Pakistan Rupee Exchange Rate
Israeli airstrikes hit the central Gaza Strip and the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt overnight into Friday, killing nearly two dozen people including women and children, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he has ordered the military to draw up plans to evacuate the population of Rafah before an expected Israeli invasion of the city.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been driven by Israel’s military offensive toward the border with Egypt. Unable to leave the tiny Palestinian territory, many are living in makeshift tent camps or overflowing U.N.-run shelters.
The developments came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that he considers Israel’s conduct in the war to be “over the top.”
The Palestinian death toll from the war has surpassed 27,840 people, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. A quarter of Gaza’s residents are starving.
The war began with Hamas’ assault into Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Hamas is still holding more than 130 hostages, but around 30 of them are believed to be dead.
Currently:
— Israel and Hamas are far apart on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage deal. What are the sticking points?
— The families of a few Israeli hostages don’t want a deal to bring them home. They want Hamas crushed
— US conducts new airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels
— Find more of news agencies’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest:
CAIRO — Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi denied he initially opposed allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing until U.S. President Joe Biden convinced him otherwise.
“From the first moment, Egypt has opened the Rafah border crossing from its side without any restrictions or conditions and has mobilized massive humanitarian aid and relief,” the Egyptian leader said in an official statement Friday.
A day earlier, Biden took credit for convincing el-Sissi — whom he mistakenly called the president of Mexico — to open the Rafah crossing for aid. “I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate,” Biden said at a news conference.
At the start of the war, Israel banned entry of food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza, vowing to let nothing in until Hamas released hostages it took on Oct. 7. Israel forced the closure of the Rafah crossing by bombarding the Palestinian side repeatedly. It took heavy U.S. pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before Israel agreed to allow a small number of trucks into Gaza from Egypt.
Egypt at the time repeatedly said it wanted to open the crossing to let aid enter. Its reluctance was more focused on allowing a limited number of people out of Gaza onto its soil – fearing a mass influx of refugees.
International relief agencies have constantly pled for more aid to be allowed in, complaining that that aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process for trucks and goods going into Gaza, and continuing fighting throughout the territory.
In his statement, el-Sissi held Israel responsible for the delay in allowing aid in, pointing to the airstrikes on the crossing. When the strikes stopped, he said, Egypt repaired the crossing to allow humanitarian aid deliveries.
GENEVA — An operation by Israeli security forces who dressed as medics and women to enter a West Bank hospital and killed three Palestinians inside last month may amount to a war crime and violations of international law, independent U.N. human rights experts said Friday.
