Israel-Gaza updates: Gaza to run out of fuel Wednesday night, UNRWA says
Without fuel, the agency said it'll "be forced to halt our operations."
Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.
Click here for updates from previous days.
Latest headlines:
What we know about the conflict
The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.
In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.
In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.
Gaza to run out of fuel Wednesday night: UNRWA
Gaza is set to run out of fuel Wednesday night, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip as of tomorrow night," the agency said.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said, "We know for sure that there's plenty of fuel in Gaza. Hamas has stored fuel in advance, and is stealing fuel from both civilians and the U.N. to power its war machine against Israel."
20 more aid trucks cross Rafah: Egyptian officials
Twenty more aid trucks crossed the Egypt-Gaza Rafah border on Tuesday and are now headed to the Israel-Egypt Nitzana Border Crossing for inspection, according to Egyptian officials.
It is not clear if the trucks have reached Gaza yet, where humanitarian conditions are worsening by the day, but these new trucks will bring the total to 74 aid trucks crossing through over the last four days.
The Rafah border crossing was shut on Oct. 10 after it was hit by Israeli warplanes on the Palestinian side three times on Oct. 9 and 10.
The crossing has briefly opened each day since Saturday, permitting a small amount of aid to enter Gaza.
Asked by a reporter if humanitarian aid is getting to Gaza fast enough, President Joe Biden said Tuesday, "Not fast enough."
Israeli, Palestinian Authority foreign ministers speak out at UN Security Council meeting
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki, gave long, impassioned speeches at the United Nations Security Council meeting about the suffering their people are experiencing.
Cohen began by holding up photographs of the Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas, reading out their names and ages.
"They are just a few the many children and babies that have not seen evil. They have not caused evil. But they are victims of evil," he said.
Cohen described Hamas as "the new Nazis" and said Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel should serve as "a wakeup call against extremism."
Al-Maliki purported that Israel’s retaliation had equated to "ongoing massacres being deliberately, systematically, and savagely" perpetrated against Palestinians civilians.
"The Security Council has a duty to stop them," he said. "It is our collective human duty to stop them now."
He suggested that Israel's campaign would ultimately lead to more conflict, saying "more injustice and more killing will not make Israel safer."
The foreign minister argued that everyone on the council should be united behind one goal.
"We should be on the same side -- all of us who believe in justice and peace," he said. "We should stand shoulder to shoulder in these moments. But that is only possible if everyone recognizes the value of Palestinian life -- the need to uphold Palestinian rights."
-ABC News' Shannon Crawford
Blinken backs Israel but says 'humanitarian pauses must be considered'
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a forceful defense of Israel’s military actions at the United Nations Security Council, but Blinken said "humanitarian pauses must be considered" to protect civilians in Gaza -- the administration’s strongest statement of a support for any type of halt in Israel’s efforts to vanquish Hamas.
"We must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such heart from repeating itself. No member of this council, no nation in this entire body. could or would tolerate the slaughter of its people," Blinken said.
The secretary said every member of the U.N. has a "responsibility to denounce the member states that arm, fund and train Hamas or any other terrorist group that carries out such horrific acts,” reminding them that many other foreign nationals were also killed and kidnapped in its attacks."
Blinken then turned to ongoing efforts to protect civilian lives, first emphasizing that Hamas is responsible for putting the innocent in harm’s way, before shifting to Israel’s responsibilities.
“Hamas must cease using them as human shields,” he said. “Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians. It means means food, medicine and water and other assistance must flow into Gaza and to the areas people need them. It means civilians must be able to get out of harm's way. It means humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes.”
Previously, the State Department and other U.S. officials flatly rejected calls for any kind of ceasefir, arguing, as State Department spokesperson Matt Miller did Monday, that it would “give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit and to get ready to continue watching terrorist attacks against Israel.”
In his remarks, Blinken also detailed the administration’s efforts to prevent the conflict from spreading in the Middle East, but emphasized the threat posed by Iran and promised the U.S. would not allow attacks on Americans to go unanswered.
“We do not want this war to widen, but if Iran or its proxies attack U.S. personnel anywhere, make no mistake -- we will defend our people, we will defend our security -- swiftly and decisively,” he vowed.
-ABC News' Shannon Crawford
Kirby warns of uptick in Iran-linked attacks
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that in recent days there had been "an uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups against military bases housing U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria."
“We know Iran continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah, and we know Iran is closely monitoring these events and in some cases, actively facilitating attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit for their own good, or for that of Iran," Kirby said.
Kirby said Iran tries to "maintain some level of deniability here, but we’re not going to allow them to do that."
He added that there is still no direct evidence that Iran was involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
-ABC News' Ben Gittleson