N. human rights office says Israel’s security operation in the West Bank risks “seriously deepening the already catastrophic situation” in Palestinian areas.
The use of airstrikes and other military weapons “violates human rights norms,” U.N. Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
She called on the Israeli government to abide by its obligations under international law “as the occupying power” in the West Bank.
At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities. Most have died during raids, which often trigger gunbattles with militants.
Shamdasani said that Israeli forces employ a “disproportionate use of force” in some cases.
“Many children have been killed while throwing stones at highly protected" Israeli forces "as have other Palestinians posing no imminent threat to life or serious injury,” she said. “Such unnecessary or disproportionate use of force and the increase in apparent targeted and other summary killings are alarming.”
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is imposing sanctions on a West Bank Jewish settler group and the security chief of another group in the latest push to target Israeli organizations and people responsible for violence against Palestinian civilians.
The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that it had imposed sanctions on Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that supports a previously designated settler outpost known as Meitarim Farm and several of its leaders. The department also imposed sanctions on Yitzhak Levi Filant, the security coordinator for Yitzhar settlement.
“Extremist settler violence in the West Bank causes intense human suffering, harms Israel’s security, and undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region,” department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
“It is critical that the government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the West Bank,” he said.
The department said that Hashomer Yosh volunteers erected fences around the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zanuta to prevent its residents from returning, after they were forced to leave in January, and also sought to guard outposts of settlers who had been previously targeted by U.S. sanctions.
It said Filant had led a group of armed settlers to set up roadblocks and conduct patrols to pursue and attack Palestinians in February.
The sanctions freeze any assets that the targets may have in U.S. jurisdictions, and generally bar Americans from doing business with them.
KARKUR, Israel — An Israeli hostage rescued from Gaza has been discharged from a hospital and returned to his home in an unincorporated Bedouin Arab village in southern Israel.
Qaid Farhan Alkadi arrived in the tiny village of Karkur to great fanfare, as members of his Bedouin community clustered around him and journalists jostled for pictures.
Surrounded by reporters, he called on the Israeli government to reach a deal to bring home all of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
“It does not matter if they are Arab or Jewish, all have a family waiting for them. They also want to feel the joy,” he said.
“I hope, I pray for an end to this,” he added, saying he had delivered the same message in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I told Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, ‘work to have an end to this.’”
Alkadi, 52, was rescued Tuesday as Israeli soldiers combed a tunnel network in southern Gaza in search of hostages, Israel’s military said.
His friend, Mazen Abu Siam, said he spent a few minutes with Alkadi and said he was very thin.
“He told us he was kept 50 meters (165 feet) underground and he wasn’t allowed to do anything, but they did allow him to pray,” Abu Siam said at the hospital, shortly before his release.
Israeli negotiators were traveling to Qatar on Wednesday for more cease-fire talks.
Israel says 108 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza. It believes roughly one third of them have died.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health officials say an Israeli airstrike hit a cluster of tents housing displaced people, killing at least eight people.
The strike occurred Wednesday near the central town of Deir al-Balah, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken. Another 10 people were wounded.
An Associated Press reporter at the hospital saw the casualties arrive.
The dead included two brothers, 6 and 17 years old. Their mother could be seen crying as the teenager’s body was taken to the morgue, saying, “He’s alive!” Later, she could be seen cradling her two sons.
Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but Palestinians say nowhere is safe more than 10 months into the Israel-Hamas war.
Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are crowded into a narrow area of squalid tent camps along the coast. Israeli evacuation orders cover nearly 90% of the besieged territory, according to U.N. agencies.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 40,534 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, which was ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Beirut — Four people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a car in Syria near the border with Lebanon, Syrian media and an official with a Lebanese group said.
The Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the strike killed one member of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and three members of the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli or Syrian officials on the strike.
The Islamic Jihad has sent a stream of fighters from Syria to join Hezbollah militants in Lebanon who have been clashing with Israeli forces along the border since Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
Israel also frequently targets Iran-backed militants in Syria, although it rarely acknowledges the strikes.
— Associated Press reporter Bassem Mroue contributed to this report
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 16 people, including five women and three children.
Most were killed in strikes overnight and into Wednesday on the southern city of Khan Younis, which has come under heavy bombardment over the past two months. Their bodies were taken to the city’s Nasser Hospital, where an Associated Press journalist confirmed the toll.
The dead include a brother and sister and their relative, who were killed in a strike on their home east of Khan Younis, the hospital said.
Another strike hit a house south of Khan Younis, killing at least five people, including two women, according to the hospital.
First responders resumed search-and-rescue efforts in a house that was flattened by an Israeli strike southeast of Khan Younis late Tuesday. They have recovered six bodies, including three children, a woman and two men, according to the hospital.
In central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike late Tuesday hit an apartment, killing Mohamed Abdrabu and his sister, Sumaia, both local journalists, said the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. An Associated Press journalist saw the bodies.
The Israeli military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas, which positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas. The army rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would extend the U.N peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon for a year and demand a halt to the escalating exchanges between Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces.
Israel and Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire across the U.N.-drawn boundary between Israel and Lebanon known as the Blue Line over the weekend, but their decades-old conflict is far from over and regional tensions linked to the war in Gaza are still high.
The French-drafted resolution demands full implementation of a 2006 resolution demanding a cessation of hostilities between the two sides and underlines “that further escalation carries the high risk of leading to a widespread conflict.”
The draft, scheduled for a vote Wednesday morning, would extend the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL until Aug. 31, 2025.
UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after a 1978 invasion.
The Security Council expanded the mission after a 2006 war between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants so that peacekeepers could deploy along the Lebanon-Israel border to help Lebanese troops extend their authority into their country’s south for the first time in decades. That resolution also called for a full cessation of Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities, which has not happened.
The resolution to be voted on Wednesday strongly urges the “relevant actors” to implement “immediate measures towards de-escalation, including with a view to restoring calm, restraint and stability across the Blue Line.”
WASHINGTON — Efforts to reach and assist the Greek-flagged tanker that remains ablaze in the Red Sea have been blocked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that the U.S. is “aware of a third party that attempted to send two tugs to the vessel to help salvage, but they were warned away by the Houthis and threatened with being attacked.”
He did not identify the “third party,” but said the Houthis’ actions demonstrate “their blatant disregard for not only human life, but also for the potential environmental catastrophe that this presents.”
A French destroyed previously rescued the crew and security personnel from the tanker.
He said U.S. Central Command has been monitoring the situation to determine how best to assist the Sounion, which is loaded with 150,000 tons (136,000 metric tons) of Iraqi crude oil, and mitigate any environmental impact.
Right now, however, there are no U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea or nearby in the Gulf of Aden.
DOHA, Qatar — President Joe Biden’s top Middle East adviser on Tuesday held talks in Doha with senior Qatari leaders on the ongoing efforts to complete a cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, according to a U.S. official.
White House senior adviser Brett McGurk’s meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani comes after the prime minister traveled to Tehran to speak with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday.
The talks also come as ongoing cease-fire talks to pause the war between Israel and Hamas are set to shift to Doha after several days of intense negotiations in Cairo.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks and spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that McGurk met with the Qatari officials and discussed the negotiations and the prime minister's recent meeting with Iran's president.
Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Iran, and with militant groups — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — that are backed by Tehran. Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for last month’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.
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Associated Press reporter Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Ongoing talks aimed at bringing about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are shifting to the Qatari capital of Doha after several days of intense negotiations in Cairo, according to a U.S. official.
A round of high-level talks in Cairo meant to bring about a cease-fire and hostage deal to at least create a temporary pause in the war ended Sunday without a final agreement. Those talks included CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. A Hamas delegation was briefed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators but have not directly taken part in negotiations.
But lower-level working teams had remained in Cairo as media as mediators from the United States, Qatar, and Egypt in hopes to address remaining disagreements.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said White House Middle East adviser Brett McGurk, who has been a key U.S. negotiator, has arrived in Doha and is expected to take part in the talks.
The official did not offer explanation for why the parties have decided to move the talks. Both Cairo and Doha have served as hosts for talks aimed at ending the war throughout the conflict.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office confirmed that an Israeli delegation will head to Doha on Wednesday. They did not release further details about who will be traveling or what is on the agenda.
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Associated Press reporter Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
