Israel says Hamas has freed two American hostages who had been held in Gaza since militants rampaged through southern Israel Oct. 7. The hostage release Friday came even as Israeli airstrikes continued to hit southern Gaza, an area swelled by civilians who fled there from the north on Israeli instructions.
Israel was also evacuating a sizable town near the Lebanese border in the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger regional turmoil.
Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy airstrikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, where civilians had been told to seek safety amid Israel’s bombardment of areas closer to the Israeli border.
The U.N. secretary general is at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza trying to find a way to get badly needed aid into the enclave.
The war, which is in its 14th day on Friday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,000 others wounded.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
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Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
PARIS - French military intelligence assesses that the most probable hypothesis for the explosion at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital was that it was caused by a Palestinian rocket that was carrying an explosive charge of about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) that possibly misfired.
Several rockets in the arsenal of Palestinian militant group Hamas carry explosive charges of about that weight, include an Iranian-made rocket and another that is Palestinian-made, said a senior French military intelligence official.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence assessment, cleared to do so by President Emmanuel Macron in what was described as an attempt to be transparent about the French findings.
The official said none of their intelligence points to an Israeli strike.
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Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed from Paris.
CHICAGO - A man whose Chicago-area daughter and granddaughter were abducted by Hamas in southern Israel says he has spoken to his daughter since her release and that he believes she will be home soon.
“She’s doing good. She’s doing very good,” Uri Raanan, who is based in the Chicago suburb of Bannockburn, said Friday. “I’m in tears, and I feel very, very good.”
The 71-year-old said he saw on the news Friday that Hamas was releasing an American mother and daughter, and he spent the day hoping they meant his daughter, Judith Raanan, and his granddaughter, 17-year-old Natalie, who live in Evanston.
He said he believes Natalie and Judith are on their way to Tel Aviv to reunite with relatives before returning to the U.S., meaning Natalie will be able to celebrate her 18th birthday next week with family and friends.
TEL AVIV — Israel says it continues to push for the release of civilians taken hostage by Hamas during a raid on southern Israel almost two weeks ago.
Hamas militants took more than 200 hostages during its Oct. 7 raid. Hamas released two of those hostages, a woman and her teenage daughter from the United States, on Friday.
“Two of our abducted are home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “We are not giving up the effort to bring all of the hostages and missing people home. At the same time, we are continuing to fight until victory.”
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is working with Egypt, Israel, the United States and others to ease an impasse that is preventing aid from entering Gaza.
The U.N. chief’s priority is to make sure humanitarian aid deliveries are sustained, “with a meaningful number of trucks approved each day to cross” from Egypt into Gaza at the Rafah crossing, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Friday. And the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, must have sufficient fuel to distribute humanitarian aid, Haq said.
“It’s no use dropping off aid to the other side and then leaving it there because their trucks simply don’t have enough fuel to give it to the people who need it,” he said.
The secretary-general has repeatedly called for a humanitarian ceasefire, Haq said, “but he doesn’t want the humanitarian ceasefire to be a condition for allowing the aid in.”
Guterres also wants “the role of the Egyptian Red Crescent and other Egyptian institutions to be recognized,” Haq said.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he welcomes the release of the two hostages and shared in the families’ relief but noted there are many more captives, including children and elderly people.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Blinken said he and President Joe Biden had been able to speak with the families of some of the hostages during their trips to the Middle East.
“It’s impossible to adequately put into words the agony that they’re feeling,” Blinken said. “No family anywhere should have to experience this torture.”
Of the remaining hostages, he added: “The entire United States government will work every minute of every day to secure their release and bring their loved ones home.”
Blinken also thanked the Qataris for their work in securing the hostages’ release.
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden is celebrating the release of a Chicago-area woman and her teenage daughter who had been visiting Israel when they were taken hostage by Hamas militants Oct. 7.
The Israeli military said Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie, were released to the Israeli military Friday. Hamas said the Qatari government was instrumental in securing their release.
“Our fellow citizens have endured a terrible ordeal these past 14 days, and I am overjoyed that they will soon be reunited with their family, who has been wracked with fear,” Biden said in a statement.
Thanking the governments of Qatar and Israel for their help, Biden said the White House had been “working around-the-clock” to secure the release of American hostages “and we have not ceased our efforts to secure the release of those who are still being held.”
JERUSALEM - Hamas militants on Friday freed two Americans, a mother and her teenage daughter, who had been held hostage in Gaza since militants rampaged through Israel two weeks ago, the Israeli government said.
The pair, who also hold Israeli citizenship, were the first hostages to be released. More than 200 are still being held.
The two Americans, Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie, were out of the Gaza Strip and in the hands of the Israeli military, an army spokesman said. Hamas said it was releasing them in an agreement with the Qatari government for humanitarian reasons.
Judith and Natalie Ranaan had been on a trip to southern Israel from their home in suburban Chicago to celebrate a Jewish holiday, family said. They had been staying at the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, when Hamas fighters took them and more than 200 others hostage.
Relatives of other captives welcomed the release and appealed for others to be freed.
“We call on world leaders and the international community to exert their full power in order to act for the release of all the hostages and missing,’’ the statement said.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip - Funeral goers on Friday mourned the deaths of 40 people killed by air strikes in the Gaza Strip.
The dead included 22 members of two families in Deir al-Balah, and 18 displaced Palestinians who had taken shelter in a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City.
A distraught woman screamed in anguish outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Other women sat on a curb and stroked the feet of some of the bodies laid out on the ground covered in white sheets.
The sheets were pulled back to reveal the faces of two children. Two men knelt at their heads and caressed their faces.
Outside the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, the Orthodox patriarch swung a burner of smoldering incense as he walked around 18 bodies, including four children, killed when an airstrike toppled a church wall.
Clergy prayed and sang during the service attended by dozens in a courtyard behind the church.
JERUSALEM - Hamas said Friday it was releasing two American citizens they were holding captive in Gaza since their Oct. 7 raid on Israel.
The Palestinian militant group said in a statement that in an agreement with the Qatari government it was freeing a mother and daughter for humanitarian reasons.
U.S. and Israeli officials did not immediately comment on the statement.
Israel says Hamas has taken 203 people from Israel into Gaza.
JERUSALEM - Two Palestinian teenagers were killed Friday in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, raising the death toll in the territory to 83 since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war.
One, identified as 15-year-old Suhaib al-Sous, died after clashes with Israeli forces near Ramallah. The other, 17-year-old Oday Mansour, was killed in clashes at a military checkpoint near Hawara, a flashpoint town in the northern West Bank.
The West Bank has seethed with tension since the start of the war, with Israel raiding towns across the territory to root out militants and clashes erupting between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters in major cities.
TULKAREM, West Bank - Militants carried rifles and shots rang out Friday during a funeral in the West Bank for 13 people killed in a battle with Israeli troops in the Nur Shams refugee camp.
Some of the bodies carried through the streets of Tulkarem were draped in the flags of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant groups.
Chants of “There is no God but Allah, and the martyrs are the beloved ones of Allah,” were punctuated by the crack of gunshots.
Five of the Palestinians killed were minors, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
An Israeli border police officer was also killed in the fighting, Israeli authorities said.
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Joe Biden wants $14.3 billion to support Israel in its war with Hamas, the White House announced Friday. The money is part of a supplemental funding request that totals more than $105 billion, including Ukraine, border security and more.
The White House said the assistance for Israel would be geared toward air and missile defense systems.
There’s also $9.15 billion for humanitarian aid, which would be split among Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and other hotspots. Administration officials said the money can be directed to where it’s most needed.
All of the funding requires approval from Congress.
CAIRO - Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has accused Western media of unfairly holding it responsible for closing the Rafah border crossing.
In a brief statement on X, formerly Twitter, the ministry’s spokesperson accused Israel of attacking the crossing at Rafah and refusing to allow aid to enter Gaza.
Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid also denied Israeli claims that Egypt has stopped foreign nationals from leaving Gaza.
“Rafah crossing is open and Egypt is not responsible for obstructing third-country nationals’ exit,” he said.
Egypt has repeatedly said it did not close the crossing at Rafah, saying instead that it is not functioning because of damage inflicted by Israeli airstrikes.
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This story has been corrected to show that Israel said the number of suspected captives is 203, not 206.
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