Israel-Gaza updates: IDF says it expects war to last all of 2024

Eighty-three children have been killed in the West Bank over the last 12 weeks -- which is more than double the number of children killed in all of 2022 and marks the deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr said Thursday.

A total of 297 people have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

"As the world watches on in horror at the situation in the Gaza Strip, children in the West Bank are experiencing a nightmare of their own. Living with a near-constant feeling of fear and grief is, sadly, all too common for children affected. Many children report that fear has become a part of their daily life, with many scared even walking to school or playing outside," Khodr said in a statement. “The suffering of children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must not fade into the background of the current conflict -- it is part of it."

Israeli forces have destroyed an underground tunnel near the Rantisi Hospital in northern Gaza, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at a briefing.

The tunnel infrastructure, several kilometers long, “connected different locations in the Strip,” Hagari said. “[Israeli] forces uncovered three tunnel shafts in the area of ​​the hospital, with one of them coming out of a school.”

“The tunnel network included steel doors, command control rooms, emergency rooms, many weapons that were underground and other intelligence materials,” he said.

This comes as Israeli forces “are at a very high level of readiness for the expansion of the war” in northern Gaza, Hagari said.

“We are in the final stages of the attack in the Al Burj area in the northern Gaza Strip, where we killed many terrorists,” he said.

Hagari added that Israel is also “attacking all the infrastructure that Hezbollah has built near the [Lebanon-Israel] border.”

In southern Gaza, Israeli “forces are fighting in several areas,” Hagari said. “One in the area called Al Burj in the central [Gaza] camps, where we are attacking for a third day. The second is in Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, a major terror center of Hamas. There we expanded the operation -- today we added another division to this area and we continue to operate there with new combat methods above and below the ground.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Egypt on Wednesday and said "the international community must push towards" a cease-fire.

“Both leaders affirmed their complete rejection of all attempts to liquidate the Palestinian issue or to displace the Palestinians from their lands or their internal displacement, stressing that the only solution that the international community must push towards implementing is an immediate cease-fire, and the entry of relief aid in the necessary quantities and at the speed that will make a real difference in alleviating the suffering of the people of the Gaza Strip,” according to a readout from the Egyptian spokesman for the Presidency Counselor Ahmed Fahmy.

“Talks also focused on regional developments, especially in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian tragedy it faces, which resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries and the displacement of hundreds of thousands,” the readout added.

3:05

Tensions rise in the Middle East

ABC News national security and defense analyst Mick Mulroy provides more analysis on the situation in Gaza as the fighting there intensifies.

ABCNews.com

ABC News’ Ayat Al-Tawy

The World Health Organization said it delivered much-needed aid and supplies to Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza and the Palestine Red Crescent Society's Al-Amal Hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday.

Al-Shifa and Al-Amal hospitals are also operating as shelters for displaced residents, sheltering 50,000 people and 14,000 people respectively, according to the WHO.

Gaza has 13 partially functioning hospitals, two minimally functioning hospitals and 21 hospitals that are not functioning at all, causing the hospitals that are functioning to become overloaded with patients who need help, according to the WHO.

"Today I repeat my call on the international community to take urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardizing the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

Tedros said a cease-fire is needed "to spare civilians from further violence and begin the long road towards reconstruction and peace."