The Palestinian death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas has soared past 25,000, said the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, while the Israeli government appeared far from achieving its goals of crushing the militant group and freeing more than 100 hostages.
The level of death, destruction and displacement from the war is without precedent in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials say the fighting is likely to continue for several more months.
The conflict and the plight of hostages held in Gaza have divided Israelis and their leaders while the offensive threatens to ignite a wider war involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that support the Palestinians.
On Sunday, the Israeli Air Force carried out two series of strikes on “terrorist infrastructure,” including a military building, a launch post and an observation post belonging to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, the Israeli military said. Israel said it also struck several locations in southern Lebanon, including a Hezbollah command center and military compound.
Earlier, on Saturday, at least five Iranians were killed in an Israeli strike on Damascus, Syria’s capital city, which targeted a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, according to Syrian and Iranian officials.
And, on Thursday, Yemen-based Houthi rebels launched missiles at a merchant vessel owned by the United States, the Pentagon said, marking the latest attack from the militant group, which is similarly backed by Iran, on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. It was the rebel group’s third strike last week targeting U.S.-owned vessels.
Violence has also spiked in the occupied West Bank. On Friday, a Palestinian-American teenager was shot and killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank, a Palestinian official told Reuters.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah forces have engaged in near-daily clashes with Israeli troops along the border.
An Israeli airstrike on Sunday hit a car near a Lebanese army checkpoint in the southern town of Kafra, killing at least one person and injuring several others, Lebanese state media reported. The identities of those killed and injured were not immediately clear. Israel’s military said it doesn’t comment on reports in foreign media.
The United States, which has provided essential diplomatic and military support for Israel’s offensive, has had limited success in persuading Israel to minimize the risk to civilians and to facilitate the delivery of more humanitarian aid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected U.S. and international calls for postwar plans that would include a path to Palestinian statehood. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the refusal to accept a two-state solution “totally unacceptable.”
“The Middle East is a tinderbox. We must do all we can to prevent conflict igniting across the region,” Guterres added Sunday. “And that starts with an immediate humanitarian cease-fire to relieve the suffering in Gaza.”
The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages back to Gaza.
Protesters attempt to block a street during a demonstration to demand the release of the hostages taken by Hamas militants into the Gaza Strip during the Oct. 7th attack, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Jan. 20, 2024.LEO CORREA / AP
Israel responded with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that laid waste to entire neighborhoods in northern Gaza and spread south from there. Ground operations are now focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
Israel continues to carry out airstrikes throughout the besieged territory, including areas in the south where it told civilians to seek refuge. Many Palestinians have ignored evacuation orders, saying nowhere feels safe.
Since the war started, 25,105 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, while another 62,681 have been wounded, the Health Ministry said. The toll included the 178 bodies brought to Gaza’s hospitals since Saturday, Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said. Another 300 people were wounded in the past day, he said.
The overall toll is thought to be higher because many casualties remain buried under the rubble from Israeli strikes or in areas where medics cannot reach them, Al-Qidra said.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures but says around two-thirds of the people killed in Gaza were women and minors. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, but its casualty figures from previous wars were largely consistent with those of U.N. agencies and even the Israeli military.
The Israeli military says it has killed around 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and other militant infrastructure in dense neighborhoods, often near homes, schools or mosques.
The military says 195 soldiers have been killed since the start of the Gaza offensive.
The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s residents from their homes, with hundreds of thousands packing into U.N.-run shelters and tent camps in the southern part of the tiny coastal enclave. U.N. officials say a quarter of the population of 2.3 million is starving as a trickle of humanitarian aid reaches them because of the fighting and Israeli restrictions.
“Bread does not suffice for one hour,” said Ahmad Al-Nashawi, who accepted donated food at a camp of plastic tents in the southern city of Rafah. “You can see how many children we have other than women and men. What matters most for a child is to eat.”
Netanyahu has vowed to keep up the offensive until Israel achieves “complete victory” over Hamas and returns all remaining hostages. But even some top Israeli officials have begun to acknowledge that those goals might be mutually exclusive.
Hamas is believed to be holding the captives in tunnels and using them as shields for its top leaders. Israel has managed to rescue just one hostage, and Hamas says several have been killed in Israeli airstrikes or during failed rescue operations.
A member of Israel’s War Cabinet, former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, said last week that the only way to free the hostages was through a cease-fire. In an implicit criticism of Netanyahu, he said claims to the contrary amounted to “illusions.”
Hamas has said it will not free more hostages until Israel ends its offensive. The group is expected to make any further releases conditional on securing freedom for thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, including high-profile militants involved in attacks that killed Israelis.
An Israeli soldier visits the site where revelers were killed on Oct. 7 in a cross-border attack by Hamas at the Nova music festival in Re’im, Southern Israel, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024, during an event where friends and relatives are planting trees in memory of their loved ones.LEO CORREA / AP
Israel’s government has ruled that out for now, but it faces growing pressure from families of the hostages, who are pushing for an exchange like the one that took place during a weeklong November cease-fire.
Some Israelis also are frustrated by the security failures that preceded the Oct. 7 attack and by Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv over the weekend to call for new elections.
But Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners are pushing him to step up the offensive, with some calling for the “voluntary” emigration of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and the re-establishment of Jewish settlements there. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from the territory in 2005, two years before Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday accused the United States of violating a fragile ceasefire during the past 48 hours in the southern coastal province of Hormozgan, without specifying the incident.
The accusation comes after US Central Command said its forces had on Monday attacked missile sites and boats in southern Iran that were trying to lay mines in the Gulf, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it fired at US aircraft trying to enter its airspace.
“The US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire… has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement.
It added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation,” without elaborating.
Tuesday’s statement came as a top Iranian delegation was in Qatar for talks as part of a “diplomatic process” aimed at ending the war with the United States, which broke out on February 28
U.S. fighter jets have reportedly struck IRGC naval boats in the Gulf after Iranian forces allegedly targeted a vessel near Bandar Abbas.
U.S. Central Command confirms “self-defense strikes” were carried out against Iranian boats and missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz amid rising tensions in the region.
It was stated that the numbers of dead has increased from 9 to 15, with dozens still missing while others remain injured.
According to emerging reports, the strikes targeted IRGC maritime assets and defensive positions during what rapidly escalated into a major military confrontation in the region. Rescue and emergency operations are said to be ongoing as authorities continue searching for missing personnel.
Iranian and regional media report heavy explosions and gunfire near Bandar Abbas, while negotiations between Washington and Tehran continue in Qatar.
The situation is still developing, and some battlefield claims remain independently unverified.
Secret Service agents are seen after a lockdown was lifted at the White House
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A man who opened fire Saturday near a White House security checkpoint is dead after being shot by officers who returned fire, the U.S. Secret Service said. It was the third incidence of gunfire in the vicinity of President Donald Trump in the past month.
The law enforcement agency said in a statement posted on X that the man was in the area of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue when he “pulled a weapon from his bag” shortly after 6 p.m. EDT and began firing. Secret Service officers returned fire and hit the suspect, who died at a hospital, the agency said.
The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
According to District of Columbia court records, Best was arrested in July 2025 after he attempted to enter a different White House checkpoint without authorization, didn’t heed officers’ commands to stop, “claimed he was Jesus Christ” and said he wanted to be arrested.
An initial hearing was held and a “Pretrial Stay Away Order” was issued, typically a measure ordering a defendant not to go near a person or area before a trial. A bench warrant was issued in August after a notice of “noncompliance” against Best, who did appear for a subsequent hearing.
Latest gunfire incident around Trump
It was the third time in the past month that shots were fired near the president after incidents at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April and near the Washington Monument earlier in May.
A bystander was also struck on Saturday, but a law enforcement official said it wasn’t clear whether that person was hit by the suspect’s initial bullets or those fired subsequently by officers.
Secret Service said none of its officers were injured, and that Trump — who was at the White House at the time — was not “impacted.” Trump originally was scheduled to spend the weekend at his New Jersey golf club but changed his plans on Friday to stay at the White House instead.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that agency personnel were on the scene and “we will update the public as we’re able.”
Evidence of the shooting was visible on a sidewalk just outside the White House complex, where yellow crime scene tape snaked across the pavement and Secret Service officers placed dozens of orange evidence markers on the ground. Medical material, including what appeared to be purple surgical gloves and kits typically used by emergency medical personnel, were also seen.
Gunshots heard by journalists at the White House
Journalists working at the White House on Saturday evening reported hearing a series of gunshots and were told to seek shelter inside the press briefing room.
In a post shared on X, ABC News senior White House correspondent Selina Wang shared dramatic video of the moment she said she heard what “sounded like dozens of gunshots” and ducked for cover. Writing that she had been performing a routine task that White House reporters do daily — filming themselves on a cellphone for a social media post — Wang’s video shows her speaking for a few seconds about Trump’s statements earlier Saturday about a potential Iran deal.
As the sounds of gunfire are heard in the background, Wang’s eyes grow wider, and she ducks down in the media tent, which is among those situated in a line along the White House driveway where broadcasters film their reports. On X, Wang’s video had been shared thousands of times as of Saturday evening, and viewed at least 3 million times.
Shooting scene not far from a deadly incident last year
The shooting scene is within walking distance of where a gunman ambushed two members of the West Virginia National Guard last November.
U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from the wounds she suffered in that shooting. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, then 24, was critically wounded. Rahmanullah Lakanwal has been charged in that incident.
The gunfire Saturday came nearly a month after what law enforcement authorities said was an attempted assassination of the president as he attended the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at a Washington hotel on April 25. Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, recently pleaded not guilty to charges that he attempted to kill Trump. Allen is accused of running through a security checkpoint inside the hotel and firing a shotgun at a Secret Service officer.
Following that scare, Secret Service officers shot a suspect they said had fired at officers near the Washington Monument, several blocks from the White House. Michael Marx, 45, of Midland, Texas, was charged in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in connection with the May 4 shooting. A teenage bystander was wounded in that incident. AP
