TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s defense minister on Monday pushed back against international calls to wrap up the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying the current phase of the operation against the Hamas militant group will “take time.”

Yoav Gallant, a member of Israel’s three-man war cabinet, remained unswayed by a growing chorus of criticism over the widespread damage and heavy civilian death toll caused by the two-month military campaign. The U.N. secretary-general and leading Arab states have called for an immediate cease-fire. The United States has urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties, though it has provided unwavering diplomatic and military support.

Israel launched the campaign after Hamas militants stormed across its southern border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping about 240 others.

Two months of airstrikes, coupled with a fierce ground invasion, have resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. They do not give a breakdown between civilians and combatants but say that roughly two-thirds of the dead have been women and minors. Nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.

In a briefing with The Associated Press, Gallant refused to commit to any firm deadlines, but he signaled that the current phase, characterized by heavy ground fighting backed up by air power, could stretch on for weeks and that further military activity could continue for months.

“We are going to defend ourselves. I am fighting for Israel’s future,” he said.

Gallant said the next phase would be lower-intensity fighting against “pockets of resistance” and would require Israeli troops to maintain their freedom of operation. “That’s a sign the next phase has begun,” he said.

Gallant spoke as Israeli forces battled militants in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, where the military opened a new line of attack last week. Battles were also still underway in parts of Gaza City and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where large areas have been reduced to rubble and many thousands of civilians are still trapped by the fighting.

Israel has pledged to keep fighting until it removes Hamas from power, dismantles its military capabilities and gets back all of the hostages. It says Hamas still has 117 hostages and the remains of 20 people who died in captivity or during the initial attack. More than 100 captives were freed last month during a weeklong truce.

Gallant keeps a framed picture on the desk of his spacious office with pictures of all the children taken hostage. All but two are marked with small hearts, signaling their release from captivity.

In central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike overnight flattened a residential building where some 80 people were staying in the Maghazi refugee camp, residents said.

Ahmed al-Qarah, a neighbor who was digging through the rubble for survivors, said he knew of only six people who made it out. “The rest are under the building,” he said. At a nearby hospital, family members sobbed over the bodies of several of the dead from the strike.

In Khan Younis, Radwa Abu Frayeh saw heavy Israeli strikes overnight around the European Hospital, where the U.N. humanitarian office says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter. She said one strike hit a home close to hers late Sunday.

“The building shook,” she said. “We thought it was the end and we would die.”

Gallant blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll, saying that the militant group maintains a network of tunnels underneath schools, streets and hospitals.

He claimed that Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hamas, killing half of the group’s battalion commanders and destroying many tunnels, command centers and weapons facilities.

Israeli officials have said some 7,000 Hamas militants — roughly one-quarter of the group’s fighting force — have been killed throughout the war and that 500 militants have been detained in Gaza the past month. The claims could not be independently verified. Israel says 104 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive.

The result, he said, is that in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas has been reduced to “islands of resistance” acting on the whims of local commanders.

In southern Gaza, he said the situation is different. “They are still organized militarily,” he said.

Gallant also said Israel has recovered “hundreds of terabytes” of information about Hamas from computers its troops have seized.

Despite the reported battlefield setbacks, Hamas on Monday fired a barrage of rockets that set off sirens in Tel Aviv, where Gallant’s office and Israeli military headquarters are located.

One person was lightly wounded, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. Israel’s Channel 12 television broadcast footage of a cratered road and damage to cars and buildings in a suburb.

The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, described a harrowing journey through the battle zone in northern Gaza by a U.N. and Red Crescent convoy over the weekend that made the first delivery of medical supplies to the north in more than a week. It said an ambulance and U.N. truck were hit by gunfire on the way to Al-Ahly Hospital to drop off the supplies.

The convoy then evacuated 19 patients but was delayed for inspections by Israeli forces on the way south. OCHA said one patient died, and a paramedic was detained for hours, interrogated and reportedly beaten.

The fighting in Jabaliya has trapped hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people inside hospitals, most of which are unable to function.

Two staff members were killed over the weekend by clashes outside Al-Awda Hospital, OCHA said. Shelling and live ammunition hit Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, killing an unknown number of displaced people sheltering inside, it said. It did not say which side was behind the fire.

With Israel allowing little aid into Gaza and the U.N. largely unable to distribute it amid the fighting, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.

Israel said it will start conducting inspections of aid trucks Tuesday at its Kerem Shalom crossing, a step meant to increase the amount of relief entering Gaza. Currently, Israel’s Nitzana crossing is the only inspection point in operation. All trucks then enter from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. Aid workers, however, say they are largely unable to distribute aid beyond the Rafah area because of the fighting elsewhere.

Israel has urged people to flee to what it says are safe areas in the south. The fighting in and around Khan Younis has pushed tens of thousands toward the town of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt.

Still, airstrikes have continued even in areas to which Palestinians are told to flee.

A strike in Rafah early Monday heavily damaged a residential building, killing at least nine people, all but one of them women, according to Associated Press reporters who saw the bodies at the hospital.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said people in the south are also falling ill as they pack into crowded shelters or sleep in tents in open areas.

Nicholas Papachrysostomou, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain. In shelters where hundreds share a single toilet, diarrhea is widespread, particularly among children, he said.

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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Jeffery from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Paul Haven and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Najib Jobain in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

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Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Negotiators from around the world haggled deep into the night to try to strike a deal to halt global warming at United Nations climate talks, with Western powers and vulnerable developing countries worried that a proposed text fell far short of goals to save the planet.

A new draft released Monday of what’s known as the global stocktake — the part of talks that assesses where the world is at with its climate goals and how it can reach them — called for countries to reduce “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”

The release triggered a frenzy of fine-tuning by government envoys and rapid analysis by advocacy groups, just hours before the planned late morning finish to the talks on Tuesday — even though many observers expect the finale to run over time, as is common at the annual U.N. talks.

Bangladesh climate envoy Saber Chowdhury said a revised text would be presented Tuesday morning that takes into account the many comments from participants.

“It’ll be new. To what extent it’s improved remains to be seen,” he said shortly after the session ended at around 2 a.m.

In a closed-door meeting late Monday, some country delegation chiefs needled COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber’s frequent calling of the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times his “north star,” saying the president’s proposal misses that star.

“It is not enough to say 1.5, we have to do 1.5. We have to deliver accordingly,” Norway minister Espen Barth Eide said.

Some Pacific Island nations argued the text amounted to a death sentence.

The proposed text “doesn’t even come close to delivering 1.5 as a north star,” Tuvalu’s delegation chief Seve Paeniu said. “For us this is a matter of survival. We cannot put loopholes in our children’s futures.”

Small island nations are some of the most vulnerable places in a world of rising temperatures and seas. Final decisions by COPs have to be by consensus. Activists said they feared that potential objections from fossil fuel countries, such as Saudi Arabia, had watered down the text.

United States climate envoy John Kerry says the language on fossil fuels in the text “does not meet the test” of keeping 1.5 alive.

“I, like most of you here, refuse to be part of a charade” of not phasing out fossil fuels, Kerry said. “This is a war for survival.”

Kerry’s remarks received a round of applause from the room. But when he left the meeting, climate activists confronted Kerry, calling for more action, saying their future was at stake.

“Young voters like me who want to vote for Biden and who want to vote Democratic are not feeling that our voices are being heard and that we need a transition away and out of fossil fuels,” said activist Elizabeth Morrison.

Zhao Yingmin, China’s vice minister for Ecology and Environment, said at the meeting that “the draft fails to address the concerns of developing countries on some key issues” and in particular the idea that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025.

Saudi Arabia’s Noura Alissa said the deal “must work for all.”

“It must be relevant, it must make to sense to accelerate action for every single country in this room, not some over others,” she said.

Philda Nani Kereng of Botswana said her country “is a developing country … it’s still, you know, exploiting natural resources for economic development, for livelihood improvement, for job creation and so forth.”

Talking about what the outcome of the talks should be, she said “we are very careful to make sure that it’s not going to sort of stop us from developing our people.”

“We need to find a solution that has maximum ambition and maximum equity,” South Africa minister Barbara Creecy said as negotiators broke well after midnight. “One without the other will not solve the conundrum we face.”

A combination of activists and delegation members lined the entry into the special late-evening meeting Monday of heads of delegations, with their arms raised in unity as delegations walked through, creating a tunnel-like effect. A few activists told delegates passing by: “You are our last hope. We count on you.”

In the 21-page document, the words oil and natural gas did not appear, and the word coal appeared twice. It also had a single mention of carbon capture, a technology touted by some to reduce emissions although it’s untested at scale.

Activists said the text was written by the COP28 presidency, run by an Emirati oil company CEO — Al-Jaber — and pounced on its perceived shortcomings. It fell fall short of a widespread push to phase out fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal altogether.

Al-Jaber skipped a planned news conference and headed straight into a meeting with delegates just after 6:30 p.m. It was the second time for him to cancel a press briefing on Monday.

“We have a text and we need to agree on the text,” al-Jaber said. “The time for discussion is coming to an end and there’s no time for hesitation. The time to decide is now.”

He added: “We must still close many gaps. We don’t have time to waste.”

Critics said there was a lot to do.

“COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure,” former U.S. Vice President and climate activist Al Gore posted on X. “The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word. … It is deeply offensive to all who have taken this process seriously.”

Jean Su from the Center for Biological Diversity said the text “moves disastrously backward from original language offering a phaseout of fossil fuels.”

“If this race-to-the-bottom monstrosity gets enshrined as the final word, this crucial COP will be a failure,” Su said.

But Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa said the “text lays the ground for transformational change.”

“This is the first COP where the word fossil fuels are actually included in the draft decision. This is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era,” he said.

Also on Monday, the latest draft on the Global Goal on Adaptation — the text on how countries, especially vulnerable ones, can adapt to weather extremes and climate harms — was released on Monday.

Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, a senior advisor for adaptation and resilience at the U.N. Foundation said “the new text doesn’t have the strength that we were hoping to see.”

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Associated Press journalists Olivia Zhang, Malak Harb, Bassam Hatoum and David Keyton contributed to this report.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

VERONA, Italy — Sitting on a terrace in Verona as the bells toll at a nearby medieval church, Igor Makarov sips coffee as he describes his life as a billionaire under Western sanctions.

Most of his fortune earned doing business in Russia and the former Soviet Union is frozen, and his plans to develop his energy businesses are currently shelved. His yacht is seized and his two private jets are grounded, so he flew commercial from Cyprus to Italy on budget carrier EasyJet.

“I ask the question, what is the meaning of these sanctions against me? What do they achieve? They don’t help Ukraine,” Makarov said in a rare interview, blinking in the Italian sunshine.

Western governments have sanctioned scores of billionaires in order to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin, choke off financial support for his war and turn them against him. They wanted the tycoons to “feel the consequences” of doing business with Putin unless they show “a change in behavior,” said Peter Stano, the European Commission’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson.

In April 2022, the White House also announced a proposal to seize the targeted tycoons’ assets in some circumstances and “enable the proceeds to flow to Ukraine.”

In the 21 months since then, however, few of the sanctioned businessmen have criticized Putin and just $5.4 million of an estimated $58 billion in frozen private assets has gone to Kyiv. Some of the wealthy businessmen are now fighting back in court, calling the sanctions process opaque, illegal and unfair.

While sanctions have made life difficult for the tycoons, “it’s not in the short term benefiting Ukraine,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia & Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Amid growing concerns about the future of Western funding for Ukraine, former diplomats and experts are asking what can be done to make the sanctions more effective and help Kyiv financially.

They say a different approach is needed that could include offering tycoons a more clearly defined route off sanctions lists in exchange for cash and condemning Putin. It’s a controversial idea among Western governments, not least because they don’t want to suggest tycoons can buy their way off lists. Sanctions relief also doesn’t have the backing of Ukraine.

While in power, Putin has tapped Russia’s elites to fund his pet projects or fill gaps in government funding. On the day of the invasion, he summoned some of them to the Kremlin to shore up their support. Later, he railed against wealthy Russian “traitors” with pro-Western views who take assets abroad.

The West has long viewed much of the Russians’ wealth as the “proceeds of corruption” and saw the invasion as a “golden opportunity” to crack down, said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Lawmakers wanted to punish Putin for the invasion and engaged in “emotional sanctioning,” said Fiona Hill, a former senior official at the U.S. National Security Council. But, punishment alone, with no intended outcome, is ineffective, Hill suggested.

The personal asset freezes target a wide range of people: top officials like Putin and so-called oligarchs, regional officials with few assets abroad, and tycoons like the 61-year-old Makarov.

Makarov was born in Turkmenistan when the Central Asian country was part of the Soviet Union and founded a natural gas company in the early 1990s.

He is accused by the U.K. of involvement in the Russian energy sector and by Canada of benefiting from close associations with top Russian government officials to broker energy deals that helped generate revenues the Kremlin used to “lay the groundwork” for its invasion of Ukraine.

Makarov denies any wrongdoing and says he has not done business in Russia since 2013, when he was forced by government officials to sell his company at a bargain price to Russian energy giant Rosneft.

About 90% of his assets — more than $1.6 billion — are frozen by Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Most tycoons are not sanctioned in every Western country because each government decides that based on its own legal, economic and geopolitical reasons.

Because he is not sanctioned in the European Union or the United States, Makarov is still able to fund a lifestyle in Cyprus, Italy and Dubai.

He said the biggest impact of sanctions has been on his family — some of his daughter’s bank accounts have been closed and he can no longer access funds in a family trust.

Makarov renounced his Russian citizenship this year, saying he thought it would get the sanctions lifted, but hasn’t explicitly denounced Putin. He called that a “pointless” exercise because of the president’s domestic popularity.

“I have nothing to do with this Ukrainian tragedy, which I am deeply concerned about,” he said. “I am against war all over the world.”

Few tycoons have spoken out publicly and only a handful have unequivocally denounced the war, partly because they know it carries risk. Some still have relatives inside Russia, and they know the Kremlin is able to retaliate against opponents, both at home and abroad.

Banker and entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov had sanctions lifted by the U.K. in July after renouncing his Russian citizenship, condemning the invasion and calling Putin a “fascist.” Arkady Volozh, the head of Yandex — Russia’s equivalent of Google — called the war “barbaric” — but stayed on the EU sanctions list.

The piecemeal application of sanctions has led some critics to suggest they are a PR tool that does little to force any change in Russia. Current and former Western officials disagree, with experts like Hill calling them part of a “toolbox.”

Sanctions are not “decisive” on their own but do put “pressure on Putin and the whole system,” said Ambassador Daniel Fried, who led the U.S. State Department’s sanctions response to Russia after it illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.

“You don’t expect Russia to be defeated and driven out of Ukrainian territory in a year and a half,” added Gould-Davies. “Why should we expect sanctions to cause the disintegration of the Russian regime in a year and a half?”

As for sending money to Ukraine, the difficulty for Western nations is that the assets of sanctioned individuals generally can only be liquidated if they are related to criminal activity. That can take years to prove, and most tycoons have not been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

New legislation this year allowed the U.S. to send frozen assets to Ukraine, but that related to a tycoon initially sanctioned over Crimea’s annexation. Western nations also are investigating whether they can strip Russia of over $300 billion in sovereign assets.

Because seizing assets to help Ukraine is complex, some experts suggest governments look at more creative methods.

One idea would be to establish a policy under which Russian businessmen could effectively defect to the West, denounce the war, and make a sizable donation of their assets to Ukraine.

In June, Britain announced a plan in which tycoons could donate frozen funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction. There was no rush to participate — perhaps because the Foreign Office said it would not offer sanctions relief in return, although it could potentially review them if tycoons donate and denounce Putin.

While Western officials say they will never allow tycoons to simply buy their way off the list, Keatinge said both the U.K. Foreign Office and its sanctions office have floated the idea of donation, which suggests “a new chapter … is around the corner.”

Ukraine does not support sanctions relief of any kind on tycoons and would accept it only in circumstances where “a very serious part of their assets are transferred for reconstruction,” said a sanctions adviser in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. The adviser, who did not have permission to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ukraine also would want “a very clear and public statement about Putin and the war.”

Only $5.4 million in assets confiscated by the West — in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea — has gone for the benefit of Ukraine, and “if you can get more than that, it would be a good outcome,” Keatinge said, adding that a tycoon also should have to put themselves at risk “to some degree” by condemning Putin.

Fried said the West should not be looking to “ease sanctions at a wholesale level.”

“But there ought to be a credible off-ramp” for sanctioned individuals, he said, including a denunciation of Putin and handing over some assets to Ukraine.

If a tycoon accepted any such offer, they would probably once again have access to opportunities and fortunes in the West, including assets they might want to pass on to their children. At the same time, they would also trigger Kremlin condemnation and face being branded a traitor.

From the Italian terrace, Makarov seemed frustrated as he mulled the idea.

“For a person to be motivated,” he said, “they must be offered something and it should work.”

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Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with defense chiefs from Australia and the United Kingdom at the U.S. military’s defense technology hub in Silicon Valley on Friday to forge a new agreement to increase technology cooperation and information sharing. The goal, according to a joint statement, is to be able to better address global security challenges, ensure each can defend against rapidly evolving threats and to “contribute to stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”

Austin met with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Grant Shapps, the British secretary of state for defense, at the Defense Innovation Unit headquarters.

Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Austin said the effort will, for example, rapidly accelerate the sophistication of the drone systems, and prove that “we are stronger together.”

The new technology agreement is the next step in a widening military cooperation with Australia that was first announced in 2021. The three nations have laid out plans for the so-called AUKUS partnership to help equip Australia with a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS is an acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Under the deal, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the United States and build five of a new AUKUS-class submarine in cooperation with Britain. The subs, powered by U.S. nuclear technology, would not carry nuclear weapons and would be built in Adelaide, Australia with the first one finished around 2040.

Marles said there has been an enormous amount of progress in the submarine program. He added that as an island nation, Australia has a need for improved maritime drones and precision strike capabilities.

And Shapps said that with China “undermining the freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, we’ve never had a greater need for more innovation.” He said that open navigation of the seas, including in the Pacific and the South China Sea is critical.

According to officials, Australian Navy officers have already started to go through nuclear power training at U.S. military schools.

Also, earlier this year the U.S. announced it would expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years. Under that agreement, they would cooperate on Australia’s production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025.

The enhanced cooperation between the nations has been driven by growing concerns about China’s burgeoning defense spending and rapidly expanding military presence in the region. Last year Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands and raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established there.

The U.S. has increased U.S. troop presence, military exercises and other activities in the region. U.S. relations with China have been strained in recent years, over trade, U.S. support for self-governing Taiwan, Beijing’s military buildup on a series of manmade islands, and a number of aggressive aircraft and ship encounters.

The new agreement also sets up a series of military exercises involving the use of undersea and surface maritime drones and improvement the ability of the three countries to share intelligence and data collected by their sonobuoys. The buoys are used to detect submarines and other objects in the water.

It also calls for plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence, including on P-8A surveillance aircraft, to more quickly process data from the buoys in order to improve anti-submarine warfare. And it says the three countries will establish new radar sites to beef up their ability to detect and track objects in deep space.

High-tech demonstrations were set up across a large parking area at DIU and inside the headquarters, allowing Austin to take a few minutes before the start of the meeting to see a number of projects being developed, including a virtual training device that will help Ukrainian pilots learn to fly F-16 fighter jets and swarming drones being developed for warfighters. The projects aren’t tied to the Australian agreement, but reflect the ongoing effort by the three nations to improve technology — an area where China often has the lead.

As Austin walked through the exhibits, he was able to watch a swarm of five drones lift off from the pavement and hover over the onlookers — all controlled by a single worker with a small handheld module. The short range reconnaissance drones — called the Skydio X2D — are already in use in combat, but the swarming technology and ability to control them all from a single device is still in development, said Skydio CEO Adam Bry.

Inside the DIU offices, Air Force Maj. Alex Horn demonstrated a new portable, pilot training module that will allow instructors in the United States to remotely coach trainees overseas using a virtual reality headset. Four of the so-called “Immersive Training Devices” will be delivered to Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona next month and will be used to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.

Horn said the devices, which are cheaper than other systems, will help accelerate the training for Ukrainian pilots who are used to flying Soviet aircraft and need schooling on F-16 basics before moving to cockpit training.

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The gathering opened as pro-Palestinian protesters geared up to oppose — and potentially disrupt — the event in downtown Denver this weekend. A group of about 60 protesters gathered Thursday evening at the Colorado Convention Center’s blue bear and chanted, shouted and banged on the windows.

“We want to be loud, visible and hostile to our enemies,” an unidentified speaker said through a megaphone.

The disruption could be heard inside the convention center, host to the annual conference, which is put on by the Jewish National Fund-USA. The conference has become a local flashpoint in the weeks since Hamas carried out a deadly surprise attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 and capturing nearly 250 people to be held as hostages.

The Israeli military’s response to the Oct. 7 raid has left more than 13,000 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, inflaming tensions around the world.

On Thursday, Denver police closed a section of 14th Street, between Stout and Welton streets, to vehicle traffic as a security measure, and it put up concrete barriers. The closure will be in effect until 8 p.m. Sunday.

About 10 police vehicles blocked access to the front doors of the convention center Thursday night, as protesters marched past the windows of the facility with signs and Palestinian flags. Security was tight at the event, with heavily armed law enforcement officers stationed throughout the convention center.

Polis delivered welcoming remarks at the conference, which is scheduled to last through Sunday.

“There’s a lot of pain, and it’s made worse by the rise of anti-Semitism and hate,” the governor said. “Our greatest strength is our ability to stand together. Together we must fight all forms of hate.”

The governor’s appearance at the conference was denounced by the Colorado Palestine Coalition. The group labeled Polis “hypocrite-in-chief” on its Instagram page and accused him of welcoming “some of Israel’s most noted Islamaphobes and racist genocidaires” to Denver.

The organization is calling for a shutdown of the conference. And on Monday, Pro-Palestinian demonstrators speaking out against the Global Conference for Israel took over the chamber of City Council, causing the meeting to be postponed.

Yaron Marcus, an Israeli-American who serves as the vice president of the Mountain States region of the Jewish National Fund-USA, said his parents were called “Zionist, racist pigs” as they entered the conference Thursday.

“It’s disheartening,” he said inside the convention center.

NOW: Pro-Palestine activists getting loud and banging on convention center windows, while also blowing whistles and banging pots and pans in downtown Denver. They are opposed to the Global Conference for Israel happening inside. Governor Polis is scheduled to address the event pic.twitter.com/tfRThCofsz

— John Aguilar (@abuvthefold) December 1, 2023

The protesters this year are “angry, hostile and threatening,” said Marcus, who grew up in a Tel Aviv suburb and now lives in Denver. And they erroneously conflate the American arm of the organization to the Israel-based Jewish National Fund organization, he said.

“We own no land (in Israel),” Marcus said. “We are a nonprofit whose mission is to carry out humanitarian and other philanthropic endeavors in Israel.”

Polis, who is Jewish, told The Denver Post through a spokesman last week that “Israel has a right to defend its citizens against Hamas and to respond to the brutal murder of hundreds of Israeli citizens, and to work to facilitate the return of hundreds of hostages.”

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Polis’ spokesman, Conor Cahill, added that hate against any faith in Colorado “will not be tolerated, and that includes ensuring that any effort to intimidate or prevent people from speaking to a group of Jewish Americans convening in Denver does not succeed.”

Many pro-Palestinian activists accuse the Jewish National Fund of supporting policies that have displaced Palestinians from their land and have resulted in the severe curtailment of their rights as they seek to create a nation-state of their own.

Sarah Kaplan Gould, a member leader of the Denver/Boulder chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, said the Jewish National Fund-USA “supports a vision in Israel that does not support equality for Palestinians and for all people.”

Jewish Voice for Peace calls for an end to U.S. support “for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians” on its website. It also calls for a permanent cease-fire in the current war. A tenuous cease-fire that began a week ago was extended Thursday to release hostages, but it’s not clear how long it will last.

“The JNF doesn’t represent Jews everywhere,” said Kaplan Gould, who is Jewish. “I’m here to say: ‘Not in my name.’ ”

Jewish Voice for Peace plans to hold an “interfaith solidarity picket” near the convention center on Friday and another downtown protest Sunday. The actions are among a number of events being promoted by the Colorado Palestine Coalition this weekend, including a planned Friday walkout of Denver Public Schools students and a rally and march at the state Capitol on Saturday.

“I hope that people in Denver who are not sure they should speak out for Palestinian rights know they have a place and a community here and in Israel who recognize the intertwined fates of Jews and Palestinians,” Kaplan Gould said.

Marcus countered that Israel’s fight isn’t with Palestinian civilians.

“We’re not at war with Palestinians; we’re not at war with Gaza,” he said. “We’re at war with Hamas, the terrorist organization that governs Gaza.”

The New York Times on Thursday published the results of several recent polls that show that the level of support for Israel among Americans is decidedly stronger than U.S. support for Palestinians. In a Marist poll, 61% of respondents said they sympathized more with Israelis, and 30% sympathized more with Palestinians.

An NBC poll conducted in November showed that 47% of Americans say they feel positively toward Israel while 24% feel negatively toward the country. Only 1% of Americans feel positively about Hamas, while 81% feel negatively about the militant group, the poll found.

A mid-November Quinnipiac poll asked Americans who was “more responsible for the outbreak of violence” in Israel and Gaza. Sixty-nine percent pointed to Hamas, and 15% chose Israel.

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TEL AVIV, Israel — Ofri Bibas Levy has been haunted by nightmares since Oct. 7, when her brother, sister-in-law and their two young children were snatched by Hamas militants from their homes and dragged into the Gaza Strip.

In those dreams she sees her captive relatives, all except for her brother Yarden. That subconscious omission may reflect her ordeal: Only women and children are expected to be among the 50 hostages released during a four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that started Friday.

All of the men, and many women, will remain captive in Gaza for now. It was not clear if all children were expected to be freed. Hamas on Friday freed 24 people, including 13 Israeli women and children, 10 people from Thailand and one Filipino.

“It’s a deal that puts the families in a situation that is inhuman. Who will come out and who won’t?” Bibas Levy asked. “The children come out, but my brother and many other people stay?” Her relatives were not among those freed in the first release.

The deal will bring relief to dozens whose relatives are captive — as well as to Palestinians in Gaza who have endured weeks of bombardment and dire conditions.

But with some 240 hostages in militant hands, only a fraction of families will be reunited under the current arrangement. There is some hope that the agreement could be expanded: Israel has said it will extend the truce one day for every 10 hostages freed.

But many families are expected to be left to endure the torment of not knowing the fate of their loved ones.

The plight of the hostages — who include men, women, babies, children and older adults — has gripped Israelis. The captives’ families have embarked on a campaign to free their loved ones that has tugged at the heartstrings of many and ratcheted up pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions and secure deals for their release.

That pressure and the families’ widespread public support could force the government into extending the cease-fire even though it has pledged to keep fighting once the current truce expires.

Securing the freedom of all hostages, especially the soldiers among them, could prove difficult. Militants in Gaza see the captives as a critical bargaining chip in their war with Israel.

The leader of Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied with Hamas, said Friday that Israeli soldiers who were taken wouldn’t be freed until all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel are released.

Bibas Levy has put her life on pause to devote herself to fighting for her family’s release — her nephews age 10 months and 4 years were some of the youngest taken captive. The occupational therapist who moved out of a targeted southern Israeli community two months before Hamas’ attack, said she will keep battling until all her relatives return.

Dani Miran — whose son Omri was taken hostage — has been distraught over his son’s well-being. With the unbearable uncertainty and without a sign of life for seven weeks, he is plagued by difficult thoughts.

“My son is not on the list. He’s 46 years old. and I hope that he is in a health condition where he can cope with all the hardship that there is there, that they didn’t wound him, didn’t torture him and didn’t do things that are inhuman,” Miran said.

For many families, the news of a deal has sparked a mix of emotions — grief in cases where they don’t expect their loved ones to be freed and hope that it may lead to further releases.

“I wish that all of them would come back, and I believe that all of them will come back. But we must have patience, and just be strong,” said Yaakov Argamani, whose daughter Noa, 26, was taken captive, along with dozens of other young adults from a music festival that came under attack.

Many families have said they cannot endure listening to the news because all the twists and turns of the negotiations are incapacitating. The current deal, brought about after weeks of fitful negotiations, appeared definite until a last-minute snag prompted a one-day delay.

“It’s like a rollercoaster,” said Eyal Nouri, whose aunt Adina Moshe, 72, was among those released Friday. Earlier, Nouri had said that he did not expect her to be among those freed. Moshe’s husband, Said, was killed on Oct. 7.

The nightmare for many won’t end even if their relatives are released, Nouri said.

After the joy of the reunion, those freed will need to reckon with the trauma of their captivity, their dead loved ones, their destroyed communities and their country at war.

“She has nothing. No clothes, no house, no husband, no town. Nothing,” said Nouri. Once she’s released “she’ll need to build her life from scratch, at 72 years old. Our lives are completely different.”

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Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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JERUSALEM — Qatar on Wednesday announced a truce-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas that would bring the first temporary halt in fighting in a devastating six-week war, win freedom for dozens of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, and also lead to the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it would announce within a day when the clock will start ticking on a four-day truce, during which 50 hostages will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Those freed by both sides will be women and children. Humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza would also increase.

The announcement came hours after Israel’s Cabinet approved the deal. It capped weeks of indirect Qatari-led negotiations between Israel and Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. The United States and Egypt were also involved in stop-and-go talks to free hostages.

Hamas said the deal includes the release of 50 hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners, all women and minors.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the deal calls for a four-day cease-fire, during which Israel will halt its military offensive in Gaza while Hamas frees “at least” 50 of the roughly 240 hostages it and other militants are holding.

“The government of Israel is committed to bringing all of the hostages home. Tonight, the government approved the outline for the first stage of achieving this goal,” the office said in a statement. The statement made no mention of the release of Palestinian prisoners and increased humanitarian aid.

Hostage releases will begin roughly 24 hours after the deal is approved by all parties, said a senior White House official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matters.

Ahead of the Cabinet vote, which came after a six-hour meeting stretching into the early morning, Netanyahu said the war against Hamas would resume after the truce expires.

“We are at war, and we will continue the war,” he said. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.”

Despite his tough words, the government statement said the truce would be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages released by Hamas.

A longer-term lull could lead to pressure, both international and domestic, for Israel to end its war without achieving its goal of destroying Hamas’ military capabilities.

The war erupted on Oct. 7 when several thousand Hamas militants burst across the border into Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage. Most of the dead were civilians, while the hostages include small children, women and older people.

Israel responded with weeks of devastating airstrikes on Gaza, followed by a ground invasion that began over three weeks ago.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli offensive, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. It does not differentiate between civilians and militants, though some two-thirds of the dead have been identified as women and minors. Israel says thousands of Hamas militants have been killed.

The invasion has caused vast destruction in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, displaced an estimated 1.7 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food, medicines, fuel and other key supplies throughout the territory.

Israel has rejected growing international criticism and vowed to press ahead until it destroys Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and all hostages are freed. Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, has ruled Gaza since ousting the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Under Wednesday’s deal, Hamas is expected to release roughly 12 hostages each day. While the statement did not say when the truce would begin, Israeli media reports said the hostages could begin to be released as soon as Thursday.

The return of any of the hostages could lift spirits in Israel, where the plight of the captives has gripped the country’s attention. Airwaves are filled with interviews with families of the hostages, who include babies and toddlers, women and children and people in their 80s with health issues.

The families have become a powerful force in Israel – staging mass demonstrations and marches pressuring the government to bring home their loved ones. They have made a central Tel Aviv square their headquarters, where evocative displays like a long white table with seats for all 240 hostages are meant to keep their plight in the public eye.

But the structure of the deal could weaken Israel from various directions.

Any lull would give Hamas and its shadowy leader, Yehya Sinwar, a chance to regroup after suffering heavy losses during the fighting, especially if Hamas drags things out with additional hostage releases.

Israel claims to have killed thousands of Hamas fighters, though it has not presented evidence, and destroyed parts of the group’s underground tunnel system. But Israeli officials acknowledge much of the group’s infrastructure remains intact.

A cease-fire could also add to the already growing international pressure on Israel to halt its offensive as the full extent of damage in Gaza becomes apparent. Even the U.S., Israel’s chief backer, has expressed concerns about the heavy toll on Gaza’s civilian population.

Some three-quarters of Gaza’s population has been uprooted from their homes and are staying in overcrowded and unsanitary shelters.

Many, if not most, will be unable to return home because of the vast damage in the north and the continued presence of Israeli troops there. That could lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster as people remain in shelters or are forced to live in tents through the cold, rainy winter.

And in Israel, the staggered releases of hostages risks triggering divisions between families of those who are freed and those who remain in captivity. Soldiers, for instance, are likely to be among the last to be freed. Families of the soldiers, who include young women who served as spotters along the border, are likely to press the government not to resume the offensive until their loved ones return home as well.

“There are many families and many opinions,” Hadas Kalderon, whose two young children were abducted with their father, told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.

She said a deal could create openings for future agreements by building trust, but acknowledged there are dilemmas as hostages are selected for release. “Our responsibility is to return everyone,” she said. “But let’s be realistic.”

A lengthy truce could also affect Israel’s battle readiness. While Israeli troops are expected to remain in place and the Israeli military said its battle plans remain intact, it will be difficult and risky for the army to leave its forces stationary behind enemy lines.

Asked about a cease-fire, the army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said: “The army will know how to maintain its operational achievements.”

Hamas may try to declare a victory, but Sinwar will have little to celebrate. Even if he survives and Hamas maintains power, he will emerge to vast destruction that will take years, if not decades, to repair.

In the meantime, fighting continued on Tuesday, with the front line of the war shifting to the Jabaliya refugee camp, a dense warren of concrete buildings near Gaza City that houses families displaced in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Israel has bombarded the area for weeks, and the military said Hamas fighters have regrouped there and in other eastern districts after being pushed out of much of Gaza City.

In southern Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed two journalists with Al-Mayadeen TV, according to the Hezbollah-allied Pan-Arab network and Lebanese officials. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. A separate Israeli drone strike in Lebanon killed four Hamas members, a Palestinian official and a Lebanon security official said.

The Israeli military has been trading fire almost daily across the border with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Palestinian militants since the outbreak of the war.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said that as of Nov. 11 it had lost the ability to count the dead because of the collapse of large parts of the health system.

It believes the actual death toll has risen sharply above the official number of 11,000. Some 2,700 people are missing and believed to be buried under rubble, and hospitals have continued to report deaths from daily strikes, often dozens at a time.

The Israeli military says 68 soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.

Jeffery reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Colleen Long in Washington contributed.

Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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RIO DE JANEIRO — The deaths of two people, muggings and a dangerous heat wave left legions of Taylor Swift’s Brazilian fans angry and disappointed in the three-day Rio de Janeiro leg of the pop superstar’s Eras Tour, which concludes Monday night.

Gabriel Mongenot Santana Milhomem Santos, 25, a fan who had traveled from the country’s center-west region to see Swift, was stabbed to death on a Copacabana beach about 3 a.m. Monday, Rio’s police said in a statement.

It was the second death of a Swift fan in four days. On Friday, 23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides Machado fell ill during the singer’s first show in the city, and died later that evening at a hospital.

Fans also reported fainting from extreme heat, being mugged or getting caught up in a police raid.

Rio’s Municipal Health Department said Benevides, who, according to a friend, passed out during Swift’s second song, “Cruel Summer,” experienced cardiorespiratory arrest, but the exact cause of her death is not yet known. Rio’s Forensic Medical Institute examined the body Saturday and said additional laboratory tests had to be conducted, the online news site G1 reported.

In a statement posted on Instagram, Swift said Benevides’ death left her with a “shattered heart.”

Before the show Friday, fans lined up for hours outside the Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium where temperatures soared to 41 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit), with a heat index of nearly 59 C (138 F). Inside the stadium, concertgoers complained of unbearable heat and some said they had difficulty getting access to water.

“I didn’t imagine that my dream could turn into a nightmare,” said fan Kléssia Menezes, who told R7 TV that she had gotten stuck with hundreds of other people on one of the ramps to a VIP area Saturday as security officers blocked the entrance.

Once security let them through, she said, people started running and she fell on a hot metallic floor that burned her leg and back.

“They took me to the doctor … and I saw that I wasn’t the only person to have fallen in this chaos,” she said. “Many people fell and burned themselves.”

Ultimately, that night’s show was postponed, after tens of thousands of fans had spent hours lining up in the heat. Swift announced on Instagram that it was necessary “due to the extreme temperatures in Rio.”

A fan who identified herself as Julia Alvarenga said she was upset that Swift didn’t decide to cancel earlier.

“My friend, can you see how much I’m sweating, how all the pores in my body are dilated from the sweat?” Alvarenga asked, visibly angry, in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. She then pointed to her waist, highlighting the extreme measures she had taken to attend a concert for which she knew she would stand in line for hours. “I’m wearing a diaper, a geriatric diaper,” she says, urging the artist to appear. “Come on stage, I want to see you!”

The postponement was followed by chaos outside the stadium. Under a light rain, a mass of concertgoers left the area, which is close to one of Rio’s working-class neighborhoods, known as favelas.

Videos shared on social media showed groups of pickpockets robbing fans of their belongings, scenes not so unusual to Rio residents, but far from the postcards many tourists have seen of the “cidade maravilhosa.”

Many took refuge inside a Burger King, ducking for cover under tables and behind the counter in the kitchen area. Heavily armed police raided the fast food restaurant’s basement as loud sirens blared and those stuck outside the restaurant shouted. Some of those who were able to escape in taxis were overcharged by the drivers.

Saturday’s show was postponed to Monday night, but many who had traveled from other regions of Brazil and outside the country had already made plans to leave earlier.

“We’re not going to be able to make it,” said Hely Olivares, a 41 year-old Venezuelan who had traveled from Panama. “A lot of people have wasted their journey.”

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LONDON (AP) — The British government said Wednesday it will still try to send some migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda, despite the U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the contentious plan is unlawful.

In a major blow to one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s key policies, five justices on the country’s top court ruled unanimously that asylum-seekers sent to Rwanda would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” because they could be returned to the conflict-wracked home countries they’d fled.

Sunak, who has pledged to stop migrants reaching Britain in small boats across the English Channel, said the ruling “was not the outcome we wanted” but vowed to press on with the plan.

He said the court had “confirmed that the principle of removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country is lawful,” even as it ruled Rwanda unsafe.

He said the government was working on a treaty with Rwanda that would address the court’s concerns, “and we will finalize that in light of today’s judgment.” If that fails, he said he was prepared to consider changing U.K. law and leaving international human rights treaties — a move that would draw strong opposition and international criticism.

Refugee and human rights groups welcomed the court’s decision and urged the government to drop the Rwanda plan. Charity ActionAid U.K. called it a vindication of “British values of compassion and dignity.” Amnesty International said the government should “draw a line under a disgraceful chapter in the U.K.’s political history.”

Britain and Rwanda signed a deal in April 2022 to send some migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.

Britain’s government argued that the policy would deter people from risking their lives crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and would break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. Opposition politicians, refugee groups and human rights organizations said the plan was unethical and unworkable.

No one has yet been sent to the country as the plan was challenged in the courts.

Reading the decision, President of the Supreme Court Robert Reed said Rwanda had a history of misunderstanding its obligations toward refugees and couldn’t be relied on to keep its promise not to mistreat asylum-seekers.

He cited the country’s poor human rights record, including enforced disappearances and torture, and said Rwanda practiced “refoulement” – sending migrants back to unsafe home countries.

The judges concluded there were “substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that asylum claims will not be determined properly, and that asylum-seekers will in consequence be at risk of being returned directly or indirectly to their country of origin.”

“In that event, genuine refugees will face a real risk of ill-treatment in circumstances where they should not have been returned at all,” they said.

The U.K. government has argued that while Rwanda was the site of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 1994, the country has since built a reputation for stability and economic progress.

Critics say that stability comes at the cost of political repression. The court’s judgment noted multiple rights breaches, including political killings that had led U.K. police “to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state.” They said Rwanda has a 100% rejection record for asylum-seekers from war-torn countries including Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The Rwandan government insisted the country was a safe place for refugees.

“Rwanda is committed to its international obligations,” government spokesperson Yolande Makolo wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We have been recognized by the UNHCR and other international institutions for our exemplary treatment of refugees.”

Rwandan opposition leader Frank Habineza said Britain shouldn’t try to offshore its migration obligations to the small African country.

“The U.K. should keep the migrants or send them to another European country, not to a poor country like Rwanda. I really think it’s not right (for) a country like U.K. to run away from their obligations,” Habineza told the AP in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.

The Rwanda plan has cost the British government at least 140 million pounds ($175 million) in payments to Rwanda before a single plane has taken off. The first deportation flight was stopped at the last minute in June 2022, when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.

The case went to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the plan was unlawful because Rwanda is not a “safe third country.” The government unsuccessfully challenged that decision at the Supreme Court.

Sunak took comfort from the court’s ruling that “the structural changes and capacity-building needed” to make Rwanda safe “may be delivered in the future.”

The prime minister is under pressure from the right wing of the governing Conservative Party to take dramatic action to “stop the boats.” Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who was fired by Sunak on Monday, has said the U.K. should leave the European Convention on Human Rights if the Rwanda plan was blocked.

Sunak told lawmakers in the House of Commons that he was “prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships” if other routes failed.

Much of Europe and the U.S. is struggling with how best to cope with migrants seeking refuge from war, violence, oppression and a warming planet that has brought devastating drought and floods.

Though Britain receives fewer asylum applications than countries such as Italy, France or Germany, thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of crossing the English Channel.

More than 27,300 migrants have crossed the Channel this year, with the year’s total on track to be fewer than the 46,000 who made the journey in 2022. The government says that shows its tough approach is working, though others cite factors including the weather.

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Associated Press writer Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda contributed to this report.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops on Wednesday stormed into Gaza’s largest hospital, searching for traces of Hamas inside and beneath the facility, where newborns and hundreds of other patients have suffered for days without electricity and other basic necessities. The forces also pressed on with their wider ground offensive.

Details from the daylong raid remained sketchy, but officials from Israel and Gaza presented different accounts of what was happening at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City: The Israeli army released video showing soldiers carrying boxes labeled as “baby food” and “medical supplies,” while health officials talked of terrified staff and patients as troops moved through the buildings.

After encircling Shifa for days, Israel faced pressure to prove its claim that Hamas had turned the hospital into a command center and used patients, staff and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its militants. The allegation is part of Israel’s broader accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields. Israel released video late Wednesday of weapons it said it found in one building, but so far its search showed no signs of tunnels or a sophisticated command center.

Hamas and Gaza health officials deny militants operate in Shifa — a hospital that employs some 1,500 people and has more than 500 beds, according to the Palestinian news agency. Palestinians and rights groups say Israel has recklessly endangered civilians as it seeks to eradicate Hamas.

As Israel tightens its hold on northern Gaza, leaders have talked of expanding the ground operation into the south to root out Hamas. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have already crowded into the territory’s south, where a worsening fuel shortage threatens to paralyze the delivery of humanitarian services and shut down mobile phone and internet service.

The war between Israel and Hamas erupted after the militant group killed some 1,200 people and seized around 240 captives in an Oct. 7 attack that shattered Israelis’ sense of security.

Israeli airstrikes have since killed more than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which coordinates with the ministry branch in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, with most believed to be buried under the rubble. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.

Israeli forces launched their raid into the large Shifa compound around 2 a.m. and remained on the grounds after nightfall Wednesday, with tanks stationed outside and snipers on nearby buildings, Munir al-Boursh, a senior official with Gaza’s Health Ministry inside the hospital, told The Associated Press. It was not possible to independently assess the situation inside.

Al-Boursh said that for hours, the troops ransacked the basement and other buildings, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments, and searched the grounds for tunnels. Troops questioned and face-screened patients, staff and people sheltering in the facility, he said, adding that he did not know if any were detained.

“Patients, women and children are terrified,” he told the AP by phone.

Neither the Palestinians nor the military reported any clashes inside the hospital. The military said its troops killed four militants outside the hospital at the start of the operation. Throughout days of fighting in the surrounding streets in previous days, there were no reports of militants firing from inside Shifa.

The Israeli military said it was carrying out a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the hospital,” and that its soldiers were accompanied by medical teams bringing in incubators and other supplies.

It added that forces were also searching for hostages. The plight of the captives, who include men, women and children, has galvanized Israeli support for the war. Families and supporters of the hostages are holding a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The video released by the military from inside Shifa showed three duffel bags it said it found hidden around an MRI lab, each containing an assault rifle, grenades and Hamas uniforms, as well as a closet that contained a number of assault rifles without ammunition clips. A laptop was also discovered and taken for study. The AP could not independently verify the Israeli claims that the weapons were found inside the hospital.

“These weapons have absolutely no business being inside a hospital,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said in the video, adding that he believed the material was “just the top of the iceberg.” The military said the search was continuing, but it did not immediately show any sign of tunnels or an extensive military center.

The raid drew condemnation from the U.N., Jordan and the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, which called it a violation of international law. Separately, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses and corridors” throughout Gaza after four failed attempts to respond to the Israel-Hamas war.

In other developments, U.S. President Joe Biden said he believes the war will stop only when Hamas’ ability to kill and injure Israelis is degraded. He also said he urged Israel to exercise caution in its military operations at the hospital.

“I think it’s going to stop when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder,” Biden said after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative conference in California.

Biden said he discussed with Israelis their need to “be incredibly careful” as they worked to clear the hospital.

At one point, tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment were sheltering at the hospital, but most left in recent days as the fighting drew closer. The fate of premature babies at the hospital has drawn particular concern.

The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday.

There was no immediate word on the condition of another 36 babies the ministry said earlier were at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.

Hours before Israel’s raid, the United States said its own intelligence indicated militants have used Shifa and other hospitals — and tunnels beneath them — to support military operations and hold hostages.

Under international humanitarian law, hospitals can lose their protected status if combatants use them for military purposes. But civilians must be given ample time to flee, and any attack must be proportional to the military objective — putting the burden on Israel to show it was a big enough military target to justify the siege against it.

Conditions in southern Gaza have been deteriorating as bombardment continues to level buildings. Residents say bread is scarce and supermarket shelves are bare. Families cook on wood fires for lack of fuel. Central electricity and running water have been out for weeks across Gaza.

After refusing to allow fuel into Gaza since the war’s start, saying it would be diverted to Hamas, Israeli defense officials early Wednesday let in some 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons).

The fuel will only be used for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, to continue bringing limited supplies of food and medicine from Egypt for the more than 600,000 people sheltering in U.N.-run schools and other facilities in the south.

The fuel cannot be used for hospitals or to desalinate water, said Thomas White, UNRWA’s director in Gaza. The amount is the equivalent of “only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities,” he said.

The Palestinian telecom company Paltel, meanwhile, said it was relying on batteries to keep Gaza’ mobile and internet network running, and that it expected services to halt later Wednesday. Gaza has experienced three previous mass communication outages since the ground invasion.

Israeli troops have extended their control across northern Gaza. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday the ground operation will eventually “include both the north and south. We will strike Hamas wherever it is.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the plans, saying Israel’s goal is “a complete victory over Hamas in the south and the return of our hostages.”

If Israeli troops move south, it is not clear where Gaza’s population can flee, as Egypt refuses to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.

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Magdy and Jeffery reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Dair al-Balah, Gaza, and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.