Middle East latest: Israel is establishing a new military corridor across Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

The announcement came after Netanyahu’s defense minister said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones.

A wave of Israeli airstrikes overnight into Wednesday killed more than 40 Palestinians, nearly half of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.

One strike killed at least 17 people in a United Nations building, previously a clinic, that had been converted into a shelter for more than 700 displaced people. Israel said it struck Hamas militants in a "command and control center."

Israel has vowed to escalate the nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel ended a ceasefire in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime.

Here's the latest:

The Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli airstrikes targeted an abandoned scientific research center in the Barzeh area outside the capital Damascus late Wednesday. SANA said another strike hit near the city of Hama. No information on casualties was reported.

An Israeli military statement said these were the latest in a series of strikes aimed at destroying Syrian military capabilities left over after President Bashar Assad was overthrown by Islamist insurgents late last year.

Israel has also seized a buffer zone inside Syria, with Israeli officials saying they will thwart any threats. Critics say Israel is trying to weaken and divide Syria as the new leaders attempt to consolidate control after years of civil war.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” at the rising death toll from large-scale Israeli bombardments and ground operations, and called for an immediate restoration, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday. The ceasefire collapsed on March 18.

In response to reports that Israel plans to seize more land in Gaza, Dujarric said the secretary-general issued a reminder that a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last year “rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza.”

Guterres is also increasingly concerned at “inflammatory rhetoric” calling for the Israeli military to capture and add extensive territory from Gaza to Israel’s security areas, Dujarric said.

Two rockets were intercepted after crossing into Israeli territory from the northern Gaza Strip, setting off air raid sirens Wednesday evening, the Israeli military said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Since Israel broke the ceasefire last month, a handful of rockets have been fired from Gaza as well as long-range missiles from Yemen.

Although Palestinian militants were once firing volleys of rockets each day out of Gaza, that dwindled to nearly zero over the course of the nearly 18-month war.

Jonathan Whittall, the U.N. aid coordination agency’s top official for Gaza, painted a disturbing image of the death and destruction taking place in Gaza since the recent ceasefire deal broke down, saying Israel is now waging a war “without limits.”

Whittall briefed reporters Wednesday that 64% of Gaza is inaccessible to Palestinians.

“Nowhere and no one is safe in Gaza,” he said. “My colleagues tell me that they just want to die with their families. Their worst fear is to die alone.”

Whittall said that humanitarian aid workers are “not magicians” and there are no longer humanitarian solutions to the problems in Gaza.

“The crisis needs political action. And I believe that this needs to start with accountability,” he added. “Aid will not and cannot compensate for the political failures that we’ve seen in Gaza.”

That’s after more than 408 humanitarian aid workers have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas, according to U.N. deputy humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya.

She spoke Wednesday at the U.N. Security Council alongside U.N. security chief Gilles Michaud, with Msuya asking the council for answers, justice and an end to the killings.

Michaud lamented that, “Impunity for attacks on humanitarian personnel has become the new normal. A pervasive normal. An accepted normal.”

Both officials cited what they said were two recent Israeli attacks — a strike on a clearly marked U.N. building on March 19 that killed one U.N. staff member and injured six others, and an attack March 23 on ambulances and other marked vehicles that killed a U.N. staff member and eight Palestinian Red Crescent and six civil defense staff.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described it as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis. That suggests the military-controlled corridor would run between the two cities in southern Gaza.

“We are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages. And the more they do not give, the more the pressure will increase until they do,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Last month, the Israeli military retook control of the Netzarim corridor, which bisects northern Gaza from the south. Israeli forces had withdrawn from the corridor as part of the ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified again on Wednesday in his ongoing trial for alleged corruption.

Netanyahu is the first sitting Israeli leader to take the stand as a criminal defendant. He denies wrongdoing, saying the charges are a witch hunt orchestrated by a hostile media and a biased legal system out to topple his lengthy rule.

Israeli authorities are also conducting separate investigations into whether the Gulf state of Qatar — which has close ties with Hamas — hired Netanyahu advisers to launch an influence campaign in Israel.

The corruption trial testimony is another low point for Israel’s longest-serving leader, who also faces an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Netanyahu is expected to travel to Hungary later Wednesday for a meeting with the country's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, despite the international arrest warrant.

Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said the building was previously a medical clinic but had been converted into a shelter with more 700 displaced people from 160 families living there.

Officials at the Indonesian Hospital said the Israeli strike killed 15 people, including nine children and two women, at the building for the U.N. agency known as UNRWA in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense rescue agency said the attack hit two rooms in the building, and that Civil Defense teams evacuated the bodies of seven dead and 12 wounded.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas members in the area, adding that they were hiding inside “a command and control center that was being used for coordinating” armed activity and served as a central meeting point for the Palestinian group.

Despite UNRWA staff warning people about the dangers of remaining at the facility after Wednesday’s strike, many displaced families haven’t left “simply because they have absolutely nowhere else to go,” Touma said, adding that no UNRWA staff were killed or wounded in the strike.

The Hostage Families Forum, which represents most captives’ families, said that it was “horrified to wake up this morning to the Defense Minister’s announcement about expanding military operations in Gaza.”

The group said the Israeli government “has an obligation to free all 59 hostages from Hamas captivity — to pursue every possible channel to advance a deal for their release.” They stressed that every passing day puts their loved ones’ lives at greater risk.

“Their lives hang in the balance as more and more disturbing details continue to emerge about the horrific conditions they’re being held in — chained, abused, and in desperate need of medical attention,” said the forum, which called on the Trump administration and other mediators to continue pressuring Hamas to release the hostages.

“Our highest priority must be an immediate deal to bring ALL hostages back home — the living for rehabilitation and those killed for proper burial — and end this war,” the group said.

Germany has rejected Israel’s suggestion that it took part in the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to third countries.

The Israeli Interior Ministry said hundreds of Gaza residents, accompanied by German diplomats, were flown from southern Israel to the German city of Leipzig on Tuesday. It said Interior Minister Moshe Arbel visited Israel’s Ramon Airport “with the aim of examining the process of voluntary departure of Gazans to a third country.”

“This is wrong,” the German Foreign Office said on the social platform X in response to a post that summarized the Israeli statement.

In a statement, the German Foreign Office said it had worked with Israeli authorities to assist 19 German citizens and their close family members in traveling from Gaza to Germany, describing it as a routine wartime evacuation.

“Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the German government has repeatedly and intensively advocated for the departure and safety of German citizens,” it said.

Israel has vowed to carry out President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries, referring to it as “voluntary emigration.”

Palestinians have universally rejected the plan, describing it as forced expulsion from their homeland.

Human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law, and the proposal drew widespread international opposition when Trump announced it in February.

Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip have killed 17 people, hospital officials say.

The bodies of 12 people killed in an overnight airstrike were brought to Nasser Hospital, officials said Wednesday, and the victims included five women, one of them pregnant, and two children. Three men from the same family were killed, as were the owners of the house that was bombed, officials said.

Gaza European Hospital received the bodies of five people who were killed in two separate airstrikes, officials there said.

Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas,” the defense minister said Wednesday.

Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a written statement.

The Israeli government has long maintained a buffer zone just inside Gaza along its security fence and has greatly expanded since the war against Hamas began in 2023.

Katz called on Gaza residents to “expel Hamas and return all hostages.” The militant group still holds 59 captives, of whom 24 are believed to still be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the United Nations is “at the tail end of our supplies,” forcing the U.N. World Food Program to close all 25 of its bakeries in Gaza because of a lack of flour and cooking fuel.

“WFP doesn’t close its bakeries for fun,” Dujarric said.

He said the food situation remains “very critical” since Israel closed all crossings into Gaza a month ago, cutting off all humanitarian deliveries.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said Tuesday that nearly 450,000 tons of aid entered Gaza during the ceasefire. COGAT claimed at least some of the aid from the U.N. and its humanitarian partners was being diverted to Hamas.

Responding to that, Dujarric said, “The U.N. has kept a chain of custody, and a very good chain of custody, on all the aid.”

Suspected U.S. airstrikes battered rebel-controlled areas of Yemen into Wednesday, with the Houthis saying one strike killed at least four people near the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.

The intense campaign of airstrikes under President Donald Trump, targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters stemming from the Israel-Hamas war, has killed at least 65 people, according to casualty figures released by the Houthis.

The campaign appears to show no signs of stopping as the Trump administration again linked their airstrikes on the Iranian-backed Houthis to an effort to pressure Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. While so far giving no specifics about the campaign and its targets, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put the overall number of strikes on Tuesday at over 200.

Palestinians react next to the bodies of their relatives, killed in an Israeli army strike, before their burial at a hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in northern of Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Palestinians grieve over the bodies of their relatives, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, as they prepare for burial at a hospital in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians grieve over the bodies of their relatives, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, as they prepare for burial at a hospital in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the site hit by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Yair Sagi/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Yair Sagi/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - Palestinians inspect the rubble caused by an Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip on Saturday, March 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

FILE - Displaced Palestinians carry their belongings on the outskirts of Gaza City, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has issued a list of demands Harvard University must meet as a condition for receiving almost $9 billion in grants and contracts, federal money that is being threatened during an investigation into campus antisemitism.

In a letter to Harvard's president on Thursday, three federal agencies outlined demands described as necessary for a “continued financial relationship” with the government. It's similar to a demand letter that prompted changes at Columbia University under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts.

The letter describes Harvard's federal money as a taxpayer investment that's based on performance. Harvard has “fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment” and must take immediate action to keep its funding, the letter said.

Harvard confirmed it received the letter.

The letter calls for a ban on face masks, a demand that was also made at Columbia and targets pro-Palestinian protesters who have sometimes worn masks to hide their identities. Harvard also must clarify its campus speech policies that limit the time, place and manner of protests and other activities.

Academic departments at Harvard that "fuel antisemitic harassment” must be reviewed and changed to address bias and improve viewpoint diversity, the letter said. It does not single out any campus department or order a change in leadership, as Trump administration officials did for Columbia's Middle East studies department.

The demands are generally less prescriptive than the Columbia ultimatum, mostly calling for broad changes focused on “lasting, structural reforms,” the letter said. It also provides no deadline, while Columbia was given about a week to comply.

Some alumni are urging Harvard to push back. Jane Sujen Bock, an alumna and board member on the group Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, said the university’s $50 billion endowment gives it a unique position to resist President Donald Trump's administration.

“If Harvard doesn’t fight back as students are getting snatched off the street and the Trump administration tries to dictate what is said and taught on campus, who will?” Sujen Bock said in a statement.

Some others support the move. Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School who is suing the university over campus antisemitism, said Trump's Republican administration is right to threaten the funding.

“In the same way that the federal government threatened to withhold funds from racist school districts that refused to integrate, the power of the purse is the last tool available to coerce Harvard to treat all its students with equality and justice,” Kestenbaum wrote in an opinion piece for The Crimson student newspaper.

The letter calls for firmer enforcement of existing discipline policies and a report on all actions taken in response to antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

Other demands align with Trump’s political agenda but appear less directly connected to the investigation on antisemitism.

The letter includes orders to adopt “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies and to remove any preferences based on race, religion, sex or other characteristics. Harvard also must work to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs that teach students and faculty to “make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes,” the letter said.

The letter separately says Harvard must comply with a federal law requiring the disclosure of foreign gifts and contracts, a priority of some Republicans in Congress who have raised concerns about Chinese influence at U.S. schools.

It was sent by officials at the General Services Administration, the Education Department and the Health and Human Services Department.

Federal officials notified Harvard on Monday that the university faces a “comprehensive review” to determine its eligibility to receive $255 million in contracts and more than $8 billion in grants.

Harvard President Alan Garber responded with a campus message saying the school had “devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism” and would provide a full accounting to the government.

Harvard is among several schools to have its federal money threatened by the Trump administration. Brown University became the latest on Thursday as the government paused $510 million in grants and contracts over the school's response to antisemitism.

Associated Press reporter Michael Casey contributed to this report from Boston.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - Students protesting against the war in Gaza, and passersby walking through Harvard Yard, are seen at an encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)