let's go Deadly fighting and airstrikes surrounded the Gaza Strip on Monday, a day after an attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, heightening fears of further terrorism. regional conflict.
Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip killed 140 people overnight, including 20 families, the Hamas-run Palestinian Territories' Health Ministry said.
In the war triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7, Israeli forces said they had “encountered and killed dozens of armed terrorists in combat in central Gaza.”
Ground forces, backed by tanks, have focused their combat operations on Khan Yunis, a key southern city in the coastal strip that is home to Hamas' Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.
The war, which has lasted nearly four months and was sparked by Hamas attacks, has killed about 1,140 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to an official AFP tally.
Hamas militants, considered a 'terrorist' group by the United States and the European Union, also took 250 hostages, and Israel said about 132 of them, including the bodies of at least 28 dead, remain in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry, Israel's merciless military offensive has killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children.
In the latest effort to broker a new ceasefire, CIA Director William Burns met with senior Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Paris on Sunday, but no progress was reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the talks were “constructive” but noted “significant gaps that the two sides will continue to discuss this week.”
US President Joe Biden has dispatched Burns to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire, a security source confirmed to AFP.
The New York Times reported Saturday that a deal is being negotiated that would see Israel suspend its fighting for about two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, Israel and top U.S. allies have faced attacks and counterattacks from several Iran-backed armed groups, and violence has erupted in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel are engaged in almost daily fighting across the border, and Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched attacks on Red Sea shipping, sparking attacks on US and British bases.
U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were also targeted more than 150 times, the Pentagon said. Most of the attacks have been claimed by Iraq's Islamist insurgents, a loose alliance of groups linked to Iran.
A drone attack Sunday struck a remote base in Jordan near the border between Iraq and Syria, killing three American soldiers and wounding 25, the U.S. military said.
Biden condemned “radical Iranian-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” and promised that “all those responsible will be held accountable when and in the manner of our choosing.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Khanani called the accusations “baseless” and said “Tehran does not welcome the escalation of conflict in the region.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: jordan attack “A message to the U.S. administration,” he warned, “that an American-Zionist attack on Gaza risks leading to a regional explosion.”
The war in Gaza has forced more than a million Palestinians to flee to the southernmost Rafah region near the Egyptian border, deepening the humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.
Hunger and disease have spread through crowded tent cities, where families seek shelter in makeshift tents against cold winter rain and mud, fearing more airstrikes.
Awareness of their plight has been heightened amid intense controversy surrounding UNRWA, the United Nations' main aid agency for Palestine, after Israel charged several of its employees with involvement in the October 7 attack.
Japan has become the latest major donor to freeze funding for the agency that has provided most of the food, medical care and other assistance to the 2.4 million people in the long-blockade Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleaded for continued financial support, saying “the desperate needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, warned that the funding cutoff was a “clear disregard” for the International Court of Justice's order to allow further aid to Gaza.
Israel has insisted that the UN agency should have no role in the post-war Gaza Strip, and Israel's envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has criticized the funds, saying they will be “used for terrorism.”
Many Israelis, outraged by the October 7 attacks, support Netanyahu's government's war effort, which is the most religious and ultranationalist in Israel's 75-year history.
Hundreds of protesters have gathered at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in recent days and repeatedly blocked aid trucks from entering Gaza.
And thousands protested Sunday calling for the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in Gaza at a rally attended by several far-right ministers.
“If we don’t want another October 7th, we have to control the territory,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gbir said.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 after occupying it in 1967.
Netanyahu has rejected resettlement in Gaza in public statements, but the rally showed that once-fringe positions have gained momentum within his far-right government.
Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip killed 140 people overnight, including 20 families, the Hamas-run Palestinian Territories' Health Ministry said.
In the war triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7, Israeli forces said they had “encountered and killed dozens of armed terrorists in combat in central Gaza.”
Ground forces, backed by tanks, have focused their combat operations on Khan Yunis, a key southern city in the coastal strip that is home to Hamas' Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.
The war, which has lasted nearly four months and was sparked by Hamas attacks, has killed about 1,140 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to an official AFP tally.
Hamas militants, considered a 'terrorist' group by the United States and the European Union, also took 250 hostages, and Israel said about 132 of them, including the bodies of at least 28 dead, remain in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry, Israel's merciless military offensive has killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children.
In the latest effort to broker a new ceasefire, CIA Director William Burns met with senior Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Paris on Sunday, but no progress was reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the talks were “constructive” but noted “significant gaps that the two sides will continue to discuss this week.”
US President Joe Biden has dispatched Burns to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire, a security source confirmed to AFP.
The New York Times reported Saturday that a deal is being negotiated that would see Israel suspend its fighting for about two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, Israel and top U.S. allies have faced attacks and counterattacks from several Iran-backed armed groups, and violence has erupted in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel are engaged in almost daily fighting across the border, and Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched attacks on Red Sea shipping, sparking attacks on US and British bases.
U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were also targeted more than 150 times, the Pentagon said. Most of the attacks have been claimed by Iraq's Islamist insurgents, a loose alliance of groups linked to Iran.
A drone attack Sunday struck a remote base in Jordan near the border between Iraq and Syria, killing three American soldiers and wounding 25, the U.S. military said.
Biden condemned “radical Iranian-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” and promised that “all those responsible will be held accountable when and in the manner of our choosing.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Khanani called the accusations “baseless” and said “Tehran does not welcome the escalation of conflict in the region.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: jordan attack “A message to the U.S. administration,” he warned, “that an American-Zionist attack on Gaza risks leading to a regional explosion.”
The war in Gaza has forced more than a million Palestinians to flee to the southernmost Rafah region near the Egyptian border, deepening the humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.
Hunger and disease have spread through crowded tent cities, where families seek shelter in makeshift tents against cold winter rain and mud, fearing more airstrikes.
Awareness of their plight has been heightened amid intense controversy surrounding UNRWA, the United Nations' main aid agency for Palestine, after Israel charged several of its employees with involvement in the October 7 attack.
Japan has become the latest major donor to freeze funding for the agency that has provided most of the food, medical care and other assistance to the 2.4 million people in the long-blockade Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleaded for continued financial support, saying “the desperate needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, warned that the funding cutoff was a “clear disregard” for the International Court of Justice's order to allow further aid to Gaza.
Israel has insisted that the UN agency should have no role in the post-war Gaza Strip, and Israel's envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has criticized the funds, saying they will be “used for terrorism.”
Many Israelis, outraged by the October 7 attacks, support Netanyahu's government's war effort, which is the most religious and ultranationalist in Israel's 75-year history.
Hundreds of protesters have gathered at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in recent days and repeatedly blocked aid trucks from entering Gaza.
And thousands protested Sunday calling for the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in Gaza at a rally attended by several far-right ministers.
“If we don’t want another October 7th, we have to control the territory,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gbir said.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 after occupying it in 1967.
Netanyahu has rejected resettlement in Gaza in public statements, but the rally showed that once-fringe positions have gained momentum within his far-right government.