Israel-Hamas war latest: Israeli military says it killed 5 more militants in West Bank operation

The Israeli military says it has killed five more militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank, including a well-known local commander.

There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation on Thursday of the death of Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Tulkarem.

He became a hero for many Palestinians earlier this year when he was reported killed in an Israeli operation, only to make a surprise appearance at the funeral of other militants, where he was hoisted onto the shoulders of a cheering crowd.

Israel launched a large-scale operation in the West Bank overnight into Wednesday. Hamas said 10 of its fighters were killed in different locations, and the Palestinian Health Ministry reported an 11th casualty, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there.

___

Here's the latest:

UNITED NATIONS — In a rare rebuke, the United States has sharply criticized Israel’s attacks on U.N. vehicles and called for an end to assaults and threatening rhetoric against the United Nations and humanitarian organizations.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told a U.N. Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza that “The rhetoric has placed — and continues to place — humanitarian actors under increased risk both in Gaza and globally.”

He singled out the Israeli military’s repeated firing at a clearly marked vehicle of the U.N. food agency which was hit by at least 10 bullets as it was moving toward an Israeli military checkpoint at the central Wadi Gaza bridge despite having received multiple clearances from Israeli authorities.

In response, the World Food Program announced Wednesday it is “pausing” the movement of all staff in Gaza until further notice. U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Thursday that all WFP convoys and staff remain on hold, though the staff was in contact with some humanitarian partners who deliver aid in Gaza.

Wood expressed alarm at the WFP incident and said Israel has told the U.S. their initial review said it was “a result of a communication error” between Israeli military units.

Almost 11 months into the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, Wood said, incidents like the shooting at a WFP vehicle “remain all too common.”

He said the United States is also concerned about the Israeli military firing at a vehicle belonging to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

On July 23, UNICEF said two of its vehicles were hit with live ammunition while waiting at a designated holding point near the Wada Gaza checkpoint, waiting to reunite five children including a baby with their father. It was the second shooting involving a UNICEF car in 12 weeks.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medics say that an Israeli airstrike that hit an apartment building in the central Gaza Strip killed nine members of the same family, including five infants and two women.

Members of the al-Taweel family on Thursday lifted up the bodies of five dead babies wrapped in bloodstained shrouds, showing their pale gray faces to journalists gathered outside the hospital morgue.

“These are Israel’s goals!” shouted Osama al-Taweel, as he wept over his grandchildren’s swaddled remains. Medics at the al-Awda Hospital said that one of the women killed in the strike on the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp was pregnant, and her fetus was killed too.

The Israeli military, which has come under mounting international criticism for the thousands of children that have been killed in Gaza, did not immediately offer comment on the target of its attack in Nuseirat. The Israel-Hamas war, now in its 10th month, has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians so far, according to the enclave’s health authorities that don’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

JERUSALEM — The head of Israel’s association of public health physicians is calling on the United Nations to make sure that Israeli hostages held in Gaza are included in a polio vaccination campaign.

In a letter to the directors of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, Dr. Hagai Levine noted that two young brothers, Kfir Bibas, 1, and Ariel Bibas, 5, are among the hostages. He also said many of the adult hostages are overdue for booster shots.

“Given their vulnerable position and the lack of essential vaccinations, the hostages are at severe risk,” Levine, who also serves as head of the health division for the grassroots forum representing hostage families, wrote in a letter.

WHO announced that it will begin a campaign on Sunday to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children after a baby contracted the first confirmed case of polio in Gaza in 25 years.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage in an Oct. 7 attack.

Over 100 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, though Israel believes about one third of them have died. Hamas has not allowed aid workers access to the hostages.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s opposition leader says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored warning signs ahead of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Yair Lapid, a former prime minister, said Thursday that he attended a joint security briefing with Netanyahu in August 2023 in which the prime minister’s military secretary warned that things were “heating up” on Israel’s various fronts.

“I can tell you that the danger appeared in the intelligence materials,” Lapid said, accusing Netanyahu of being “bored and indifferent” and ignoring warnings that divisions over his right-wing coalition’s controversial judicial overhaul plan were hurting Israel’s deterrence capabilities.

Netanyahu’s Likud party called Lapid a “liar.”

“The prime minister did not receive any warning of war in Gaza,” it said.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has so far refused to take personal responsibility for Israel’s policy and intelligence failures leading up to Oct. 7. Netanyahu’s rivals have accused him of putting his own political survival ahead of national security.

JERUSALEM — An Israeli military official says that Israeli troops have made significant progress in the southern city of Rafah, overpowering Hamas’ battalions and destroying most militant infrastructure.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, the official told reporters on Thursday that Hamas’ Rafah brigade “has been mostly dismantled and can no longer operate as a military structure.” The official also said Israeli forces destroyed 80% of Hamas’ tunnels dug deep under the surface of Rafah.

The official added that the 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin hostage rescued by Israeli commandos on Wednesday was found in the Hamas tunnel network under Rafah.

The Israeli military estimates that it has killed at least 17,000 fighters – the majority of Hamas’ forces. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant sought to highlight the military’s achievements after meeting with senior military officials Thursday.

“In Gaza, most of the Hamas brigades and battalions have been defeated,” Gallant said.

Some 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, fleeing multiple times across the territory to escape ground offensives. The Israeli offensive has killed 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities that don’t distinguish between civilians and militants.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed to this report.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Family members of hostages held by militants in the Gaza Strip gathered along the frontier to try to broadcast messages of support to their loved ones.

They set up a giant sound system on Thursday, hoping the captives might hear them.

“Hersh, Hersh, it’s Mama, Hersh,” yelled Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose 23-year-old son Hersh was among the roughly 250 people taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

“It’s day 328. We are all here, all the families of the remaining 107 hostages. Hersh, we are working day and night, and we will never stop!” she said.

Some family members, overcome with emotion, briefly entered a fenced-off zone along the border. Security forces brought them out after around 20 minutes, according to Israeli media.

The event was the culmination of a large convoy of cars that had left from Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening.

Family members are increasingly dismayed as negotiations over a cease-fire and the release of the hostages drag on with no sign of a breakthrough.

Hamas has said it will release the hostages in return for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he remains committed to destroying the militant group and returning all the captives.

“I will not give up until you return home, I will continue running to every place in the world until we bring a deal that will free you and all the hostages,” Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, yelled across the border.

BEIJING — U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan says the negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages have made progress.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing on Thursday, he said “the negotiators are bearing down on the details, meaning that we have advanced the discussions to a point where it’s in the nitty-gritty, and that is a positive sign of progress.”

Officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel have held several days of talks trying to hammer out an updated proposal that could be submitted to Hamas. But there has been no sign of a breakthrough, and Israel and Hamas remain far apart on key issues.

U.S. officials have said they are closing in on a deal, while Hamas has accused the United States of adopting unacceptable demands by Israel and trying to force them on the militant group. Officials in Egypt, one of the key mediators, have also expressed skepticism.

“At the end of the day, nothing is done until it’s done. And so we’re just going to keep working at this until we finally get the cease-fire and hostage deal across the line,” Sullivan said.

BRUSSELS — Ireland’s foreign minister says Israel is targeting Palestinian people and not just Hamas with its military campaign in Gaza, and he wants the European Union to review its ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“This is a war against Palestinians not just against Hamas. The level of civilian casualties and dead is unconscionable,” Martin said Thursday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. “It’s a war on the population. No point in trying to fudge this.”

He said a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is unlawful obliges the EU to take action.

“It cannot be business as usual,” Martin told reporters. “It is very clear to us that international humanitarian law has been broken.”

Ties between the EU and Israel — which are major trading partners — are governed by a so-called Association Agreement. Ireland and Spain have been pressing their EU partners to examine whether Israel has broken the rules.

Martin also said that Ireland’s transport department was looking into reports that Israel may have transported weapons through Irish airspace without permission.

“Any cargo planes carrying weapons must seek exemptions. Exemptions have not been sought in respect of any flights,” he said.

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. secretary-general is calling for an immediate halt to Israel's large-scale military operation in the West Bank.

Antonio Guterres also called on Israel’s government to comply with its obligations under international law and take measures to protect civilians, according to a written statement from his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric late Thursday.

The United Nations says Israel’s use of airstrikes and other military means in the Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas governorates of the West Bank resulted in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. Israel’s military says at least 10 Palestinian militants have been killed in the operation.

The statement also called for injured people to be granted access to medical care and for humanitarian workers to be able to distribute aid to those in need.

“These dangerous developments are fueling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority,” the statement said.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top diplomat says that the bloc should consider imposing sanctions on a number of Israeli government ministers over their remarks about the war in Gaza.

“Some Israeli ministers have been launching hateful messages, unacceptable hateful messages, against the Palestinians and proposing things that go clearly against international law and is an incitation to commit more crimes,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

Borrell did not name the ministers, but earlier this month he criticized Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over remarks suggesting that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.

Borrell said there should be “no taboos” to prevent the EU from ensuring that international humanitarian law is respected. Borrell was chairing a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday, and he wanted them to discuss possible sanctions.

But the 27 EU member countries are divided over their approach to the war in Gaza and it’s unlikely that they would all agree on such a move.

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. food agency says it is “pausing” the movement of all staff in Gaza until further notice after one of its clearly marked vehicles was hit by at least 10 bullets as it was moving toward an Israeli military checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge in the center of the territory.

The World Food Program announcement Wednesday afternoon said the vehicle was struck Tuesday evening despite receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach. “None of the employees onboard were physically harmed,” WFP said.

The agency said two armored WFP vehicles were returning from the Kerem Shalom crossing after escorting a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian cargo routed to Gaza’s central area.

“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances, as per standard protocol,” the Rome-based agency said.

It called the incident “a stark reminder of the rapidly and ever shrinking humanitarian space in the Gaza Strip, where increasing violence compromises our ability to deliver life-saving assistance.”

WFP said this critical situation is exacerbated “by restricted access and heightened risks” which has led to a decrease in the amount of food reading Palestinians in desperate need.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the vehicle was struck by Israeli military gunfire, “including with bullets targeting front windows.” He said the incident shows the need for more U.N. armored vehicles, saying the two people inside the WFP vehicle were saved because it was armored.

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities said Wednesday that they have recovered the body of a soldier who was abducted and killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and who had since been held in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli’s military and the Shin Beit internal security agency rescued the remains of the fallen soldier in a joint operation overnight and returned them to Israel, according to a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the man’s death, saying he had fallen “in a heroic battle” on Oct. 7 while defending Israeli communities near Gaza.

“The heart of the entire nation mourns the terrible loss,” Netanyahu said.

The soldier was not identified at the family’s request.

The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. The militants are still holding 107 hostages, about a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.