LIVE | Israel-Hamas war Day 30: US steps up diplomacy as Israel bombs refugee camp

The airstrikes that hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza overnight killed at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. It said first responders and residents were still digging through the rubble, hoping to find survivors.

An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, who had been brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the hospital corridor by an adult holding her hand, her clothes caked in dust, an expression of shock on her face.

Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli airstrike flattened several multi-story homes where people forced out of other parts of Gaza were sheltering.

“It was a true massacre,” he said early Sunday while standing on the wreckage of destroyed homes. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.” There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The camp, a built-up residential area, is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive on the north.

Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere and accusing it of using civilians as human shields. Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed. (AP)

An Israeli minister from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party on Sunday said that dropping an atomic bomb on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip was “an option”, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend him from government meetings indefinitely.

In a radio interview, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that “there are no non-combatants in Gaza” and providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute “a failure”.

When asked if there are no non-combatants in Gaza in his view then if a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is “an option”, Eliyahu responded, “That’s one way.” His remarks infuriated members of both the ruling coalition and the Opposition, evoking calls to fire him from the government.

Following the uproar, Eliyahu backtracked from his statement, calling it a “metaphorical” remark.

“It’s clear to anyone with a brain that the remark about the atom was metaphorical. We indeed must display a forceful and disproportional response to terror, which will clarify to the Nazis and their supporters that terrorism isn’t worthwhile. This is the only formula with which democracies can deal with terror,” he said.

“Simultaneously, it is clear that the State of Israel is obligated to do everything to return the captives alive and in good health,” Eliyahu wrote in a bid to defuse tensions.

However, Prime Minister Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from government meetings indefinitely, the PMO said.

Eliyahu is not a part of the security cabinet involved in the wartime decision-making, nor does he hold sway over the war cabinet directing the war against Islamist Hamas, it said.

Netanyahu called the remark “detached from reality”.

“Israel and the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) are acting in accordance with the highest standards of international law in order to prevent harm to uninvolved people, and we will continue to do that all the way to victory,” the prime minister said. (PTI)

An Israeli drone struck near two ambulances on their way to pick up casualties from overnight strikes in southern Lebanon, wounding four paramedics, local officials told The Associated Press.

The civil defence unit of a scouts group affiliated with Lebanon's Amal Movement, a political party allied with Hezbollah, said that the drone “directly targeted” their two ambulances. They were heading south to save several people wounded in an Israeli strike that hit a house overnight.

Local and medical officials told AP that the Lebanese army and the Red Cross transported the wounded paramedics to a hospital in Tyre, as Israeli strikes reportedly did not stop. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

There were reports that the paramedics were on their way to collect two slain Hezbollah militants.

Israeli army Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Israeli forces had launched strikes on a “terrorist cell” that was attempting to fire missiles toward Israel from the Ras Naqoura area in south Lebanon. He said two cars had arrived at the scene during the strikes but that the cars were not the intended target.

Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies along the tense Lebanon-Israel border have been clashing for almost a month since the start of the Hamas-Israel war. While clashes remain largely contained to areas near the border, they have increased in intensity as Israel continues its ground incursion into Gaza. (AP)

The head of the UN food agency has pleaded for expanded humanitarian access to the besieged Gaza Strip as food supplies are running low.

“Right now, parents in Gaza do not know whether they can feed their children today and whether they will even survive to see tomorrow,” said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program. She called for scaling up the delivery of aid to Gaza to align with “the catastrophic conditions facing families there.” “The crisis in Gaza is not just a local tragedy, it's a stark reminder that our global food crisis is worsening. Not only does this crisis threaten regional peace and stability, it undermines our collective efforts to combat hunger worldwide,” she said.

McCain visited Saturday the Egyptian side of Rafah crossing point, the sole entry of aid to Gaza, and met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. (AP)