Strikes across Gaza kill at least 92 as Israel prepares to ramp up its offensive

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 92 people, including women, children and two journalists, officials said Wednesday, as Israel prepares to ramp up its campaign in the strip, with the devastating war now entering its 20th month.

Two Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday targeted an area in central Gaza, killing at least 33 people and wounding 86, including several children, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to health officials.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.

This came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday there is “doubt” about the survival of three hostages previously believed alive in Gaza. The statement was a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said only 21 of 24 hostages believed alive had survived.

The news sent families of remaining captives in Gaza into panic.

The new bloodshed Wednesday comes days after Israel approved a plan to intensify its operations in the Palestinian enclave, which would include seizing Gaza, holding on to captured territories, forcibly displacing Palestinians to southern Gaza and taking control of aid distribution along with private security companies.

Israel is also calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers to carry out the plan. Israel says the plan will be gradual and will not be implemented until after Trump wraps up his visit to the region later this month.

Any escalation of fighting would likely drive up the death toll. And with Israel already controlling some 50% of Gaza, increasing its hold on the territory, for an indefinite amount of time, could open up the potential for a military occupation, which would raise questions about how Israel plans to have the territory governed, especially at a time when it is considering how to implement Trump’s vision to take over Gaza.

The Israeli offensive has so far killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel blames Hamas for the death toll, saying it operates from civilian infrastructure, including schools.

Wednesday's strikes included two attacks on a crowded market area in Gaza City, health officials said.

Footage posted online reportedly showed the aftermath with men found dead, including one still seated in a chair inside a Thai restaurant used by locals as a gathering spot, and several children lying motionless on the ground, covered in blood.

Journalist Yahya Sobeih, who freelanced for several local outlets, was among those killed, according to Gaza’s media office. He had recently shared a photo on Instagram of his newborn daughter.

Victims of the blasts, some with severe injuries, were taken to nearby Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi told The Associated Press.

Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was killed while covering an attack early Wednesday morning at a school turned shelter in Gaza City, the media office said. That strike killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital, while strikes in other areas killed at least 16 others.

And an attack Tuesday night on a school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians killed 27 people, officials from the Al-Aqsa Hospital said, including nine women and three children. The school has been struck repeatedly since the war began.

In Bureij, an urban refugee camp, paramedics and rescuers rushed to pull people out of a blaze after a large column of smoke and fires pierced the dark skies above the school shelter.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

Trump on Wednesday said his administration will soon have more to say on a plan for Gaza — which may include a new push for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, the release of hostages and an influx of aid to Palestinians.

“You’ll be knowing probably in the next 24 hours,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

He had stunned many in Israel a day earlier when he declared that only 21 of the 59 hostages remaining in Gaza are still alive. Israel previously insisted the figure stands at 24, although an Israeli official said there was “serious concern” for the lives of three captives. The official said there has been no sign of life from those three, whom the official did not identify. He said that until proven otherwise, the three are considered to be alive. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details related to the war, said the families of the captives were updated on those developments.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing the families of the captives, demanded from Israel's government that if there is “new information being kept from us, give it to us immediately.” It also called for Netanyahu to halt the war in Gaza until all hostages are returned. “This is the most urgent and important national mission,” it said on a post on X.

Since Israel ended a ceasefire with the Hamas militant group in mid-March, it has unleashed fierce strikes on Gaza that have killed hundreds and captured swaths of territory. Before the truce ended, Israel halted all humanitarian aid into the territory, including food, fuel and water, setting off what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in 19 months of war.

World Central Kitchen, the food charity, said it had run out of supplies after serving 130 million meals in Gaza over 18 months and could no longer offer bread or meals at most of its centers. The group, in social media posts, urged Israel to allow loaded trucks it has waiting at the border to enter Gaza.

Key interlocutors Qatar and Egypt said Wednesday that mediation efforts were “ongoing and consistent.” But Israel and Hamas remain far apart on how they see the war ending. Israel says it won't end the war until Hamas' governing and military capabilities are dismantled, something it has failed to do in 19 months of war.

Hamas says it is prepared to release all of the hostages for an end to the war and a long-term truce with Israel.

Against the backdrop of the plans to intensify the campaign in Gaza, fighting has also escalated between Israel and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Houthis fired a ballistic missile earlier this week that landed on the grounds of Israel's main international airport. Israel responded with a series of airstrikes over two days, whose targets included the airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The Houthis have been striking Israel and targets in a main Red Sea shipping route since the war began in solidarity with the Palestinians. On Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. would halt a nearly two-monthlong campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, after the rebel group agreed not to target U.S. ships.

Israel does not appear to be covered by the U.S.-Houthi agreement.

The Israeli official said the deal came as a surprise to Israel and that it was concerned by it because of what it meant for the continuation of hostilities between it and the Houthis.

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo and White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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

A man kisses the body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, as he is taken from the scene to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The body of Palestinian journalist Yahya Sobeih, center, who was killed along with at least 28 others in an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, is carried at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, are carried at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, are transported from the scene to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, are transported from the scene to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The body of Palestinian journalist Yahya Sobeih, who was killed along with at least 28 others in an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, is carried for burial at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The body of man who was killed along with at least 28 others in an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, is carried for burial at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, are transported from the scene to a hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, lie on the floor after the were taken from the scene to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A woman reacts over the bodies of some of the victims of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, as they are carried from the scene to a hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Blood is splattered across the floor following an Israeli army strike on a restaurant that killed at least 29 people in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

A man mourns over the body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a restaurant, which killed at least 29 people, at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A makeshift tent camp for displaced Palestinians stretches across Gaza City on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Smoke rises to the sky in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)