Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza and destroy its only cancer hospital

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip on Friday and blew up the only specialized cancer hospital in the war-torn territory, as Israeli leaders vowed to capture more land until Hamas releases its remaining hostages.

The hospital was located in the Netzarim Corridor, which splits Gaza in two and was controlled by Israeli troops for most of the 17-month-long war. Israel moved to retake the corridor this week shortly after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas. The truce delivered relative calm to Gaza since late January and facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages.

The Israeli military said it struck the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which was inaccessible to doctors and patients during the war, because Hamas militants were operating in the site. Turkey, which helped build and fund the hospital, said Israeli troops at one point used it as a base.

Dr. Zaki Al-Zaqzouq, head of the hospital’s oncology department, said a medical team visited the facility during the ceasefire and found that, while it had suffered damage, some facilities remained in good condition.

“I cannot fathom what could be gained from bombing a hospital that served as a lifeline for so many patients,” he said in a statement issued by the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the hospital's destruction and accused Israel of deliberately “rendering Gaza uninhabitable and forcibly displacing the Palestinian people.”

Hospitals can lose their protected status under international law if they are used for military purposes, but any operations against them must be proportional. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.

Israel’s renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that his country would carry out operations in Gaza “with increasing intensity" until Hamas frees the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed alive.

“The more Hamas continues its refusal to release the kidnapped, the more territory it will lose to Israel,” Katz said.

The Israeli military said Friday its forces were planning fresh assaults into three neighborhoods west of Gaza City, and issued warnings on social media for Palestinians to evacuate the areas.

The warnings came shortly after the military said it intercepted two rockets fired from northern Gaza that set off sirens in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon. Hamas had also fired three rockets the previous day in its first attack since Israel ended the ceasefire.

A long-range missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels set off air raid sirens over Jerusalem and central Israel for the fourth day in a row Friday, with the military saying it was intercepted.

Israeli troops had moved Thursday toward the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah, and resumed blocking Palestinians from entering northern Gaza, including Gaza City.

Displaced Palestinians fled northern Gaza along a coastal road Friday carrying their belongings, firewood and other items on horse-drawn carts.

A strike east of Gaza City on Friday killed a couple and their two children, plus two additional children who weren’t related to them, according to witnesses and a local hospital. The Israeli army said it struck a militant in a Gaza City building and took steps to minimize civilian harm. It was not immediately clear if the army was referring to the same strike.

And in the southern city of Rafah, Palestinian municipal officials said Israeli bombardments forced residents to move outdoors in rainy weather, deepening their suffering.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's push to fire the country’s domestic security chief has deepened a power struggle focused largely over who bears responsibility for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza. It also could set the stage for a crisis over the country’s division of powers.

Hours after Netanyahu's Cabinet unanimously approved the firing Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security service, the Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt to his dismissal until an appeal can be heard no later than April 8. Netanyahu’s office had said Bar’s dismissal was effective April 10, but that it could come earlier.

Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Bar. However, Netanyahu sounded defiant in a social media post Friday evening, saying: “The State of Israel is a state of law and according to the law, the Israeli government decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet.”

Critics say the move is a power grab by the prime minister against an independent-minded civil servant, and tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated in support of Bar, including outside Netanyahu’s residence on Friday.

Netanyahu has resisted calls for an official state commission of inquiry into the attack and has tried to blame the failures on the army and security agencies.

Around 600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel relaunched the war with a wave of predawn airstrikes across Gaza on Tuesday, which came as many families slept or prepared to start the daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan.

Israel had already cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, aiming to pressure Hamas over the ceasefire negotiations.

The attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants, but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Rising reported from Bangkok; Mednick reported from Tel Aviv.

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

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip sit in a makeshift tent camp inside a landfill in central Gaza Strip, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Mourners carry the bodies of Palestinians including children who were killed by an Israeli army airstrike, at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza city, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A Palestinian man carries the body of his 11 years old daughter Aya Al-Samri who was killed by an Israeli army airstrike, during her funeral at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza city, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A Palestinian man weeps as he prays during a mass burial ceremony for victims of Israeli army strikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

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)

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)

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)

In this image made from a video released by the Israeli Government Press Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Israeli Government Press Office via AP)

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)

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)

Palestinians carry bundles of wood as they walk along a beach road leaving northern Gaza during the renewed Israeli army offensive in the Gaza Strip, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings and other items, move between southern and northern Gaza along a beach road away from the areas where the Israeli army is operating after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, in the outskirts of Gaza City, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, wood and other items, move between southern and northern Gaza along a beach road away from the areas where the Israeli army is operating after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, in the outskirts of Gaza City, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

FILE - Ronen Bar, chief of Israel's domestic Shin Bet security agency, attends a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool photo via AP, File)

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

Injured Palestinians wait for treatment at the hospital following Israeli army airstrikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh)

Palestinians wait for donated food at a distribution center in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, and call 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)

Ali Marouf and his mother Aisha cook on a fire on the roof of their house, which was destroyed by the Israeli army's air and ground offensive, in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

COPENHAGEN (AP) — The Danish foreign ministry has changed its U.S. travel advisory for transgender people, following other European countries such as Germany and Finland who suggest they may face difficulties when trying to enter the United States.

The Nordic country wrote on its website that transgender people should contact the U.S. Embassy before traveling to the United States.

“When applying for an ESTA or visa to the United States, there are two gender designations to choose from: male or female,” the Danish travel advisory stated in an update Friday.

“If you have the gender designation X in your passport, or you have changed your gender, it is recommended that you contact the U.S. Embassy prior to travel for guidance on how to proceed," the ministry advised.

While the travel advisory does not explicitly mention the new U.S. administration, it comes only weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments.

The U.S. State Department has stopped issuing travel documents with the “X” gender marker preferred by many nonbinary people, who don’t identify as strictly male or female. The department also stopped allowing people to change the gender listed on their passport or get new ones that reflect their gender rather than their sex assigned at birth.

The head of the transgender group LGBT+ Denmark, Susanne Branner, told Danish radio RadioIII her group had reached out to the country's foreign ministry earlier in the week and asked for the update of the advisory.

She said there are a few thousand people in Denmark who have changed their legal gender and who might encounter unpleasant situations at airports when trying to enter the U.S. or could even be denied entry because their passports do not reflect the gender assigned at birth.

“If you are transgender or have an X in your passport, can you risk being denied entry? We would like concrete answers to this,” Branner told RadioIII.

Other European countries have also changed their official advisories for members of the transgender community in a reflection to the situation in the U.S.

The German foreign ministry put out an advisory earlier this month, telling “travelers who have the gender entry ‘X’ or whose current gender entry differs from their gender entry at birth” to contact a U.S. diplomatic mission in Germany “before entering the country and find out the applicable entry requirements.”

Finland, too, advises prospective U.S. travelers on its foreign ministry homepage that if their “current gender as recorded in their passport differs from the gender they were assigned at birth, U.S. authorities may deny entry. It is recommended that you check with U.S. authorities in advance for entry requirements.”

FILE - A rainbow flag is suspended at Copenhagen City Hall in Denmark on Aug. 11, 2021, marking the opening of Copenhagen 2021, World Pride and Eurogames. (Ida Guldbaek Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)