Palestinians mourn 10 killed in Eid strikes as Netanyahu vows wider control of the strip

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians in Gaza City gathered on Thursday for funeral prayers for 10 people killed in Israeli strikes the night before, including five children and an elderly person, as well as a Hamas militant.

More than 20 people were injured in the strikes, according to Shifa Hospital. Video from the scene showed flames pouring from an upper-floor window of a building, while bystanders rushed to carry wounded people, including children, to ambulances.

Mohammed Shawish, who was wounded and lost his wife in the strikes, broke down in tears as he held her body at the hospital morgue, saying, “I married my wife for love. For God’s sake, I chose her because of love.”

The strikes took place on the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the “Feast of Sacrifice,” an Islamic holiday celebrated by millions of Muslims worldwide. The Israeli military said Wednesday evening it had launched strikes in the northern Gaza Strip targeting two Hamas militants.

Among those killed was Hamas fighter Imad Isleim. On Thursday, mourners carried his body wrapped in a white shroud with a Hamas flag draped over it. His death came as a “shock” to the family, even though they knew it could happen at any time, his cousin Nidal Isleim said.

The strikes came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was expanding its control in Gaza.

“Right now we are tightening the grip on Hamas," Netanyahu said Thursday at the Jordan Valley Conference in the occupied West Bank. “We are now in 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip. You know that? We were at 50%, we moved to 60%."

He said the next step was to move to 70% control, with Israel “tightening the grip" on Hamas "from every direction.”

“We will deal with the remnants,” Netanyahu said. "But the most important thing is to continue leveraging our power, to increase it.”

The conference was part of a broader discussion on the war, Iran, Hezbollah, Gaza and regional strategy.

"There is still more work. What is happening right now is truly a global change. There is no doubt about that,” Netanyahu added.

Earlier this week, an Israeli strike killed Mohammed Odeh, the newly appointed leader of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, less than two weeks after his predecessor was also killed.

Across the Gaza Strip, 16 people were killed and 39 others wounded over the past 48 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said in an update on Thursday. The ministry is part of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, but is staffed by medical professionals who maintain and publish detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Since a fragile ceasefire came into effect last October, 922 people have been killed in Gaza and 2,786 others injured, according to the ministry.

This story has corrected the location where Netanyahu spoke.

Palestinians offer Eid al-Adha prayers beside the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli bombardment, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians attend the funerals of Hamas militant Imad Isleim, his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli military strike, outside Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) CORRECTION: Corrects surname from al-Salem to Isleim

Palestinians mourn over the bodies of Hamas militant Imad Isleim, foreground, his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli military strike, during their funeral at Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) CORRECTION: Corrects surname from al-Salem to Isleim

Palestinians carry the body of Hamas militant Imad Isleim, who was killed in an Israeli military strike, during his funeral at Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) CORRECTION: Corrects surname from al-Salem to Isleim

Palestinians carry the body of Hamas militant Imad al-Salem, who was killed in an Israeli military strike, during his funeral at Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israeli soldiers occupy a military position overlooking the so-called yellow line in the central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Palestinians pray over the bodies of Hamas militant Imad al-Salem, center, his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli military strike, during their funeral at Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians mourn over the body of Hamas militant Imad al-Salem, who was killed in an Israeli military strike, during his funeral at Al-Shafi'i Mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported Sunday, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer.

“While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study.

The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades.

The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Sunday at the American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

Those taking daraxonrasib lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. While that may seem like a small improvement, Wainberg said it marked the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy.

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying" when first seeing the study results, Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, who wasn't involved with the research, said from the ASCO meeting. She was struck by how “patients stayed on this treatment because it was providing durable and meaningful benefit to them.”

The pills’ effects eventually wane but recipients used them for significantly longer than the comparison group stayed on chemotherapy, reporting less pain and a better quality of life as their tumors shrank. Many still were using the drug after the data was analyzed, which Wainberg said means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue tracking them.

Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presented the findings Sunday. He said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumor shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery.

Side effects most likely to affect pill usage were a rash that can be severe and mouth sores, he said.

Maker Revolution Medicines funded the study and the Food and Drug Administration plans to expedite review of the drug. Meanwhile, the agency is allowing what’s called “expanded access” to the experimental drug for patients who meet certain criteria. The drug garnered public attention when former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse described on “60 Minutes” how he's had less pain while taking it. Oncologists are being flooded with requests as the special access program gets started.

Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms in large part because it’s hard to detect before it starts spreading to other organs. The American Cancer Society estimates about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year and more than 52,000 people will die from the disease. The five-year overall survival rate is 13%.

Unlike with other cancers that have benefitted from a variety of chemotherapy alternatives, pancreatic cancer has been harder to tackle.

Cancer specialists not involved in the new research expressed optimism that this may be a turning point in the quest for new options, with dozens of experimental drugs in development.

The new drug targets mutations in the RAS gene family that normally regulates cell growth. So-called KRAS mutations are especially critical in fueling pancreatic cancer. But a structure that made it hard for drugs to stick to the mutated proteins meant this cancer driver was long considered “undruggable.”

Revolution Medicines’ drug uses what’s essentially a molecular glue to bind with multiple KRAS subtypes. Wainberg said researchers next will probe whether the drug worked better in certain of those subtypes.

The drug will change pancreatic cancer treatment, said Dr. Andrew Coveler of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved in the research.

“This thing works drastically differently,” he said.

Wainberg said other drugs in development target specific KRAS subtypes. Other approaches in earlier stages of testing include vaccines designed to prevent recurrence after pancreatic cancer surgery by teaching the immune system to recognize the mutated protein.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - This undated microscope image from USC via the NIH shows pancreatic cancer cells, nuclei in blue, growing as a sphere encased in membranes, red. (Min Yu/Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, File)