Latest Developments:
- Israel ramps up its air, ground operations on Gaza
- U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly calls for immediate humanitarian truce between Israel, Hamas militants
- U.S. military launches airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Pentagon
- Gaza-based Ministry of Health — an agency in the Hamas-controlled government — releases list of more than 7,000 people it says have been killed by Israeli strikes since October 7 Hamas-led attack that killed more than 1,400 in Israel
- UNRWA chief confirms 57 staff members killed in Gaza since war began, including 15 in one day, announces plan to visit Gaza
Israel is stepping up ground and air operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel's chief military spokesperson said Friday, amid reports of heavy bombing of the besieged enclave.
"In the last hours, we intensified the attacks in Gaza," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised news briefing, adding that the air force was conducting extensive strikes on tunnels and other infrastructure.
"In addition to the attacks carried out in the last few days, ground forces are expanding their operations tonight," Hagari said, raising the question of whether a long-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza was beginning.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he had seen reports about Israel expanding its ground operations in Gaza but would not comment on them.
Israel has gathered 300,000 reservists and troops outside Gaza in preparation for the incursion against the militant group Hamas. Israeli airstrikes have been pummeling Gaza since Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people, including children. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages.
Kirby said the U.S. supported a pause in Israeli military activity in Gaza to get humanitarian aid, fuel and electricity to civilians there and as part of an effort, if possible, to get Hamas' hostages out of Gaza.
Earlier Friday, Palestinian mobile phone service provider Jawwal said that services including phone and internet had been cut by heavy bombardment.
A statement from the Palestine Red Crescent Society said it had completely lost contact with its operations room in Gaza and all its teams operating on the ground.
General Assembly vote
The U.N. General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas and demanded aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip and protection of civilians.
The resolution drafted by Arab states was passed with 120 votes in favor, while 45 countries abstained and 14, including Israel and the United States, voted no. The General Assembly voted after the Security Council failed four times in the past two weeks to take action. Israel called the U.N. resolution “infamy.”
Israel is rejecting calls for a temporary truce in Gaza while the international community is troubled by the deteriorating conditions for 2.3 million people trapped under the heaviest airstrikes Israel has ever conducted on the Mediterranean enclave.
"Israel is opposed to a humanitarian pause or cease-fire at this time," Lior Haiat, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Friday, while a senior Israeli official said calls for a pause in fighting appeared in "poor faith."
Hamas welcomed the General Assembly’s call for a Gaza humanitarian truce.
Late Friday, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, Ezzat al-Rishaq, said Hamas was ready for an Israeli invasion in Gaza. “If [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu decided to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready,” he said on the social media app Telegram.
Israeli officials have pledged to ensure Hamas can no longer carry out attacks that threaten Israel following its October 7 massacre.
As Israeli airstrikes are ravaging swaths of the Gaza Strip, residents there are running out of food, water and other supplies.
The death toll in Gaza has reached more than 7,000 people, the majority women and children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The ministry, which tracks the death toll, released a detailed list of names and ID numbers on Thursday, including more than 2,900 minors and more than 1,500 women.
World Health Organization official Richard Peeperkorn said Friday that the agency had received estimates that 1,000 unidentified bodies were still under rubble in Gaza and were not yet included in death tolls, according to Reuters. Peeperkorn did not specify the source.
In an early Friday press conference, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, confirmed that 57 staff members had been killed in Gaza since war began, including 15 in one day.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
