Israeli strikes kill 100 Palestinians in 24 hours as officials hold cease-fire talks

More than 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip over a 24-hour period, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Friday. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh held talks with Egyptian officials about a possible cease-fire in Gaza and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, according to a Hamas statement Friday morning.

During Hamas' Oct 7 attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on Oct 7 or died in captivity.

Israel's subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven some 80% of the territory's 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and around 1.5 million are packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.


European diplomats have ramped up calls for a cease-fire as alarm grows over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Currently:

• Israel plans to build 3,300 new settlement homes. It says it's a response to a Palestinian attack.
• Mideast cease-fire efforts gain steam as a US envoy visits. Mediators report encouraging' signs.
• Denmark records its highest number of antisemitic incidents since WWII, part of a grim European trend.
• A Houthi rebel attack sets a cargo ship ablaze and forces Israel to intercept another attack near Eilat.

Israel aims to build 3,300 new houses in settlements in the occupied West Bank
Israel plans to approve the construction of more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a senior Cabinet minister from the far-right wing of the government announced.

Approval of new construction is bound to elicit condemnation from the United States at a time when the relationship between the allies is fraught because of disagreements over the course of Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement late Thursday that the new construction is meant as a response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack near Jerusalem earlier in the day. He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant participated in the discussion leading to the decision.

The homes are to be built in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar, Smotrich said.

Consecutive Israeli governments have expanded settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank - war-won territories the Palestinians seek for a future state. Construction has accelerated under Netanyahu's current right-wing government, which includes settlers such as Smotrich in key positions.

Bliken says the US opposes settlement expansion
Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States believes that all new Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories is "illegitimate" under international law, reversing the Trump administration's repudiation of what had been long-standing U.S. policy.

Speaking in the Argentine capital, Blinken said the US was "disappointed" to learn of an Israeli announcement on Friday that it would build more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the West Bank in response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack.

Blinken condemned the attack but said the US is opposed to settlement expansion. He reversed what had been known as the "Pompeo Doctrine" under which former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had repudiated a Carter administration-era legal finding that settlements were not consistent with international law.

"It's been long-standing US policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace," Blinken told reporters at a joint news conference with Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino.

Blinken's predecessor, Pompeo, reversed the 1978 determination that was penned by the State Department's then-legal adviser Herbert Hansell. The Hansell Memorandum did not say that settlements were "illegal" but rather "illegitimate". That formed the basis of decades of US policy.