Europe unveils a deal for more food and fuel for Gaza. Israeli strike kills 14 outside a clinic

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — European officials reached a new deal with Israel to allow desperately needed food and fuel into Gaza, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said Thursday, hours after an Israeli airstrike killed 14 people, including 9 children, waiting for help outside a medical clinic.

The children's deaths drew outrage from humanitarian groups even as Israel allowed the first delivery of fuel to Gaza in more than four months, though still less than a day's supply, according to the United Nations.

“The killing of families trying to access life-saving aid is unconscionable,” UNICEF's chief, Catherine Russell, said. “These were mothers seeking a lifeline for their children after months of hunger and desperation.”

The Israeli military said it was targeting a militant when it struck near the clinic.

Security camera footage outside the clinic in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah showed about a dozen people squatting in front of the clinic when a projectile explodes a few meters (yards) away, leaving bodies scattered.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Washington after meetings with President Donald Trump, apparently without finalizing a temporary ceasefire advocated by the White House.

The deal announced by European officials could result in “more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers,” said Kaja Kallas, the 27-member EU’s top diplomat.

“We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” she said in a post on social media.

Aid groups say Israeli military restrictions and recurring violence have made it difficult to deliver assistance in Gaza even after Israel eased its 2 1/2 month total blockade in May. Experts have warned the strip is at risk of famine, 21 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

Kallas said the deal would reactivate aid corridors from Jordan and Egypt and reopen community bakeries and kitchens across Gaza.

She said measures would be taken to prevent the militant Hamas group from diverting aid. Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid and selling it to finance militant activities. The U.N. says there is no evidence for widespread diversion.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar acknowledged the deal while at a conference in Vienna, saying it followed "our dialogue with the EU” and that it includes "more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts.”

Neither Saar not Kallas said whether the aid would go through the U.N.-run system or an alternative, U.S.- and Israeli-backed mechanism that has been marred by violence and controversy.

The U.N. said Israel had permitted a team to bring 75,000 liters of fuel into Gaza, the first delivery allowed in 130 days. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric warned it wasn't enough to cover a single day's energy needs in the territory and that services would shut down without more shipments.

Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight and early Thursday, killing at least 36 Palestinians, local hospitals and aid workers said. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in Gaza.

Those killed outside the clinic were waiting for nutritional supplements, according to Project Hope, an aid group that runs the facility.

“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed," said Dr. Mithqal Abutaha, the group's project manager.

The aid group had initially said 15 people people were killed, including 10 children. But Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies, later said that 14 people were killed, including nine children and three women.

At the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital, families prayed over the bodies of their loved ones, laid across the floor.

Omar Meshmesh held the body of his 3-year-old niece Aya Meshmesh. “What did she ever do? Did she throw a rocket at them or throw something at them? ... she’s an innocent child.”

Israel's military said it struck near the clinic while targeting a militant it said had entered Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It said it was investigating.

Gaza’s Nasser Hospital reported a total of 21 deaths in airstrikes in the southern town of Khan Younis and the nearby coastal area of Muwasi. It said three children and their mother, as well as two other women, were among the dead.

Readying to leave Washington, Netanyahu said Israel continues to pursue a deal for a 60-day pause in the fighting and the release of half of the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, many of them believed dead.

Once that deal is in place, Israel is prepared to negotiate a permanent end to the war, Netanyahu said — but only on condition that Hamas disarms and gives up its governing and military capabilities in Gaza.

If this “is not achieved through negotiations in 60 days, we will achieve it in other ways; by using force, the force of our heroic army,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.

Still, U.S. officials held out hope that restarting high-level negotiations — mediated by Egypt and Qatar and including White House envoy Steve Witkoff — could bring progress.

“We’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while and we’re hopeful, but we also recognize there’s still some challenges in the way,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Israeli military said a soldier was killed in Khan Younis the day before, after militants burst out of an underground tunnel and tried to abduct him. The soldier was shot and killed, while troops in the area shot the militants, hitting several of them, it said.

Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks, one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months, putting additional public pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

Meanwhile, two Palestinian attackers killed a 22-year-old Israeli man at a supermarket in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday afternoon, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency services.

Israeli police said two people in a stolen vehicle attacked a security guard at the supermarket. Paramedics said people on site shot and killed the two attackers. There was no information about the attackers but Israeli troops were setting up roadblocks around the Palestinian town of Halhul, around 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the supermarket.

Earlier Thursday, a 55-year-old Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said the man was shot after stabbing a soldier in the village of Rumana. The soldier suffered moderate wounds.

The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military targeting militants in large-scale operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands.

That has coincided with a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Palestinian militants from the West Bank have also attacked and killed Israelis in Israel and the West Bank.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Most have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

McNeil reported from Brussels, El Deeb from Beirut and Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

This story was first published on Jul. 10, 2025. It was updated on Jul. 11, 2025 to correct the number of people killed in the strike outside the clinic. The strike killed nine children, according to the hospital, not 10.

Youssef Abd Rabbo weeps at the hospital where the body of his mother Manal was taken together with 10 more people, including two women and five children, killed in an Israeli strike while they were waiting to receive nutritional supplements at a Project Hope-run medical clinic in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 10, 2025.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The bodies of two children lie on the hospital floor after an Israeli strike killed 10 people, including two women and five children, while they were waiting to receive nutritional supplements at a Project Hope-run medical clinic in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Youssef Abd Rabbo cries over the body of his mother, Manal Abd Rabbo, who was among 10 people, including two women and five children, killed in an Israeli strike while they were waiting to receive nutritional supplements at a Project Hope-run medical clinic in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Sara Al-Nouri mourns over the body of her 13-year-old sister, Sama, who was among 10 people, including two women and five children, killed in an Israeli strike while they were waiting to receive nutritional supplements at a Project Hope-run medical clinic in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

FILE - European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, left, shakes hands with Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar during the EU-Israel Association Council at the European Council building in Brussels, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Smoke and fire rise to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in northern of Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Weir, the guitarist and singer who as an essential member of the Grateful Dead helped found the sound of the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s and kept it alive through decades of endless tours and marathon jams, has died. He was 78.

Weir’s death was announced Saturday in a statement on his Instagram page.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” a statement on his Instagram posted Saturday said. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

The statement did not say where or when Weir died, but he lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of his life.

Weir joined the Grateful Dead — originally the Warlocks — in 1965 in San Francisco at just 17 years old. He would spend the next 30 years playing on endless tours with the Grateful Dead alongside fellow singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

Weir wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night” and “Mexicali Blues.”

After Garcia’s death, he would be the Dead's most recognizable face. In the decades since, he kept playing with other projects that kept alive the band's music and legendary fan base, including Dead & Company.

“For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road,” the Instagram statement said. "A guitarist, vocalist, storyteller, and founding member of the Grateful Dead. Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”

Weir’s death leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving original member. Founding bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024. The band's other drummer, Mickey Hart, practically an original member since joining in 1967, is also alive at 82. The fifth founding member, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, died in 1973.

Dead and Company played a series of concerts for the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in July at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, drawing some 60,000 fans a day for three days.

Born in San Francisco and raised in nearby Atherton, Weir was the Dead's youngest member and looked like a fresh-faced high-schooler in its early years. He was generally less shaggy than the rest of the band, but he had a long beard like Garcia’s in later years.

The band would survive long past the hippie moment of its birth, with its ultra-devoted fans known as Deadheads often following them on the road in a virtually non-stop tour that persisted despite decades of music and culture shifting around them.

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” Weir said when the Dead got the Grammys’ MusiCares Person of the Year honor last year. “Spreading joy through the music was all we ever really had in mind, and we got plenty of that done.”

Ubiquitous bumper stickers and T-shirts showed the band's skull logo, the dancing, colored bears that served as their other symbol, and signature phrases like “ain't no time to hate” and “not all who wander are lost.”

The Dead won few actual Grammys during their career — they were always a little too esoteric — getting only a lifetime achievement award in 2007 and the best music film award in 2018.

Just as rare were hit pop singles. “Touch of Grey,” the 1987 song that brought a big surge in the aging band's popularity, was their only Billboard Top 10 hit.

But in 2024, they set a record for all artists with their 59th album in Billboard's Top 40. Forty-one of those came since 2012, thanks to the popularity of the series of archival albums compiled by David Lemieux.

Their music — called acid rock at its inception — would pull in blues, jazz, country, folk and psychedelia in long improvisational jams at their concerts.

“I venture to say they are the great American band,” TV personality and devoted Deadhead Andy Cohen said as host of the MusiCares event. “What a wonder they are.”

FILE - Bob Weir plays guitar with his band The Dead, formerly the Grateful Dead, at the Forum in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, Calif. on Saturday May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel,File)

FILE - This undated file photo shows members of the Grateful Dead band, from left to right, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Kennedy Center Honors recipients from left; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead band members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann Bob Weir and blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, applaud at at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors reception in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta,File)

FILE - Bob Weir arrives at Willie Nelson 90, celebrating the singer's 90th birthday on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Invision/AP,File)

FILE - Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Manchester, Tenn. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP,File)