U.S. President Joe Biden criticized the extent of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, as tension builds over Israeli plans to push into Rafah, where more than one million people have sought refuge.

“The conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden said Thursday at the White House. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. A lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop.”

The president’s comments marked an escalation in his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war against Hamas. They came after the Israeli leader previewed plans for ground forces to enter the city of Rafah, which lies to the south of Gaza and near the Palestinian territory’s border with Egypt.

Israel launched airstrikes in the area overnight, killing at least eight Palestinians, the Associated Press reported.

The White House has expressed concern about the fate of refugees gathered in and around Rafah, saying it would not support an offensive that did not account for the impact on civilians.

A military operation there right now would be a “disaster for those people and it’s not something that we would support,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday.

Rafah is the main point of entry for aid coming from Egypt. The south of the strip is were around half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people fled to in the early part of the war as Israel concentrated its assault on Gaza City in the north.

At the White House, Biden said he’s pressured the Israeli government to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. His administration is working toward a sustained pause in military operations to allow for the release of hostages taken by Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union.

The Iran-backed group killed 1,200 people when its militants broke out of Gaza and rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel’s retaliatory air and ground offensive has killed more than 27,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory.

“I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage cease-fire,” the president said. “If we could get that initial delay, I think that we would be able to extend that so that we can increase the prospect that this fighting in Gaza changes.”

Hamas fighters abducted about 250 people during their incursion. Roughly 100 hostages were freed during an earlier, week-long truce that ended on Dec. 1.

The fate of the remaining captives is dominating political discussion in Israel. The Israeli military has said that of the 136 still in Gaza, 31 are dead.

The death toll in Gaza has raised international pressure on Israel, a key U.S. ally, to bring the fighting to an end. It has also caused political complications for Biden ahead of the November presidential election, in which he is seeking a second term. In some swing states such as Michigan, Biden’s losing support among Arab- and Muslim-Americans for not doing more to stop the war.

—With assistance from Josh Wingrove and Hadriana Lowenkron.

___

©2024 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the densely populated southern Gaza city.

Israel says that Rafah is the last remaining Hamas stronghold in Gaza after more than four months of war. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

“It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war of eliminating Hamas by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” Netanyahu’s office said. “On the contrary, it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat.”

It said he had ordered the military and security officials to come up with a “combined plan” that includes both a mass evacuation of civilians and the destruction of Hamas’ forces in the town.

Israel declared war after several thousand Hamas terrorists burst across the border into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. An Israeli air and ground offensive has killed roughly 28,000 Palestinians, most of them women and minors, according to local health officials. Roughly 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, and the territory has plunged into a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food and medical services.

Netanyahu has largely rebuffed international criticism of the civilian death toll, saying that Hamas is responsible for endangering civilians by operating and hiding in residential areas. But that criticism has grown in recent days as Netanyahu and other leaders vow to move into Rafah.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that Israel’s conduct in the war is “over the top,” the harshest U.S. criticism yet of its close ally. The State Department said an invasion of Rafah in the current circumstances “would be a disaster.”

The operation will be a challenge on many levels. It remains unclear where civilians can go. The Israeli offensive has caused widespread destruction, especially in northern Gaza, and hundreds of thousands of people do not have homes to return to.

In addition, Egypt has warned that any movement of Palestinians across the border into Egypt would threaten the four-decade-old peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which is mostly closed, serves as the main entry point for humanitarian aid.

Israel already has begun to strike Rafah from the air. Airstrikes overnight and into Friday hit two residential buildings in Rafah, while two other sites were bombed in central Gaza, including one that damaged a kindergarten-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians. Twenty-two people were killed, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies arriving at hospitals.

GROWING FRICTION

Comments from top U.S. officials about Rafah have signaled growing friction with Netanyahu after a visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Blinken, who has been working with Egypt and Qatar on trying to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, left the region Thursday without an agreement. But he said he believed it was still possible to strike a deal that would include an extended pause in fighting in exchange for the release of many of the more than 100 hostages held by Hamas.

Netanyahu appeared to snub Blinken, saying he will settle for nothing short of “total victory.” The Israeli leader has said the war seeks to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and return all hostages home. With Blinken still in town, Netanyahu said achieving those goals would require an operation in Rafah. Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday that going ahead with such an offensive “with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster.”

John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesman, said an Israel ground offensive in Rafah is “not something we would support.”

Aid agency officials have also sounded warnings over the prospect of a Rafah offensive. “We need Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems to stay functional,” said Catherine Russell, head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF. “Without them, hunger and disease will skyrocket, taking more child lives.”

With the war now in its fifth month, Israeli ground forces are still focusing on the city of Khan Younis, just north of Rafah, but Netanyahu has repeatedly said Rafah will be next, creating panic among hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

AIRSTRIKES OVERNIGHT

Shortly after midnight Friday, a residential building was struck near Rafah’s Kuwaiti Hospital, killing five people from the al-Sayed family, including three children and a woman. A second Rafah strike killed three more people.

Another overnight strike, in the central town of Deir al-Balah, claimed nine lives. Also in central Gaza, a strike hit near a kindergarten-turned-shelter, damaging the building. It killed five and wounded several more people. Witnesses said shelter residents were asleep at the time.

A woman, carrying a small girl in her arms, shouted as she arrived at the local Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital: “What can we do? This is the work of the coward Zionist enemy that chooses innocent civilians. This girl is firing rockets at the Jews? May God help us.”

Some of the wounded children were treated while lying on the floor.

WORKING FOR A CEASE-FIRE

Israel’s 4-month-old air and ground offensive — among the most destructive in recent history — has killed 27,947 Palestinians and wounded more than 67,000, local health officials said Friday. The war has driven most people from their homes and pushed a quarter of the population toward starvation, according to the U.N.

Biden has said said he continues to work “tirelessly” to press Israel and Hamas to agree on an extended pause in fighting.

Netanyahu has rejected Hamas’ demands for a hostage deal, which includes an end to the war and the release of hundreds of veteran Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in Israel for deadly attacks carried out as part of the long-running conflict. Netanyahu dismissed Hamas’ demands as delusional, even as Blinken said he believes continued negotiations, through mediators Egypt and Qatar, are possible.

Israel’s war goals appear increasingly elusive, as Hamas reemerges in parts of northern Gaza, which was the first target of the offensive and has seen widespread destruction. Israel has only rescued one hostage, while Hamas says several have been killed in airstrikes or failed rescue missions.

Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Mroue reported from Beirut.

Attendees and panelists discussed rising hate crimes and reports of antisemitism, both at the local and national level, and discussed solutions for working together to fight hate in the U.S. and abroad.

Thursday’s event was hosted by the Jewish Federation of Orange County and UCI’s School of Social Ecology.

“The summit is designed to explore — through the lens of criminology, criminal justice and sociology — the questions that pop up in everyday lives,” said Erik Ludwig, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of OC, before the event.

Ludwig said that reports of antisemitism have “skyrocketed,” leading to “widespread fear and anguish” both in Orange County and nationwide.

Leaders at the summit also discussed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which officially began Oct. 7, when Hamas militants killed over 1,000 and kidnapped over 200 people in southern Israel. In retaliation, Israeli forces launched a brutal attack — which many advocates are calling a genocide — on the Palestinian people in Gaza. The death toll recently passed 25,000 at the end of January.

Hundreds of Jewish institutions, including synagogues, were threatened with hoax bombings across the U.S. in late 2023. Since the Oct. 7 attack, the Anti-Defamation League has recorded 3,283 reported antisemitic incidents in the U.S., including 1,353 incidents of harassment. About 73% of Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year alone.

Last November, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA), based in Anaheim, announced an “unprecedented increase” in complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias in the month following the Oct. 7 attack.

From Oct. 8 to Nov. 8, 2023, CAIR-LA received 116 requests for help and reports of bias— a 300% increase in cases compared to the previous month, officials said. Of these intakes, 85 were for cases related to Palestine, with nearly 40% being hate crimes, hate incidents, or both.

In Orange County, 32% of hate crimes reported in 2022 targeted people based on religion — primarily the Jewish community, according to the latest Hate Crimes Report by the Orange County Human Relations Commission. And 81% of reported religious hate crimes were against Jewish communities, according to an L.A. County Human Relations Commission report. Statewide, hate crimes — except for anti-Asian crimes — rose 20% in 2022.

Hannah Yu, representing the New York County District Attorney’s Office, and UCI’s Jeff Kopstein, from the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies, presented further data that supports the rise of hate crimes across the board, and what their offices are doing to address this.

Kopstein is currently working on a mass survey of antisemitism on the UCI campus. He said that the levels of antisemitism and general anti-Israel sentiment have “soared.”

“You can predict somebody’s antisemitic attitudes if they’re really ‘anti-Israel,’” Kopstein said.

For some, such statements have become a point of contention in recent months — as many pro-Palestine activists, even Jews and historians, have claimed that criticizing Israel and its treatment of Gaza isn’t “automatically antisemitism.”

“These are not easy conversations. These are the conversations that most of us steer away from,” Ludwig said during a panel. “We wanted to steer directly into the conversation. We wanted to do it data-based… experts can tell us the human toll of hate.”

Another panel focused on how local communities and leaders can address antisemitism; featuring Orange County District 5 Supervisor Katrina Foley, District Attorney Todd Spitzer, and Rabbi Richard Steinberg, the OC Human Relations Commissioner and leader of Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot.

Last fall, Foley and other supervisors faced backlash for past comments condemning the Hamas attacks, and seemingly supporting Israel’s response, in a joint statement with District 3 Supervisor Don Wagner and District 1 Supervisor Andrew Do.

Their statement received criticism, with some — including leaders from CAIR-LA — calling it “one-sided” and “deeply problematic” against local Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities.

At Thursday’s summit, the panelists discussed how to address antisemitism — and all hate — in Orange County, especially in local communities.  Some solutions included more education on Jewish history and people, restrictions for online harassment, diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups, and zero tolerance of hate speech.

Some ways that UCI has been addressing the rise of antisemitism over the last few years is by ensuring student and staff accountability, while promoting education and training, according to UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman.

Jenn Lundblad, a teacher with the Laguna Beach Unified School District, attended the summit in hopes of learning more about what Jewish students are going through.

While Lundblad hasn’t personally witnessed or dealt with antisemitism on campus, she said she wants to support students of both Israeli and Palestinian backgrounds, especially during this “tricky” time.

“Our particular district is not very diverse, so sometimes we don’t get all the information,” Lundblad, 45, said. “We’re making a really strong effort this year in particular, by moving forward to recognize culture and ethnicity and just different diverse groups, and we found that the students really want you to get it right.”

Staff writer Destiny Torres contributed to this report. 

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes killed over a dozen people overnight and into Thursday in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’ cease-fire terms and vowed to expand the offensive into the southern Gaza town.

More than half of strip’s population has fled to Rafah, on the mostly sealed border with Egypt, which is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid. Egypt has warned that any ground operation there or mass displacement across the border would undermine its four-decade-old peace treaty with Israel.

The overnight strikes killed at least 13 people, including two women and five children, according to the Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. At the scene of one of the strikes, residents used their cellphone flashlights as they dug through the rubble with pick-axes and their bare hands.

“I wish we could collect their whole bodies instead of just pieces,” said Mohammed Abu Habib, a neighbor who witnessed the strike.

Israel’s four-month-old air and ground offensive — among the most destructive in recent history — has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, driven most people from their homes and pushed a quarter of the population toward starvation.

Netanyahu has said the offensive will continue and expand until “total victory” over Hamas, which started the war by launching a wide-ranging attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage.

Israel has also vowed to bring back the over 100 captives still held by Hamas after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

But both of those goals appear increasingly elusive, as Hamas re-emerges in parts of northern Gaza, which was the first target of the offensive and suffered widespread destruction. Israel has only rescued one hostage, while Hamas says several have been killed in airstrikes or failed rescue missions.

ALARM GROWS AS ISRAEL EYES RAFAH

Netanyahu said preparations were underway to expand the offensive into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people who fled from other areas are crowded into squalid tent camps and overflowing U.N.-run shelters.

The Palestinian death toll from four months of war has already reached 27,840, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but says most of the dead have been women and children.

International aid organizations have warned that any major operation in Rafah would compound what is already a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged coastal enclave.

“If they aren’t killed in the fighting, Palestinian children, women and men will be at risk of dying by starvation or disease.” said Bob Kitchen, of the International Rescue Committee. “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to.”

Outside the hospital where bodies from the overnight strikes were brought, relatives wept as they said farewell to their loved ones. Warda Abu Warda said she felt helpless.”Where do we go after Rafah? Do we go to sea?” she asked.

GAPS REMAIN IN TALKS OVER CEASE-FIRE AND HOSTAGE RELEASE

The United States, Qatar and Egypt are trying to broker another cease-fire agreement to ensure the release the remaining hostages. But Hamas has demanded an end to the war, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

But visiting Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an agreement was still possible and that negotiations would continue, the latest sign of a growing divide between the two close allies on the way forward. A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Thursday for more negotiations.

Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from families of the hostages and the wider public to bring them home, even if it requires a deal with Hamas. At least one senior Israeli official has acknowledged that saving the captives and destroying Hamas might be incompatible.

Hamas is still holding over 130 hostages, but around 30 of them are believed to be dead, with the vast majority killed on Oct. 7. The group is widely believed to be holding the captives in tunnels deep underground and using them as human shields for its top leaders.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip and Chehayeb from Beirut.

WASHINGTON — Overcoming a week of setbacks, the Senate on Thursday voted to begin work on a package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies. But doubts remained about support from Republicans who earlier rejected a carefully negotiated compromise that also included border enforcement policies.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the latest vote a “good first step” and pledged that the Senate would “keep working on this bill — until the job is done.”

The 67-32 vote was the first meaningful step Congress has taken in months to approve Ukraine aid, but it still faces a difficult path through Congress. Support from GOP senators for final passage is not guaranteed, and even if the legislation passes the Senate, it is expected to be more difficult to win approval in the Republican-controlled House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been noncommittal on the aid.

The Senate prepared for a days-long slog to reach a final vote, and leaders had not agreed to a process to limit the debate time for the bill as Republicans remained divided on how to approach the legislation.

The $95 billion package is intended to show American strength at a time when U.S. military troops have been attacked and killed in Jordan, allies like Ukraine and Israel are deep in war and unrest threatens to shake the global order. It is also the best chance for Congress to replenish completely depleted military aid for Ukraine — a goal shared by President Joe Biden, Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

After the collapse this week of a bipartisan agreement to include border policy changes in the package, Schumer salvaged $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, as well as roughly $35 billion for Israel, other allies and national security priorities in the current legislation.

But Senate Republicans were fractured and frustrated as they huddled Thursday morning to discuss their approach to the legislation and struggled to coalesce behind a plan to assert their priorities. Still, Schumer forged ahead to the noon-hour vote, essentially daring the Ukraine supporters within the GOP to vote against the aid.

Schumer’s push worked as the vote to begin debate on the new package cleared with 17 Republicans along with Democrats voting to move forward. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who opposes much of the aid for Israel, voted against it.

Some in the Senate vowed to do everything they could to delay final action.

“I’ll object to anything speeding up this rotten foreign spending bill’s passage,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, on X.

The U.S. is already out of money to send missiles and ammunition to Kyiv, just as the nearly two-year-old war reaches a crucial juncture. Ukraine supporters say the drop-off in U.S. support is already being felt on the battlefield and by civilians. Russia has renewed its commitment to the invasion with relentless attacks.

“There are people in Ukraine right now, in the height of their winter, in trenches, being bombed and being killed,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

While military support for Ukraine once enjoyed wide bipartisan support in Congress, an increasing number of Republicans in the House and Senate have expressed serious reservations about supporting a new round of funding for Ukraine. Following the lead of Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee, they see the funding as wasteful and argue that an end to the conflict should be negotiated.

Biden has made halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion a top foreign policy priority and last year requested a sweeping funding proposal to replenish aid for Ukraine and Israel, as well as to invest more in domestic defense manufacturing, humanitarian assistance and managing the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The $95 billion package package proposed by Democrats this week would send $14 billion in military aid to Israel, provide further funding for allies in Asia, and allot $10 billion for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and other places.

The revamped package includes legislation to authorize sanctions and anti-money laundering tools against criminal enterprises that traffic fentanyl into the U.S.

Supporters of the national security package have cast it as a history-turning initiative that would rebuff both Russia’s incursion in Europe and Chinese president Xi Jinping’s ambitions in Taiwan and Asia.

“Failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like Putin and Xi who want nothing more than America’s decline,” Schumer said.

Republicans had initially demanded that the package also include border policy changes, arguing that they would not support other countries’ security when the U.S. border was seeing rampant illegal crossings. But after months of round-the-clock negotiations on a bipartisan compromise intended to overhaul the asylum system with faster and tougher enforcement, Republicans rejected it as insufficient.

Still, some senators said they would continue to insist on tying border measures — this time even more strict — to the foreign aid.

“My priority is border security. It’s always been border security. I think we need a new bill,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas was still possible, despite the two sides being far apart on the central terms for a deal.

Blinken was in the region trying to broker a deal that could bring some respite in Israel’s war against Hamas, which is entering its fifth month after unleashing vast destruction, killing more than 27,000 Palestinians, displacing much of the territory’s population and sparking a humanitarian catastrophe.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Those efforts were rattled when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day rejected a detailed, three-phase plan by Hamas that would unfold over 4 1/2 months. The plan, which came as a response to a proposal drawn up by the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt, stipulates that all hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including senior militants, and an end to the war.

Netanyahu, who called Hamas’ plan “delusional,” dismissed any arrangement that leaves the group in full or partial control of Gaza. Netanyahu said military pressure was the best way to free the roughly 100 hostages held in the Gaza Strip, where they were taken after Hamas’ cross-border rampage into southern Israel on Oct. 7, which sparked the war.

Israel has made destroying Hamas’ governing and military abilities one of its wartime objectives, and Hamas’ proposal would effectively leave it in power in Gaza and allow it to rebuild its military capabilities.

But Blinken downplayed the posturing, saying it was part of the arduous negotiating process. “It’s not flipping a light switch. It’s not yes or no,” he said.

“While there are some clear non-starters in Hamas’ response, we do think it creates space for agreement to be reached, and we will work at that relentlessly until we get there,” he said.

Blinken is trying to advance the cease-fire talks while pushing for a larger postwar settlement in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in return for a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

But the increasingly unpopular Netanyahu is opposed to Palestinian statehood, and his hawkish governing coalition could collapse if he is seen as making too many concessions.

HAMAS SPELLS OUT DEMANDS FOR HOSTAGE DEAL

Hamas’ response to the cease-fire proposal was published in Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to the powerful Hezbollah militant group.

A Hamas official and two Egyptian officials confirmed its authenticity. A fourth official familiar with the talks later clarified the sequencing of the releases. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the negotiations.

In the first 45-day phase, Hamas would release all remaining women and children, as well as older and sick men, in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel would also withdraw from populated areas, cease aerial operations, allow far more aid to enter and permit Palestinians to return to their homes, including in devastated northern Gaza.

The second phase, to be negotiated during the first, would include the release of all remaining hostages, mostly soldiers, in exchange for all Palestinian detainees over the age of 50, including senior militants.

Israel would release an additional 1,500 prisoners, 500 of whom would be specified by Hamas, and complete its withdrawal from Gaza.

In the third phase, the sides would exchange the remains of hostages and prisoners.

VICTORY IN ‘A MATTER OF MONTHS’

At the news conference earlier, Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s demands, saying they would lead to a disaster for Israel.

“Surrendering to Hamas’ delusional demands that we heard now not only won’t lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a nationally televised evening news conference.

Netanyahu said the Israeli military had achieved many of the goals it set out and that victory was “a matter of months” away.

He said forces had dismantled 18 out of Hamas’ 24 battalions, destroyed tunnels and killed fighters, and that military pressure on Hamas was the best way to bring about the release of the hostages. He said preparations were underway for the military to move into the southern Gaza border town of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crammed to flee the fighting.

“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” Netanyahu said. “There is no other solution.”

That stands in contrast to some Israeli officials, who say Israel’s two goals of destroying Hamas’s capabilities and freeing the hostages are incompatible and that only a deal can lead to their release.

Hamas, meanwhile, has continued to put up stiff resistance across the territory, and its police force has returned to the streets in places where Israeli troops have pulled back.

Netanyahu ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in control of any part of Gaza. He also said that Israel is the “only power” capable of guaranteeing security in the long term.

In a news conference immediately after his appearance, hostages freed in a late November deal said they were worried Netanyahu was taking too hard a line and that the remaining hostages and their families would pay the price.

“If you continue in this approach of seeking the collapse of Hamas, there won’t be any hostages to free,” said a tearful Adina Moshe, who was freed nearly 50 days into her captivity. Hamas is still holding over 130 hostages, but around 30 of them are believed to be dead, with the vast majority killed on Oct. 7.

MISERY DEEPENS IN DEVASTATED GAZA

There is little talk of grand diplomatic bargains in Gaza, where Palestinians yearn for an end to fighting that has upended every aspect of their lives.

“We pray to God that it stops,” said Ghazi Abu Issa, who fled his home and sought shelter in the central town of Deir al-Balah. “There is no water, electricity, food or bathrooms.”

Those living in tents have been drenched by winter rains and flooding. “We have been humiliated,” he said.

New mothers struggle to get baby formula and diapers, which can only be bought at vastly inflated prices if they can be found at all. Some have resorted to feeding solid food to babies younger than 6 months old despite the health risks it poses.

Blinken noted the devastation inflicted on Gaza civilians, saying that “the daily toll that (Israel’s) military operations continue to take on innocent civilians remains too high.”

The Palestinian death toll from four months of war has reached 27,707, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. That includes 123 bodies brought to hospitals in just the last 24 hours, it said Wednesday. At least 11,000 wounded people need to be urgently evacuated from Gaza, it said.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but says most of the dead have been women and children.

Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas that make up two-thirds of the tiny coastal territory. Most of the displaced are packed into the southern town of Rafah near the border with Egypt, where many are living in squalid tent camps and overflowing U.N.-run shelters.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Goldenberg from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shuttles across the Middle East in the hope of easing regional tensions and winding down the war in Gaza, far-right Israeli ministers are pulling in the opposite direction.

In recent days, two of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most important ministers have attacked U.S. President Joe Biden.

Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, said Biden was hindering the offensive against Hamas and too focused on getting aid to civilians in Gaza. He suggested that, from Israel’s standpoint, Donald Trump would be a better president.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich then assailed Biden for imposing sanctions on half a dozen Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Blocking their access to bank accounts amounts to an “anti-Semitic campaign,” he said.

The two politicians have long been controversial and outspoken. But their blunt criticism of Biden — who visited Israel soon after Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 and has consistently defended its right to wage war in Gaza — underscores the strains between the two countries’ leaderships.

Netanyahu responded by thanking Biden for his steadfast support and for U.S. efforts to free more than 100 hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

But he refused to condemn either of his coalition partners. And, like Smotrich, the prime minister rejected the sanctions, which the U.S. says are to stop violence against Palestinians by settlers.

“The overwhelming majority of residents of Judea and Samaria are law-abiding citizens,” he said, referring to the West Bank’s biblical name. “Israel acts against all Israelis who break the law everywhere. Therefore exceptional measures are unnecessary.”

Netanyahu’s narrow path — keeping the far right in his coalition while ostensibly cooperating with the Biden administration’s diplomacy — is becoming more difficult to tread the longer the war continues and the more Israel faces pressure to end it.

The U.S., while backing Israel’s right to attack Hamas, is trying to persuade Netanyahu to ease the scale of its military operations. Washington is also insisting — to the chagrin of Netanyahu and his ministers — that Israel accept a two-state solution as the only path to peace with the Palestinians.

Biden is running for reelection this year, probably against Trump, and has already faced a backlash from Arab-American voters and young Democrats. They feel betrayed by his support of Israel’s war, in which more than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to officials at the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union.

This is posing a challenge to Biden in several key swing states like Michigan.

In Israel, Netanyahu is facing his own political challenges. Polls show the overwhelming majority of Israelis want early elections — the next ones aren’t due until 2026 — and would vote Netanyahu out of office. But as long as Ben Gvir and Smotrich remain at his side and their parties stay in the coalition, Netanyahu can hold out for another two years.

That gives him an incentive not to alienate them or their settler base, which is precisely what Biden and many of Israel’s other allies would like him to do.

Without the U.S. and its billions of dollars in military aid, though, Israel would find it harder to fight Hamas.

On Monday, opposition leader Yair Lapid said he’d offered Netanyahu a “security net” if he was prepared to abandon the far right parties and accept a cease-fire to free more hostages. There’s little sign Netanyahu’s willing to take up the offer.

Blinken is trying to mediate a deal that would pause fighting for around six weeks, while freeing several dozen hostages and more Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. That might lead to an extended cease-fire involving Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries committing to rebuild a devastated Gaza.

The Arab governments say that can’t happen without a clear path to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Polls show that most Israelis — not just Netanyahu and the ruling coalition — oppose such a plan, at least for now. They remain traumatized by Hamas’s rampage through southern Israeli communities, with 1,200 people killed and 240 abducted. They fear an independent Palestinian state will ultimately be taken over by Hamas or other groups.

Israel’s been deeply divided since Netanyahu’s decision to form a government with the far right in late 2022. Before Oct. 7, tens of thousands of mostly secular and liberal Israelis took to the streets weekly to oppose his plans to weaken the judiciary.

Protest leaders quickly switched to helping devastated communities and equipping soldiers. Now, with the war involving fewer troops — tens of thousands of the 350,000 reservists called up are heading home — some expect the demonstrations to grow again, with calls for a new election.

As the pressure builds, Netanyahu will face a tough choice.

“Netanyahu needs to decide in the long term which of the two to forgo: Ben Gvir or the United States,” Ben-Dror Yemini, a political moderate, wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

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(—With assistance from Gina Turner.)

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DOHA, Qatar — Qatar’s prime minister said Tuesday that Hamas’ reaction to the latest plan for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages was “generally positive” as he met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was making his latest visit to the Middle East.

Qatar, which has long mediated with Hamas, has been working with the U.S. and Egypt to broker a cease-fire that would involve an extended halt in fighting and the release of the over 100 hostages still held by Hamas after its Oct. 7 cross-border raid that ignited the war nearly four months ago.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani did not provide any details on Hamas’ response but said the group had “comments.” Blinken confirmed that officials had received Hamas’ response and said he would brief Israel’s leaders when he visits the country on Wednesday.

Hamas said in a statement that it responded in a “positive spirit” to the latest proposal from the U.S. and Mideast mediators. But the militant group said it still seeks “a comprehensive and complete” cease-fire to end “the aggression against our people.” Israel has ruled out the kind of permanent cease-fire sought by the militant group.

Blinken met with Egyptian officials earlier in the day and was in Saudi Arabia on Monday.

His visit also comes amid growing concerns in Egypt about Israel’s stated intentions to expand the combat in Gaza to areas on the Egyptian border that are crammed with displaced Palestinians.

Israel’s defense minister has said his country’s offensive will eventually reach the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge and are now living in increasingly miserable conditions.

U.N. humanitarian monitors said Tuesday that Israeli evacuation orders now cover two-thirds of Gaza’s territory, driving thousands more people every day toward the border areas.

Egypt has warned that an Israeli deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two countries signed over four decades ago. Egypt fears an expansion of combat to the Rafah area could push terrified Palestinian civilians across the border, a scenario Egypt has said it is determined to prevent.

Blinken, who met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo, has said repeatedly that Palestinians must not be forced out of Gaza.

BLINKEN PUSHING FOR PROGRESS

During this trip, Blinken is seeking progress on a cease-fire deal, on potential normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and on preventing an escalation of regional fighting.

On all three fronts, Blinken faces major challenges. Hamas and Israel are publicly at odds over key elements of a potential truce. Israel has dismissed the United States’ calls for a path to a Palestinian state, and Iran’s militant allies in the region have shown little sign of being deterred by U.S. strikes.

Egypt and Qatar have been trying to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas that would lead to the release of more hostages in return for a several-week pause in Israeli military operations. The outlines of such a deal were worked out by intelligence chiefs from the U.S., Egypt, Qatar and Israel late last month and have been presented to Hamas, which has not yet formally responded.

As on his previous four trips to the Mideast since the Gaza war began, Blinken’s other main goal is to prevent the conflict from spreading, a task made more difficult by stepped-up attacks by Iran-backed militias in the region and increasingly severe U.S. military responses in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Red Sea that have intensified since last week.

Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday evening, shortly after arriving in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Saudi officials have said the kingdom is still interested in normalizing relations with Israel in a potentially historic deal, but only if there is a credible plan to create a Palestinian state.

FIGHTING ACROSS GAZA

Any such grand bargain appears a long way off as the war still rages in Gaza.

The Palestinian death toll from nearly four months of war has reached 27,585, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, with 107 bodies brought to hospitals over the past day. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says most of the dead have been women and children.

The war has leveled vast swaths of the tiny enclave and pushed a quarter of residents to starvation.

Israel has vowed to continue the war until it crushes Hamas’ military and governing abilities and wins the return of the 100-plus hostages still held by the militant group.

Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war and abducted around 250. More than 100 captives, mostly women and children, were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it was battling militants in areas across the Gaza Strip, including the southern city of Khan Younis, where it said troops killed dozens of militants over the past day.

An Israeli airstrike in the city hit an apartment building, killing two parents and four of their five children, according to the children’s grandfather.

Mahmoud al-Khatib said his 41-year-old son, Tariq, was sleeping along with his family when an Israeli warplane bombed their apartment in the middle of the night. The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes but blames Hamas for civilians deaths, saying the militants embed in civilian areas.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS PERSISTS

U.N. humanitarian monitors said Tuesday that Israel’s evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip now cover two-thirds of the territory, or 246 square kilometers (95 square miles). The affected area was home to 1.78 million Palestinians, or 77% of Gaza’s population, before the war.

Parents of babies face a particularly difficult challenge because of the high cost or lack of diapers, baby formula and milk.

Zainab Al-Zein, who is sheltering in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said she had to feed her 2.5-month-old daughter solid food, such as biscuits and ground rice, well ahead of the typical 6-month mark because milk and formula were not available.

“This is known, of course, as unhealthy eating, and we know that it causes her intestinal distress, bloating and colic,” al-Zein said. “As you can see, 24 hours like this, she cries and cries continuously.”

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.

BEIRUT — The U.S. military has launched strikes on dozens of sites manned by Iran-backed fighters in western Iraq and eastern Syria in retaliation for a drone strike in Jordan in late January that killed three U.S. service members and wounded dozens.

Tensions had been rising since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7 and a week later Iran-backed fighters, who are loosely allied with Hamas, began carrying out drone and rocket attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. A deadly strike on the desert outpost known as Tower 22 in Jordan near the Syrian border further increased tensions.

The U.S. retaliation Friday had been expected since the Jan. 28 attack in Jordan.

The 85 targets struck in seven locations are in a strategic region where thousands of Iran-backed fighters are deployed to help expand Iran’s influence from Tehran to the Mediterranean coast.

U.S. bases in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour and the northeastern province of Hassakeh have come under attack for years. The Euphrates River cuts through Syria into Iraq, with U.S. troops and American-backed Kurdish-led fighters on the east bank and Iran-backed fighters and Syrian government forces to the west.

Bases for U.S. troops in Iraq have come under attack too.

Iran-backed militias control the Iraqi side of the border and move freely in and out of Syria, where they man posts with their allies from Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah and other Shiite armed groups.

The U.S. military said Friday that its massive barrage of strikes hit command and control headquarters; intelligence centers; rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites; and other facilities connected to the militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which handles Tehran’s relationship with, and arming of, regional militias.

Syrian opposition activists said the strikes hit the Imam Ali base near the border Syrian town of Boukamal, the Ein Ali base in Quriya, just south of the strategic town of Mayadeen, and a radar center on a mountain near the provincial capital that is also called Deir el-Zour.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 29 rank-and-file fighters were killed in those strikes.

The attacks also hit a border crossing known as Humaydiya, where militia cross back and forth between Iraq and Syria, according to Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet. He said the strikes also hit an area inside the town of Mayadeen known as “the security quarter.”

Iraqi government spokesperson Bassim al-Awadi said the border strikes killed 16 people and caused “significant damage” to homes and private properties.

The Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of Iran-backed militia that is nominally under the control of the Iraqi military, said the strikes in western Iraq hit a logistical support post, a tanks battalion, an artillery post and a hospital. The PMF said 16 people were killed and 36 wounded, and that authorities were searching for other missing people.

Iran and groups it backs in the region aim to put pressure on Washington to force Israel to end its crushing offensive in Gaza, but do not appear to want all-out war. The defeat of Hamas would be a major setback for Tehran, which considers itself and its allies the main defenders of the Palestinian cause.

The only Iran-backed faction that has been escalating are Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which have targeted commercial ships and U.S. warships in the Red Sea with drones and ballistic missiles. The U.S. has carried out strikes against Houthis in Yemen over the past two weeks. There have been no new attacks by the Houthis since the U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Hamas has begun to resurface in areas where Israel withdrew the bulk of its forces a month ago, deploying police officers and making salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, four residents and a senior official in the militant group said Saturday.

Signs of a Hamas resurgence in Gaza’s largest city underscore the group’s resilience despite Israel’s deadly air and ground campaign in the four months since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war. Israel says it’s determined to crush Hamas and prevent it from returning to power in Gaza, an enclave it has ruled since 2007.

In recent days, Israeli forces renewed strikes in the western and northwestern parts of Gaza City, including in areas where some salary distributions reportedly took place.

Four Gaza City residents told The Associated Press that in recent days, uniformed and plainclothes police officers deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. The residents said they saw the return of civil servants and subsequent Israeli airstrikes near the makeshift offices.

The return of police marks an attempt to reinstate order in the devastated city after Israel withdrew a significant number of troops from northern Gaza last month, a Hamas official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The official said the group’s leaders had given directions to reestablish order in parts of the north where Israeli forces had withdrawn, including by helping prevent the looting of shops and houses abandoned by residents who heeded repeated Israeli evacuation orders and headed to southern Gaza.

During Israel’s ground offensive, many homes and buildings were left half-standing or reduced to piles of rubble.

Saeed Abdel-Bar, a resident of Gaza City, said a cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office that was set up to distribute $200 payouts to government employees, including police officers and municipal workers.

Since seizing control of Gaza nearly 17 years ago, Hamas has operated a government bureaucracy with tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers and police who operate separately from the group’s secretive military wing.

The partial salary payments for some government employees signal that Israel has not delivered a knockout blow to Hamas, even as it claims to have killed more than 9,000 Hamas fighters.

Ahmed Abu Hadrous, a Gaza City resident, said Israeli warplanes struck the area where the makeshift office is located multiple times earlier this week, including Saturday.

Israeli military leaders had said they had broken up the command structure of Hamas battalions in the north, but that individual fighters were continuing to carry out guerrilla-style attacks.

Meanwhile, combat continued in southern Gaza.

At least 11 people were injured when Israel’s military fired smoke bombs at displaced people sheltering at the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent in the southern city of Khan Younis, the organization said. It followed a siege that Israel’s military has laid on the Red Crescent’s facilities for 12 days, the organization said.

The Red Crescent said it had documented the killing of 43 people, including three staff members, inside the buildings by Israeli fire in those 12 days, with another 153 injured.

Israel’s military didn’t address the charity’s allegations of firing on the buildings, the killings or the blocking of access, and asserted that the Al-Amal Hospital facilities had adequate fuel and electricity and that the military helped to replenish two oxygen tanks.

The military said operations in Khan Younis would continue for several days.

At least 17 people, including women and children, were killed in two separate airstrikes overnight in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah on the border with Egypt, according to the registration office at Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital where the bodies were taken.

The first strike hit a residential building east of Rafah, killing at least 13 people from the Hijazi family. The dead included four women and three children, hospital officials said.

“Two children are still under the rubble, and we don’t, still we don’t know anything about them,” relative Ahmad Hijazi said.

The second strike hit a house in Rafah’s Jeneina area, killing at least two men and two women from the Hams family.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that 107 people were killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the wartime total to 27,238. More than 66,000 people have been wounded.

The conflict has leveled vast swaths of the tiny coastal enclave, displaced 85% of its population and pushed a quarter of residents to starvation. More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has taken refuge in Rafah and surrounding areas.

Israel’s defense minister warned earlier in the week that Israel might expand combat to Rafah after focusing on Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city. While the statement alarmed aid officials and international diplomats, Israel would risk significantly disrupting relationships with the United States and Egypt if it sends troops into Rafah, a key entry point for aid.

International mediators continued to work to close wide gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed cease-fire deal. Hamas holds dozens of the roughly 250 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack, after more than 100 were released during a one-week truce in November. Those releases were in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Meanwhile, the United States — a mediator along with Israel, Egypt and Qatar — launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard late Friday, the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war