The Latest | Israeli troops launch attacks in central Gaza, possibly widening their offensive

WASHINGTON DC: The Israeli military said it has started “operational activity” in two areas of central Gaza in a possible broadening of its monthslong ground offensive against Hamas.

The military said Wednesday its forces were operating “both above and below ground” in eastern parts of Deir al-Balah and Bureij, a built-up Palestinian refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It said the operation began with airstrikes on militant infrastructure, after which troops began a “targeted daylight operation” in both areas.

The eight-month offensive has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger. International mediators wait for Israel and Hamas to respond to a new cease-fire and hostage release proposal, according to Qatar, which has played a key role in negotiations alongside Egypt and the United States.

Announcing the proposal last week, U.S. President Joe Biden said the three-phase plan was Israeli. However, Israeli leaders have since appeared to distance themselves from the proposal and vowed to keep fighting Hamas until the group is destroyed.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducted about 250. Around 80 hostages captured on Oct. 7 are believed to still be alive in Gaza, alongside the remains of 43 others.

Currently:

Gunman captured after shootout outside US Embassy in Lebanon.

Rights group claims Israel has hit residential buildings with white phosphorous in Lebanon.

I n a West Bank refugee camp, Israel’s raids fuel the militancy it tries to stamp out.

Famine is possibly underway in northern Gaza despite recent aid efforts, a new report warns.

As Gaza hostage crisis drags on for Israel, here’s what we know.

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

Here’s the latest:

ISRAELIS CHANT ‘DEATH TO ARABS’ AS THOUSANDS MARCH THROUGH JERUSALEM

JERUSALEM — Israeli participants in a nationalist march through a Palestinian area of Jerusalem chanted “death to Arabs,” on Wednesday, stoking already surging tensions as the war in Gaza rages.

Thousands of Israelis, including many ultranationalists, were participating in the “Jerusalem Day” march. The annual event marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.

The marchers also chanted anti-Islamic slogans outside of Damascus Gate, a central gathering place for Palestinians in east Jerusalem.

The march in the past has helped fuel violence, including helping to set off an 11-day war with Hamas three years ago.

Palestinians view the annual march as provocative.

EXPLOSION NEAR COMMERCIAL SHIP IN RED SEA, U.K. MILITARY SAYS

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An explosion struck in the Red Sea a short distance from a commercial ship Wednesday that sustained no damage, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility but suspicion fell on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have launched a series of attacks on ships amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS SAYS AT LEAST 70 KILLED IN CENTRAL GAZA SINCE TUESDAY

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Doctors Without Borders says at least 70 bodies and 300 wounded people, mostly women and children, have been brought to a hospital in central Gaza since Tuesday after a wave of Israeli strikes.

The international charity said Wednesday in a post on X that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah is struggling to treat “a huge influx of patients, many of them arriving with severe burns, shrapnel wounds, fractures, and other traumatic injuries.”

The Israeli military said earlier that it had launched new air and ground operations in central Gaza focused on the eastern parts of Deir al-Balah and the built-up Bureij refugee camp.

Karin Huster, a medical adviser with Doctors Without Borders, said “the odour of blood in the hospital’s emergency room this morning was unbearable.”

“There are people lying everywhere, on the floor, outside ... bodies were being brought in plastic bags. The situation is overwhelming,” she said.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militant group places fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense, residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

U.N. AGENCIES WARN THAT OVER 1 MILLION PALESTINIANS COULD FACE STARVATION

CAIRO United Nations agencies are warning that over 1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could experience the highest level of life-threatening starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.

The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report Wednesday that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system because of the nearly eight-month Israel-Hamas war.

It says the situation remains dire in northern Gaza, which has been surrounded and largely isolated by Israeli troops for months. Israel recently opened land crossings in the north but they are only able to facilitate a few dozen truck loads each day for hundreds of thousands of people.

Israel’s incursion into Rafah has meanwhile severely disrupted aid operations in the south. Egypt has refused to open its Rafah crossing with Gaza since Israeli forces seized the Gaza side of it nearly a month ago, instead diverting aid to Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing nearby.

The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter through Kerem Shalom in recent weeks, but the U.N. says it is often unable to retrieve the aid because of the security situation. It says distribution within Gaza is also severely hampered by ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order, and other Israeli restrictions.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world authority on determining the extent of hunger crises, said in March that around 677,000 people in Gaza were experiencing Phase 5 hunger, the highest level and the equivalent of famine.

The two U.N. agencies said in their report Wednesday that that figure could climb to over 1 million — or nearly half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million by the middle of next month.

JERUSALEM MARCH SET TO PROCEED DESPITE TENSIONS

JERUSALEM —Thousands of Israelis, including large crowds of ultranationalists, are expected to take part in an annual march through dense Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City in an event that often sees racist chants and brawls.

Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been mostly calm throughout the Israel-Hamas war, but Wednesday’s march could ignite widespread tensions, as it did three years ago, when it helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.

The annual march commemorates Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital, but its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, see the march as a provocation.

In past years, police have forcibly cleared Palestinians from the parade route, and large crowds of mostly ultranationalist youth have chanted “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.” The police say they are deploying 3,000 security personnel to ensure calm.

At the insistence of Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the march will follow its traditional route, entering the Muslim Quarter through Damascus Gate and ending at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

The police stressed that the march would not enter the sprawling Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The hilltop on which it stands is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Jewish temples in antiquity.

Perceived encroachments on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.

Counterprotests were planned throughout the day. An Israeli group, Tag Meir, sent volunteers through the emptying city streets ahead of the march to distribute thousands of flowers to Christian and Muslim residents of the Old City.

ISRAEL’S COMMUNICATIONS MINISTRY WILL TRY TO EXTEND AL JAZEERA SHUTDOWN

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Communications Ministry says it will try to extend its order to shut down the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network.

The announcement on Wednesday came after a court upheld the existing order but said it would expire on Sunday, 10 days earlier than expected.

Israel ordered the closure of Al Jazeera’s local offices on May 6, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government, which accuses it of inciting violence and being a “Hamas mouthpiece,” allegations the network denies.

The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country.

Last month, Israeli officials seized equipment belonging to The Associated Press, accusing the news organization of violating the law by providing images to Al Jazeera. The Qatari satellite channel is among hundreds of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP and other news organizations. The equipment was returned hours later, and the AP resumed broadcasting live from southern Israel.

Al Jazeera has reported on the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding offensive, which has killed and wounded members of its staff.

The network has provided on-the-ground reporting on the war’s casualties while also airing, in their entirety, videos released by Hamas and other armed groups showing Israeli hostages and attacks on Israeli troops.

NETANYAHU SAYS ISRAEL WILL RESTORE SECURITY ALONG THE LEBANESE BORDER

TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will restore security in the north “one way or another” during a tour of the border with Lebanon.

His visit on Wednesday came a day after after large brush fires ignited by Hezbollah rocket attacks burned in a number of locations. At a meeting with soldiers and firefighters, Netanyahu said Israel is “prepared for very strong action in the north.”

“Yesterday the land was burning here, and I’m glad you put it out, but the ground was also on fire in Lebanon,” he said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group began launching rockets at Israel a day after the war in Gaza broke out with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire daily in violence that has pushed the region to the brink of a wider war.

Israel’s national parks authority says a total of nearly 40,000 dunams (9,900 acres) have burned since the end of May in multiple brush fires, many of which were started by rockets and other projectiles fired from Lebanon. It says it could take years to rehabilitate the area.

GUNMAN CAPTURED AFTER SHOOTOUT OUTSIDE U.S. EMBASSY IN BEIRUT

BEIRUT — A gunman was shot and captured by Lebanese soldiers after a shootout outside the U.S. Embassy outside Beirut on Wednesday morning, the military said.

The attack took place as tensions continued to simmer in the tiny Mediterranean country, where months of fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops has displaced thousands along the border, following years of political deadlock and economic hardship.

The Lebanese military in a statement said that soldiers shot an assailant, who they only described as a Syrian national. The gunman was wounded and taken to a hospital.

The shooter’s motives were not clear. However, Lebanese media have published photos that appear to show a bloodied attacker wearing a black vest with the words “Islamic State” written in Arabic and the English initials “I” and “S.”

Local media reported that there was a gunfight involving at least one attacker lasting almost half an hour. A video that surfaced on social media showed a gunman in a parking lot across the embassy’s entrance shooting with what appears to be an assault rifle.

ISRAEL SAYS IT HAS STARTED ‘OPERATIONAL ACTIVITY’ IN 2 AREAS OF CENTRAL GAZA

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has “started operational activity” in two areas of central Gaza in a possible broadening of its monthslong ground offensive against Hamas.

The military said Wednesday that forces were operating “both above and below ground” in eastern parts of Deir al-Balah and Bureij, a built-up Palestinian refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It said the operation began with airstrikes on militant infrastructure, after which troops began a “targeted daylight operation” in both areas.

Israel has routinely launched airstrikes in all parts of Gaza since the start of the war and has carried out massive ground operations in the territory’s two largest cities, Gaza City and Khan Younis, that left much of them in ruins.

The military waged an offensive earlier this year for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza.

Troops pulled out of the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza last Friday after weeks of fighting caused widespread destruction. First responders have recovered the bodies of 360 people, mostly women and children, killed during the battles.

Israel sent troops into Rafah last month in what it said was a limited incursion, but those forces are now operating in central parts of Gaza’s southernmost city. More than 1 million people have fled Rafah since the start of the operation, with many heading toward central Gaza.

ISRAEL OVERHAULS SHADOWY MILITARY PRISON SYSTEM

JERUSALEM -- Israel says it is overhauling the operations of a shadowy military prison used to hold Palestinian detainees after outcry over conditions over the facility.

The Sde Teiman facility has served as the main holding place for the thousands of detainees Israel has rounded up in Gaza during an eight-month offensive. The facility has raised concerns of human rights abuses.

State attorneys said during a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday that over the next week the government will transfer 500 of 700 detainees currently held there to the Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank. They pledged to move the remaining 200 at a later date and use the prison only as a short-term holding facility.

The state lawyers also said the facility’s medical center would be improved and eventually replaced by a new hospital.

Rights groups had asked the Supreme Court to close the facility, alleging poor conditions and a lack of oversight.

Detainees can be held there pre-trial and without access to an attorney for over a month, under a wartime revision to Israeli law.

Based on interviews with Palestinian detainees held there and soldier whistleblowers, rights groups have said the detainees are shackled and blindfolded in pens inside warehouse-like structures under harsh floodlights.

Doctors working at the medical facility there have raised concerns to The Associated Press that patients are treated while cuffed and blindfolded and surgeries are conducted without adequate painkillers.

Israel says it has detained about 4,000 Palestinians during its Gaza offensive, saying the detentions are necessary to gather intelligence. It has released 1,500 after deeming them unaffiliated with Palestinian militant groups.