GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel declared Gaza’s largest city a combat zone and recovered the remains of two hostages on Friday as the army launched the start of a planned offensive that has drawn international condemnation.
As the military announced the resumption of fighting, health officials said the death toll in Gaza has risen to 63,025, with 59 deaths reported by hospitals over the last 24 hours. Aid groups and a church sheltering people said they would stay in Gaza City, refusing to abandon the hungry and displaced.
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The sun sets behind buildings destroyed during Israeli ground and air operations in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza Strip move with their belongings on a street in Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli military strike in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza Strip move with their belongings on a street in Gaza City, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli armored vehicle moves in an area in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid packages from the United Arab Emirates, airdropped by parachutes into Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The shift comes weeks after Israel first announced plans to widen its offensive in the city, where hundreds of thousands are sheltering while enduring famine. In recent days, the military has ramped up strikes on the city's outskirts.
Plumes of smoke and thunderous blasts could be seen and heard across the border in southern Israel on Friday morning.
Israel has called Gaza City a Hamas stronghold, alleging that a network of tunnels remain in use despite several previous large-scale raids on the area throughout nearly 23 months of war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel needs to cripple Hamas’ capabilities in the city to avoid a repeat of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
While United Nations agencies and aid groups condemned the offensive, people in Gaza City said it made little difference.
“The massacres never stopped, even during the humanitarian pauses,” resident Mohamed Aboul Hadi said in a text message from Gaza City.
Some who fled south were putting together tents Friday in the central Gaza Strip, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp. They spoke of the miserable conditions they have endured.
“We are thrown in the streets like, what would I say? Like dogs? We are not like dogs. Dogs are better than us,” said Mohammed Maarouf standing in front of a shelter for him and his family of nine.
More than 63,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started, the Gaza Health Ministry said Friday. The ministry’s count — 63,025 — does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. It also said five people had died from malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, raising the toll to 322, including 121 children, since the war began.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
Facing international criticism, Israel instituted what it called “tactical pauses” in Gaza City and two other populated areas last month. That paused fighting from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. to allow more aid to get through, though aid groups have said deliveries remained challenging due to blockade, looting and Israeli restrictions.
Midday Friday, the military changed course, marking the latest escalation after weeks of preparatory strikes in some of the city’s neighborhoods and calling up tens of thousands of reservists.
“We will intensify our strikes until we bring back all the kidnapped hostages and dismantle Hamas,” said Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee, who urged Palestinians in Gaza City to flee south, calling evacuation “inevitable.”
Hundreds of residents began that journey on Friday, piling their few remaining possessions onto pickup trucks or donkey carts. Many have been forced to leave their homes more than once.
The U.N. said Thursday that 23,000 people had evacuated this past week, but many in Gaza City say there is nowhere safe to go.
“We cannot find any place in the west nor in the south. Conditions are difficult. Where are we going? We don’t know,” said Saddam Yazigi as he prepared to leave.
About 440 people sheltering at the Holy Family Church of Gaza City planned to remain there, along with clergy assisting them, although the church has few defenses.
“When we feel danger, people get closer to the walls or whatever, it’s more protected,” Farid Jubran told The Associated Press.
The UN’s humanitarian agency also planned to keep its staff and NGOs on the ground.
The Israeli military did not say whether it had notified residents or aid groups of its plans to resume daytime fighting before Friday's 11:30 a.m. announcement.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which coordinates a coalition of aid groups in Gaza, said it had no advance notice. The U.N. feared the area could lose half of its hospital bed capacity.
“We cannot provide health services to 2 million people besieged in the south,” said Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The renewed attacks also come a week after the world’s leading food security authority declared a famine in Gaza City.
An Israeli military official said Israel would keep trying to facilitate aid delivery, but offered no details on how they might accomplish that amid the fighting.
“This will have a horrific impact on people already exhausted, malnourished, bereaved, displaced, and deprived of basics needed for survival,” the UN’s humanitarian agency said in a statement.
Israel on Friday said its military had recovered the remains of two hostages — Ilan Weiss and another left unnamed.
“We will not rest or be silent until we return all of our hostages home — both the living and the dead,” Netanyahu said.
Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said fighters in Gaza City were ready. He said the group would try to keep the hostages alive, but said fighting is expected in the areas where they are being held.
Weiss, 55, was killed in the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities near Gaza that was stormed on Oct. 7.
For the families, the return of remains brings some closure, but also a reminder of the hostages still being held.
“At least they have closure,” said Rubi Chen, whose son was abducted during the Oct. 7 attack and is believed to be dead. “There are still 49 families waiting to have that closure.”
Nearly 50 of the 251 hostages remain in Gaza, including 20 thought by Israel to be alive. Militants also killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which has organized large-scale protests demanding a ceasefire to return the hostages, said Israeli leaders should prioritize a deal to return both the living and the dead.
“We call on the Israeli government to enter negotiations and stay at the table until every last hostage comes home. Time is running out,” it said in a statement.
Metz and Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Shlomo Mor in southern Israel, Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
The sun sets behind buildings destroyed during Israeli ground and air operations in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza Strip move with their belongings on a street in Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli military strike in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza Strip move with their belongings on a street in Gaza City, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli armored vehicle moves in an area in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)
Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid packages from the United Arab Emirates, airdropped by parachutes into Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The U.N. Security Council in an emergency meeting Thursday discussed Iran's deadly protests at the request of the United States, even as President Donald Trump left unclear what actions he would take against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran appeared to make conciliatory statements in the lead up to the meeting in an effort to defuse the situation after Trump threatened to take action to stop further killing of protesters, including the execution of anyone detained in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said before the meeting, “All options remain on the table for the president.”
Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,615, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The death toll exceeds any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The sound of gunfire faded Thursday in the capital, Tehran. The country closed its airspace to commercial flights for hours without explanation early Thursday and some personnel at a key U.S. military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate. The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait also ordered its personnel to “temporary halt” travel to the multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country.
Here is the latest:
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Moscow stands in solidary with Iran and backs its view that “hostile external forcers are attempting to exploit the current situation in order to overthrow a government they find objectionable and destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran as a sovereign and independent state.”
Russia called on the U.S. “to stop making themselves out to be a global judge and put an end to their escalatory actions,” he said. Moscow also called on the U.N.’s 193 member nations “to prevent a new large-scale escalation.”
Nebenzia said U.S. actions “risk plunging the region into even bloodier chaos — chaos that could easily spill beyond its borders.”
He said what happened on Iranian streets in recent days went far beyond peaceful protests, pointing to the use of firearms, the killing of civilians and law enforcement officers and arson attacks on medical facilities and public institutions.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by the United States that “The people of Iran are demanding their freedom like never before in the Islamic Republic’s brutal history.”
He said the U.S. message is clear: “President Donald J. Trump and the United States of America stand by the brave people of Iran.”
“President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Waltz said. “He has made it clear, all options are on the table to stop the slaughter, and no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”
Waltz dismissed Iranian allegations that the protests are “a foreign plot” and precursor to military action saying: “Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets.”
“They are afraid,” he said. “They are afraid of their own people.”
Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the Islamic Republic is behaving like the Islamic State militant group, “and deserves to be treated like" the group.
She said: “That is how you save innocent lives.”
She warned that “brutal slaughter” in Iran will get much worse if the world doesn’t take “serious action.”
Alinejad said all Iranians are united in seeking freedom and in the face of Iranian military weapons they want action, not “empty words and empty condemnations.”
The U.N. warns possible military strikes on Iran would add “volatility to an already combustible situation” in an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Thursday.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “urges maximum restraint at this sensitive moment and calls on all actors to refrain from any actions that could lead to further loss of life or ignite a wider regional escalation,” Assistant Secretary-General Martha Pobee said at the meeting.
Guterres urges maximum restraint and remains convinced that all issues regarding Iran, including its nuclear program, should be addressed through diplomacy and dialogue, she said.
The U.N. chief reaffirms the U.N. Charter’s principles that disputes must be settled peacefully and prohibit the threat or use of force, Pobee said.
Masih Alinejad, one of the most vocal Iranian dissidents in the U.S., accused the United Nations and the Security Council of failing “to respond with the urgency this moment demands” at the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday.
In October, two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill Alinejad at her Brooklyn home on behalf of the Iranian government.
Sitting across the table from the Iranian ambassador to the U.N., Alinejad, who came after an invitation from the U.S., said that “the members of this body have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of sitting in this room.”
In a stunning moment, even for Security Council standards, Alinejad addressed the Islamic Republic’s representative seated at the council directly.
“You have tried to kill me three times. I have seen my would-be assassin with my own eyes in front of my garden, in my home in Brooklyn,” she said while the Iranian official looked directly ahead, without acknowledging her.
Ahead of the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Secretary-General António Guterres
spoke by phone to discuss the recent deadly protests and Iran’s request for the world body to do more to condemn what they call foreign influence in the Islamic Republic, according to a readout of the call posted on Iranian state TV.
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that Araghchi implored the top U.N. official to live up to the “serious expectation” that Iran’s government and its people have of the U.N.s’ role in condemning what the officials called “illegal U.S. interventions against Iran.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that U.S. President Donald Trump and his team had communicated to Iranian officials that there would be “grave consequences” if killing continues against protesters in Iran.
“The president understands today that 800 executions that were scheduled and supposed to take place yesterday, were halted,” she said.
But Trump continues closely watching the situation, she said.
“All options remain on the table for the president,” Leavitt said.
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group, said on Thursday that “criminal gangs” were responsible for the situation in Iran, accusing them of carrying out an “American-Israeli” scheme.
“Criminal gangs in Iran killed Iranian citizens, security forces and burned mosques,” he said without providing evidence. “What’s being committed by criminal gangs in Iran is horrific, bearing an American stamp as it includes slaughter and burning some people alive.”
He also said that the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Iran to create a crisis leading to the current issues in the country with the end goal of controlling Iran.
Yet he said the U.S. has “failed in Iran” and that Iranians “will not yield to America.”
The president of the European Union’s executive arm says the 27-member bloc is looking to strengthen sanctions against Iran as ordinary Iranians continue their protests against Iran’s theocratic government.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday following a meeting of the EU’s commissioners in Limassol, Cyprus that current sanctions against Iran are “weakening the regime.”
Von der Leyen said that the EU is looking to sanction individual Iranians —apart from those who belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard — who “are responsible for the atrocities.”
She added that the people of Iran who are “bravely fighting for a change” have the EU’s “full political support.”
Canada’s foreign minister says a Canadian citizen has died in Iran “at the hands of the Iranian authorities.”
“Peaceful protests by the Iranian people — asking that their voices be heard in the face of the Iranian regime’s repression and ongoing human rights violations — has led the regime to flagrantly disregard human life,” Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand posted on social media Thursday.
“This violence must end. Canada condemns and calls for an immediate end to the Iranian regime’s violence,” she added.
Anand said consular officials are in contact with the victim’s family in Canada. She did not provide details.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced Thursday that a local staff member was killed and several others were wounded during the deadly protests in Iran over the weekend.
Amir Ali Latifi, an Iranian Red Crescent Society worker, was working in the country’s Gillan province on Jan. 10 when he was killed “in the line of duty,” the organization said in a statement.
“The IFRC is deeply concerned about the consequences of the ongoing unrest on the people of Iran and is closely monitoring the situation in coordination with the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” the statement continued.
U.S. President Donald Trump has hailed as “good news” reports that the death sentence has been lifted for an Iranian shopkeeper arrested in a violent crackdown on protests.
Relatives of 26-year-old Erfan Soltani had said he faced imminent execution.
Trump posed Thursday on his Truth Social site: “FoxNews: ‘Iranian protester will no longer be sentenced to death after President Trump’s warnings. Likewise others.’ This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!”
Iranian state media denied Soltani had been condemned to death. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
Trump sent tensions soaring this week by pledging that “help is on its way” to Iranian protesters and urging them to continue demonstrating against authorities in the Islamic Republic.
On Wednesday Trump signaled a possible de-escalation, saying he had been told that “the killing in Iran is stopping.”
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union’s main foreign policy chief said the G7 members were “gravely concerned” by the developments surrounding the protests, and that they “strongly oppose the intensification of the Iranian authorities’ brutal repression of the Iranian people.”
The statement, published on the EU’s website Thursday, said the G7 were “deeply alarmed at the high level of reported deaths and injuries” and condemned “the deliberate use of violence” by Iranian security forces against protesters.
The G7 members “remain prepared to impose additional restrictive measures if Iran continues to crack down on protests and dissent in violation of international human rights obligations,” the statement said.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken with his counterpart in Iran, who said the situation was “now stable,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Abbas Araghchi said “he hoped China will play a greater role in regional peace and stability” during the talks, according to the statement from the ministry.
“China opposes imposing its will on other countries, and opposes a return to the ‘law of the jungle’,” Wang said.
“China believes that the Iranian government and people will unite, overcome difficulties, maintain national stability, and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,” he added. “China hopes all parties will cherish peace, exercise restraint, and resolve differences through dialogue. China is willing to play a constructive role in this regard.”
“We are against military intervention in Iran,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told journalists in Istanbul on Thursday. “Iran must address its own internal problems… They must address their problems with the region and in global terms through diplomacy so that certain structural problems that cause economic problems can be addressed.”
Ankara and Tehran enjoy warm relations despite often holding divergent interests in the region.
Fidan said the unrest in Iran was rooted in economic conditions caused by sanctions, rather than ideological opposition to the government.
Iranians have been largely absent from an annual pilgrimage to Baghdad, Iraq, to commemorate the death of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, one of the twelve Shiite imams.
Many Iranian pilgrims typically make the journey every year for the annual religious rituals.
Streets across Baghdad were crowded with pilgrims Thursday. Most had arrived on foot from central and southern provinces of Iraq, heading toward the shrine of Imam al-Kadhim in the Kadhimiya district in northern Baghdad,
Adel Zaidan, who owns a hotel near the shrine, said the number of Iranian visitors this year compared to previous years was very small. Other residents agreed.
“This visit is different from previous ones. It lacks the large numbers of Iranian pilgrims, especially in terms of providing food and accommodation,” said Haider Al-Obaidi.
Europe’s largest airline group said Thursday it would halt night flights to and from Tel Aviv and Jordan's capital Amman for five days, citing security concerns as fears grow that unrest in Iran could spiral into wider regional violence.
Lufthansa — which operates Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — said flights would run only during daytime hours from Thursday through Monday “due to the current situation in the Middle East.” It said the change would ensure its staff — which includes unionized cabin crews and pilots -- would not be required to stay overnight in the region.
The airline group also said its planes would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace, key corridors for air travel between the Middle East and Asia.
Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for several hours early Thursday without explanation.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Airport Authority, which oversees Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, said the airport was operating as usual.
Iranian state media has denied claims that a young man arrested during Iran’s recent protests was condemned to death. The statement from Iran’s judicial authorities on Thursday contradicted what it said were “opposition media abroad” which claimed the young man had been quickly sentenced to death during a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in the country.
State television didn’t immediately give any details beyond his name, Erfan Soltani. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Thursday that his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.
“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.
“Iranians have the right to peaceful protest, freedom of expression, and access to information – and that right is currently being brutally repressed,” he said.
Peters said his government had expressed serious concerns to the Iranian Embassy in Wellington.
Women cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with a burning poster depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of Iran's anti-government protests, in Holon, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
