Live updates | Israel's troops advance as diplomatic efforts aim to at least pause Gaza fighting

Israel’s ground troops were advancing toward Gaza City as diplomatic efforts intensified for at least a brief pause in the fighting in

Gaza's deadliest war

.

U.S. President Joe Biden

suggested a humanitarian “pause”

and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected back in the region on Friday. Arab countries, including those allied with the U.S. and at peace with Israel, have expressed mounting unease with the war.

The opening of the

Rafah border crossing

, allowing hundreds of foreign passport holders and wounded Palestinians to leave Gaza, followed weeks of talks among Egypt, Israel, the U.S. and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,061, according to the Hamas-run

Health Ministry in Gaza

. In the occupied West Bank, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and around 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.

Currently:

1. More than 3,600

Palestinian children

killed in 3 weeks of war.

2.

Blinken

will enter diplomatic maelstrom over Gaza war on new Mideast trip.

3. Opposition mounts in

Arab countries

that normalized relations with Israel.

4. Israel criticizes

South American

countries after they cut diplomatic ties.

5. Find more of AP’s coverage at

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

.

Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

HAMAS SAYS IT FIRED 12 ROCKETS FROM LEBANON TOWARD NORTH ISRAELI TOWN

BEIRUT — The military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas says it fired 12 rockets from Lebanon toward the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

The Qassam Brigades said in a statement that Thursday’s rocket attack came in retaliation for the “occupation’s massacres against our people in Gaza.”

It was not immediately clear if the rockets fired from Lebanon hit the northern Israeli town.

The firing of the rockets came amid major escalation along the Lebanon-Israel border with Hezbollah attacking an Israeli army position with two suicide drones.

By sunset, Israel’s air force conducted airstrikes along the border area.

FUEL WOULD BE ALLOWED INTO GAZA ONLY WITH ASSURANCES IT WOULDN’T BE DIVERTED TO HAMAS, ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF SAYS

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military chief says that Israel is willing to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip — if there are assurances the fuel is not diverted to Hamas for military use.

Israel has barred all fuel shipments from entering Gaza since the war against Hamas erupted on Oct. 7. It says that Hamas is hoarding fuel and diverting it for military use. But many of the strip’s hospitals say they have been forced to limit or halt operations because of a lack of fuel for their generators.

Speaking to reporters, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that Israel is closely monitoring the fuel situation in Gaza and believes the hospitals still have enough to operate. He said when Israel is convinced that fuel has truly run out, it would be willing to allow in new supplies.

“We will see when that day comes and fuel will be delivered with supervision to the hospitals,” he said. “We will do everything so that it does not reach the Hamas infrastructure,” he added.

Halevi did not say when the fuel shipments might start.

HEZBOLLAH SAYS IT ATTACKED AN ISRAELI POST IN DISPUTED AREA USING SUICIDE DRONES

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says it has attacked an Israeli army post in a disputed area with two suicide drones filled with explosives.

Hezbollah said in a short statement that the drones “precisely” hit their targets Thursday in the disputed Chebaa Farms that Lebanon claims are Lebanese territories.

It was the first time that Hezbollah says it attacked Israeli forces using suicide drones.

Since the Israel-Hamas broke out on Oct. 7, Hezbollah has been attacking Israeli posts along the two countries border.

The drone attack is an escalation by the militant group and comes a day before Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give his first televised speech since Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing over 1,400 Israeli troops and civilians.

The Palestinian death toll has reached more than 9,000, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

ISRAELI PRESIDENT MEETS WITH FOREIGN AMBASSADORS TO DISCUSS PLIGHT OF THOSE KILLED OR KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS

JERUSALEM — President Isaac Herzog of Israel met Thursday with ambassadors from countries whose citizens were killed and kidnapped by Hamas in the militant group’s brutal cross-border attack Oct. 7.

The meeting with ambassadors from Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines and Tanzania dealt with the plight of foreign workers killed and kidnapped in the attack. Many worked low-wage jobs in Israeli communities near the Gaza border as farmworkers and caregivers, or were students participating in programs to learn agricultural techniques.

“We are suffering a lot,” said Thai ambassador Pannabha Chandraramya, whose country saw 29 citizens killed by Hamas and 24 taken hostage. “The news about Israel is every day in the Thai media and we are concerned about the well-being of the Thai people who are still living here and working here in Israel,” she said.

Hamas also killed four Filipino caregivers and 10 Nepali students studying agriculture, according to the ambassadors. At least two Tanzanian agriculture students, two Nepalese citizens and two Filipino citizens were taken hostage.

Herzog vowed that Israel would “work tirelessly” to bring the hostages home.

Of the 240 hostages identified by the Israeli government, just over half have foreign passports, according to a preliminary analysis done by the Israeli government. It is unclear how many have dual citizenship and how many are foreign nationals.

UK FOREIGN SECRETARY SAYS IT'S ‘VERY DIFFICULT’ TO ACHIEVE PAUSE IN FIGHTING

BLETCHLEY PARK, England — U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly says it is proving very difficult to bring about a pause in the Israel-Hamas war to allow humanitarian aid to reach people in Gaza.

Cleverly said that “pretty much the whole world has been agreed that we need to get increased volumes of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

“We, the U.S., voices all over the world have been pushing for, you know, these humanitarian pauses — temporary, localized, specifically for humanitarian purposes. They’ve proven to be very, very difficult to achieve,” he told reporters at an AI Safety Summit in England.

Cleverly, who has made several trips to the Middle East since the war began, said “we will keep pushing to get those humanitarian pauses … for as long as it takes.”

He said the U.K. position remains that “calls for a broad cease-fire are premature.”

GAZA CIVIL DEFENSE OFFICIAL SAYS REFUGEE CAMP HIT BY ISRAELI STRIKE

BEIRUT — An Israeli strike hit a residential building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson said.

Speaking to Qatar’s Al Jazeera television, Mahmoud Bassal said it has been difficult for civil defense vehicles and first responders to arrive to clear the rubble.

Residents said dozens of people were trapped under the rubble. The strike created a large crater and severely damaged the buildings around it. A survivor speaking to the television network compared it to an earthquake.

Bassal said Gaza Civil Defense paramedics and first-responders are struggling because of crippled infrastructure and fuel shortages. He said they have relied on donations of fuel by individual Palestinians from their personal supplies to run ambulances and other vehicles. Israel has banned the transport of fuel into Gaza.

GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY SAYS MORE THAN 9,000 PALESTINIANS HAVE DIED

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Thursday that more than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed since war broke out more than three weeks ago.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, a ministry spokesperson, said 9,061 people have been killed in Gaza, including 3,760 who are under 18.

The figure

is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence and is around four times the toll from the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks.

More than 1,400 people have been killed on the Israeli side, the vast majority civilians killed by Hamas in its bloody Oct. 7 incursion into Israel and also an unprecedented number. Seventeen Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of ground operations.

The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but includes doctors and veteran civil servants who are not affiliated with the group.

Its tolls from previous wars have held up

to U.N. scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies.

Al-Qidra warned of an “imminent health catastrophe” after the main generator in a hospital in northern Gaza failed and with other hospitals facing shortages of fuel and medicine. He said the generator at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory's largest hospital, appears likely to fail soon.

“We appeal to all parties to provide safe passage for the urgent flow of medical aid into Gaza,” he said.

GAZA'S LARGEST HOSPITAL STRUGGLES TO TREAT HUNDREDS OF INJURED PEOPLE

BEIRUT — The Gaza Strip’s largest hospital is on its last supply of fuel as it struggles to cope with hundreds of wounded people while hosting thousands of displaced Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war, a senior doctor said.

“The high number of displaced people are no longer living in the courtyard of the hospital but are also living inside the hospital, including the corridors,” U.K.-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians quoted Shifa Hospital’s chief of surgery, Dr. Marwan Abusada, as saying. Abusada warned that illnesses can spread because of the overcrowding and poor conditions.

Abusada said the overwhelmed hospital is struggling to treat more than 800 wounded people, most of whom suffer from serious or critical injuries.

"The medical team can in no way treat all these injuries, specifically with a lack of medication,” Abusada said, citing the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the small number of aid vehicles entering the territory daily.

ISRAELI CIVILIAN, 4 PALESTINIANS KILLED IN WEST BANK

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants shot and killed an Israeli civilian in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israel’s military and rescue services said.

Militants began firing at a car in Einav, an Israeli settlement, causing it to turn over and killing a 35-year-old man inside, they said. Israel’s military said it set up roadblocks in the area and was pursuing the attackers.

The death was the latest in the violence which has gripped the West Bank. Four Palestinians, including three teenagers, were shot dead in different parts of the occupied West Bank early Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mainly in violent protests and gunbattles during Israeli arrest raids.

SWEDEN, NORWAY PLEDGE HUMANITARIAN AID FOR GAZA

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Sweden announced Thursday it will donate an extra 150 million kronor ($13.4 million) in humanitarian support for Gaza in addition to the 560 million kroner ($50 million) in aid to Palestinians it has already earmarked for the whole of 2023.

“It’s about the most basic things for people to get through the day,” International Development Cooperation Minister Johan Forssell said. The aid will mostly be channeled through various U.N. organizations, he said.

In neighboring Norway, the government said Thursday it is increasing support for Palestinian children in Gaza via the U.N. Children’s Fund by donating 25 million kroner ($2 million). International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim said ”the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza is absolutely terrible and it is devastating to see how children are affected.”