Israel-Hamas war latest: Palestinians flee parts of south Gaza as Israel launches a new assault

JERUSALEM: Palestinians are fleeing large areas around Khan Younis in southern Gaza where the Israeli military began a new assault after ordering another mass evacuation.

Gaza's second-largest city, Khan Younis, suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier in the year. The enclave faces a severe humanitarian crisis with Israeli restrictions on aid and ongoing fighting limiting access to food, medical supplies and clean water. The Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll in the territory is nearing 40,000 in the 10 months since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Regional tensions have soared since Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed July 31 in Iran by a presumed Israeli strike. Retaliation has been expected.

World leaders are pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza. Late Thursday, Israel confirmed it will send negotiators for indirect discussions with Hamas in response to a proposal by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to resume stalled cease-fire talks on Aug 15.

Here's the latest:

Quds Force chief says Iran will avenge killing of Hamas leader

Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force chief Ismail Qaani says in a letter to the new leader of Hamas that Tehran will avenge the killing of his predecessor who was killed in the Iranian capital last week.

The letter, of which a copy was seen by The Associated Press, came days after the leadership of Hamas chose Yahya Sinwar as its new leader replacing the late Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed during a visit to Iran.

Since Haniyeh was killed in an explosion during a visit to Iran, tension has been rising in the region as Tehran blamed Israel for his death and vowed to retaliate.

“We are preparing to avenge his blood, a painful and difficult incident that happened in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is our duty,” Qaani told Sinwar about Haniyeh. He didn't elaborate on how Teheran will avenge Haniyeh's death.

Qaani said that Haniyeh's blood will “make the harsh punishment to the Zionist entity at the hand of the Islamic Republic” harsher that previous ones.

He was apparently referring to the mid-April missile and drone attack that Iran launched against Israel to avenge an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian Consulate in the Syrian capital in which two Iranian generals were killed.

Qaani vowed in the letter to Sinwar that Tehran “will be with you on the road of resistance until we achieve the divine promise which is to clear Jerusalem".

Man wounded in Hezbollah drone attack on Israel earlier this week has died

A man who was seriously wounded by a Hezbollah drone attack on Israel earlier this week succumbed to his wounds Friday, hospital officials said.

The man was identified as Michail Samara, 27, by the spokesperson for Galilee Medical Center, Gal Zaid.

Samara was brought to the hospital in serious condition after Lebanon's Hezbollah launched a drone attack Tuesday on northern Israel, wounding at least seven people, in response to the killing of one of its fighters in an Israeli airstrike.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged cross-border fire since Oct 8. On the Israeli side, the fighting has killed more than 20 soldiers and more than 20 civilians. In Lebanon, around 100 civilians and more than 430 militants have been killed.

UN official condemns Israeli official's comments about starving Palestinians

The UN human rights chief is adding his voice to condemnation of comments by Israel's far-right finance minister, who alluded to allowing Gaza's population to starve until hostages are released.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a speech Monday that the starvation of Gaza's population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas' Oct 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk was “shocked and appalled” by the comments that “incite hatred against innocent civilians,” rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said Friday.

“The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime. The collective punishment of the Palestinian population is also a war crime. This direct and public statement risks inciting other atrocity crimes,” Laurence told a briefing in Geneva. Some of Israel's Western allies have already condemned Smotrich comments.

International court judges mull arguments over arrest warrants

Dozens of countries, academics and rights groups have filed legal arguments either rejecting or supporting the International Criminal Court's power to issue arrest warrants in its investigation into the war in Gaza and the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.

The submissions filed this week come as a panel of judges considers a request by the court's chief prosecutor for warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and the recently promoted leaders of Hamas.

Israel strongly rejects the court's request for warrants for its leaders and insists it adheres to international law in the devastating conflict in Gaza that was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks.

11 killed and 9 wounded in eastern Syria

Pro-government Syrians attacked a village held by United States-backed fighters in eastern Syria early Friday, killing at least 11 people, including children, the US-backed force and an opposition war monitor said.

Pro-government media outlets, meanwhile, blamed a separate attack in which nine were injured in the village of Bouleil on members of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The SDF and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said seven people under the age of 18 were part of the 11 total killed in Dahla and Jdaidet Bakkara. The SDF said pro-government Syrian fighters fired rockets from their positions from Bouleil.

Syrian state-run media said the SDF shelled Bouleil with mortar rounds, wounding nine people. It gave no further details.

Some Western envoys boycott Japan's 79th anniversary of atomic bombing

Nagasaki marked the 79th anniversary of its atomic bombing at the end of World War II at a ceremony Friday that was eclipsed by the absence of the American ambassador and other Western envoys in response to the city's refusal to invite Israel.

Mayor Shiro Suzuki, in a speech at Nagasaki Peace Park, called for nuclear weapon states and those under their nuclear umbrellas, including Japan, to abolish the weapons.

He warned that the world faces “a critical situation” because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and accelerating conflicts in the Middle East.

More than 2,000 people, including representatives from 100 countries, attended Friday's ceremony. But ambassadors from the United States and five other Group of Seven nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom -- and the European Union were absent. Their countries sent lower-ranking envoys in response to Suzuki's decision not to invite Israel.

The atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Nagasaki on Aug 9, 1945, killed 70,000 people, three days after it bombed Hiroshima and killed 140,000. Japan surrendered on Aug 15, 1945, ending World War II and its nearly half-century of aggression across Asia.

3 suspected Houthi attacks target a ship off Yemen, authorities say

Three suspected attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, including one that saw private security guards shoot and destroy a bomb-loaded drone boat, authorities said Friday.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a monthslong campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over the war in Gaza.

After a recent two-week pause, their attacks resumed following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, amid concerns of a wider regional war. Iran backs the Houthis as part of what it calls a regional “Axis of Resistance”.

“The operations are ongoing -- our operations toward occupied Palestine to target the Israeli enemy, our operations at sea, the inevitable forthcoming response,” warned Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi in a speech Thursday.

The Houthis have targeted more than 70 vessels with missiles and drones in a campaign that has killed four sailors since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The rebels maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of a campaign they say seeks to force an end to the war. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the war, including some bound for Iran.