Israel-Gaza updates: US ambassador to Israel demands return of hostages

The war is the deadliest conflict between the two sides in recent history.

More than a month after a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas ended, the Israeli military continues its bombardment of the neighboring Gaza Strip.

The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza, freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on southern Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

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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.


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UNICEF: All children under 5 in Gaza at 'high risk of severe malnutrition'

All children under the age of 5 in the Gaza Strip -- approximately 335,000 -- are at "high risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase," according to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.

"To get children the life-saving support they desperately need, we need a humanitarian ceasefire. Now," UNICEF's Middle East and North Africa office wrote Tuesday in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

-ABC News' Zoe Magee and Morgan Winsor


Blinken meets with Herzog, Netanyahu in Israel

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with top officials in Israel on Tuesday during his fourth visit to the Middle East since the Oct. 7 terror attack.

Blinken met first with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and then with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. He was also expected to sit in on an Israeli war cabinet meeting.

Speaking to reporters alongside the Israeli president on Tuesday morning, Blinken said he valued Herzog's leadership during these "incredibly challenging times" for Israel and other nations in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary said he would be sharing with Israeli officials what he had heard from leaders in regional countries.

Blinken's latest weeklong trip is aimed at calming tensions across the Middle East amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the neighboring Gaza Strip. The current conflict was sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

-ABC News' Lauren Minore, Joe Simonetti and Morgan Winsor


Blinken says he will press Israel on protecting civilians in Gaza

Just before he departed Saudi Arabia for Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined what he hoped to accomplish during his time in the country.

Blinken said that while he was on the ground, he would have an opportunity to relate what he had heard in meetings during his several previous stops in the Arab world, as well as "talk to them about the future direction of their military campaign in Gaza."

"I will press on the absolute imperative to do more to protect civilians and to do more to make sure that humanitarian assistance is getting into the hands of those who need it," he said.

Summarizing his trip so far, he said that he found a united front among leaders in Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

"Everywhere I went, I found leaders who are determined to prevent the conflict that we're facing now from spreading, doing everything possible to deter escalation -- to prevent a widening of the conflict," he said, adding they also agreed on the importance of Israel's security, and that the West Bank and Gaza should be united as one state led by Palestinian governance.

-ABC News' Shannon K. Crawford


Hezbollah responds to Netanyahu visit to Lebanon border

A Hezbollah leader issued a threat to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his visit to the Lebanon border on Monday.

"If you want a large-scale war in which you attack our country, we will go to the end and we are not afraid of your threats, your bombing, or your aggression, and we have prepared for you what you never imagined," Muhammad Raad, head of the Hezbollah bloc of Lebanese parliament, said.

Israel said it hit military targets in southern Lebanon on Monday amid skirmishes that have been ongoing since October.

Netanyahu visited Kiryat Shmona, a city in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, on Monday, where he said Hezbollah got Israelis wrong in 2006 -- a reference to the 34-day war between the two countries. He also added that he hopes to return Israeli evacuees to the region.

"We will do everything to restore security to the north and allow your families, because many of you are local, to return home safely and know that we cannot be messed with," Netanyahu said. "We will do whatever it takes. Of course, we prefer that this be done without a wide campaign, but that will not stop us."

-ABC News' Jordana Miller and Nasser Atta


Hamas releases video showing 3 Israeli hostages in captivity

Hamas released a video on Sunday showing three Israeli hostages who are still being held in captivity in Gaza.

The three hostages that appear in the video are 26-year-old Noa Argamani, 35-year-old Itai Svirsky and 53-year-old Yossi Sharabi.

The video released by Hamas called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war on Gaza.

-ABC News' Ellie Kaufman