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About 110,000 people have fled the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, as heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the city’s outskirts leaves aid crossings inaccessible and food and fuel supplies grow critically low, a U.N. official said Friday bulletin news online news.
All crossings into southern Gaza remain effectively closed, cutting off supplies and preventing medical evacuations and the movement of humanitarian staff, said Georgios Petropoulos, an official for the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs working in Rafah.
Some 1.3 million Palestinians — over half Gaza’s population — had sought refuge in Rafah.
The World Food Program will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday unless more aid arrives, Petropoulos said. U.N. officials warn that the lack of fuel is undermining medical facilities, water supplies and sewage systems across Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. threat to withhold some weapons would not deter Israel from expanding its offensive in Gaza. A limited Israeli operation earlier this week captured the Gaza side of Rafah’s border crossing with Egypt, throwing humanitarian operations into crisis.
The death toll from the war in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities. The U.N. says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Here’s the latest:
ISRAELI TROOPS BATTLE PALESTINIAN MILITANTS IN RAFAH, GAZA CITY
JERUSALEM — Israeli troops are battling Palestinian militants in the southern city of Rafah, where a rocket attack and an Israeli incursion earlier this week closed crucial crossings needed for humanitarian aid.
There are also battles underway in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City in the northern part of the territory. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive and Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas there.
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In a statement released Friday, the military said it had located several tunnels in eastern Rafah, near the border with Egypt, and had eliminated militants “during close-quarters combat and with an aerial strike.”
Hamas’ military wing said it carried out a complex attack in which it struck a house where Israeli troops had taken up a position, an armored personnel carrier and soldiers operating on foot.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. It was not possible to independently confirm the battlefield accounts from either side.
Hamas also said it launched a number of mortar rounds at the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, close to where Israeli troops are operating. The military said it intercepted two launches.
The crossing was closed after a rocket attack last weekend that killed four Israeli soldiers. Israel says it has re-opened its side of the crossing, but the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says the Gaza side is inaccessible because of the ongoing fighting.
Israeli forces captured the Gaza side of the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, forcing it to shut down. It’s unclear when it will reopen.
Aid groups say a prolonged closure of the crossings will severely hinder humanitarian operations in the territory, where hunger is already rampant.
BRITAIN COMPLETES 11th AIRDROP OVER GAZA
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Britain’s Ministry of Defense says the Royal Air Force has completed its 11th airdrop over Gaza, delivering in total 120 tons of aid including ready-to-eat meals, water, rice, flour and canned goods.
The ministry said the airdrop Friday delivered 13 tons of aid to northern Gaza. The airdrops began in late March as part of a Jordanian initiative. The Royal Air Force used A400M transport aircraft flying from Amman, Jordan, where aid pallets attached to parachutes are collected and loaded.
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The aid is dropped along the northern coastline of Gaza, with drop zones regularly surveyed to ensure civilians are not harmed. Each flight takes around one hour and British personnel work closely with the Royal Jordanian Air Force to plan and conduct each mission.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said land routes into Gaza remain the best way to transport needed humanitarian assistance.
The Royal Navy ship RFA Cardigan Bay recently set sail from Cyprus to support a maritime aid corridor to Gaza. The ship provides accommodation for hundreds of U.S. sailors and soldiers building a temporary pier off the Gaza coast.
DRONE STRIKE IN LEBANON KILLS PARAMEDIC, TECHNICIAN
BEIRUT — An Israeli drone strike on a southern Lebanese village killed a paramedic and an employee of a telecommunications company Friday as military activities have increased along the frontier in recent days.
State-run National News said the paramedic and the technician died in the drone strike on Teir Harafa, about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the border with Israel.
The Islamic Risala Scout Association paramedic group said one of its members, Ghaleb Hussein al-Haj, was killed while performing his duties in south Lebanon. The group is the paramedic arm of the Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
The strike came a day after a similar attack on a car in a southern Lebanese village killed four members of the militant Hezbollah group.
Hezbollah started attacking Israeli army posts along the Lebanon-Israel border a day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7.
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Since then, more than 350 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 275 Hezbollah members and more than 70 civilians and non-combatants. In Israel, 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have died.
Foreign officials have been visiting Lebanon over the past month in attempts to bring calm to the border, but Hezbollah has repeatedly said it will not stop fighting until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
UN TO VOTE ON RESOLUTION THAT WOULD GRANT PALESTINE NEW RIGHTS AND REVIVE ITS MEMBERSHIP BID
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote Friday on a resolution that would grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and call on the Security Council to favorably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.
The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent. U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood made clear Thursday the Biden administration is opposed to the assembly resolution.
Under the U.N. Charter, prospective members of the United Nations must be “peace-loving,” and the Security Council must recommend their admission to the General Assembly for final approval. Palestine became a U.N. non-member observer state in 2012.
Unlike the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the 193-member General Assembly and the resolution is expected to be approved by a large majority.
The draft resolution “determines” that a state of Palestine is qualified for membership, dropping the original language that in the General Assembly’s judgment it is “a peace-loving state.” It therefore recommends that the Security Council reconsider its request “favorably.”
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At numerous council and assembly meetings, the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians in Gaza and the killing of more than 34,000 people in the territory, according to Gaza health officials, have generated outrage from many countries.
AL JAZEERA SAYS ALL STAFF HAVE LEFT ISRAEL AFTER GOVERNMENT ORDERED ITS OFFICES CLOSED
JERUSALEM — The pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera said Friday it no longer has any staff operating inside of Israel after an order closing the broadcaster’s offices and halting its on-the-ground reporting there.
The comment by Al Jazeera to The Associated Press comes after Israel’s Communication Ministry said police raided an office of the broadcaster in Nazareth on Thursday after alleging it had been transmitting live video from there.
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“Al Jazeera has no staff operating inside Israel. All of our staff have moved to Ramallah to continue the coverage from there, abiding by the law,” the channel said. “However, whoever makes such comments does not understand modern day technologies which allow users to utilize a simple mobile phone to post or share a video online.”
Al Jazeera’s headquarters are in Doha, Qatar.
Israel ordered the local offices of Al Jazeera to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.
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The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country.
Since the order, the broadcaster has moved many of its English-language service correspondents from Israel to Amman, Jordan. Others still operate from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
MUSEUM DEFENDS USE OF ‘FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA’ TITLE FOR CULTURAL PROGRAM
MADRID — Spain’s Reina Sofía Museum has defended the title of a cultural program called “From the River to the Sea” that denounces the war in Gaza, despite criticism from the World Jewish Congress that the slogan is used by Hamas and “represents a call for the annihilation of the Jewish state.”
The modern art museum in Madrid, best known for its anti-war Picasso masterpiece “Guernica,” on Friday referred to a note on its website that says “From the River to the Sea” refers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and is a motto used to demand rights for Palestinians.
“It is from that call to respect life — and in no case from the promotion of war or violence, nor referring in any way to the disappearance of the State of Israel,” the museum says.
The World Jewish Congress on Thursday issued a statement saying it is “reprehensible” that an institution such as the Reina Sofía would stage such an initiative when Hamas still holds hostages from Israel and the people of Gaza face a humanitarian crisis.
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