Israel-Hamas war HIGHLIGHTS: Israel vows to step up attacks on Gaza as death count crosses 4,600

US President Joe Biden's administration is “hopeful” that more hostages held by Hamas will be released, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, reported CNN. 

An Israeli tank “accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post” Sunday near the border between the two countries, the Israel Defense Forces said. Some Egyptian border guards suffered minor injuries, said Egypt’s military, according to CNN. 

The Israel Defense Forces’s top spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari announces that one soldier was killed and three others were hurt after Hamas attacked soldiers carrying out an operation on the Gaza border earlier today, reported The Times of Israel.

Hamas fighters clashed with Israeli troops inside Gaza, the Palestinian group’s militant Al-Qassam Brigades said Sunday, in what appears to be one of the first skirmishes between the two sides on the ground inside the strip since war broke out on October 7, CNN reported.

"A short while ago, an IDF tank accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post adjacent to the border in the area of Kerem Shalom. The incident is being investigated and the details are under review. The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident," tweeted the Israel Defence Forces.

Egypt’s state-run media reported that 17 aid trucks were crossing into Gaza on Sunday, but the United Nations said no trucks had crossed. “Until now, there is no convoy,” said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Thousands of people were rallying in Berlin and London on Sunday to oppose antisemitism and support Israel, while demonstrations in support of Palestinians in besieged Gaza continued around the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that if Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will be crippled “with a force (it) cannot even imagine", CNN reported.

The US government has pressed Israel to delay its imminent invasion of Gaza to allow for the release of more Hamas hostages and aid into Gaza, CNN reported citing two sources briefed on the discussions.

A British government minister on Sunday condemned as "completely reprehensible" the chanting of "jihad" on the streets of London during pro-Palestinian protests across the UK capital, which ended in at least 10 arrests.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday that he is outraged by the antisemitic agitation spreading even to Germany as the Israel-Hamas war rages, and warned at the inauguration of a new synagogue that the vow of “never again” must be unbreakable.

The bodies of four Nepali students killed in a Hamas attack in Israel have been brought back to Kathmandu, a senior official said on Sunday.

Rescue works underway amid the debris and wreckage of buildings in Gaza as Israel-Hamas Conflict continues.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says it will run out of fuel in Gaza in three days.

The death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651 with more than 14,245 wounded, CNN reported citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza on Sunday.

A convoy of 17 trucks bringing aid to besieged Palestinians crossed into Gaza on Sunday, Egypt’s state-run media reported.

A special flight carrying 143 persons, including two Nepalese citizens and four infants, wanting to leave Israel amidst the Israel-Hamas conflict, left for India on Sunday as part of 'Operation Ajay'.

Thousands of pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who are expected to give birth this month are in grave danger because they are not able to reach a medical facility to deliver, an aid agency says.

Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister of Israel, says the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is "none of our business", reported BBC.

The United Nations humanitarian chief says it’s unclear whether more aid will enter Gaza on Sunday, reported the Associated Press.

An assessment by French military intelligence indicates the most likely cause of the deadly explosion at Gaza City's al-Ahli hospital was a Palestinian rocket that carried an explosive charge of about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) and possibly misfired, a senior French military official said Friday.

The deputy chief of Hamas's rocket force and "dozens of terrorists" were killed in overnight strikes on Gaza, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a media briefing Sunday, reports CNN.

Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza overnight and into Sunday, as well as two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants, as the two-week-old war with Hamas threatened to spiral into a broader conflict.

Deadly violence has been surging in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants in the aftermath of the Hamas attack from Gaza, with at least 90 Palestinians killed in the Israeli-occupied territory in the past two weeks, mainly in clashes with Israeli troops.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says a senior Hamas commander was killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, Times of Israel reported. “We are not stopping our attacks on the Strip,” he says, adding that dozens of Hamas members, including the deputy commander of the terror group’s rocket array, were killed in overnight strikes.

DF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military has so far notified the families of 212 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip, Times of Israel reported on Sunday. He says the number is not final as the military investigates new information on those missing.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin announced late Saturday he was sending additional air defence systems to the Middle East as well as putting more troops on prepare-to-deploy orders.
Austin said the US would be delivering a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery along with additional Patriot missile defence system batteries “to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. troops.” 

Visuals of flattened buildings, debris, and scorched ground in Gaza have caused immense psychological trauma to Talib, a Palestinian student in India, who is constantly worried about the well-being of his family members back home and barely able to concentrate on his studies. Running out of money, the 31-year-old also had to cut down on the "quality and quantity" of his meals.

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A two-truck U.N. convoy that entered Gaza from Egypt is carrying over 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the U.N. children’s agency - a day’s supply for 22,000 people, according to UNICEF.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said at least four people were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank early on Sunday. The ministry said two were killed in the Jenin refugee camp, which includes the Al-Ansar mosque where Israel’s military said it launched an airstrike. The two fatalities have yet to be identified. It also said Israeli forces shot and killed two men in northern cities of the West Bank: a 19-year-old in Tubas and a 26-year-old in Nablus.

Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes early Sunday targeted the international airports of the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, killing one person. The runways were damaged and put out of service.
The attack is the second this month on the Damascus International airport and the third on Aleppo’s airport as tensions increase in the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war.

People searched for neighbors buried under the rubble of a house in central Gaza that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday. Witnesses said 12 people in one household died in the strike and five others were believed to be trapped.

Israel plans to step up its attacks on the Gaza Strip starting Saturday as preparation for the next stage of its war on Hamas, Israel’s military spokesman says. Asked about a possible ground invasion into Gaza, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters Saturday night that the military was trying to create optimal conditions beforehand.

A top official with Hezbollah vowed that Israel will pay a high price whenever it starts a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and said Saturday that his militant group based in Lebanon already is “in the heart of the battle.”

Israeli Defense Forces said a military aircraft launched a strike early Sunday on the Al-Ansar mosque at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The IDF said via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been using an “underground terror route” beneath the mosque. One Palestinian was killed in the shelling, Palestinian Red Crescent said.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced late Saturday he was sending additional air defense systems to the Middle East as well as putting more troops on prepare-to-deploy orders.
Austin said the U.S. would be delivering a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery along with additional Patriot missile defense system batteries “to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. troops.” Bases in Iraq and Syria have been repeatedly targeted by drones in the days since hundreds were killed in a hospital blast in Gaza, and the destroyer USS Carney intercepted land attack cruise missiles in the Red Sea shot from Yemen on Thursday.