July 16, 2025
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza on Monday after another aid shipment was allowed into the besieged Hamas-ruled territory.
Israel is widely expected to launch a ground offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, and Israel says it has stepped up airstrikes in order to reduce the risk to troops in the next stages.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack. At least 222 people were captured and dragged back to Gaza, including foreigners. Two Americans were released Friday, hours before the first shipment of humanitarian aid.
Fears of a widening war have grown as Israeli warplanes have struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon in recent days. It has frequently traded fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which is armed with tens of thousands of rockets.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops in northern Israel on Sunday that if Hezbollah launches a war, "it will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating.”
Hezbollah’s political movement is part of Lebanon’s fractious government, but its fighters operate outside the state’s control. Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s airport and civilian infrastructure during a 2006 war with Hezbollah. Israel is meanwhile evacuating some communities on its own side of the border.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had wiped out eight militant cells in Lebanon over the past 24 hours and more than 20 since the start of the war, without elaborating.
More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed, Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry, said Monday. That includes the toll from a hospital explosion likely caused by a rocket fired from inside Palestinian territory that veered off course and broke up in the air before crashing back to the ground..
This is the deadliest by far of five wars fought between Israel and Hamas in less than 15 years.
Israel has carried out limited ground forays into Gaza. The Israeli military said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded by an anti-tank missile during a raid inside Gaza.
The military said the raid was part of efforts to rescue hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack.
On Saturday, 20 trucks entered Gaza in the first aid shipment into the territory since Israel imposed a complete siege at the start of the war. Israel allowed a second convoy of 15 trucks into Gaza on Sunday. Both entered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the only way into Gaza not controlled by Israel.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said the aid was allowed in at the request of the United States, and included water, food and medical supplies. It said Israel inspected everything before it entered Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel “can't go back to the status quo” in which Hamas controls Gaza and is able to threaten it, but that Israel has “absolutely no intent” to govern Gaza itself.
“Something needs to be found that ensures that Hamas can’t do this again, but that also doesn’t revert to Israeli governance of Gaza,” he told NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “It’s something that needs to be worked even as Israel is dealing with the current threat.”
The military said Monday that it had struck 320 militant targets throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours. It said it had destroyed anti-tank positions and other targets that could endanger forces preparing for “a maneuver in the Gaza Strip,” an apparent reference to a ground operation.
Tensions are also high in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where over 90 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, mainly during violent protests and gunbattles during military arrest raids. Two Palestinians were shot dead during a raid into the Jalazone refugee camp early Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
