(AP) — President Joe Biden is in Israel on an urgent mission to keep the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a broader regional conflict. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from Biden.
The president’s visit came after hundreds of people were reported killed in an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital. There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the hospital blast. Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.
The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.
The war that began Oct. 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Currently:
1. Doctors in Gaza City performed surgery on floors, often without anesthesia, in a desperate bid to save wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a hospital.
2. Video that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed the grounds strewn with torn bodies, blankets and school backpacks.
3. Rage at the hospital carnage spread throughout the Middle East.
4. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called off a planned summit with Biden,
5. The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote on a resolution about the fighting between Hamas and Israel, but negotiations on the wording are still underway.
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
ISRAEL ALLOWS EGYPT TO DELIVER LIMITED AID TO GAZA
JERUSALEM — Israel says it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was approved Wednesday in light of a request from visiting President Joe Biden.
In a statement, it said it “will not thwart” deliveries of food, water and medicine, as long as the supplies do not reach Hamas. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.
It was not clear when the aid would start flowing. Egypt’s Rafah crossing has only a limited capacity, and Egypt says it has been damaged by Israeli airstrikes.
Israel, which controls most crossings into Gaza, says it will not allow deliveries from its territory. It also demanded that international Red Cross be allowed to visit kidnapped Israelis held captive in Gaza.
IRAN ACCUSES U.S. OF COMPLICITY IN ISRAELI ATTACKS ON GAZA
TEHRAN, Iran — President Ebrahim Raisi said Wednesday that Iran will retaliate against Israel for its attacks in the Gaza Strip and accused the United States of complicity.
Addressing a crowd of thousands in central Tehran, Raisi warned of “severe revenge.”
Raisi called Washington an “accomplice” of Israel, saying “the bombs that are falling on the people of Gaza belong to you.”
He said Iran and other Muslim nations are ready to defend the Palestinian people.
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS CLASH WITH SECURITY FORCES IN LEBANON
BEIRUT — Hundreds of protesters in support of Gaza clashed with Lebanese security forces Wednesday in a suburb of Beirut near the United States Embassy.
Rioters holding Palestinian flags and flags of Palestinian factions took down a security wall and cut a barbed wire barrier on a road leading to the embassy. Riot police lobbed dozens of teargas canisters and fired water canons to disperse the protesters in the intense standoff.
Several protesters were wounded.
Meanwhile, in another suburb south of Beirut, Hezbollah organized a rally in support of the Palestinians and to slam the U.S. for its ongoing support of Israel.
“The time has perhaps come for the peoples of the region to declare their word in the face of American tyranny,” Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said in a speech at the rally.
Hezbollah and Israeli troops continue to clash in a handful of towns along the Lebanon-Israel border.
TURKEY DECLARES 3 DAYS OF MOURNING IN SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA HOSPITAL BLAST VICTIMS
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey has declared three days of national mourning following the blast on a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of Palestinians, a senior official said.
The period of mourning reflects Turkey’s solidarity with the victims, said Omer Celik, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party.
Celik called the blast one of the worst massacres in modern history.
The hospital explosion caused outrage in Turkey, where thousands of people demonstrated outside Israeli diplomatic missions in Istanbul and Ankara. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.
At least 63 people, including 43 police officers, were injured and five people were arrested in Istanbul, according to officials.
FRANCE SAYS 24 FRENCH CITIZENS DIED IN HAMAS ATTACKS, 7 MISSING
PARIS — France’s death toll from the Hamas assault on Israel has climbed to 24, with seven other French citizens still listed as missing, including several thought to be held hostage in Gaza.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne delivered the latest toll in a briefing to senators Wednesday.
The family of 24-year-old French-Israeli citizen Karin Journo is among those who have recently learned of a loved one’s death. Her sister, Meitav Journo, said the funeral was held Tuesday.
GAZA RESIDENTS LINE UP FOR FUEL
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — A shortage of fuel led to a long line of cars and motorbikes blocking a street outside at a gas station in Khan Younis as motorists and people on foot with containers hoped to fill up.
Men and boys stood in a parallel line holding empty plastic jugs and water bottles as they waited for a turn at the pump.
Palestinians are struggling to survive since Israel cut off supplies of food, electricity, water and fuel to Gaza in retaliation for the attack launched Oct. 7 by Hamas militants. Scarce fuel that can be found can help to run generators and power water pumps.
“Everyone needs fuel to pump water to their homes, to irrigate their farms and to provide water for poultry, cattle and sheep,” said Khalid al-Najjar. “The whole world relies on fuel; it is an essential commodity just like food for us.”
EGYPTIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS RALLY IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINIANS
CAIRO — Thousands of students rallied at Egyptian universities Wednesday to condemn Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza. The pro-Palestinian demonstrations took place in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities.
Videos posted on social media showed scores of mostly students protesting in the city of Fayoum, roughly 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Cairo, chanting: “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Al-Aqsa.”
The Al-Aqsa mosque sits on a hilltop in Jerusalem’s contested old city. The mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam and stands in a spot known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism.
A Tuesday night explosion at a Gaza City hospital also triggered protests in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.
HEZBOLLAH MILITANTS KILLED NEAR LEBANON-ISRAEL BORDER
BEIRUT — A Hezbollah spokesperson says the Lebanese Red Cross has collected the remains of four of the group’s militants.
An AP photojournalist saw three body bags and a bag of remains transferred from the Lebanese Red Cross to Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Unit at Hiram Hospital, which is near southern Lebanon’s city of Tyre.
The spokesperson said the bodies belonged to militants who were pronounced dead Tuesday. He did not say how they died.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that its forces killed four militants who were allegedly carrying an explosive device and were suspected of attempting a cross-border operation.
DEATH TOLL FROM GAZA HOSPITAL EXPLOSION UNCLEAR
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry revised the death toll from an explosion at a Gaza City hospital down from 500 to 471 on Wednesday but did not elaborate on how authorities reached that figure.
Staff members at al-Ahli Hospital said they could not gauge the toll because the blast had dismembered so many bodies. Hospital director Suhaila Tarazi and Episcopal Church officials that run al-Ahli could only estimate that the toll was “in the hundreds” and refrained from giving an exact number.
Mohammed Abu Selmia, general director of Shifa Hospital where all the wounded and dead were transferred following the explosion, told The Associated Press early Wednesday that he believed the death toll was closer to 250, with hundreds more wounded.
UK LEADER URGES LAWMAKERS NOT TO ‘RUSH TO JUDGEMENT’ ON HOSPITAL BLAST
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says U.K. intelligence services are “rapidly analyzing the evidence to independently establish the facts” behind the devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital.
Sunak urged lawmakers in the House of Commons not to “rush to judgment” about the blast at the al-Ahli hospital, which Hamas blames on Israel and Israel blames on Palestinian militants.
Calling it an “awful situation,” Sunak said: “Every member will know that the words we say here have an impact beyond this House.”
Earlier, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly urged people to “wait for the facts” on the cause of the explosion.
Cleverly planned to head to the region Wednesday as part of efforts to ease the humanitarian crisis. He’s expected to visit Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.
BISHOP SAYS STAFF DIDN’T HEED WARNINGS TO EVACUATE CHURCH-RUN HOSPITAL
JERUSALEM — The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem said a Gaza City hospital run by the Episcopal Church had received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate that staff members refused to heed before a lethal Tuesday night explosion.
The Israeli army delivered the warnings by phone beginning Sunday after Israeli shelling hit two floors of the al-Ahli Hospital hospital, Bishop Hosam Naoum said.
Naoum refused to assign blame for the blast, and urged the public to focus on the wider destruction and deaths unfolding in Gaza. “As people of the cloth, we are not military experts,” he said. “We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we’ve had enough of this war.”
PALESTINIAN DIPLOMAT ACCUSES ISRAEL OF INTENTIONALLY BOMBING GAZA HOSPITAL
BEIRUT — Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki accused Israel of “intentionally” bombing a hospital in Gaza and said the strip’s residents are being subjected to genocide.
Malki, who spoke in Saudi Arabia during a Wednesday meeting of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, alleged the Israeli military had attacked the same hospital two days earlier and warned doctors there.
He added that he thinks the international community is allowing Israel to kill under the “slogan of self-defense.”
Malki asserted that Israeli bombing has killed 1,300 children in the Gaza Strip in past 11 days. Israel’s military retaliated after Hamas militants broke through a border fence and killed more than 1,400 people in the country, according to Israeli authorities.
IRAN’S FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS FOR OIL EMBARGO AGAINST ISRAEL
JERUSALEM — Iran’s top diplomat is calling on Muslim nations to expel their Israeli ambassadors and launch an oil embargo on Israel after an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip.
The comments Wednesday by Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian mark the first time an oil embargo has been discussed as Israel wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip after its unprecedented Oct. 7 attack.
“We expect the Islamic countries that have diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime to cut off their relations immediately and expel the Israeli ambassador from their country,” Amirabdollahian said in a clip aired by state television in Iran. “Secondly, the export of oil to the country of Israel and any project that exists between any Islamic state and Israel must be stopped immediately.”
There was no immediate acknowledgment of the call by Israel, nor any other nation.
