A major Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank killed at least nine Palestinians on Tuesday and left at least 40 more people wounded, Palestinian health officials said, as Israel’s fragile ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza entered its third day.
The ceasefire with Hamas does not apply to the West Bank, where Israeli troops have carried out near-daily raids that often ignite gunbattles. The truce in Gaza is supposed to bring calm for at least six weeks and see 33 Hamas-held hostages released in return for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Israel’s top general resigned Tuesday over security and intelligence failures related to Hamas’ October 2023 attack that triggered the war in Gaza. He's the most senior Israeli figure to step down over the attacks.
Despite 15 months of war with Israel, Hamas remains firmly in control of Gaza.
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RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians in southern Gaza have begun the arduous process of recovering bodies from the rubble of bombed buildings while trying to make war-ravaged neighborhoods habitable for returning civilians.
They are confronting an apocalyptic landscape of devastation after a ceasefire paused more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Crews with the Civil Defense, Gaza’s emergency service, deployed to deserted streets and buildings in the border city of Rafah on Tuesday to find the dead and give them a proper burial.
“We retrieved 120 decomposed bodies over the past two days. They’re completely decomposed with only skeletal remains,” Civil Defense member Haitham Hams told The Associated Press.
AP footage showed members sifting through piles of debris and in one case, unearthing a person’s thigh bone, a ripped shirt and a pair of pants. A body bag inside an ambulance was labeled “unknown” and the discovery date Tuesday.
Cleaning operations have also started in Rafah as local officials prepare for displaced Palestinians coming home, although many buildings have been reduced to ruins.
There isn't nearly enough heavy equipment for the task, said Hani al-Bayoumi, an official with Rafah municipality.
AP footage showed one of two bulldozers pushing rubble aside to create dusty paths where roads and sidewalks used to be, while a few people walked by.
Drone footage shows mounds of rubble stretching as far as the eye can see
BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister announced plans to visit Lebanon this week, which would mark the first such trip in years amid strained relations between the two countries.
Speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan hailed Lebanon’s recent political breakthroughs as “extremely positive.”
Lebanon's new president and prime minister are seen as independent of Lebanon’s entrenched political class.
“We will need to see real action, real reform and a commitment to a Lebanon that is looking to the future, not to the past, in order for us to re-raise our engagement,” Frahan said.
Saudi-Lebanese relations have been strained for years, driven by issues such as the growing influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah and the smuggling of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon in produce shipments, which prompted a trade ban on Lebanon.
“It is really up to the Lebanese to decide and make the choices and to take Lebanon in a different direction,” he added. He did not specify which day he would arrive in Lebanon this week.
As a ceasefire brought calm to Gaza’s ruined cities, Hamas was quick to emerge from hiding.
The militant group has not only survived Israel’s 15-month military campaign — among the deadliest and most destructive in recent memory — but it remains firmly in control of the ruined coastal territory.
For all the might it deployed in Gaza, Israel failed to remove Hamas from power, one of its central war aims. That makes a return to fighting more likely, but the results might be the same.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 72 bodies had been taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours, almost all of them recovered from attacks before the ceasefire. An unknown number of bodies remain unreachable because they are in northern Gaza, where access remains restricted, or in buffer zones where Israeli forces are.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities but do not say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Over 900 trucks of aid entered Gaza on the second day of the ceasefire Monday, the United Nations said — significantly higher than the 600 trucks called for in the deal — in a rush to supply food, medicines and other needs it has described as “staggering” for the population of over 2 million people.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s top general has resigned, citing the security failures that allowed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi is the most prominent Israeli official to resign over the attack.
He announced his resignation Tuesday, just days into a fragile ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of Israel’s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Gaza, also tendered his resignation.
Their resignations will likely add to calls for a public inquiry into the Oct. 7 failures, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said must wait until the war is over.
Halevi’s resignation letter noted that the military’s investigations into those failures were “currently in their final stages.”
And Halevi made his most explicit call yet for a public inquiry in comments to journalists, saying it would be “granted full transparency” by the military.
Israel’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, was fired by Netanyahu in November after the two clashed on a number of issues, including Gallant’s pushing for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician who resigned as Public Security Minister on Sunday over his opposition to the ceasefire, welcomed Halevi’s announcement and called on Netanyahu to appoint a new chief of staff who will be “strong and on the offensive” in order to demolish Hamas.
WASHINGTON — Among other Biden-era executive orders that President Trump rescinded Monday is one that authorizes sanctions on people who undermine peace in the occupied West Bank.
The Biden administration used the executive order to impose a handful of sanctions on extremist settlers accused of using violence against Palestinians who live in the West Bank after violence erupted after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Settlers in the territory have celebrated the incoming Trump administration, believing it will take a more favorable approach to illegal settlements. During his first term, Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.
WASHINGTON — Trump said Hamas is weakened, but he’s hardly certain that the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas will hold.
“I’m not confident,” Trump told reporters. “That’s not our war. It’s their war.”
He said that his administration “might” help rebuild Gaza, which he compared to a “massive demolition site.”
“Some beautiful things could be done with it,” said Trump, the real estate developer turned commander in chief, noting the territory’s coastline and “phenomenal” weather and location. “Some fantastic things could be done with Gaza. Some beautiful things could be done with Gaza.”
RAMALLAH, West Bank — A major Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank killed at least nine Palestinians on Tuesday and left 40 more people wounded, Palestinian health officials said.
Israel's ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza does not apply to the West Bank, where Israeli troops have carried out near-daily raids during the war that often ignite gunbattles.
The built-up Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank has long been a bastion of armed struggle, and has been a focus of Israeli raids. The Israeli military said in a statement that “forces have initiated a counterterrorism operation” in the area.
Earlier Tuesday the Palestinian Health Ministry said an Israeli strike on the Jenin refugee camp killed two people. Their identity was not immediately clear.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, launched its own raid late last year into the Jenin area, hoping to position itself as a serious player in governing postwar Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 800 people have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called on security forces to use “maximum restraint” in the West Bank, a spokesman said.
UNITED NATIONS — Gaza has received a major influx of aid and goods, with 915 trucks crossing into the territory on the second day of the ceasefire, the United Nations said.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said colleagues in Gaza informed the U.N. that 915 trucks – significantly higher than the 600 trucks called for in the ceasefire – entered Gaza on Monday, based on information from Israeli authorities and the guarantors of the ceasefire agreement.
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Sunday the needs in Gaza are staggering and his office said Monday that aid workers are ramping up the delivery of food, clean water, shelter materials and other essential supplies.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the more than 2 million people in Gaza, about half of them children, depend on this aid, Haq said.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has a 60-day plan to increase beds and deploy overseas health workers to Gaza hospitals, but some 30,000 Palestinians have life-changing injuries and need specialized care, Haq said.
