The Latest | Hezbollah says Israeli strikes kill 3 fighters as US envoy tries to calm tensions

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday, the militant group said, as a U.S. envoy tasked with avoiding a devastating regional war returned to Israel after meeting officials in Lebanon.

Lebanese state media reported multiple Israeli strikes along the border and in an area north of the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the frontier. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel.

Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, was back in Israel after meetings in Lebanon on Tuesday. There has been no word on whether he has made progress in his efforts to avoid a wider war.

With the Israeli offensive in Gaza now in its ninth month, international criticism has grown steadily over the U.S. support for Israel’s air and ground attacks. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying militants operate among the population.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Tuesday that the United States was withholding weapons needed for the war in Gaza. Biden has delayed delivering certain heavy bombs to Israel since May over concerns about killing civilians in Gaza. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that those 2,000-pound bombs are the only weapons under review. He told reporters that “Everything else is moving as it normally would.”

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Currently:

— For a second time, a ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels sinks in the Red Sea.

— Muslim pilgrims wrap up the Hajj with final symbolic stoning of the devil and circling of the Kaaba.

— Israel’s Netanyahu blames Biden for withholding weapons, but U.S. officials say that’s not the whole story.

— Sudan accuses the United Arab Emirates of fueling war with weapons to paramilitary rivals.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Here's the latest:

Israeli strikes have destroyed more than 70% of the facilities and infrastructure in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, head of the Rafah municipality Ahmed al-Sufi said in a statement Wednesday.

He accused Israeli forces of systematically targeting camps in Rafah, adding that entire residential areas in the Al Saudi neighborhood have been destroyed. Al-Sufi didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional information.

Israeli tanks and helicopters fired at a Palestinian ministry building overnight Tuesday in southern Gaza, setting a number of tents next to the warehouse on fire, displaced Palestinians who were sheltered nearby told The Associated Press.

Five people were killed in the attack, according to Palestinian media. The AP was unable to immediately verify this figure.

“We were sleeping at 1 o’clock at night, when suddenly we heard the sound of screaming. We went out running, carried the children and went out running, and we found a fire burning in front of us, a big fire,” said Mohammad Abu Hasera, originally from Gaza City, who was near the warehouse during the attack.

A video circulating on social media and posted by an Israeli military correspondent Wednesday morning shows the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, including the terminal, which the correspondent said has been completely destroyed after the IDF launched its ground operations last month.

U.N. humanitarian workers weren’t able to pick up desperately needed aid shipments at the Kerem Shalom border crossing from Israel because of the lack of law and order in the area, the United Nations said.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters that even though there was no fighting Wednesday on a new route where Israel has declared a “tactical pause” in daytime military action, the law and order issue prevented U.N. workers from picking up aid.

This means that no trucks carrying aid have been able to use the new route since Israel announced the daily pause Sunday on the road between the Kerem Shalom border crossing and Gaza’s main north-south Salah al-Din Road.

Haq noted that the United Nations has been warning about lawlessness and unrest for several days.

Asked who was responsible, he said, it’s probably a combination of several factors including criminal gangs taking advantage of the unrest and a lot of frightened people who are hungry.

“The responsibility of Israel as the occupying power does not stop at Kerem Shalom where aid is dropped off,” Haq stressed. “It includes ensuring that this assistance reaches women, children and elderly who need it the most and creating the enabling environment to do so.”

Haq said five fuel trucks that traveled via the fence road did enter Gaza Wednesday through the military gate. The U.N. humanitarian office reported these were the first fuel deliveries since early June and supplies remain scarce.

Currently, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, estimates that only 65,000 remain in the southern city of Rafah, where 1.4 million people had fled seeking safety. Almost the entire population of Rafah fled after Israel issued evacuation orders about three weeks ago and began military operations.

Haq said large numbers of Palestinians have fled to Khan Younis, Dier al-Balah and other areas of southern Gaza, where he stressed that very limited amounts of food are getting in because of the closure of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, which had been a main conduit for aid deliveries

BEIRUT -- The Hezbollah militant group says at least three of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday as a U.S. envoy works to quell tensions.

Lebanese state media reported multiple Israeli strikes along the border and in an area north of the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the frontier. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel.

The fighting came as Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, returned to Israel after meeting with officials in Lebanon on Tuesday. There has been no word on whether he has made progress in his efforts to avoid a devastating regional war.

Kamel Mohanna, the head of the Amel Association, an NGO providing health services in Lebanon, said the group’s primary health center in the town of Khiam was hit and damaged by Israeli shelling. Mohanna said he was visiting another health center in south Lebanon, which had been previously struck and then repaired, when the Khiam center was hit.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7. There have been near daily exchanges of fire, though most of the strikes are confined to an area within a few mostly confined to the area around the border.

But the fighting has escalated in recent weeks, raising fears that the clashes could boil over into a full-blown war. Israel’s army announced late Tuesday that it has “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes already have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but at least 80 of the fatalities were civilians. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian army officer was killed in an Israeli airstrike Wednesday morning, Syrian state media said.

State news agency SANA reported that Israeli drone strikes hit military sites in the areas of Quneitra and Daraa in southern Syria, killing an officer and resulting in “material damages.”

The Untied Kingdom-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes came after members of factions affiliated with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah transported the wreckage of an Israeli reconnaissance plane to one of the targeted sites to dismantle it.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on the strikes. Israel frequently launches strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria but rarely acknowledges them. The strikes have intensified since October against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A bulk carrier sank days after an attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels believed to have killed one mariner on board, authorities said early Wednesday, the second ship sunk in the rebels’ campaign.

The sinking of the Tutor in the Red Sea marks what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign targeting shipping through the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The attack comes despite a monthslong U.S.-led campaign in the region that has seen the Navy face its most intense maritime fighting since World War II, with near-daily attacks targeting commercial vessels and warship.

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned-and-operated Tutor sank in the Red Sea, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in a warning to sailors in the region. The Houthis, quoting foreign reports in media outlets they control, acknowledged the sinking. The U.S. military did not acknowledge the sinking, nor did it respond to requests for comment.

GENEVA — The United Nations human rights office has spotlighted six deadly bombing attacks by Israeli defense forces in Gaza during the first nine weeks of the war, saying they could amount to crimes against humanity.

The rights office says that more than eight months into the conflict, and despite commitments from Israel to look into such attacks, authorities have not produced transparent or credible investigations. Volker Turk, the U.N. human rights chief, said the requirement under international law that combatants avoid or minimize harm to civilians “appears to have been consistently violated” in Israel’s bombing campaign.

The comments came along with the release of a new report Wednesday that seeks to highlight the dangers posed to civilians of the use of powerful weapons, including 2,000-pound GBU-31 bombs. It said a Dec. 2 attack on Shujaiya neighborhoods of Gaza City destroyed 15 buildings and damaged 14 others. Three of the strikes, it said, came with no advance warning.

Israeli authorities responded by defending their respect for proportionality and principle of distinction under international law. They also accused the rights office of bias and said it didn’t have full information about the circumstances of the military operations.

The report, while mainly focusing on Israel, also said Palestinian armed groups have fired discriminately into Israel, possibly violating international law.

The office said part of the reason why the six attacks were spotlighted among thousands carried out was because it had extensive information about them.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony at the Nahalat Yitshak Cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. The ceremony marked the annual memorial for people killed in Israel’s Altalena affair -- a violent clash between rival Jewish forces that nearly pushed the newly independent Israel into civil war in 1948. (Shaul Golan/Pool Photo via AP)

Senior Advisor to U.S. President Biden, Amos Hochstein listens to a journalist's question after giving a statement to the media following his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Hochstein in his visit to Beirut Tuesday described the ongoing conflict between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border as a "very serious situation" and said efforts to find a diplomatic solution to head off a larger war are "urgent." Hochstein met with officials in Lebanon after visiting Israel the day before. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in a hospital in Deir al Balah on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

People wave Israeli flags and signs during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and demanding elections outside of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip sit at a makeshift tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

People wave Israeli flags during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and demanding elections outside of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A Palestinian girl stands at the entrance of her family tent at a makeshift tent camp for those displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Khan Younis, Gaza, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

CAIRO (AP) — Human rights experts working for the United Nations on Wednesday accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings about imminent famine in the African nation.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the country’s military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

Fourteen months of fighting have killed more than 14,000 people and wounded 33,000 others, according to the United Nations, but rights activists say the toll could be much higher.

There were widespread reports of rampant sexual violence and other atrocities that rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The conflict created the world’s largest displacement crisis with over 11 million people forced to flee their homes.

“Both the SAF and the RSF are using food as a weapon and starving civilians,” the experts said, using initials for the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. “The extent of hunger and displacement we see in Sudan today is unprecedented and never witnessed before,” they said.

Neither the military nor the RSF returned phone calls seeking comment.

The experts warned that famine has become imminent in the country as humanitarian aid has been blocked and harvest season was disrupted because of the war. They added that more than 25 million civilians in Sudan and those who fled the country are being starved and need urgent humanitarian assistance.

A report by Clingendael Institute said last month that around 2.5 million people in Sudan could die from hunger by the end of September, with about 15% of the population in the regions of Darfur and Kordofan being likely the worst affected.

The independent experts said local efforts in response to Sudan's hunger crisis have been hampered by unprecedented violence and targeted attacks on civil society and local responders. Dozens of activists and local volunteers have been arrested, threatened and prosecuted in recent weeks, they said.

“The deliberate targeting of humanitarian workers and local volunteers has undermined aid operations, putting millions of people at further risk of starvation,” they said. “Local responders are risking their health and lives and working across battle lines.”

They urged both sides to “stop blocking, looting and exploiting humanitarian assistance.”

The experts are part of the Special Procedures, which is the largest body of independent experts in the United Nations Human Rights system.

The fighting has in recent months centered around el-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur province, trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians. At least 143,000 people have been forced to flee el-Fasher over the past three months, according to the U.N.

The U.N.’s Security Council earlier this month demanded the RSF to immediately end its siege of the city, which is the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region.

Follow AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

FILE - Sudanese Children suffering from malnutrition are treated at an MSF clinic in Metche Camp, Chad, near the Sudanese border, on April 6, 2024. Human rights experts working for the United Nations, Wednesday June 26, 2024 accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings about imminent famine in the African nation. Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the country’s military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. (AP Photo/Patricia Simon, File)

FILE - Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy head of the military council, secure the area where Dagalo attends a military-backed tribe's rally, in the East Nile province, Sudan, on June 22, 2019. Human rights experts working for the United Nations on Wednesday, June 26, 2024 accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings about imminent famine in the African nation. Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the country’s military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)