The Israeli military said Wednesday it carried out airstrikes against Hamas militant sites in the Gaza Strip and military targets in Syria.
The military explained that the targets of the attacks in Gaza included Hamas tunnels, ammunition depots and missile launching stations.
Syrian state media reported that Israeli strikes killed eight Syrian soldiers and wounded seven others in Daraa province.
According to the Israeli Army report, the actions responded to rockets launched from Syria towards Israel.
The cross-border attacks took place amid concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a broader regional conflict.
Israel has warned Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon not to join the war.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, received senior leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad this Wednesday for talks. A statement said the leaders discussed what to do to achieve victory “for the resistance in Gaza.”
The UN’s Palestinian refugee aid agency warned that if it does not receive urgent shipments of fuel, it could be forced to halt its operations in Gaza on Wednesday.
Several rounds of aid deliveries arrived in Gaza from Egypt this week, but officials described the amount as grossly insufficient to meet the needs of Palestinians living with severe shortages of food, water and medicine. Shipments have not included fuel.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said nearly 600,000 people were taking shelter in 150 of its facilities in Gaza after fleeing their homes.
“Our shelters are four times over capacity; many people are sleeping on the streets because current facilities are overcrowded,” UNRWA said in X.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the death toll in Gaza after more than two weeks of conflict had reached at least 5,791 people, most of them women and children.
The Israeli government says more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, mostly civilians killed during the October 7 attack by Hamas militants.
Faced with the increasing death toll, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Tuesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, a position that led Israel to call for his resignation.
In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also rejected an immediate ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas militants.
However, Kirby did not rule out a humanitarian pause to allow more aid to reach Gaza to help hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
As Israel plans a ground attack on Gaza, Kirby warned of more bloodshed and civilian casualties to come.
“This is war. It’s combat. It’s bloody. It’s ugly and it’s going to be complicated,” he told reporters at the White House. “And innocent civilians are going to get hurt in the future. I wish I could tell them something different. I wish that didn’t happen.”
(With information from AP, AFP and Reuters)