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More than 27,000 people have been killed and 66,000 wounded by Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the Hamas-controlled territory’s Health Ministry said Thursday.
South Africa’s foreign minister has accused Israel of ignoring last week’s ruling by the United Nations’ top court, which ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent deaths in Gaza.
The number of deaths has grown by more than 1,100 since the International Court of Justice in the Hague told Israel to do its best to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel denies the genocide accusations brought against it at the court by South Africa.
The Health Ministry said 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 wounded since Oct. 7. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths but says most of those killed were women and children.
The violence in Gaza continues to spill over into neighboring countries. Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired two ballistic missiles on Thursday at a Liberian-flagged container ship in the Red Sea, a U.S. defense official said, the latest attack by the rebels as America launches airstrikes against them.
Israel’s offensive was prompted by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Currently:
— Explosion strikes near vessel in the Red Sea off Yemen as Houthi rebels keep attacking ships.
— Gunmen take hostages at US company’s Turkish factory in apparent protest of Gaza war.
— Biden will issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians in the West Bank.
— Israel and Lebanon are prepping for a war neither wants, but many fear it’s becoming inevitable.
— U.N. agencies rally around the agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza as some top donors cut funding.
— South Africa says Israel is already ignoring a U.N. court ruling ordering it to prevent deaths in Gaza.
— Chicago becomes the latest U.S. city to approve a cease-fire resolution in the Israel-Hamas war.
— Find more of news agencies’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest:
JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister says the military has almost completed its operations in the southern city of Khan Younis after inflicting heavy losses on Hamas and is poised to move further south toward the Egyptian border.
The army has focused its offensive in recent weeks on Khan Younis, saying the city is a Hamas stronghold. It says it has killed at least 2,000 Hamas militants there and destroyed a number of important tunnels in the militant group’s underground network.
“The Khan Younis Brigade boasted that it would stand strong against the Israeli military. Today it is dismantled,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops in Khan Younis on Thursday. “We are completing the mission in Khan Younis and we will also reach Rafah and we will kill every terrorist there who tries to harm us.”
Gallant said Hamas is running out of weapons and ammunition and cannot take care of its wounded fighters.
