(AP) — Israeli airstrikes are hitting southern Gaza, an area swelled by civilians who fled there from the north on Israeli instructions. Meanwhile, Israel began evacuating a sizable town near the Lebanese border in the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger regional turmoil.
Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy airstrikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, where civilians had been told to seek safety amid Israel’s bombardment of areas closer to the Israeli border. Ambulances streamed into Gaza’s second-largest hospital, already overflowing with patients and people seeking shelter.
The U.N. secretary general is at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza seeking to find a way to get badly needed aid into the enclave.
The war, which is in its 14th day on Friday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,000 others wounded.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Currently:
1. U.S. President Joe Biden meets with European leaders to assure them the U.S. can deliver wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel.
2. In Nir Oz, a quarter of the residents are dead or missing after the Hamas attack
3. The current crisis in the Middle East has the potential to disrupt global oil supplies and push prices higher.
4. Egypt and other Arab countries typically don’t want to take in Palestinian refugees.
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
EGYPT SAYS ISRAEL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CLOSURE OF RAFAH BORER CROSSING
CAIRO — Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has accused Western media outlets of unfairly holding it responsible for closing the Rafah border crossing.
In a brief statement on X, formerly Twitter, the ministry’s official spokesperson instead suggested blame should be directed at Israel for carrying out attacks on Rafah and for refusing to allow aid to enter the besieged enclave.
Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid also accused Israel of suggesting that Egypt was obstructing foreign nationals from leaving Gaza.
“Rafah crossing is open and Egypt is not responsible of obstructing third-country nationals exit,” he said.
Egyptian authorities have continually said that they did not close the Rafah border, but it that is not functioning due to the damage inflicted by Israeli airstrikes.
FRENCH PRESIDENT MEETS WITH FAMILIES OF HAMAS HOSTAGES
PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron met on Friday via video with families of French hostages captured by Hamas militants in their Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
A day earlier, the Foreign Ministry said that 28 French citizens were killed by Hamas in its attacks against Israel while seven French people remained missing, and confirmed for the first time that at least some of those were “hostages of Hamas.”
Macron said on X, formerly Twitter, that he told the families “and everyone” that “France does not abandon its own.”
“We are doing all we can to obtain the liberation and the return of our compatriots,” he said.
SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW IMPACT OF AIRSTRIKES ON GAZA
UNDATED — The misery of life in Gaza can be seen from space.
The destruction and impact from Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants is visible in satellite imagery of blocks leveled by missiles and smoke rising over the blast zones — and also in more subtle photos.
Images by Maxar Technologies showed people sheltering in the courtyards at two schools in Gaza City and one in Deir al Balah on Thursday.
A tractor appeared to be overturning fresh soil to make way for new graves as the Marzouq Street cemetery expands in Gaza City.
An overview of Shifa Hospital showed where tents were set up in what used to be a grassy, tree-covered area next to the hospital. Some hospitals have set up tents to treat the wounded and temporarily house the dead.
Along a stretch of road near the beach, a series of round craters marked the spots where airstrikes hit the dirt and didn’t flatten homes.
GAZA HOSPITAL STRUGGLES TO FUNCTION WITH DWINDLING POWER
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The director of Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, says generators in the hospital are operating at the lowest setting to provide power to vital departments that cannot function without electricity, while others work in darkness.
The hospital is prioritizing intensive care, nursery, dialysis, oxygen generation, obstetrics and gynecology, heart care and the blood bank, Mohammed Abu Selmia said.
“I don’t know how long it will last. Every day we evaluate the situation,” he said.
The numbers of wounded coming to the hospital is so high it’s difficult to identify them, he said. Water is scarce, and patients with chronic diseases and cancer are suffering.
Asked what medical supplies were needed most, he said all medicines related to emergency care, intensive care and operations, obstetrics and gynecology and dialysis medications. Doctors can’t treat patients without these supplies, he said. “We cannot function without it.”
AID GROUP CARITAS SAYS A LOCAL EMPLOYEE KILLED IN GAZA
BERLIN – Aid organization Caritas International says a local employee was killed in an explosion at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza, where she and her family had sought shelter.
Caritas didn’t release the name of the woman, an employee of Caritas Jerusalem. It said in a statement Friday that she, her family and four other Caritas employees had sought shelter on the grounds of the Church of Saint Porphyrios.
Palestinian authorities blamed the blast late Thursday on an Israeli airstrike, a claim that couldn’t be independently verified.
NO PLANS FOR ISRAEL TO CONTROL LIFE IN GAZA, MINISTER SAYS
JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Friday that after the country destroys the Hamas militant group, the military does not plan to control “life in the Gaza Strip”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s comments to lawmakers were the first time an Israeli leader discussed its long-term plans for Gaza.
Gallant said Israel expected there to be three phases to its war with Hamas. He said it first would attack the group in Gaza with airstrikes and ground maneuvers, then it would defeat pockets of resistance and finally it would cease its “responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip.”
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ARRIVES AT RAFAH CROSSING
CAIRO — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres arrived at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Friday and called on all international parties to work together to ensure humanitarian aid reaches Palestinians in besieged Gaza
Speaking to the media in front of the border crossing, he said the lorries packed with vital aid were a “lifeline” for Palestinians in Gaza, “the difference between life and death,” and needed to be moved into the enclave as quickly as possible.
Guterres pointed out that the deal reached between Egypt and Israel to allow aid to flow into the Gaza Strip has some conditions and restrictions.
“We are actively engaging with Egypt, Israel and the United States in order to make sure that we can clarify those conditions and limit those restrictions in order to have these trucks headed to where they are needed,” he said. He did not provide a timeframe as to when the trucks of aid would enter Gaza.
The U.N chief also reiterated his call for a cease-fire between the warring parties.
GULF AND ASIAN NATIONS END SUMMIT WITH CALL FOR CEASE-FIRE
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Arab Gulf and southeast Asian nations are calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The final statement of a summit hosted by Saudi Arabia on Friday also condemns “all attacks against civilians.”
The joint summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations brought together 16 member states.
Saudi Arabia, which has launched a number of diplomatic initiatives across the Middle East over the past year, has called for a halt to the fighting.
Before the outbreak of the war, the kingdom had been in talks with the United States on normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for a U.S. defense pact, help in establishing a civilian nuclear program and unspecified concessions to the Palestinians.
UN SAYS PALESTINIANS ARE RETURNING HOME
GENEVA — A spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office says there are new signs that some Palestinians who initially moved south in response to the Israeli order to evacuate are returning to their homes because Israeli strikes are taking place in the south, too.
“We remain very concerned that Israeli Forces’ heavy strikes are continuing across Gaza, including in the south,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters. “The strikes, coupled with extremely difficult living conditions in the south, appear to have pushed some to return to the north, despite the continuing heavy bombing there.”
Shamdasani said the rights office had heard accounts about people wanting to migrate back north, including from one unidentified Palestinian who said “I might as well die in my own house.”
SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW AID TRUCK CONVOY WAITING TO ENTER GAZA
JERUSALEM — Satellite photos analyzed Friday by The Associated Press show a massive convoy of semitruck trailers lined up at the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side, likely waiting for approval to cross into the besieged Gaza Strip as the Israel-Hamas war rages.
The images, shot Thursday by Planet Labs PBC, show 55 trucks waiting in two lines, just half a kilometer (a third of a mile) away from the border. There are over 50 smaller vehicles visible in the image as well, many appearing to be with aid organizations, waiting at the crossing.
The Gaza Strip, home to over 2 million Palestinians, has been cut off from food, water, fuel and electricity by Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack. There have been days of high-level negotiations over aid getting into the besieged seaside enclave, including officials all the way up to U.S. President Joe Biden.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has arrived in northern Sinai as the world body works on getting aid through, said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory’s only crossing not controlled by Israel, remains fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would “thwart” any diversions by Hamas. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah.
Work began Friday to repair the road at the crossing that had been damaged in airstrikes, with trucks unloading gravel and bulldozers and other road repair equipment filling in large craters.
BODIES OF 8 THAIS KILLED IN HAMAS ATTACK ARRIVE IN BANGKOK
BANGKOK — The bodies of eight Thai nationals who were killed in the Hamas attack on southern Israel arrived at a Bangkok airport Friday as repatriation efforts continued for thousands of Thai workers.
Ahead of the first repatriation of the Thai dead, Thai and Israeli officials laid wreaths at a small memorial ceremony on Thursday at Tel Aviv’s airport. Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Thursday that 30 Thais are feared dead, while 16 are reportedly injured and 17 are believed to have been abducted.
About 30,000 Thai workers are in Israel, mostly agricultural laborers, and about 5,000 were working in the area attacked. Two evacuation flights on Friday brought more than 500 Thais back to the country, with more flights set to arrive daily. Officials say more than 8,000 of the Thais remaining in Israel have expressed their wish to return home.
BIDEN REFERENCES BOY’S KILLING TO DENOUNCE ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA
President Joe Biden referenced the killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois to deliver a forceful denunciation of antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Biden brought up the case of Wadea Al-Fayoume during a televised nighttime address from the Oval Office. Authorities say the boy, who was Muslim, was stabbed 26 times Saturday by his landlord in response to escalating rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war. Wadea’s mother was critically wounded.
Biden said it’s difficult to “stand by and stand silent when this happens,” adding that “we must without equivocation denounce” antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The White House said that after the speech, Biden and his wife, Jill, spoke with Wadea’s father and uncle to offer condolences along with prayers for his mother’s recovery.
BIDEN CALLS FOR MORE AID FOR ISRAEL AND UKRAINE
President Joe Biden is urging support for additional U.S. aid for Ukraine and Israel, saying in a televised address from the Oval Office that “American leadership is what holds the world together.”
Biden spoke hours after returning to Washington from an urgent visit to Israel to show U.S. support in the wake of a deadly attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. Some 1,400 civilians were killed and roughly 200 others, including Americans, were taken to Gaza as hostages. Israel has responded with airstrikes, and 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The U.S. president argued that Israel needs help to defend itself from Hamas. He also said the U.S. must help Ukraine stop the advances of Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep other “would-be aggressors” from trying to take over other countries.
Biden said he will send lawmakers an “urgent budget request” Friday to fund U.S. national security needs. He called the request, said to carry a price tag of about $100 billion, a “smart investment” that will pay dividends for decades to come.
EMHOFF MEETS US SURVIVOR OF HAMAS ATTACK
Douglas Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, met in Washington with Natalie Sanandaji, a 28-year-old American survivor of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
Sanandaji recounted the attack on a music festival, where some 260 people were killed, a White House official said.
Emhoff, who is Jewish and has been outspoken about and against antisemitism, spoke to Sanandaji about President Joe Biden and Harris’ support for Israel, providing humanitarian aid to civilians and the administration’s work to combat hate of all kinds, the official said.
