Israeli strike in Gaza kills 23 as Arab mediators seek long-term truce

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An overnight Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed 23 people, as Arab mediators worked on a proposal to end the war with Hamas that would include a five-to-seven-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages, officials said Wednesday.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the strike, which set several tents ablaze, burning people alive. The military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters are embedded in densely populated areas. Another six people were killed in separate strikes, including 5-year-old twin girls.

France, Germany and Britain meanwhile said Israel's seven-week blockade on all imports to Gaza, including food, was “intolerable," in unusually strong criticism from three of the country's closest allies.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release the hostages in order to “block Israel’s pretexts” for continuing the war. He reiterated his demands that Hamas give up their arms, referring to them as “sons of dogs” in unusually strong language during a speech in the West Bank.

Abbas, who heads the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, has no influence over Hamas but seeks a role in postwar Gaza. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said anyone making such insults has “lost their physical, psychological and mental eligibility for these leadership positions.”

Egypt and Qatar are still developing the proposal, which would include the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners, according to an Egyptian official and a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas last month and has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile. It says it will hold parts of Gaza indefinitely and implement President Donald Trump's proposal for the resettlement of the population in other countries, which has been widely rejected internationally.

Hamas has said it will only release the dozens of hostages it holds in return for Palestinian prisoners, a complete Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire, as called for in the now-defunct agreement reached in January. A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo late Tuesday to discuss the evolving proposal.

The Egyptian official said the proposed truce, with international guarantees, would last between five and seven years, and that a committee of politically independent technocrats would govern Gaza — a measure Hamas has accepted.

The Hamas official said the militant group is open to a long-term truce that includes the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and international guarantees, naming Russia, China, Turkey or the United Nations Security Council as possible guarantors.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials. Israel has ruled out any arrangement that would allow Hamas to preserve its influence in Gaza and rearm. The Trump administration, which has also been involved in the ceasefire talks, has said it fully supports Israel's position.

Israel and the U.S. have pressed Hamas to accept a temporary truce in which it would immediately release several hostages in return for vague promises of talks on a more permanent ceasefire. Hamas has rejected those proposals and says it won't disarm as long as Israel occupies Palestinian territory.

The Hamas official said the group does not trust Netanyahu or the U.S. after they shattered the existing ceasefire agreement, which had facilitated the release of over 30 hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The Egyptian official said mediators had the impression that Trump wants a deal before he visits the region next month. Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates from May 13 to May 16.

Israel ended the ceasefire by launching a surprise bombardment across the territory that killed hundreds of Palestinians. Ground forces have expanded a buffer zone along the border and encircled the southern city of Rafah and now control around 50% of the territory.

Israel says the military operations and the tightened blockade are tactics to pressure Hamas to release hostages. Aid groups say thousands of children are malnourished and most people are surviving on one meal a day or less.

“The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable,” France, Germany and Britain said in their statement. They also condemned recent remarks by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said the blockade was a pressure tactic and that troops would hold parts of Gaza indefinitely.

“Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change. Israel is bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid,” the European statement said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein rejected the criticism, disputing in a post on social media that there is a shortage of aid in Gaza. He said Israel was entitled to block the aid because it says Hamas seizes it for its own use.

In addition to the strike on the school, the Civil Defense, first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, said it recovered four bodies from strikes on two homes in the same area. Another strike hit a home east of Gaza City, killing the twin girls, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were fighters or civilians. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. The militants still have 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

A nurse carries the body of a 15-days-old premature infant Sila Zidane after she died at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Fayez Zidan, lowers into the grave his 15-days-old premature infant Sila Zidane after she died at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, at the cemetery in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Relatives grieve over the bodies of members of the Jalis and Al-Sharbasi families, killed in an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Relatives grieve over the bodies of members of the Jalis and Al-Sharbasi families, killed in an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Relatives grieve over the bodies of members of the Jalis and Al-Sharbasi families, killed in an Israeli army airstrike on Yaffa School in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians bid farewell to their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli airstrike early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli airstrike early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians bid farewell to their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians bid farewell to their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians bid farewell to their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli airstrike early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians bid farewell to their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes early this morning on Yaffa School, in Gaza City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A tent sheltering displaced Palestinians stands in a destroyed hallway inside the Rashad Al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Karima Al-Kafarna cleans the hallway outside her family's makeshift home inside the destroyed Rashad Al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Displaced Palestinians Karima and Ibrahim Al-Kafarna prepare a fire to cook for their children at their makeshift home inside the destroyed Rashad Al Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A child carries a tray of food past a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians inside the destroyed Rashad Al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)