Israel-Hamas war latest: Blinken visits Gaza mediators in pursuit of cease-fire deal

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead Tuesday with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a cease-fire in the war in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signaled that challenges remain.

Hamas in a new statement called the latest proposal presented to it a “reversal” of what it agreed to previously and accused the U.S. of acquiescing to what it called “new conditions” from Israel. There was no immediate U.S. response.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, told relatives of hostages in Gaza that a key goal is to “preserve our strategic security assets in the face of great pressures from home and abroad.” He noted the “capture” of a narrow buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border that Israel calls the Philadelphi corridor. Neither Hamas nor Egypt wants an Israeli presence there.

The meeting came as Israel’s military said it recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that started the war, bringing fresh grief for many Israelis who have long pressed Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire that would bring remaining hostages home.

Blinken’s meetings in Egypt and upcoming ones in Qatar come a day after he met in Israel with Netanyahu and said the prime minister had accepted a U.S. proposal to bridge gaps separating Israel and Hamas. Blinken called on the militant group to do the same.

But there still appear to be wide gaps between the two sides, including Israel’s demand for lasting control over strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has rejected.

Here’s the latest:

TEL AVIV, Israel — Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says Israel’s military is shifting its attention from Gaza to the border with Lebanon.

Touring northern Israel on Tuesday, Gallant said Israel has scaled back its activities in Gaza, where it has been fighting a war against Hamas for nearly a year, and turned its focus to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

“Our strongholds are moving from the south to the north, we are gradually changing, we still have a number of missions in the south,” Gallant told troops.

Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The sides have been engaged in almost daily fighting since then, raising fears of a broader regionwide war. Those fears have grown as Hezbollah has vowed retaliation for an Israeli strike in Beirut last month that killed a top Hezbollah commander.

Hezbollah launched more than 120 projectiles towards northern Israel on Tuesday, causing damage to a home and sparking a number of fires. Israel said it was striking the source of the launches.

More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon, including at least 100 civilians. In Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed.

JERUSALEM — Some small towns and communal farms in southern Israel that were devastated during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack plan to boycott an official government memorial commemorating the first anniversary.

Kibbutz Nirim said Tuesday that not a single government representative had come to visit or take responsibility for the failures on Oct. 7. Israeli media said at least five other hard-hit kibbutzim have said will not join the government event and will hold their own ceremonies instead.

Many residents of the small towns in the south have said they felt abandoned by the government during the attack, when Hamas militants stormed the border and killed approximately 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, as well as in the ensuing 10 months.

It took Israeli forces hours to respond to the attack. Dozens of hostages, many from border communities, remain in captivity in Gaza. Many community members accuse the government of dragging its feet in cease-fire talks.

The official government memorial ceremony for the attack will be overseen by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, one of Netanyahu’s staunchest supporters in his Likud party. In June, Israeli police raided Regev’s Jerusalem office after the state attorney ordered an investigation into whether Regev gave preferential treatment to Israeli cities and towns whose officials supported her politically.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed at least 10 people.

The Israeli military said Tuesday’s strike on the Mustafa Hafez school targeted Hamas militants who had set up a command center inside and were planning and launching attacks.

The Palestinian Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said the strike killed at least 10 people and that they were still searching for survivors. It said around 700 people were sheltering at the school when it was hit.

Earlier on Tuesday, a strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed five children and their mother, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.

The hospital said the father, Alaa Abu Zeid, a schoolteacher, has been in Israeli detention for the last nine months.

Bureij is one of several crowded, built-up refugee camps in Gaza that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense residential areas. It has struck several schools-turned-shelters in recent weeks, accusing Hamas fighters of sheltering inside them.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that started the Gaza war.

The military said in a statement Tuesday that its forces recovered the bodies in an overnight operation in southern Gaza. It identified the hostages as Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Haim Perry, without saying when or how they died.

The recovery came as the United States, Egypt and Qatar were trying to mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of scores of hostages held by the militant group.

Hamas is still believed to be holding around 110 hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack. Israeli authorities estimate around a third of them are dead.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said that a barrage of 55 rockets from Lebanon has ignited fires in northern Israel.

The military said Tuesday that only some of the projectiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems, while others fell in open areas. Firefighters were working to contain the blazes.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group said it fired “intense barrages of missiles” at military positions in Israel’s north. Israel said it struck the areas where the missiles were launched in Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since Oct. 8, causing widespread damage on both sides of the border and killing civilians and combatants on both sides.

Fears have increased in recent weeks of a larger escalation, with Hezbollah vowing retaliation for an Israeli strike last month in Beirut that killed one of its top commanders.

JERUSALEM — The bodies of two hostages were returned from the Gaza Strip, the communal farm they lived on announced Tuesday.

Kibbutz Nirim said that the bodies of Yagev Buchshtav and Nadav Popplewell had been returned to Israel from the Gaza Strip overnight. The kibbutz did not provide additional information and the Israeli military did not immediately confirm the information.

Israeli media reported that the two men — along with Avraham Munder, whose death his kibbutz announced Tuesday — were part of a larger military hostage extraction operation overnight.

Popplewell was declared dead by the Israeli military in June. Hamas said in May that Popplewell had died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike. Israel’s military announced Buchshtav's death in July.

The men were taken hostage by militants who stormed the border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. About 110 hostages kidnapped that day remain in the strip. About a third of them are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive on Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

JERUSALEM — Another male hostage has died in Hamas captivity, his communal farming village announced Tuesday.

Kibbutz Nir Oz said that Avraham Munder had been killed while held hostage in Gaza “after enduring months of physical and mental torture.” It was not clear from the statement whether his body had been recovered. Israel’s military did not immediately confirm the information.

Of some 110 hostages remaining in Gaza who were captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, around 40 are believed to be dead, their bodies held in Gaza.

The kibbutz remembered Munder for his “clear voice, warm smile, and boundless love for his family and the kibbutz.”

Militants kidnapped Munder on Oct. 7 when they stormed Nir Oz, dragging some 80 of its residents back to Gaza.

Munder’s wife, daughter, and grandson were also taken hostage, but released during a brief cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. His son was killed on Oct. 7.

In total, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, across southern Israel and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

UNITED NATIONS – From the early days of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan attacked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, accusing him of being “an accomplice to terrorism” and calling for his resignation.

Now, Israel has a new ambassador, and the U.N. chief is calling for “a constructive dialogue.”

However, Danny Danon, who served as Israel’s U.N. ambassador from 2015-2020 and presented his credentials to the secretary-general on Monday, made clear he would be following in Erdan’s footsteps when it comes to Israel’s views about the United Nations.

Danon said he's returning to the U.N. at a time of “immense challenges” for Israel and its people, saying 115 Israelis are still being held hostage in Gaza and face “ongoing atrocities and suffering.”

“I am committed to represent my country to show the real face of Israel, and to push back the lies and the hypocrisy that we unfortunately have to deal with here at this building,” he said.

Neither the U.N. Security Council nor the General Assembly have condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people and triggered the war, though Guterres has repeatedly called for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages. He has also criticized the killing of over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including many women and children, mainly in Israeli airstrikes, as well as Israel's obstruction to humanitarian aid deliveries.

For his part, Guterres said that “for the U.N., it is extremely important to have an objective relationship with Israel.”

“We have different points of view in many aspects in relation to the two-state solution, in relation to what has been happening recently,” Guterres said, “but that doesn’t mean that we should not have a constructive dialogue based on truth.”

BEIRUT — The Israeli army said it hit “a number of Hezbollah weapons storage facilities” in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley Monday night.

At least three Israeli airstrikes hit towns in the Baalbek district, Lebanese state media reported.

Videos from the scene showed a large fire and multiple explosions following the initial strike.

“Following the strikes, secondary explosions were identified, indicating the presence of large amounts of weapons in the facilities struck,” the Israeli army statement said.

A spokesperson for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the strike.

A similar scene took place last month after an Israeli airstrike on the southern coastal village of Adloun hit an arms depot, setting off a series of explosions that hit nearby villages with shrapnel.