Live updates | Israel will keep fighting Hamas 'until the end,' Netanyahu says

Israel will keep fighting Hamas despite international calls for a cease-fire, its prime minister said, after at least nine Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush in one of the deadliest single attacks that Palestinian militants have carried out since the ground invasion of Gaza began.

“We are continuing until the end, there is no question,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Wednesday. “I say this even given the great pain and the international pressure. Nothing will stop us.”

Heavy fighting has raged for days in Shijaiyah and other areas in and around eastern Gaza City that were encircled earlier in the war. Tens of thousands of people remain in the north despite

repeated evacuation orders

, saying they don’t feel that

anywhere in Gaza

is safe or fear they may never return to their homes.

Israel has drawn international outrage and rare

criticism from the United States

over the killing of civilians. More than 18,400 Palestinians have been killed, according to the

Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory

, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel says 113 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:

— A missile fired from rebel-controlled Yemen

misses a container ship

in Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

— A wartime

Palestinian poll

shows a surge in Hamas support.

—

Biden reassures families

he's committed to freeing American hostages held in Gaza.

— Find more of AP’s coverage at

https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

.

Here’s what’s happening in the war:

PALESTINIANS URGE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO TAKE STEPS TOWARD TWO-STATE SOLUTION

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian prime minister said in an interview Thursday that the Biden administration must now “walk the walk” and take specific steps toward what has been an elusive two-state solution, including by applying pressure on Israel.

Mohammed Shtayyeh spoke to The Associated Press as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met in Tel Aviv with Israeli Prime Minister Yoav Gallant to discuss the course of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its third month. Gallant said Israel’s aim of destroying Hamas will take several more months.

The United States has shielded Israel against growing international calls for an immediate cease-fire, but is publicly disagreeing with its close ally on a post-war scenario.

Washington eventually wants to see Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank under a unified Palestinian leadership, as a precursor to Palestinian statehood. Israel’s right-wing government opposes Palestinian statehood and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any role in Gaza for the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, a West Bank-based autonomous government.

Shtayyeh said Thursday that it’s time for the United States to deal more firmly with Israel.

“Now that the United States has talked the talk, we want Washington to walk the walk, meaning that we need specific measures to implement the two-state solution, not only believe in the two-state solution,” he said in an interview.

Sullivan is to meet Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

BRITAIN WILL IMPOSE TRAVEL BANS ON ISRAELIS RESPONSIBLE FOR ATTACKS ON PALESTINIANS IN THE WEST BANK

LONDON — Britain says it's imposing travel bans on Israeli settlers responsible for attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, that extremist settlers are “undermining security and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel must take stronger action to stop settler violence and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

The Foreign Office had no immediate details of how many people were covered by the ban.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a similar travel ban the previous week, targeting “individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”

While the world’s attention has been focused on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have surged at an unprecedented rate, according to the United Nations.

ISRAEL RELEASES FOOTAGE OF MEN IT SUSPECTS TO BE MILITANTS CAPTURED IN NORTHERN GAZA

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military has released footage showing dozens of men with their hands above their heads walking in a straight line out of a damaged building. Four of the men can be seen carrying assault rifles over their heads and setting them down in the street, along with what appeared to be several ammunition magazines.

The military said Thursday that the men had exited the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza after troops battled militants in a nearby building. It described all of them as suspected militants, without providing evidence, and said they were taken for interrogation.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 70 medical workers and patients were detained when Israeli forces raided the hospital earlier this week, including the hospital director. The United Nations humanitarian office said the hospital had 65 patients, including 12 children in intensive care and six newborns in incubators, at the time of the raid.

It was not immediately clear if the military and the Health Ministry were describing the same event.

Israel accuses Gaza’s Hamas rulers of using hospitals and other civilian infrastructure for military purposes. It uncovered

what appeared to be a militant tunnel

underneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, after raiding that facility last month.

MISSILE FIRED FROM REBEL-CONTROLLED YEMEN MISSES A CONTAINER SHIP IN BAB EL-MANDEB STRAIT

A missile fired from territory controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen

missed a container ship

traveling through the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Thursday, a United States defense official said, the latest attack threatening shipping in the crucial maritime chokepoint.

The attack saw the missile splash harmlessly in the water near the Maersk Gibraltar, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship that had been traveling from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The official’s comments came after the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which monitors Mideast shipping lanes, put out an alert warning of an incident in the strait, which separates East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula.

Maersk, one of the world’s biggest shippers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thursday’s attack marks just the latest in the seaborne attacks attributed to the Houthis as part of their pressure campaign over the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.

TURKEY CALLS ON THE UNITED STATES NOT TO BLOCK UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS FOR A CEASE-FIRE

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called Thursday on the United States not to block United Nations resolutions for a cease-fire in Gaza, as

it did on Friday

.

“We expect the United States not to further obstruct the decisions of the United Nations Security Council,” Fidan said. “Currently, only the United States stands between a cease-fire and the massacre in Gaza.”

The Turkish minister also said he would travel to Norway on Friday as part of a joint Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation delegation to press for a cease-fire. In Oslo, he would meet with representatives from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Fidan said.

IRELAND'S PRIME MINISTER OPENS EU SUMMIT BY CALLING FOR AN ISRAEL-HAMAS CEASE-FIRE

BRUSSELS — Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Thursday that the European Union is losing its credibility because of a lack of a strong position in the war between Israel and Hamas, urging his counterparts to call for a humanitarian cease-fire.

Speaking at the

start of a EU summit in Brussels

focusing more on Ukraine, Varadkar said the EU should condemn “terrorism perpetrated by Hamas,” but also call for justice for the Palestinian people.

The 27 EU countries have long been divided in their approach to Israel and the Palestinians. At their

previous meeting in October

, EU leaders called “for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures, including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs.”

Despite its limited political leverage, the 27-nation bloc is the world’s top aid supplier to the Palestinians. The EU has little influence over Israel — the United States is its staunchest ally — but remains the country’s biggest trade partner.

HEZBOLLAH SAYS 100 OF ITS MILITANTS HAVE BEEN KILLED SINCE OCT 8

BEIRUT — Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced the death of another one of its fighters, marking the 100th militant killed since clashes began with the Israeli military along the tense Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8.

The clashes have intensified in recent weeks but have remained mostly contained to handful border towns, forcing thousands of local residents on both sides of the tense divide to flee. The Lebanese government, United Nations peacekeepers, and international governments have scrambled to keep the war in Gaza from spilling over into neighboring Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a draw. Israel considers Hezbollah as its most direct threat, estimating that the Iran-backed group has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, as well as drones and surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles.

IRAQ ARRESTS SUSPECTS A WEEK AFTER AN ATTACK ON THE US EMBASSY

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces have arrested suspects in a

rocket attack launched

on the sprawling United States embassy complex in Baghdad earlier in December, an Iraqi army official said Thursday.

Iraqi military spokesperson Yahya Rasool said in a statement that some of the suspects in the Dec. 7 attack were connected to the Iraqi security services and that “a number of individuals” were arrested. He said investigation and search efforts are ongoing to identify and arrest other suspects.

Since the beginning of the Iraq-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have launched dozens of rocket attacks on U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Syria, in addition to the Dec. 7 embassy attack. An umbrella group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed most of the attacks, which it has said are in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza.

The attack on the embassy did not cause injuries or major damage and did not provoke a military response from the U.S., but it has put the Iraqi government under increasing diplomatic

pressure from Washington to crack down on the militias

.