The Latest | Israeli airstrikes on Rafah kill at least 22 people, Palestinian health officials say

Palestinian health officials say Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah have killed at least 22 people, including six women and five children

The Latest | Israeli airstrikes on Rafah kill at least 22 people, Palestinian health officials sayBy The Associated PressThe Associated Press

Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah have killed at least 22 people, including six women and five children, Palestinian health officials said. One of the children killed in the strikes overnight into Monday was just 5 days old.

Israel has regularly carried out airstrikes on Rafah since the start of the war and has threatened to send in ground troops, saying Rafah is the last major Hamas stronghold in the coastal enclave. Over a million Palestinians have sought refuge in the city on the Egyptian border. The United States and others have urged Israel not to invade, fearing a humanitarian catastrophe.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday begins his seventh diplomatic mission to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war began more than six months ago.

Blinken’s visit — which includes a little more than a day in Saudi Arabia before stops in Jordan and Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday — comes amid renewed concerns about the conflict spreading in the Middle East and with once-promising prospects for Israeli-Saudi rapprochement effectively on hold as Israel refuses to consider one of the Saudis’ main conditions for normalized relations: the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women.

Currently:

— Hamas is reviewing an Israeli proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, as a planned Rafah offensive looms

— Biden and Netanyahu speak as pressure is on Israel over planned Rafah invasion and cease-fire talks

— Blinken is back in the Middle East this week. He has his work cut out for him

— Top French diplomat arrives in Lebanon in attempt to broker a halt to Hezbollah-Israel clashes

— Arrests roil US campuses nationwide ahead of graduation as protesters demand Israel ties be cut

— AP’s full coverage of Israel-Hamas war

Here is the latest:

ISRAELI OFFICIALS APPEAR INCREASINGLY CONCERNED ICC MAY ISSUE ARREST WARRANTS

JERUSALEM — Israeli officials appear to be increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants against the country’s leaders.

The ICC launched a probe three years ago into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian militants going back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, but it has given no indication such warrants are imminent. There was no comment from the court on Monday.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said late Sunday that it had informed Israeli missions of “rumors” that warrants might be issued against senior political and military officials.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said “we expect the court to prevent the issuance of arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials,” saying such warrants would “provide a morale boost” to Hamas and other groups that Israel is fighting.

A series of Israeli announcements in recent days about allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza appears to be aimed in part at heading off possible ICC action.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.”

“The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it,” he posted on the social platform X. It was not clear what prompted the post.

The ICC investigation covers allegations going back to the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, as well as Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements in occupied territory that the Palestinians want for a future state.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said during a visit to the region in December that the investigation is “moving forward at pace, with rigor, with determination and with an insistence that we act not on emotion but on solid evidence.”

Neither Israel nor its close ally the United States accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, but any warrants could put Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries. They would also serve as a major rebuke of Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.

The International Court of Justice, a separate body, is investigating whether Israel has committed acts of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza, with any ruling expected to take years. Israel has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and accused both international courts of bias.

HAMAS’ MILITARY WING SAYS IT ATTACKED AN ISRAELI ARMY POST FROM SOUTHERN LEBANON

BEIRUT — Hamas’ military wing says it hit an Israeli army post from southern Lebanon.

The Qassam Brigades said in a statement that the Monday morning shelling of the army command in northern Israel was in retaliation for “the massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza.”

Hamas has fired rockets from Lebanon on several occasions since the Israel-Hamas war started in October.

The militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas, has also attacked Israeli army posts from Lebanon. Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily strikes with Israeli forces in the border region — and sometimes beyond — for almost seven months.

More than 350 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 273 Hezbollah fighters and more than 50 civilians. On the Israeli side, 12 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed.

ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES KILL AT LEAST 22 PEOPLE IN RAFAH, PALESTINIAN OFFICIALS SAY

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah have killed at least 22 people, including six women and five children, Palestinian health officials say. One of the children killed in the strikes overnight into Monday was just 5 days old.

Israel has regularly carried out airstrikes on Rafah since the start of the war and has threatened to send in ground troops, saying Rafah is the last major Hamas stronghold in the coastal enclave. Over a million Palestinians have sought refuge in the city on the Egyptian border. The United States and others have urged Israel not to invade, fearing a humanitarian catastrophe.

The overnight strikes hit three family homes. The first killed 11 people, including four siblings aged 9 to 27, according to records at the Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, where the bodies were taken. The second strike killed eight people, including a 33-year-old father and his 5-day-old boy, according to hospital records. The third strike killed three siblings, aged 23, 19 and 12. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies at the hospital.

Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in densely populated areas. But the military rarely accounts for individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

BLINKEN BEGINS HIS SEVENTH DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO THE MIDDLE EAST SINCE WAR BEGAN

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday begins his seventh diplomatic mission to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war began more than six months ago.

Just ahead of Blinken’s visit — which includes a little more than a day in Saudi Arabia before stops in Jordan and Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday — President Joe Biden spoke by phone Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blinken’s trip comes amid renewed concerns about the conflict spreading in the Middle East and with once-promising prospects for Israeli-Saudi rapprochement effectively on hold as Israel refuses to consider one of the Saudis’ main conditions for normalized relations: the creation of a Palestinian state.

The conflict has fueled mass protests around the world that have spread to American college campuses. U.S. support for Israel, particularly arms transfers, has come under particular criticism, something the administration is keenly aware poses potential problems for Biden in an election year.

BIDEN SPEAKS WITH NETANYAHU AGAIN AS PRESSURE BUILDS FOR CEASE-FIRE

TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. President Joe Biden has again spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said Sunday, as pressure builds on Israel and Hamas to reach a deal that would free some Israeli hostages and bring a cease-fire in the nearly seven-month-long war in Gaza.

The White House said that Biden reiterated his “clear position” as Israel plans to invade Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah despite global concern for more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there. The U.S. opposes the invasion on humanitarian grounds, straining relations between the allies. Israel is among the countries U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit as he returns to the Middle East on Monday.

Biden also stressed that progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza be “sustained and enhanced,” according to the statement. The call lasted just under an hour, and they agreed the onus remains on Hamas to accept the latest offer in negotiations, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to comment publicly.

There was no comment from Netanyahu’s office.