Israeli airstrikes on homes in central Gaza killed at least 12 people including children, Palestinian hospital workers said Wednesday, including two young brothers whose bodies arrived in pieces.
Israel has been striking homes, shelters and public areas daily since resuming last month. It has cut off the territory鈥檚 2 million Palestinians from all imports, , for nearly two months. U.N. food stockpiles have run out and aid groups say thousands of Palestinian children are malnourished.
Israel says its blockade aims to pressure Hamas taken on Oct 7, 2023. However, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights warned this week that starving civilians as a military tactic constitutes a war crime.
Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than , according to the territory's Health Ministry, including more than 2,200 in the six weeks since Israel shattered the ceasefire. Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which started the war.
Here's the latest:
Palestinian rescue service chief urges sanctions against Israel
The international community must sanction Israel over its attacks on Gaza and total cutoff of humanitarian aid, which have rendered conditions there unlivable, the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent said Wednesday.
鈥淚srael has left no space for humanity to live in Gaza. We have to go into sanctions,鈥 said Dr. Younis Al-Khatib, speaking to The Associated Press in Lebanon.
Israel's war in Gaza has more than 150 emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense groups and over 1,000 health workers, according to the United Nations. Last month, Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinian medics and first responders and buried them in a mass grave, including eight with the Red Crescent.
Wildfires burn near Jerusalem, closing a key highway
On Wednesday, Israel鈥檚 fire and rescue authority called for international assistance to help control the raging wildfires, which spread to multiple locations on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Israel鈥檚 police said it was closing part of a main highway connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Video footage showed vehicles stranded near the fire. Police reported that residents living close to the fire zone were evacuated for safety, and volunteers were deployed to evacuate hikers.
Iran executes a man it said worked for Israel鈥檚 foreign intelligence agency
The official IRNA news agency reported Wednesday that the man, identified as Mohsen Langarneshin, was hanged. It said he had played role in the 2022 killing of a Revolutionary Guard colonel in Tehran, and called him a 鈥渟enior spy鈥 for the Mossad.
The report said he had provided 鈥渢echnical support鈥 in the assassination of Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, shot five times by gunmen on a motorbike outside his home in Tehran.
The report said Langerneshin confessed in Iran鈥檚 Revolutionary Court.
It said the Mossad recruited Langarneshin in 2020 and that he met with Israeli intelligence officers in Georgia and Nepal.
Langarneshin reportedly rented safe houses for operatives in several Iranian cities, including Isfahan, when, in January 2023, targeted what Iran described . Iran has accused Israel of being behind the attack.
Sirens sound across Israel to mark memorial day
Sirens sounded for two minutes across Israel on Wednesday morning, as the country came to a standstill marking its memorial day for fallen soldiers and victims of attacks.
Jets flew over the military cemetery at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commemorated the day in an opening ceremony. Memorial Day lasts from sunset Tuesday until sunset Wednesday.
Speaking about Hamas鈥 Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Netanyahu said the country was determined to settle the score with those who committed atrocities. 鈥淥ur sons and daughters are unwilling to hold back on what the monsters who attacked us a year and a half ago have done,鈥 he said.
Memorial Day marked at site of Israeli music festival massacre
In southern Israel, friends and relatives gathered near Reim, a dusty field that hosted the music festival just 3.3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Gaza border, where more than 10%, or over 360, of the festival鈥檚 attendees were killed and others were kidnapped on Oct. 7.
鈥淲e are still in a war, we can鈥檛 digest or clearly summarize everything,鈥 said Tal Zoherman whose 73-year-old father Motti was killed at the festival. 鈥淲e try to come here and be together, united and to even celebrate him in our way and to hope for a better future."
Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza
The pre-dawn strikes hit three houses in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, according to staff at the Al-Aqsa hospital, which received the bodies. Among the dead were three children, including two brothers whose bodies arrived in pieces, according to the hospital鈥檚 morgue.
Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian journalist in the occupied West Bank
Israel's military said it arrested Ali Samoudi, a well-known journalist, in an overnight raid in the northern city of Jenin.
Samoudi previously worked for international outlets including CNN and Al Jazeera. In 2022, he was injured in the same spray of gunfire that killed prominent Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. U.S. officials say Akleh was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.
Israel鈥檚 military said Samoudi was affiliated with and transferred funds for the Islamic Jihad militant group, without providing evidence. They said Samoudi had been sent to Israel鈥檚 security forces.
Samoudi鈥檚 arrest is the latest of dozens of Palestinian journalists detained by Israel since the start Israel鈥檚 war with Hamas, which began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Lebanon's president urges US military to pressure Israel to withdraw from his country's south
Joseph Aoun, who met with a U.S. military delegation Wednesday, urged it to pressure Israel to withdraw from areas it still controls in the country and to release Lebanese prisoners.
The delegation was headed by U.S. Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, the co-chairman of the Cessation of Hostilities Implementation Mechanism.
Aoun told the American delegation that the Lebanese army is carrying out its work along the border with Israel, where troops have been confiscating weapons and preventing armed presence.
A statement released by Aoun鈥檚 office said that Jeffers, who had held the post since before the Israel-Hezbollah war ended in late November, will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Michael J. Leeney. It added that Leeney also attended Wednesday鈥檚 meeting.
