Live updates | Widening Israeli offensive in southern Gaza worsens dire humanitarian conditions

The Israeli military hit Rafah in southern Gaza

twice overnight, residents said, as United Nations officials warned there are no safe places left in the besieged territory.

The center of Gaza's second-largest city, Khan Younis, has also seen fighting amid Israel’s widening

air and ground offensive

in the southern part of the territory that has displaced tens of thousands more Palestinians and worsened dire humanitarian conditions.

Distribution of food, water and medicine have been prevented outside a sliver of southern Gaza, and

new military evacuation orders

are squeezing people into

ever-smaller areas

.

The United Nations said 1.87 million people — more than 80% of Gaza’s population — have been driven from their homes since the start of the

Israel-Hamas war

, triggered by the

deadly Oct. 7 Hamas assault

on southern Israel.

Around 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The

Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza

said the death toll in the territory has surpassed 17,100, with more than 46,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70% of the dead were women and children.

Currently:

— U.N. chief

uses rare power to warn Security Council

of impending ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza.

— Israel and US at odds over

conflicting visions for postwar Gaza

.

— Rights groups say Israeli strikes on journalists in Lebanon

were likely deliberate

.

— Senior U.N. official

denounces ‘blatant disregard’

in Israel-Hamas war after many U.N. sites are hit.

— Find more of AP’s coverage at

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

.

Here’s what’s happening in the war:

ISRAELI POLICE BLOCK PLANNED PARADE

JERUSALEM — Israeli police on Thursday blocked a planned parade by several dozen Jewish ultranationalists through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The group had planned to enter the Muslim Quarter and make their way across the Old City to the Western Wall, which is the holiest site where Jews can pray.

But as the event began, police said the protesters began chanting racist anti-Arab chants, then tried to proceed without authorization. Police said some participants tried to run around police, and the event was prevented from taking place.

The march had raised fears that it could prompt new violence in Jerusalem. A similar event in 2021 by thousands of participants helped spark

an 11-day Gaza war

.

PROPOSAL WOULD TIE U.S. AID TO COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS OF WAR

WASHINGTON — A dozen Senate Democrats, along with independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, expressed support Thursday of requiring that pending U.S. military aid for Israel and other allies be used in compliance with the laws of war and international and U.S. law.

Led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the senators proposed their amendment in response to nearly two months of Israeli bombardment of neighborhoods, refugee camps and other heavily populated sites across the Gaza Strip after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel.

The proposal, outlined in a joint letter Thursday, would attach the conditions in an amendment to a supplemental aid package pushed by the Biden administration that includes $14.3 billion in wartime aid for Israel.

Israel has enjoyed strong bipartisan support from Congress for decades. The proposal to condition the upcoming wartime aid is not expected to pass either the Democratic-controlled Senate or Republican-held House. But the move signals that the rising civilian death toll in Gaza is leading to an erosion of support among some lawmakers in the U.S., Israel’s most important ally.

NETANYAHU THREATENS PARTS OF LEBANON OVER HEZBOLLAH ATTACKS

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to flatten parts of Lebanon if the Hezbollah militant group escalates its attacks on Israeli targets.

Netanyahu delivered the threat on Thursday during a visit to a military base in northern Israel. The visit came as a 54-year-old Israeli farmer was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon.

Netanyahu said images of destruction in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip provide a glimpse of what could lie ahead for Lebanon.

“If Hezbollah chooses to launch an all-out war, then it will single-handedly turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, to Gaza and Khan Yunis,” he said.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure in response to rocket fire Thursday.

Hezbollah began firing rockets and targeting military installations along Israel’s northern border after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and triggered the war.

ARAB NATIONS CALL FOR FRIDAY VOTE ON U.N. RESOLUTION

UNITED NATIONS — Arab and Islamic nations are calling for a vote Friday on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.

The proposed resolution is a response to a letter U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent the council Thursday warning of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urging its 15l members to deliver a humanitarian cease-fire.

The draft resolution was sponsored by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council.

Guterres is scheduled to brief members Friday on the letter he sent under Article 99 of the U.N. Charter.

Surrounded by many ambassadors from Arab and Islamic nations, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told reporters Thursday that they all hope council members will adopt the UAE resolution.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has not supported a cease-fire and has veto power in the Security Council.

Mansour said officials from Arab and Islamic nations are meeting with U.S. officials to press for American support.

ISRAELI CIVILIAN KILLED IN ROCKET ATTACK FROM LEBANON

BEIRUT — Israel’s air force conducted intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon Thursday as a rocket attack from Lebanon killed an Israeli civilian.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces have clashed on the Lebanon-Israel frontier since Oct. 8, a day after the Palestinian militant Hamas group attacked southern Israel, triggering a war that has claimed the lives of thousands.

Hezbollah says that by activating the Lebanon-Israel front, it is keeping three Israeli army divisions busy and diverting them from carrying out ground and aerial attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The militant group said its fighters attacked 10 Israeli army posts along the border Thursday.

The Israeli military said an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon toward the village of Mattat that injured an Israeli civilian. A spokesman for Israel’s emergency response service Magen David Adom said an injured 60-year-old man was pronounced dead.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel’s air forces struck several areas in southern Lebanon including the villages of Aita al-Shaab and Kounine. There was no word on casualties.

The Israeli military said its helicopters, tanks and artillery struck the sources of the launches from Lebanon.

VIDEO SHOWS PALESTINIAN MEN BEING DETAINED IN GAZA

JERUSALEM — In photos and video published Thursday, dozens of Palestinian men are seen sitting or kneeling in the streets of a northern Gaza town, stripped down to their underwear and hands bound behind their backs as they are guarded by Israeli troops.

The images were the first showing such detentions in the Israeli-Hamas war, now in its third month. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Israeli media said some of the images appeared to show suspected Hamas militants who had surrendered to Israeli forces.

However, the London-based news outlet Al-Araby al-Jadeed, or The New Arab, said one of the men seen in the photos is its Gaza correspondent Diaa al-Kahlout, and that he was rounded up with other civilians.

In a statement on its website, the news outlet said he was among dozens of men arrested in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, along with his brothers, relatives and others.

The report said the detained men were forced to strip and were searched before being taken to an unknown destination.

The images published Thursday were taken from the vantage point of Israeli troops.

FORMER ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF'S SON KILLED IN GAZA

JERUSALEM — The son of a former Israeli military chief and member of Israel’s war cabinet has been killed while fighting in Gaza.

The Israeli military said Thursday that Master Sgt. Gal Meir Eizenkot, 25, died in a battle in northern Gaza.

His father, Gadi Eizenkot, served as military chief of staff from 2015 to 2019.

He recently entered politics as a member of the centrist National Unity Party. He joined the newly formed war cabinet as an observer on Oct. 12.

U.S. URGES ISRAEL TO ALLOW MORE AID TO GAZA

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging Israel to do more to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and boost efforts to protect Palestinian civilians as it intensifies military operations in the south.

A senior U.S. State Department official says Blinken spoke with Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer on Thursday to say the U.S. is pleased with new deliveries of fuel to Gaza but still wants to see those and other assistance deliveries increased. At the same time, Blinken told Dermer that civilian casualties remain too high and that Israel must step up its efforts to reduce them.

The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomatic discussion, would not characterize Dermer’s response.

___

Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee contributed from Washington

RIGHTS GROUPS SAY ISRAELI STRIKES ON JOURNALISTS WERE LIKELY DELIBERATE

BEIRUT — Two Israeli strikes that killed

a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists

in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the strikes should be investigated as a war crime. Their findings were released simultaneously with similar investigations by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Israeli officials have said that they don’t deliberately target journalists.

The investigations by the rights groups found that two strikes 37 seconds apart targeted the group of journalists

near the village of Alma al-Shaab

on Oct. 13.

The strikes killed Issam Abdallah and wounded Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and AFP’s photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.

The seven journalists were among many who deployed in southern Lebanon to cover the daily exchange of fire between members of

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Israeli troops

. The violence began a day after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered the latest

Israel-Hamas war

.

Amnesty International said it had verified more than 100 videos and photographs, analyzed weapons fragments from the site, and interviewed nine witnesses. It found that the group “was visibly identifiable as journalists and that the Israeli military knew or should have known that they were civilians yet attacked them.”

ISRAEL SAYS IT'S ATTEMPTING TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF AID TRUCKS IN GAZA

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel says it is working to increase the number of aid trucks allowed into the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. says its ability to distribute aid inside Gaza has been severely impaired by fighting and road closures linked to Israel’s widening offensive against Hamas.

The military body in charge of civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, says it plans to open the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza for inspections in the coming days. The aid would still enter Gaza through Egypt via the Rafah crossing.

Before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack across the border, which ignited the war, Kerem Shalom was the main crossing for cargo into Gaza. It has been closed since then.

Col. Elad Goren, a COGAT official, said Thursday that Israel can currently inspect up to 250 trucks per day at the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, and that the number could increase to 400 with the opening of Kerem Shalom for inspections.

But he expressed doubt that international agencies would be able to distribute larger amounts of aid.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says efforts to bring aid into Gaza and distribute it have been impaired by fighting and road closures since Israel expanded its ground offensive into the south, with some of its staff and trucks stranded in central Gaza.

It says agencies have been unable to deliver aid north of the southernmost governorate of Rafah for four days.