Middle East latest: Israeli strikes kill at least 85 Palestinians in Gaza, hospitals say

Israeli airstrikes overnight into Thursday struck several homes in the Gaza Strip and killed at least 85 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Among those pulled alive from the rubble was a month-old baby girl, but her parents and brother were killed.

Hamas fired three rockets at Israel on Thursday without causing casualties. It was the first such attack since Israel resumed heavy bombardment of Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the ceasefire that had halted the 17-month war. The Israeli military is again enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, and its forces have moved to retake a strategic corridor dividing north from south.

In Israel, hundreds of people demonstrated outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security.

Here’s the latest:

Israel’s Cabinet on Thursday approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to fire the head of the country’s Shin Bet internal security service.

The late-night decision to sack Ronen Bar deepens a power struggle focused largely over who bears responsibility for the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza.

It also could set the stage for a crisis over the country’s division of powers. Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Bar.

Thousands of Israelis gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security.

“Instead of firing the head of the Shin Bet, just to avoid an investigation, I think that the prime minister should be involved in rescuing the last hostages there are left in Gaza to die,” said Michal Halperin, a protester.

The protests come amid a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza and ahead of a planned vote by the government to dismiss the head of internal security, a move that many view as undermining the balance of powers in Israel.

As Netanyahu’s Cabinet met late Thursday to vote on the firing, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside in the pouring rain.

The Israeli military says the missile was intercepted before reaching Israeli territory. The launch came hours after Israel said it intercepted another missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group.

The Iranian-backed Houthis resumed attacks on Israel this week following the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas

A Georgetown University researcher who is married to a Palestinian American was detained by immigration agents who told him his visa had been revoked, prompting another high-profile legal fight over deportation proceedings against foreign-born visa holders authorized to live in the U.S.

Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University and citizen of India, was arrested Monday night outside of his Virginia home by officers who identified themselves as Department of Homeland Security agents, according to a legal filing by Suri’s lawyer.

Hassan Ahmad, Suri’s Virginia-based attorney, wrote in a court filing that Suri was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.”

Suri was later taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website.

Suri was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and determined to be deportable by the Secretary of State’s office, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said

Marin Valev Marinov, 51, was a member of the U.N. Office for Project Services, which carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world. The U.N. agency issued a statement Thursday confirming Marinov was “hit by an explosion” in Gaza, while five wounded U.N. staff remain hospitalized.

Marinov was “supporting the delivery of life-saving aid to the civilian population” in Gaza and was one of at least 280 U.N. personnel killed there since the war began, the statement said. A “seasoned mariner and vessel Master,” he had previously worked as a U.N. maritime inspector in Yemen and for the U.N. humanitarian office.

The United Nations has not said who was behind Wednesday's strike on a U.N. guesthouse. Israel has denied responsibility, but there were no reports of rocket attacks by Hamas that day.

The head of the U.N. Office for Project Services said strikes exploded near the compound on Monday and hit it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike.

“The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.

“And unfortunately Hamas chose to play games in the media with lives. This situation, let’s not forget, is completely the fault of Hamas. When they launched that brutal attack on Israel on October 7th," Leavitt said. "And the president has made it very clear that he wants all of those hostages to come home. And he fully supports Israel and the IDF and the actions that they’ve taken in recent days.”

The U.S. and Israeli demand for Hamas to release more hostages before negotiations on ending the war could proceed was not part of the ceasefire agreement in January.

Sharabi told the U.N. Security Council he was beaten, chained and starved in Gaza for 491 days: “If you stand for humanity – prove it” and bring back the hostages.

He said that while the council talked about humanitarian aid, he saw Hamas militants carrying and eating dozens of stolen boxes of humanitarian aid with U.N. emblems, while the hostages starved.

When Sharabi was released on Feb. 8, he said he weighed 44 kilograms (97 pounds) — less than the weight of his youngest daughter who was killed along with his wife and older daughter in Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

He told the U.N.’s most powerful body that six weeks after his release he came to speak for 24-year-old Alon Ohel, a fellow hostage whom he left behind in the tunnel, and all others including his older brother Yossi who was killed but whose body remains in Gaza. “Bring them all home. Now!" he said.

Hamas is believed to hold around two dozen living hostages and the bodies of others.

Britain’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, told the House of Commons "it’s difficult to see how denying humanitarian assistance to a civilian population can be compatible with international humanitarian law.”

Although he said it's for courts not governments to decide, Lammy said it was “appalling and unacceptable” for Israel to block aid and electricity to Gaza.

He said Israel’s actions “reinforce” the U.K. decision last year to suspend some arms exports to the country.

Earlier this week Lammy said Israel had broken international law, but later reverted to the government’s longstanding position that Israel’s actions are “at clear risk” of breaching the law.

The evacuation order covers Bani Suheila near the southern city of Khan Younis. Israel’s military said it would operate there in response to rocket fire by Hamas.

Thursday’s order expands on a new Israeli-imposed buffer zone along Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said a day earlier that the military would soon order Palestinians to evacuate from combat zones.

As rescuers dug through the remains of a collapsed apartment building in Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday, they could hear the cries of a baby from underneath the rubble.

Suddenly, calls of “God is great” rang out. A man sprinted away from the wreckage carrying a living infant swaddled in a blanket and handed her to a waiting ambulance crew. The baby girl stirred fitfully as paramedics checked her over.

“When we asked people, they said she is a month old and she has been under the rubble, since dawn,” said Hazen Attar, a civil defense first responder. “She had been screaming and then falling silent from time to time until we were able to get her out a short while ago, and thank God she is safe.”

The girl was identified as Ella Osama Abu Dagga. She had been born 25 days earlier, in the midst of a tenuous ceasefire that many Palestinians in Gaza had hoped would mark the end of a war.

The girl's parents and brother were killed in the overnight Israeli airstrike, along with another family that included a father and his seven children. Only her grandparents survived.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security.

Police used a water canon to disperse the crowd after protestors tried to break through police barricades, and scuffles erupted. Several demonstrators were thrown to the ground by police officers – including an opposition legislator, according to Israeli media reports.

On Wednesday, a mass march and demonstration outside the Israeli parliament continued into the late evening hours and ended with several arrests.

The protests come amid a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza and ahead of a planned vote by the government to dismiss the head of internal security, a move that many view as undermining the balance of powers in Israel.

Three rockets launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday set off sirens across the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Hamas claimed the attack, which appeared to be the first out of Gaza since Israel ended a ceasefire with a surprise bombardment of the territory on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said it intercepted one of the rockets, and two others fell in open areas. There were no reports of injuries.

Earlier on Thursday, a missile launched toward Israel by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi was intercepted before it reached Israeli airspace.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the strikes on Yemen a “crime” that “should be prevented.”

In a message marking the Iranian New Year, he said Muslim nations must unite to resist the “Zionist Regime," referring to Israel. He called the U.S. an accomplice in the resumption of Israel’s strikes on Gaza and said the strikes by Israel have been carried out by “the U.S. permission, or support and green light.”

In a separate message, President Masoud Pezeshkian urged for domestic integrity, improving relation with neighbouring nations and other nations in the world.

The death toll from new Israeli strikes on Gaza has climbed to 58, according to hospitals in the territory.

Multiple homes were targeted in the middle of the night late Wednesday and early Thursday. The latest total of those killed was according to three hospitals in different parts of the territory.

The strikes hit houses in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza and the northern town of Beit Lahiya, they said.

The European Hospital in the southern city of Rafah said 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed in strikes on two family homes overnight. One of the strikes killed a father and his seven children, it said.

The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received the bodies of seven people killed overnight in an attack on a home. In northern Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital said it had received the bodies of seven people killed in a strike on a home in Beit Lahiya, a town near the border.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Thursday before it reached Israeli airspace, as air raid sirens and exploding interceptors were heard in Jerusalem. No injuries were reported.

It was the second such attack since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the rebels earlier this week.

Demonstrators block a road during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Demonstrators block a road during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israelis attend a rally against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, and calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament in Jerusalem on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT.- A man grieves as he looks at the body of a child killed in an Israeli army airstrike, before the child is prepared for burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The bodies of victims of an Israeli army airstrike are prepared for burial at Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Buildings destroyed during the Israeli attack are seen in the Gaza Strip during the sunset as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Ella Osama Abu Dagga, 25 days old, is held by her great-aunt Suad Abu Dagga, after she was pulled from the rubble earlier following an Israeli army airstrike that killed her parents and brother, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana )

Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, move away from the areas where the Israeli army is operating after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, on the outskirts of Beit Lahia, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians pray during a funeral for victims of Israeli army strikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The bodies of victims of an Israeli army airstrike are prepared for burial at Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The bodies of victims of an Israeli army airstrike arrive for burial at the Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses the nation in a televised speech marking the Iranian New Year, called Nowruz, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

Buildings destroyed during the Israeli air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

People walk surrounded by buildings destroyed during the Israeli air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses the nation in a televised speech marking the Iranian New Year, or Nowruz, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Ella Osama Abu Dagga, 25 days old, lies in a van after being pulled from the rubble following an Israeli army airstrike that killed her parents and brother in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT.- Rescue workers and volunteers attempt to pull the body of a man from the rubble following an Israeli army airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

Neighbours watch as volunteers and rescue workers search for survivors among the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli army airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

Volunteers and rescue workers use a bulldozer as to remove the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli army airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

An Israeli tank maneuvers on the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

An Israeli tank takes position on the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Lennon Tyler and her German fiancé often took road trips to Mexico when he vacationed in the United States since it was only a day's drive from her home in Las Vegas, one of the perks of their long-distance relationship.

But things went terribly wrong when they drove back from Tijuana last month.

U.S. border agents handcuffed Tyler, a U.S. citizen, and chained her to a bench, while her fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating the rules of his 90-day U.S. tourist permit, the couple said. Authorities later handcuffed and shackled Sielaff and sent him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center. He spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.

Since President Donald Trump took office, there have been other incidents of tourists like Sielaff being stopped at U.S. border crossings and held for weeks at U.S. immigration detention facilities before being allowed to fly home at their own expense.

They include another German tourist who was stopped at the Tijuana crossing on Jan. 25. Jessica Brösche spent over six weeks locked up, including over a week in solitary confinement, a friend said.

On the Canadian border, a backpacker from Wales spent nearly three weeks at a detention center before flying home this week. And a Canadian woman on a work visa detained at the Tijuana border spent 12 days in detention before returning home last weekend.

Sielaff, 25, and the others say it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit that aids migrants, said in the 22 years he has worked on the border he's never seen travelers from Western Europe and Canada, longtime U.S. allies, locked up like this.

“It’s definitely unusual with these cases so close together, and the rationale for detaining these people doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It doesn’t justify the abhorrent treatment and conditions” they endured.

“The only reason I see is there is a much more fervent anti-immigrant atmosphere," Rios said.

Of course, tourists from countries where the U.S. requires visas — many of them non-Western nations — have long encountered difficulties entering the U.S.

U.S. authorities did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for figures on how many tourists have recently been held at detention facilities or explain why they weren't simply denied entry.

The incidents are fueling anxiety as the Trump administration prepares for a ban on travelers from some countries. Noting the “evolving” federal travel policies, the University of California, Los Angeles sent a notice this week urging its foreign-born students and staff to consider the risks of travel for spring break, warning “re-entry requirements may change while you are away, impacting your return.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an email to the AP that Sielaff and Brösche, who was held for 45 days, “were deemed inadmissible” by Customs and Border Protection. That agency said it cannot discuss specifics but “if statutes or visa terms are violated, travelers may be subject to detention and removal." The agencies did not comment on the other cases.

Both German tourists were allowed into the United States under a program offered to a select group of countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, whose citizens are allowed to travel to the U.S. for business or leisure for up to 90 days without getting a visa in advance. Applicants register online with the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.

But even if they are authorized to travel under that system, they can still be barred from entering the country.

Sielaff arrived in the U.S. on Jan. 27. He and Tyler decided to go to Tijuana for four days in mid-February because Tyler's dog needed surgery and veterinary services are cheaper there. They figured they would enjoy some tacos and make a fun trip out of it.

“Mexico is a wonderful and beautiful country that Lucas and I love to visit,” Tyler said.

They returned Feb. 18, just 22 days into Sielaff's 90-day tourist permit.

When they pulled up to the crossing, the U.S. border agent asked Sielaff aggressively, “Where are you going? Where do you live?” Tyler said.

“English is not Lucas' first language and so he said, ‘We’re going to Las Vegas,' and the agent says, ’Oh, we caught you. You live in Las Vegas. You can't do that,'" Tyler said.

Sielaff was taken away for more questioning. Tyler said she asked to go with him or if he could get a translator and was told to be quiet, then taken out of her car and handcuffed and chained to a bench. Her dog, recovering from surgery, was left in the car.

After four hours, Tyler was allowed to leave but said she was given no information about her fiancé’s whereabouts.

During questioning, Sielaff said he told authorities he never lived in the U.S. and had no criminal history. He said he was given a full-body search and ordered to hand over his cellphone and belongings. He was put in a holding cell where he slept on a bench for two days before being transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

There, he said, he shared a cell with eight others.

“You are angry, you are sad, you don’t know when you can get out,” Sielaff said. “You just don’t get any answers from anybody.”

He was finally told to get a direct flight to Germany and submit a confirmation number. In a frantic call from Sielaff, Tyler bought it for $2,744. He flew back March 5.

“What happened at the border was just blatant abuse of the Border Patrol’s power,” Tyler said.

Ashley Paschen agrees. She said she learned about Brösche from a TikTok video asking anyone in the San Diego area for help after her family learned she was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Paschen visited her several times and told her people were working to get her out. Brosche flew home March 11.

“She’s happy to be home,” Paschen said. “She seems very relieved if anything but she’s not coming back here anytime soon.”

On Feb. 26, a tourist from Wales, Becky Burke, a backpacker traveling across North America, was stopped at the U.S.-Canada border and held for nearly three weeks at a detention facility in Washington state, her father, Paul Burke, posted on Facebook. She returned home Tuesday.

On March 3, Canadian Jasmine Mooney, an actress and entrepreneur on a U.S. work visa, was detained at the Tijuana crossing. She was released Saturday, her friend Brittany Kors said.

Before Mooney's release, British Columbia Premier David Eby expressed concern, saying: “It certainly reinforces anxiety that ... many Canadians have about our relationship with the U.S. right now, and the unpredictability of this administration and its actions."

The detentions come amid legal fights over the Trump administration's arrests and deportations of other foreigners with valid visas and green card holders, including a Palestinian activist who helped organize campus protests of the war in Gaza.

Tyler plans to sue the U.S. government.

Sielaff said he and Tyler are now rethinking plans to hold their wedding in Las Vegas. He suffers nightmares and is considering therapy to cope with the trauma.

“Nobody is safe there anymore to come to America as a tourist,” he said.

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies reported from Toronto.

Lucas Sielaff poses for a photo in Bad Bibra, Germany, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Stella Weiss)

Lucas Sielaff poses for a photo in Bad Bibra, Germany, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Stella Weiss)

Lucas Sielaff poses for a photo in Bad Bibra, Germany, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Stella Weiss)

FILE - Vehicles wait in line to cross the border into the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)