Live updates | UN warns of impeded aid deliveries as Israel expands offensive in Gaza

By The Associated Press

Fleeing Palestinians have packed into areas along Gaza's border with Egypt and the southern Mediterranean coastline, where shelters and tent camps are overflowing.

The U.N. humanitarian office says the scale and intensity of ground operations and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups and their devastating impact is impeding aid deliveries.

The Israeli military's air and ground offensive against Hamas has widened to most of the territory. Israel says it is striking militant targets, though homes full of people are regularly crushed.

Israeli forces bombarded cities, towns and refugee camps across Gaza overnight and into Thursday, killing dozens of people.

More than 20,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.

About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, with around 240 people taken hostage. Israel says it aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

Currently:

— On foot and by donkey cart, thousands flee widening Israeli assault in central Gaza

— Number of wounded Israeli soldiers grows, representing a hidden cost of war

— Lose a limb or risk death? Growing numbers among Gaza’s thousands of war-wounded face hard decisions

— The U.N. appoints a former Dutch deputy premier and Mideast expert as its Gaza humanitarian coordinator.

— Find more of AP's coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here's what's happening in the war:

HAMAS OFFICIAL SAYS END TO WAR MUST BE FINAL, NOT TEMPORARY

BEIRUT — A Hamas official said Thursday that the Palestinian militant group is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip.”

Osama Hamdan said the group is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression” and reiterated the group’s official position that the remaining hostages who have been held in Gaza since the group launched its deadly Oct. 7 incursion into Israel would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented.

He was responding to a question at a press conference about the ongoing discussions regarding roadmap to end the Israel-Hamas war -- including a proposal Egypt recently suggested.

As for the enclave’s post-war governance, Hamdan said it would be a “decision of the Palestinian people alone” and that Palestinians in Gaza would “not accept a leadership that comes on the back of a Zionist or American tank or under the protection of this tank.”

He reiterated the group’s denial of a claim made by a spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday that the Oct. 7 attack was launched in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq. Hamas.

Hamdan said the Oct. 7 attack was “a Palestinian operation in planning, preparation, decision and implementation” and was launched as the “result of international collusion that tried to dispose of the Palestinian cause” in response to Israeli aggression.

KIBBUTZ ANNOUNCES DEATH OF AMERICAN-CANADIAN-ISRAELI HOSTAGE

TEL AVIV, Israel — A hard-hit Israeli kibbutz has announced the death of an American-Canadian-Israeli woman who had been thought to be held hostage in Gaza.

The death of Judith Weinstein was announced days after her husband, Gad Haggai, was also declared dead. Weinstein, 70, and Haggai, 73, were taking an early morning walk in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of Oct. 7 when Hamas militants burst across the border into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping 240 others.

Weinstein and her husband had been thought to be among the hostages still in captivity in Gaza. But six days ago, the kibbutz announced that Haggai was killed on Oct. 7 and his body was taken to Gaza.

On Thursday, the kibbutz said it had learned that Weinstein had also been killed on Oct. 7 and her body was also being held in Gaza.

It was not immediately clear how Israeli authorities determined her death. The couple are survived by four children.

“Judy dedicated her life to serving others, spending years teaching English and using her passions for poetry, puppeteering, and mindfulness to empower children of all backgrounds,” the family said in a statement. She will be remembered for her compassion, her peaceful nature, and the creative life she built with her husband."

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 of the approximately 129 hostages believed to be held in Gaza have either died or been killed in captivity.

Nir Oz was one of the hardest-hit Israeli communities on Oct. 7, with roughly one quarter of its residents killed or kidnapped.

The families of missing hostages have drawn widespread support in Israel as they press the government to reach a new cease-fire deal to bring home their loved-ones.

Netanyahu met Thursday in Tel Aviv with some of the families, where he told them there were ongoing behind-the-scene efforts to bring them home, according to a statement from his office.

“I can’t elaborate on the details, we are working to return everyone,” he said.

UN PEACEKEEPER INJURED IN LEBANON

BEIRUT — A United Nations peacekeeper was injured when a group of young men attacked a patrol in south Lebanon, the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL reported Thursday.

A vehicle was also damaged during the Wednesday night attack in the village of Taybeh, the force said.

Such attacks “are not only condemnable, but they are violations of Resolution 1701 and Lebanese law,” UNIFIL said on X, formerly known as Twitter, referring to a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended a monthlong 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

In a separate incident Thursday morning, residents blocked a group of peacekeepers that was traveling through the border village of Kfar Kila, UNIFIL spokeswoman Kandice Ardie said. The peacekeepers were able to move on “after a brief discussion with locals,” Ardie said.

Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon frequently accuse the U.N. mission of colluding with Israel, while Israel has accused the peacekeepers of turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s military activities in southern Lebanon.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and allied groups have clashed almost daily with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border, and shelling has struck UNIFIL facilities.

The peacekeeping force said gunfire from Israeli troops hit one of its patrols last month, causing no injuries but damaging a vehicle.

HEAD OF IRAN'S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD VOWS REVENGE FOR GENERAL'S DEATH

TEHRAN, Iran — Thousands of people attended a funeral in Iran for a high-ranking general killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in Syria.

Mourners gathered in a central square in Tehran on Thursday before accompanying the casket of Gen. Seyed Razi Mousavi to a shrine where he was buried.

Mousavi was a high-ranking general in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who had served as a longtime military advisor to the Syrian government during that country’s ongoing civil war. He was killed in an airstrike in Damascus on Monday.

The head of the Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, said “our revenge will be tough, as always,” but that the only fitting revenge would be “the removal of Israel from the face of existence.”

Salami described Mousavi as a close companion of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.

Earlier Thursday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prayed before Mousavi’s casket, state TV footage showed.

Iran and Israel have waged a long shadow war, with Israel regularly carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria. Tensions have soared since Hamas’ Oct, 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel views Iran as its greatest threat because of Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and its support for regional militant groups like Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

ISRAEL ARRESTS 21 PALESTINIANS ACCUSED OF HELPING FINANCE HAMAS

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says forces carried out an operation across multiple areas of the West Bank and arrested 21 Palestinians alleged to have helped finance Hamas.

In a statement Thursday, the military alleged the suspects were financial services providers who allegedly funded Hamas through digital currency and cash. Israeli media said those arrested worked as foreign exchange brokers.

The military said it confiscated tens of millions in Israeli currency as well as safes, documents and cell phones. Video released by the military showed troops raiding establishments overnight, at one point drilling through a wall that appeared to have been stuffed with cash.

One suspect, blindfolded and hands bound by zip ties, was seen getting escorted from a military vehicle.

During the operation, the military says its aircraft struck militants in Jenin who fired on troops. Forces also opened fire on Palestinians whom the military said were throwing firebombs at troops in numerous areas across the West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli forces in the central city of Ramallah. It did not disclose the circumstances.

More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry says, mostly in confrontations with Israeli forces during raids and protests.

Israel has also arrested more than 2,500 people in the West Bank during that time.

UNITED NATIONS OFFICE CITES OBSTACLES TO GAZA AID DELIVERIES

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. humanitarian office says the scale and intensity of ground operations and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in most areas of Gaza and their devastating impact is impeding aid deliveries.

The office, known as OCHA, cited blocked roads, a scarcity of fuel and telecommunications blackouts as some of the obstacles hampering the humanitarian response.

Despite the challenges, OCHA said the U.N. World Food Program reached about a half-million people internally displaced in U.N. shelters south of Wadi Gaza with food parcels, wheat flour, high-energy biscuits and nutrition supplements between Dec. 23 and Dec. 26.

The World Food Program, through its partners, is also helping thousands of people outside U.N. shelters at distribution points and community kitchens, OCHA said.

The U.N. humanitarian agency said it is also working to deliver 50 tons of wheat flour to more than a dozen bakeries in Gaza.