Israel says it is investigating whether Hamas' top leader Sinwar was killed in Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Thursday it was looking into whether Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza, while an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The military said in a statement that three militants were killed during operations in Gaza, without specifying where or elaborating further. It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of the three was Sinwar.

Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. Throughout the war, Sinwar has been in hiding.

For years Hamas' top figure in Hamas, Sinwar was chosen as its top leader following the assassination of Ismael Haniyeh in July in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas' military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived.

The report came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where the Abu Hussein school was hit Thursday.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of Gaza Health Ministry’s local emergency unit, confirmed the toll from the strike and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.

“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.

The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.

Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.

In a separate development, a building in central Beirut that houses offices of the Al Jazeera news network and the Norwegian Embassy was evacuated after a warning.

Mazen Ibrahim, Al Jazeera’s Lebanon bureau chief, said the building’s administration received three calls telling everyone to leave the building, which he said also houses the embassies of Norway and Azerbaijan, as well as dozens of offices. He said it was unclear who called in the warning.

Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ragnhild Simenstad said the building was evacuated after a “bomb threat,” without elaborating.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of several buildings, as well as entire cities, towns and villages, as it strikes what it says are targets linked to the Hezbollah militant group.

There have also been several instances of evacuation warning calls and text messages that turned out to be bogus, which Lebanese security agencies say they are investigating.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after the militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.

Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions.

Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals.

Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis.

Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. The military says militants have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.

Magdy reported from Cairo, Jeffery from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.

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

Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Smokes rise following an explosion in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

FILE - Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, chairs a meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions at his office in Gaza City, on April 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Nuclear power is garnering renewed attention amid growing demand for power and cleaner energy.

The power source has seen a resurgence as nations focus on reducing emissions in an effort to combat climate change. At the same time, the technology sector's energy needs are growing in the form of data centers and powerful advances in artificial intelligence.

Those factors have prompted companies and governments to look more closely at a power source whose potential hazards made it unpopular only a few decades ago. The U.S. is the fastest growing market for data centers, according to McKinsey, which forecasts demand to more than triple by 2030 to 80 gigawatts.

Constellation Energy plans on reopening Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania under a deal with Microsoft. Oracle plans to use new technology in the form of small modular nuclear reactors to power its data centers, while Google is purchasing nuclear energy from small modular reactors in development by Kairos Power. Amazon bought a data center powered by nuclear energy in Pennsylvania earlier this year and is also investing in small nuclear reactors.

“The power sector is rapidly becoming a protagonist in the AI story,” McKinsey analysts said in a report. “Access to power has become a critical factor in driving new data center builds.”

That demand, coupled with goals to get the nation's power usage to “net zero” carbon emissions, means that the expectations for nuclear power contributions are jumping. Nuclear power already provides about 20% of all electricity generation in the U.S., and the International Atomic Energy Agency expects that nuclear electrical generating capacity could nearly triple in North America by 2050.

Nuclear power has the U.S. government's support as an option moving ahead for cleaner energy to help lower carbon emissions. Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant opened two new reactors over the last several years.

The forecasts for growing demand have made utilities with nuclear plants a target for deals with big data companies.

Three Mile Island, located in Pennsylvania, was the site of the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, when its Unit 2 reactor suffered a partial meltdown and went offline in 1979. The recent deal between Microsoft and Constellation proposes reopening the Unit 1 reactor, which remained in operation until 2019.

"This deal recognizes the critical role that nuclear has in providing clean energy, and supporting reliability," said Daniel L. Eggers, Constellation's chief financial officer, in a call with analysts.

Several states still have moratoriums on nuclear power development, but there has been a movement over the last 10 years to repeal them. Wisconsin, Kentucky, Montana and West Virginia are among states that have reopened the door to reactor construction. Other states, including New York, have partial restrictions based on size and location.

The demand for nuclear power is shining a brighter light on nuclear technology companies and uranium miners.

NuScale Power has seen its stock leap more than five times this year, following a 40% jump in 2023. The company makes small modular reactors, which have a smaller footprint than typical nuclear power plants and reactors. Wall Street expects its revenue to surge in the coming years.

Uranium prices are near a 15-year high. The surge in prices has helped bolster stocks for companies including Cameco and NexGen as the uranium miners and their peers face rising demand for the fuel.

FILE - The Three Mile Island nuclear power generating station shown, March 28, 2011, in Middletown, Pa. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower, File)