Middle East latest: Dozens of patients and wounded evacuated from Gaza for treatment

Dozens of patients and the wounded have been evacuated for treatment outside the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations says Israel's attacks on and around hospitals have pushed health care to the brink.

The 45 patients left the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early Tuesday and traveled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel, Palestinian health officials said. They will receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.

Among them was a 10-year-old boy, Abdullah Abu Yousef, suffering from kidney failure. He was accompanied by his sister after the Israeli authorities rejected his mother’s application to join him. Israel says it screens escorts for security.

“The boy is sick,” said his mother, Abeer Abu Yousef. “He requires hemodialysis three to four days a week.”

The Health Ministry says several thousand Palestinians in Gaza need medical treatment abroad. Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May. Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack has gutted the territory’s health care system and forced most of its hospitals to close. Those that remain open are only partially functioning.

Here’s the latest:

UNITED NATIONS — The head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees says that since the war in Gaza began at least 745 people were killed and more than 2,200 injured in its shelters where they had sought United Nations protection.

Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Tuesday that nearly 650 incidents were recorded against buildings and facilities belonging to the agency, known as UNRWA, and over two-thirds of its buildings and schools have been damaged or destroyed.

Since Israel began its retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, 258 UNRWA staff members have been killed and at least 20 are in Israeli detention centers, Lazzarini said.

He said the agency continues to receive reports that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have used UNRWA facilities, and it has verified the occupation of its premises by Israeli Defense Forces on several occasions.

UNRWA provides essential services to millions of Palestinians across the Middle East and has underpinned aid efforts in Gaza throughout the Israel-Hamas war.

Israel has accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas supporters and it passed legislation on Oct. 28 — which takes effect in 90 days — banning the U.N. agency from operating in the country. UNRWA denies the allegations, saying it is committed to neutrality and acts quickly to address any wrongdoing by its staff.

The UNRWA commissioner-general reiterated his call for independent investigations “into the systematic disregard for the protection of humanitarian workers, premises and operations” in Gaza.

“This cannot become the new standard, and impunity cannot become the new norm,” he stressed.

Lazzarini said the rules of war are clear: Humanitarian workers and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and U.N. buildings, can’t be targeted; civilians must be protected; and hostage-taking is prohibited.

NICOSIA, Cyprus — World Central Kitchen said an Israeli security check of its employees in Gaza has prompted the charity to make changes so that it can continue feeding people in the Palestinian territory.

The charity said it “felt this step was necessary to protect our team and operations” following a Nov. 30 Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza that killed five people, including a WCK worker. Israeli authorities said the WCK worker took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

After the airstrike, Israel publicly demanded an investigation into WCK’s hiring practices in Gaza, including security checks through COGAT, the Israeli department in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

WCK said it made “changes in Gaza” after Israeli authorities handed over the results of their security check. WCK didn’t explicitly say if it has terminated any employee who Israeli authorities had flagged.

The charity said that prior to receiving the COGAT results, “we had no reason for concern regarding any of these individuals and, because Israel does not share intelligence with aid organizations, we do not know the basis for Israel’s decision to flag these individuals.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to Israel’s parliament Tuesday for an emergency vote on a portion of the budget less than two days after his prostate surgery, after parts of his coalition refused to support the measure.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu took his seat in the Knesset despite doctors’ objections in an effort to pass the budget measure.

The coalition was able to achieve a majority in a last-ditch attempt. The vote was critical because Tuesday is the last day of the 2024 tax year, and if the vote had not passed, the government would have had to find another funding source to plug an approximately 10 billion Israeli shekel ($2.7 billion) deficit.

Also, if the budget does not pass in full by March, it will force snap elections.

Far-right Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has instructed his party not to support the critical budget measure, which attempts to address a massive budget deficit. At least three others also said they would vote against the measure over their displeasure over forced enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men in the military.

On Monday, the hospital said Netanyahu's recovery was proceeding well after undergoing prostate surgery Sunday night.

CAIRO — The U.S. military has launched airstrikes targeting military facilities belonging to Yemen's Houthi rebels in the capital, Sanaa.

U.S. Navy ships and aircraft targeted a Houthi command and control facility and advanced conventional weapon production and storage facilities that included missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles, the Central Command said.

It said the facilities that were hit were used in attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft also destroyed a Houthi coastal radar site, seven cruise missiles and an UAVs over the Red Sea, it said.

The Houthis have been firing drones and missiles at Israel, as well as attacking shipping in the Red Sea corridor — attacks they say won’t stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis' media office said Tuesday that 10 airstrikes hit the May 22 facility in Sanaa’s northern Thurah district and two more hit the Aradi facility, which houses the rebels’ defence ministry in central Sanaa.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthi chief negotiator and spokesman, called the strikes “a gross violation of the sovereignty of an independent state.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel acknowledged for the first time it was behind the assassination of Hamas leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut in January 2024.

Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, was one of at least five top Hamas leaders assassinated in Lebanon over the past year, according to the year-end review released by Israel’s Shin Bet security service on Tuesday.

BEIRUT — France has carried out airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, the first since the ouster of President Bashar Assad, Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said.

During a visit to French U.N. peacekeepers in neighboring Lebanon, Lecornu said in a post on X that the strikes on Sunday were “part of the fight against terrorism in the Levant.”

France has been a member of an international coalition against the Islamic State group, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, since 2014 in Iraq and 2015 in Syria. The coalition has continued to hit IS militants even after a lightning offensive by Syrian insurgents toppled Assad and altered the country’s political landscape.

The IS group has maintained a presence through sleeper cells in parts of Iraq and Syria, particularly in remote desert regions and areas with limited security oversight.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it had arrested around 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza during 2024, of which 650 were interrogated.

The agency said, without providing evidence, that the interrogations enabled Israel to retrieve nine bodies of hostages who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Additionally, 27 Israelis were indicted for spying for Iran, a nearly four-fold increase from 2023, it said. The Shin Bet released the figures in their year-end review of operations during the calendar year.

In the occupied West Bank, 3,682 Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of involvement in “terror activities,” the Shin Bet said.

Last year, Israel arrested more than 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank between October to December, according to the U.N.

The U.N. Human Rights Office issued a report this summer saying Palestinians detained by Israeli authorities since the Oct. 7 attacks faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, dogs set on them and other forms of torture and mistreatment. Israel’s prison authorities previously said that all Palestinian prisoners are treated according to Israeli and international law.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians are bailing muddy water out of their frigid tents after heavy rains in war-ravaged Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of people are living in sprawling tent camps along the coast, where winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. At least four babies have died of hypothermia in recent weeks, according to local health officials.

“I’m drowning,” Manal Lubbad sobbed as she waded in ankle-deep water inside her tent on Tuesday, trying to salvage blankets and other belongings. “I’m taking everything out into the street.”

“We are dead, we are not alive! Why is this happening?” she said.

Israel’s nearly 15-month offensive against Hamas, triggered by the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, has destroyed vast areas of the impoverished territory and displaced some 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

The Civil Defense, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government, said it received hundreds of emergency calls to evacuate people from flooded shelters.

Associated Press footage showed barefoot children wading through muddy water between rows of tightly packed tents.

Muhammad Diab placed an empty cooking pot on the dirt floor of his tent to catch rainwater leaking through the roof.

“For God’s sake, find a solution for us. We’ve had enough,” he said. “In the summer there was intense heat and we could bear it, but in the winter we are drowning.”

JERUSALEM — The U.N. Human Rights Office says Israel’s attacks on and around hospitals have pushed Gaza’s health system “to the brink of total collapse” and may have violated international law.

Israeli forces have besieged and raided at least 10 hospitals across Gaza since the start of the war, some of them multiple times. Israel accuses Hamas militants of using health facilities for military purposes but has provided little evidence.

Last week, Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in isolated northern Gaza and detained its director. The army said it apprehended 240 suspected militants.

The U.N. report released Tuesday said it documented 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities from Oct. 12, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

“This report graphically details the destruction of the health care system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks in blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement.

The report noted Israel’s allegations and that hospitals lose their protection under international law if they are used for military purposes. But it said “insufficient information has so far been made available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information.” Israel has long dismissed such allegations from U.N. bodies, which it says are biased against it.

The nearly 15-month war, ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel, has forced most of Gaza’s hospitals to close and left the rest only partially functioning.

A boy walks barefoot through the mud after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Brothers Belal, 5, and Mohammed Hamad, 7, collect water from their flooded family tent after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Manal Lubbad, a 49-year-old mother of eight and a displaced woman from Gaza City, tries to repair her flooded and damaged tent after heavy overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian children carry buckets of water after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A boy walks barefoot through the mud after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian children carry buckets of water after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A young girl walks barefoot, carrying empty jerrycans to collect water, after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip,, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Nabil Lubbad tries to clean his family's flooded tent after heavy overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Brothers Belal, 5, and Mohammed Hamad, 7, collect water from their flooded family tent after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

People walk along the beach next to a tent refugee camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec .30, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped casket of 1st Sgt. Yuval Shoham, who was killed in a battle in the Gaza Strip, during his burial at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

People attend the funeral of 1st Sgt. Yuval Shoham, who was killed in a battle in the Gaza Strip, during his burial at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A girl searches for cardboard in the trash to make a fire, near a tent camp for displaced Palestinians by the sea in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024.

People walk along the beach next to a tent refugee camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec .30, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — World champions Ilia Malinin and the ice dance duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates will anchor one of the strongest U.S. Figure Skating teams in history when they head to Italy for the Milan Cortina Olympics in less than a month.

Malinin, fresh off his fourth straight national title, will be the prohibitive favorite to follow in the footsteps of Nathan Chen by delivering another men's gold medal for the American squad when he steps on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

Chock and Bates, who won their record-setting seventh U.S. title Saturday night, also will be among the Olympic favorites, as will world champion Alysa Liu and women's teammate Amber Glenn, fresh off her third consecutive national title.

U.S. Figure Skating announced its full squad of 16 athletes for the Winter Games during a made-for-TV celebration Sunday.

"I'm just so excited for the Olympic spirit, the Olympic environment," Malinin said. “Hopefully go for that Olympic gold.”

Malinin will be joined on the men's side by Andrew Torgashev, the all-or-nothing 24-year-old from Coral Springs, Florida, and Maxim Naumov, the 24-year-old from Simsbury, Connecticut, who fulfilled the hopes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were returning from a talent camp in Kansas when their American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the icy Potomac River in January 2025. One of the last conversations they had with their son was about what it would take for him to follow in their footsteps by becoming an Olympian.

“We absolutely did it,” Naumov said. “Every day, year after year, we talked about the Olympics. It means so much in our family. It's what I've been thinking about since I was 5 years old, before I even know what to think. I can't put this into words.”

Chock and Bates helped the Americans win team gold at the Beijing Games four years ago, but they finished fourth — one spot out of the medals — in the ice dance competition. They have hardly finished anywhere but first in the years since, winning three consecutive world championships and the gold medal at three straight Grand Prix Finals.

U.S. silver medalists Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik also made the dance team, as did the Canadian-born Christina Carreira, who became eligible for the Olympics in November when her American citizenship came through, and Anthony Ponomarenko.

Liu was picked for her second Olympic team after briefly retiring following the Beijing Games. She had been burned out by years of practice and competing, but stepping away seemed to rejuvenate the 20-year-old from Clovis, California, and she returned to win the first world title by an American since Kimmie Meissner stood atop the podium two decades ago.

Now, the avant-garde Liu will be trying to help the U.S. win its first women's medal since Sasha Cohen in Turin in 2006, and perhaps the first gold medal since Sarah Hughes triumphed four years earlier at the Salt Lake City Games.

Her biggest competition, besides a powerful Japanese contingent, could come from her own teammates: Glenn, a first-time Olympian, has been nearly unbeatable the past two years, while 18-year-old Isabeau Levito is a former world silver medalist.

"This was my goal and my dream and it just feels so special that it came true,” said Levito, whose mother is originally from Milan.

The two pairs spots went to Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea, the U.S. silver medalists, and the team of Emily Chan and Spencer Howe.

The top American pairs team, two-time reigning U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, were hoping that the Finnish-born Efimova would get her citizenship approved in time to compete in Italy. But despite efforts by the Skating Club of Boston, where they train, and the help of their U.S. senators, she did not receive her passport by the selection deadline.

“The importance and magnitude of selecting an Olympic team is one of the most important milestones in an athlete's life,” U.S. Figure Skating CEO Matt Farrell said, "and it has such an impact, and while there are sometimes rules, there is also a human element to this that we really have to take into account as we make decisions and what's best going forward from a selection process.

“Sometimes these aren't easy," Farrell said, “and this is not the fun part.”

The fun is just beginning, though, for the 16 athletes picked for the powerful American team.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Amber Glenn competes during the women's free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Alysa Liu skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Maxim Naumov skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Madison Chock and Evan Bates skate during the "Making the Team" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Gold medalist Ilia Malinin arrives for the metal ceremony after the men's free skate competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)