Live updates | Tens of thousands of Palestinians stream into Rafah as Israel expands its offensive

The Israeli-Hamas war has already driven around 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes, leveling the northern part of the territory and heightening fears about a similar fate for the south as Israel’s air and ground offensive widened Friday.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have streamed into the already overwhelmed town of Rafah in the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations.

More than 20,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.

About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, with around 240 people taken hostage.

Other news The Biden administration once more bypasses Congress on an emergency weapons sale to Israel South Africa launches case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza France heightens security for New Year’s Eve, with 90,000 police officers to be mobilized

Currently:

— Israeli strikes across Gaza kill dozens of Palestinians, even in largely emptied north

— An American-Canadian-Israeli woman believed to have been held hostage since Oct. 7 is declared dead

— As Gaza war grinds on, tensions soar along Israel’s volatile northern border with Lebanon

— Number of wounded Israeli soldiers grows, representing a hidden cost of war

— On foot and by donkey cart, thousands flee widening Israeli assault in central Gaza

— Find more of AP’s coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s what’s happening in the war:

SOUTH AFRICA ACCUSES ISRAEL OF GENOCIDE IN UN’S TOP COURT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — South Africa launched a case Friday at the United Nations’ top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks.

According to South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice, “acts and omissions by Israel . . . are genocidal in character” as they are committed with the intent “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

It also asks the Hague-based court to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the government has “rejected with disgust” South Africa’s allegations and calling it ‘blood libel.” The statement said the case has no legal or factual basis and constitutes a “vile exploitation and cheapening” of the court.

Israel also accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas, which it accused of trying to commit genocide in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.

South Africa can bring the case under the Genocide Convention because both it and Israel are signatories to the convention.

UN OFFICIAL: ‘HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN GAZA CONTINUES TO DETERORIATE’

UNITED NATIONS — A week after the United Nations Security Council passed a weakened resolution seeking to hasten aid to Gaza, a top U.N. official told the group Friday that humanitarian conditions keep worsening in the besieged enclave.

Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari said “the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate” and reiterated Secretary-General António Guterres’ call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

Last week’s heavily negotiated and long-delayed resolution called for immediately speeding aid deliveries to civilians in Gaza, but an appeal for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas was taken out.

Khiari said the U.N. will report next week on the implementation of an earlier Security Council resolution, from Nov. 15, that called for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting.

4 ISRAELIS WOUNDED BY A CAR DRIVEN BY A PALESTINIAN IN THE WEST BANK

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli authorities say four Israelis were wounded after a Palestinian rammed his car into them in the occupied West Bank.

The military said the incident Friday occurred near a military post in the southern West Bank. Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said four people in their 20s were wounded, one moderately and the rest lightly.

The military said troops had stopped the driver, whose condition was not immediately known.

Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside Israel and Hamas’ war in Gaza.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas’ attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, in Israeli raids or in clashes with Israeli forces. More than 2,500 have been arrested, according to the military.

AID GROUP WARNS OF FAMINE; UN OFFICIAL SAYS ISRAEL FIRED ON AN AID CONVOY

CAIRO — The international aid group Mercy Corps is warning about famine and disease affecting Palestinians in Gaza as Israel and Hamas continue their war.

Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of Mercy Corps, said that relentless fighting and insufficient humanitarian aid were compounding the crisis.

She said the amount of lifesaving goods being allowed inside Gaza is a drop in the ocean and has not yet increased to the level necessary to meet Gazans’ basic and critical needs, even after Israel opened its Kerem Shalom border crossing.

She said half a million people face “catastrophic hunger and starvation.”

Phillips-Barrasso said the aid delivery is further complicated by the security risks involved.

A senior U.N. official said Friday that Israeli troops opened fire on an aid convoy returning from northern Gaza, damaging one vehicle. Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, wrote on X that the convoy was driving Thursday on a route designated safe by the Israeli military.

He said no injuries were reported among the convoy’s team.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

ISRAELI STRIKES HIT DAMASCUS AIRPORT, SYRIAN STATE MEDIA SAY

BEIRUT — Israeli strikes late Thursday and early Friday hit the Damascus airport and Syrian military sites, state media and an opposition-linked war monitor said.

Syria’s SANA news agency, citing military sources, reported Israeli airstrikes at 1:20 a.m. local time “targeting a number of points in the vicinity of Damascus,” which it said caused “some material losses.” Late Thursday night, strikes had hit “some points in the southern region,” it said.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strikes had hit the Damascus airport, a day after it returned to service after a two-month stoppage due to previous strikes. Other strikes hit Syrian air defense sites in the Damascus countryside and a military facility in the southern province of Sweida, injuring two soldiers, the monitor said.

There was no statement from Israel on the strikes. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on sites in government-controlled Syria in recent years but rarely acknowledges them. When it does, Israel says it’s targeting Iran-backed groups there that have backed the government of President Bashar Assad.