Israel-Gaza updates: Blinken tells Israel onus is on Hamas to accept cease-fire

The 26-year-old was kidnapped from the Nova music festival.

As the Israel-Hamas war crosses the seven-month mark, negotiations are apparently stalled to secure the release of hostages taken by the terrorist organization, and Israeli forces continue to launch incursions in the southern Gazan town of Rafah ahead of a possible large-scale invasion.


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IDF details Sunday's Rafah strike

Israel said it killed two Hamas commanders — fulfilling its goal — in its strike on Rafah, which also killed 50 Palestinians and injured at least 249 others in a displaced persons camp on Sunday.

The explosion and subsequent inferno at the camp remains under investigation, IDF chief spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters Tuesday.

Hagari did not confirm reports of tanks in Rafah, but ABC News has confirmed there are Israeli tanks in central Rafah, according to an eyewitness report.

-ABC News' Joe Simonetti


'No justice in the world': Palestinian man's wife killed in Rafah strike

Days after a deadly strike on Rafah killed 50 Palestinians and injured at least 249 others, a father of five who lost his wife told ABC News his family fled from Beit Lahia to Deir al-Balah — in the south of Gaza — before heading to Rafah for safety.

"One of my disabled sons had his leg amputated and my wife was killed. What injustice is this?" Murid Saadi Agha told ABC News. "There is no justice in the world. Israel is above all the law."

"I hold America and Israel responsible. We are innocent," he said.

Three of Agha's children have already lost limbs in the war.

"After sunset, my wife and I were sitting here outside the shelter with our neighbors, and my disabled son was feeding his other disabled brother, who is older than him. Even the Indomie that he was eating was still here," he said, describing the aftermath of the deadly Rafah strike.

"There was a very intense explosion. My wife declared once that the shrapnel entered her chest and killed her. I went to my sons and found that one of them had an amputated foot, as the shrapnel entered from the top and from the side. There were many martyrs here. It was a massacre," he said.


Israel continues Rafah strikes as Palestinian death toll surpasses 36,000

Strikes on Rafah have continued, barely 48 hours since an Israeli airstrike near a camp of displaced people killed 50 and injured 249 others. The continued offensive comes as at least 36,050 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7 and 81,026 others have been injured.

The Israel Defense Forces said their ongoing Rafah operation is "precise."

The Israeli military's deadly airstrike in Rafah on Sunday night hit an area about 650 feet away from the boundary of an IDF-designated "humanitarian area," according to an ABC News analysis of geolocated images and the IDF's statements and maps.

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later Tuesday to discuss Sunday's strike on Rafah.

At least 1 million people have fled Rafah in the past three weeks, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

-ABC News' Victoria Beaule and Chris Looft


Kuwait Specialized hospital in Rafah out of service

The Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Rafah, one of its largest, announced that the hospital had been out of service due to the expansion of the Israeli military operation on the city and the repeated and deliberate targeting of the hospital's vicinity, hospital's director Suhaib Al-Hams said Sunday.

The Israeli occupation repeatedly targeted the hospital, the most recent of which was targeting the hospital gate, which led to the death of two of the staff working there, as well as the injury of five members of the medical staff in a previous targeting, Al-Hams said in a press statement received by Sanad News Agency.

"We announce that the Kuwait Specialized Hospital has been out of service and the working medical teams have been transferred to the field hospital that is being prepared in the Al-Mawasi area," Al-Hams said.


Right-wing Israeli ministers against deal

Right-wing Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir spoke out on social media Saturday, both threatening to leave the government if the deal in its current form is accepted.

"I have now spoken with the Prime Minister and made it clear to him that I will not be part of a government that will agree to the proposed outline and end the war without destroying Hamas and returning all the abductees," Smotrich wrote.

This comes after the Hostage Families group released a statement urging Israel's parliament to embrace the deal.