Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes have killed at least 16 people in the Gaza Strip.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital received the bodies, including the remains of a woman and three children, after strikes overnight and into Thursday. An Associated Press reporter at the hospital counted the bodies.

A man held the body of a child wrapped in a white shroud as a woman next to him wept, saying: “My love, my soul.”

The Israeli offensive launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the local Health Ministry, which does not say how many were militants or civilians.

Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted around 250. Around 110 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire deal and hostage release but major gaps remain.

Here's the latest:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken isn’t giving up on the Biden administration’s push to broker a Gaza cease-fire agreement, making several calls to foreign leaders to underscore the urgency of a deal just hours after wrapping up his latest Middle East peace mission.

The State Department said Thursday that Blinken had spoken by phone with Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to emphasize the importance of a U.S. proposal to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas that could lead to a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Qatar, along with Egypt and the U.S., are the main mediators in talks to bring an end to the fighting.

Blinken “underscored that the bridging proposal presented by negotiators addresses the remaining gaps in a manner that allows for swift implementation of the deal,” the State Department said in a statement about the call that happened on Wednesday. Blinken had been scheduled to meet the emir in person in Qatar late Tuesday but was unable to see him in person because he was ill.

On Monday and Tuesday, Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in El Alamein to make similar points on his ninth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war began in October.

BEIRUT — China has warned its citizens in Lebanon of the “severe and complex” security situation in the country, as hostilities between Hezbollah militants and the Israeli military continue to intensify.

Beijing on Thursday suggested that its nationals should leave while commercial flights are still available due to the uncertainty of the situation.

“Those who need to continue to stay in Lebanon should remain highly vigilant, strengthen safety precautions and emergency preparedness, and avoid going to high-risk areas and sensitive areas in the south,” the statement said.

Major countries have called on its citizens to leave the country, as fears mount of the conflict in southern Lebanon escalating into war across Lebanon and possibly the region.

China earlier this month, days after an Israeli strike in southern Beirut killed a top Hezbollah commander, called on its citizens to “exercise caution when traveling to Lebanon in the near future.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli authorities say they have arrested four Israelis, including a minor, who are suspected of taking part in a rampage through a West Bank village earlier this month that killed a Palestinian and wounded several others.

The authorities said on Thursday the four were suspects in “several acts of terrorism against Palestinians,” including the Aug. 15 attack in the village of Jit in the northern West Bank.

Residents interviewed by The Associated Press in Jit said at least a hundred masked settlers entered the village, shot live ammunition at Palestinians, burned homes and cars and damaged water tankers. Video showed flames engulfing the small village, which residents said was left to defend itself without military help for two hours.

In a rare move, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, roundly condemned the deadly rampage by settlers immediately after it happened. On Thursday, the Israeli military referred to the riot as a “severe terror event.” Settler violence has grown more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare and prosecutions even rarer. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported in 2022 that based on statistics from the Israeli police, charges were pressed in only 3.8% of cases of settler violence.

BEIRUT — Rights groups on Thursday expressed renewed concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza after Israel’s latest evacuation orders in parts of the overcrowded central city of Deir al-Balah.

The polio virus has been circulating in the battered Palestinian enclave for the first time in 25 years, relief organization the International Rescue Committee said in a statement. It said the spread resulted from the destruction of hospitals and water infrastructure, along with overcrowded living conditions.

“The news of polio in Gaza should be an alarm bell that more infectious diseases are on the way,” Dr. Jude Senkugu, the group's emergency health coordinator in the territory, said in the statement. “Without clean water, it is nearly impossible to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, as people do not have enough to drink, leaving them with no other choice but to drink contaminated water.”

Meanwhile, international medical organization Doctors Without Borders warned that shrinking living spaces would cause diseases to spread faster.

The majority of Gaza’s population of about 2 million have been displaced in the ongoing Hamas-Israel war since Oct. 7, often more than once. Israel has scaled up its evacuation orders over the past month.

“There is no room to put tents up. The overcrowding, severe lack of water, and minimal sanitation services are fueling the spread of diseases,” Doctors Without Borders' project coordinator Jacob Granger said in a statement. “We are unable to keep up with the overwhelming needs.”

Both organizations have echoed calls from global aid agencies for an immediate cease-fire.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A French destroyer rescued 29 mariners from an oil tanker that came under repeated attack in the Red Sea, officials said Thursday, while also destroying a bomb-carrying drone boat in the area.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels are suspected to have carried out the assault on the Sounion, though they have yet to claim responsibility for the attack.

The Sounion is now at anchor in the Red Sea and no longer drifting, the European Union’s Operation Aspides said. However, it wasn’t clear if the vessel was still ablaze. The vessel had been staffed by a crew of Filipinos and Russians.

Military officials did not name the French destroyer involved in the rescue.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Health Ministry says three people have been killed in an Israeli strike on a home in the occupied West Bank.

It said the strike was carried out overnight into Thursday in the Tulkarem refugee camp, a built-up residential area dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It did not say whether those killed were fighters or civilians.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. Israeli forces carry out near-daily raids in the West Bank that often ignite gunbattles with Palestinians. Palestinian militants have carried out a series of attacks against Israelis.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 637 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for a future state.

Israel has built scores of settlements across the West Bank that are home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers. They have Israeli citizenship, while the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering population centers.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israeli tank and drone strikes in Gaza on Wednesday killed at least 17 people, according to hospital staff and Associated Press journalists who counted the bodies.

In Khan Younis in the south, nine bodies, among them a woman and child, were rushed to Nasser Hospital. Meanwhile, the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah received eight bodies.

The strikes in Deir al-Balah come as the Israeli military called for Palestinians in some parts of the central city to evacuate.

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. humanitarian office is warning that mass evacuation orders by the Israeli military this month are pushing Palestinians into overcrowded and unsafe areas along the Gaza coast.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that the latest orders issued Wednesday for part of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south affect 115 sites with more than 150,000 displaced men, women and children, including U.N. and many informal and makeshift shelters.

The orders also impact offices, warehouses and residences of the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, and have made three water wells serving tens of thousands of people inaccessible, he said.

“In Deir al Balah, the water supply has decreased by 70%, and there are also critical shortages of sanitation and hygiene materials,” Dujarric said.

The U.N. spokesman said Israel has issued 11 evacuation orders so far in August affecting about 250,000 people. Before August, he said, the U.N. estimated that some 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million people had been displaced at least once since Hamas’ attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the ongoing conflict.

The Israeli orders have also cut of sections of the main Salah al-Din road, a key route for delivering humanitarian aid, Dujarric said.

JERUSALEM — The outgoing head of Israeli military intelligence says the failures of Oct. 7 will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva said Wednesday that he bore responsibility for the intelligence breakdowns that allowed Hamas to carry out the cross-border attack that day that sparked Israel’s ongoing war against the militant group.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others in the deadliest attack in Israeli history. The army has come under heavy criticism in Israel for its failure to predict the attack and its slow response that day.

Haliva announced his resignation in April.

Speaking at a handover ceremony with his successor, Haliva said the bitter memories of Oct. 7 weigh on his conscience “day and night and will do so for the rest of my days.”

“We did not fulfill our most important mission, giving a warning of war” he added, breaking down in tears at one point while he spoke about his family. “The ultimate responsibility for the failure of the intelligence division rest with me.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has discussed with Jordan’s deputy prime minister, Ayman Safadi, “the urgent need to finalize the cease-fire deal” between Israel and Hamas, the State Department said.

The call Wednesday came the same day Blinken returned from a series of stops across the Middle East to talk with Israeli officials and other negotiators Egypt and Qatar about urging the sides to accept a proposal meant to bridge gaps in cease-fire talks.

Blinken noted that the bridging proposal “addressed the remaining gaps in a manner that allows for swift implementation of the deal,” the State Department said.

But Egyptian officials have expressed skepticism, saying Hamas won’t agree to the proposal for a number of reasons — ones in addition to the long-held wariness over whether a deal would truly remove Israeli forces from Gaza and end the war.

Mediators are scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday in Cairo for more talks on the proposal, before submitting it officially to Hamas.