The Israeli military on Friday mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages during its ground operation in the Gaza Strip, military officials said.
The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israeli troops found the hostages and erroneously identified them as a threat. He said it was not clear if they had escaped their captors or been abandoned.
The deaths occurred in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops have engaged in fierce battles against Hamas militants in recent days. He said the army expressed “deep sorrow” and was investigating.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian president was set to meet Friday with U.S. officials to discuss postwar arrangements for Gaza that could include reactivating Palestinian security forces driven out by Hamas in its 2007 takeover of the territory.
Any role for Palestinian security forces in Gaza is bound to elicit strong opposition from Israel, which seeks to maintain an open-ended security presence there. The Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank but is deeply unpopular with Palestinians.
While Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it wipes out Gaza’s Hamas rulers, the international call for a cease-fire has grown in volume. Israel has drawn international outrage and rare criticism from the U.S. - its main ally - over the killing of civilians.
More than 18,700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel says 116 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and taking about 240 hostages.
Currently:
- Israel’s president says now isn’t the time to discuss a two-state solution.
- Israel’s mass arrest campaign sows fear in northern Gaza.
- A Liberian-flagged cargo ship is hit and set ablaze by a projectile from rebel-controlled Yemen.
- EU leaders increasingly back a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
- Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
President Joe Biden was briefed on Friday by his national security team about Israeli forces mistakenly killing three hostages in Gaza, according to White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s tragic,” Kirby said.
Kirby said the U.S. expected Israel would conduct an investigation to better understand the circumstances that lead to Israeli troops mistakenly killing the captives. He added that at the moment too little was known about the incident to “make some sort of broad judgment about the specific circumstances here.”
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is welcoming Israel’s announcement that the border crossing at Kerem Shalom will be opened for the direct delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying the sooner the better.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Friday that “the fast implementation of this agreement will increase the flow of aid” and “a humanitarian cease-fire will increase the distribution of that aid across Gaza even more.”
Israel closed the crossing, the main entry point for Gaza-bound cargo, immediately after the surprise Oct. 7 Hamas attacks inside the country from Gaza.
Dujarric said Tuesday that Kerem Shalom opened earlier in the day as a second inspection point for screening aid for trucks from the U.N. and international aid organizations – but the trucks had to drive to the Rafah crossing from Egypt to enter Gaza.
Israel’s announcement late Friday will allow direct entry of aid to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which the U.N. has been urging because of the humanitarian crisis and shortage of food, water, medicine and other key supplies.
Dujarric said U.N. humanitarian officials reported Friday that the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians in Gaza has been compounded by flooding after heavy rains in the past few days in the territory.
JERUSALEM - The Israeli military says it has mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages during its ground operation in the Gaza Strip.
The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, says Israeli troops found the hostages on Friday and erroneously identified them as a threat. He said it was not clear if they had escaped their captors or been abandoned.
The incident occurred in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops have engaged in fierce battles against Hamas militants in recent days.
He said the army expressed “deep sorrow” and was investigating.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip: - Al Jazeera television said Friday an Israeli strike killed one of its journalists in Gaza, Palestinian cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa.
The strike also wounded the Qatari-owned network’s chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh. The two were reporting on the grounds of a school in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when the strike hit, the network said.
Before Abu Daqqa’s death, at least 63 journalists have been killed since the conflict erupted between Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7, according to the media freedom organization, The Committee to Protect Journalists. They include 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.
BERLIN –- German airline Lufthansa says that it and its subsidiaries plan to resume flights to Tel Aviv in the new year.
The company said Friday that flights will resume on Jan. 8. It says Lufthansa will initially operate four flights per week from Frankfurt and three from Munich, Austrian Airlines will run eight flights per week and Swiss will operate five. That’s about 30% of the regular flight schedule.
Lufthansa and its subsidiaries suspended regular flights to Tel Aviv on Oct. 9.
Flights to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, also have been suspended, but were resumed on Friday by Lufthansa, Swiss and Eurowings.
JERUSALEM - Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the opening of a crossing to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, backtracking from a previous policy of barring all imports into the besieged territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced the decision to open the Kerem Shalom crossing late Friday.
Israel shuttered the crossing, the main entry point for Gaza-bound cargo, immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the war.
Leaders have previously said they would not allow any aid directly into Gaza, instead requiring humanitarian supplies to be delivered through a smaller crossing with Egypt. The United Nations and other aid organizations have said Gaza is facing a dire humanitarian crisis due to a shortage of food, medicine and other key supplies.
Israel said the opening of Kerem Shalom will significantly increase the amount of aid able to enter Gaza each day.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan lauded the decision as he wrapped up a lightning trip to the region.
He said President Joe Biden had brought up opening the crossing in phone conversations with Netanyahu, and that he had raised it in conversations with Israeli officials.
“We hope that this new opening will ease congestion and help facilitate the delivery of life-saving assistance to those who need it urgently in Gaza,” Sullivan said.
Netanyahu’s office also said the U.S. would finance an upgrade to allow Egypt’s Rafah crossing to allow more aid trucks through.
JERUSALEM - A rare rocket barrage directed at central Israel sent air raid sirens blaring across Jerusalem.
Israel’s rescue service said it had received reports of a hit Friday, but said there were no immediate casualties.
It was not immediately clear how many rockets had been fired, but an Associated Press reporter heard numerous launches of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israeli media reported that it was the first time in a month and a half that sirens rang in Jerusalem. Since the war began on Oct. 7, rocket barrages have been far more common in the coastal city of Tel Aviv and areas bordering the Gaza Strip.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip - The Qatar-based television network Al-Jazeera says its chief correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Wael Dahdouh, suffered an arm injury from a drone strike at a school-turned-shelter in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The network reported that a cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, was also wounded in the drone strike Friday afternoon.
In October, Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, some 63 journalists and media workers have been killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists since CPJ began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Twelve European nations joined by Australia, Canada and the European Union have called on Israel “to take immediate and concrete steps to tackle record high settler violence in the occupied West Bank.”
In a joint statement released Friday by the Swedish government, the countries expressed “their grave concern about the record number of attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.”
They said “the rise in extremist settler violence committed against Palestinians is unacceptable” and that “Israel, as the occupying power, must protect the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank.”
The joint statement said that “those responsible for the violence must be brought to justice” and that attacks on Palestinians undermines “security in the West Bank and the region and threatens prospects for a lasting peace.”
The European countries are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A Dutch court rejected a request Friday by a group of human rights and humanitarian organizations to order a halt to the transfer to Israel of parts for F-35 fighter jets.
The organizations went to court Dec. 4 arguing that delivery of parts for F-35 jets makes the Netherlands complicit in possible war crimes being committed by Israel in its war with Hamas. The parts are stored in a warehouse in the Dutch town of Woensdrecht.
In a written statement, the court said that the judge who heard the civil case concluded that the Dutch government “weighed the relevant interests” before agreeing to the delivery of parts. It was not immediately clear if the groups that brought the civil case would appeal.
Government lawyer Reimer Veldhuis told the judge hearing the civil case that a ban on transfers from the Netherlands would effectively be meaningless as “the United States would deliver these parts to Israel from another place.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A Liberian-flagged cargo ship caught fire Friday in the Red Sea after being hit by a projectile launched from rebel-controlled Yemen, a U.S. defense official and a private intelligence firm said.
The attack on the Al Jasrah further escalates a campaign by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have claimed responsibility for a series of missile assaults in recent days in the Red Sea and its strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The attacks come as a response to the Israel-Hamas war and the pounding air-and-ground offensive targeting the Gaza Strip, though linking the ships targeted in the rebel assaults has grown more tenuous - or nonexistent - as the attacks continue.
The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the assault.
The Al Jasrah is operated by German-based shipper Hapag Lloyd, which declined to immediately comment about the attack. It wasn’t yet clear if any of the crew on board the vessel had been hurt in the attack, which may have come from either a drone or a missile.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed.
PARIS - France’s foreign minister says the body of a French-Israeli citizen taken hostage by Hamas militants has been found in Gaza.
The minister, Catherine Colonna, posted on social media her “immense sadness” at the death of Elia Toledano.
She said the Israeli military announced that his body had been found. He was reported to have been taken hostage at a music festival attacked by militants during Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
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