The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says its relief operations across the Gaza Strip will need to be sharply curtailed amid crippling Israeli airstrikes. Hospitals in Gaza are doing their best to provide treatment to the wounded with diminishing resources. The war, in its 19th day, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday that at least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed and 17,439 others wounded. In the occupied West Bank, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and 1,650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since Oct. 7. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, according to Israeli officials, mostly civilians who died in the initial Hamas rampage. Israel’s military on Wednesday raised the number of remaining hostages in Gaza to 222 people, including foreigners believed captured by Hamas during the incursion. Four hostages have been released. U.S. and other officials fear the fighting could spill over into a wider regional conflict.
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war, as reported by The Associated Press:
Relief operations in Gaza in jeopardy as Israeli airstrikes increase
UK PRIME MINISTER SUPPORTS PAUSE IN FIGHTING TO ALLOW AID INTO GAZA
LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he supports a pause in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, though he rejected calls for a full cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Sunak said that Israel has the right to respond militarily to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as long as it follows international law.
He told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the United Kingdom is working to get aid into besieged Gaza, including a Royal Air Force plane carrying 21 tons of aid that is flying to Cyprus on Wednesday bound for the region.
He said that British officials and allies at the United Nations had discussed “specific pauses, as distinct from a cease-fire” to allow aid into Gaza and let U.K. citizens and other foreign nationals leave.
SYRIAN STATE MEDIA REPORT ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE ON ALEPPO’S AIRPORT
BEIRUT — Syrian state media said that an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday struck the international airport in the northern city of Aleppo, damaging its runway and putting it out of service amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The attack would be the fourth time that Israel has targeted the airport in the war-torn country’s second-largest city since the onset of the war on Oct. 7.
SANA, citing an unnamed military official, said the airstrikes were launched from the west over the Mediterranean Sea near the coastal city of Lattakia. The report didn’t mention any casualties.
The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment.
QATAR SAYS HOSTAGE TALKS WITH HAMAS STILL ONGOING
JERUSALEM — Qatar’s foreign minister says that hostage negotiations with Hamas over the more than 200 people it took hostage during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel continue.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s prime minister, made the comments during a news conference with his Turkish counterpart in Doha on Wednesday.
“Regarding the progress on the hostage negotiation, it’s still ongoing,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “If we compare where we started and where we are right now, there is some progress and some breakthrough and we will remain hopeful.”
He added: “The negotiations are still ongoing and at any moment of time, I think that if we will be able to get along between the two parties, I think we will see some breakthroughs hopefully soon.”
Tzahi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Council, tweeted Wednesday that he is “pleased to say that Qatar is becoming an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions.”
TURKEY’S PRESIDENT SAYS HAMAS IS A ‘LIBERATION GROUP’
ANKARA, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the militant Hamas group isn’t a terror organization, but a “liberation group” trying to protect its lands and citizens.
In an address to his ruling party’s legislators on Wednesday, Erdogan also said he has canceled plans to visit Israel as part of his country’s policy of normalizing its relations with the Jewish state, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “misused our goodwill.”
Increasing his tone against Israel, Erdogan also described Israel’s action in Gaza as one of the “bloodiest, most disgusting and most savage attack in history.”
“We have no problem with the Israeli state, but we never have, and never will, accept the atrocities committed by Israel and the fact that it acts as an organization rather than a state,” he said.
The Turkish leader called for an immediate cease-fire, for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and for talks for the release of hostages to begin. He also suggested the establishment of an international peace conference for Israel and the Palestinians.
“All sides must pull their fingers off the trigger, a cease-fire must be declared,” he said.
UN OFFICIAL CALLS ON ISRAEL TO END GAZA SIEGE
CAIRO — A senior U.N. official in the Palestinian territories has called for Israel to end its siege on Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid including badly needed fuel into the territory of 2.3 million people.
Dominic Allen, representative of the U.N.’s Population Fund, told The Associated Press that delivering water, food, medical supplies and fuel is “the big, big priority.”
“The siege has got to end, and humanitarian aid has to get through so that we can meet the immediate lifesaving short-term needs,” he said, emphasizing that “no fuel means no hospitals, no desalination, no baking.”
Allen also expressed concerns about Gaza’s 50,000 pregnant women, with an average of 150 births every day and the health care system “on the brink of collapse.”
“They can’t access basic maternal health services, and they’re facing this double nightmare,” he said.
UN AGENCY WARNS IT WILL CURTAIL ITS OPERATIONS IN GAZA
CAIRO — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, has warned that it would severely curtail its operations in Gaza Strip on Wednesday night because of a lack of fuel.
UNRWA spokesperson Lily Esposito said that all services that the agency provides to 600,000 people who are sheltering in its facilities would be impacted, including food and water distribution.
“Without fuel our trucks cannot go around to further places in the strip for distribution,” she told The Associated Press. “We will have to make decisions on what activities we keep or not with little fuel.”
ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES HIT MILITARY SITES IN SYRIA
DAMASCUS — Israeli airstrikes hit a number of military sites in southern Syria on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding seven others, according to Syrian state media.
The strikes targeted the Daraa countryside overnight and came from the direction of Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the SANA state-run news agency said, citing military officials.
The Israeli military tweeted that its fighter jets struck “military infrastructure and mortar launchers” of the Syrian army “in response to rocket launches from Syria toward Israel yesterday.”
Since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, raising tensions in the region, Israel has carried out several reported strikes in Syria including two on the Damascus airport and three on Aleppo’s airport that put them out of service.
Israel has targeted airports and sea ports in the government-held parts of Syria in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
