Live updates: US-backed group starts aid operations in Gaza while Israeli strikes pound region

A U.S.-backed group said it has opened a new aid system in Gaza and began delivering food to Palestinians on Monday while Israeli airstrikes continued to pound the territory, killing dozens.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is taking over the handling of desperately needed aid under a new, U.S. and Israeli-backed system despite concerns raised about the group from the United Nations and the recent resignation of its executive director.

Israel says more aid is entering Gaza after it blocked all food, medicine and fuel for 2 1/2 months. It let a trickle of aid enter last week after experts' warnings of famine and pressure from some top allies. It says Hamas has been siphoning off aid, but U.N. aid groups say there is no significant divergence of aid.

Israeli strikes on Monday killed dozens including children, local health officials said. Israel's military said it targeted militants.

Israel has vowed to seize control of Gaza and fight until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and exiled, and until the militant group returns the remaining 58 hostages seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 attack. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

Here's the latest:

New aid distribution underway

A new aid system in Gaza has opened its first distribution hubs in the territory.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it began delivering food to Palestinians at distribution sites on Monday. The aid comes at a times when Palestinians are facing growing hunger after Israel's nearly three-month blockade to pressure Hamas.

The group did not say how many truckloads of food had been delivered to its hubs or where the sites were operating.

It did say in statement that more trucks with aid will be delivered on Tuesday and that the amounts of aid will increase each day.

170 trucks with aid cross into Gaza

The Israeli military says 170 trucks with food, medicine and medical supplies crossed into the Gaza Strip on Monday.

It says the trucks belonging to the United Nations and other aid groups came in through the Kerem Shalom crossing after a rigorous security inspection.

After pressure from allies and warnings of famine, Israel started letting in some aid last week after a nearly three-month blockade. U.N. agencies say much more is needed, pointing out that around 600 trucks a day entered during the recent ceasefire to meet basic needs.

Colombia's new ambassador promises medical help for Palestinians

Colombia's newly appointed ambassador to the Palestinian territories says the South American nation is willing to provide medical treatment to ''thousands'' of Palestinians who have been injured during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Ambassador Jorge Ivan Ospina told The Associated Press that Colombia is particularly interested in providing medical treatment to children who have been wounded in Israeli strikes. He didn't say how patients would be evacuated to Colombia, or how Palestinian families could seek treatment there.

''The world cannot turn a blind eye'' to civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Ospina said. ''People cannot die of hunger. They must receive immediate medical attention and must be rehabilitated.''

Colombia, which backs a two-state solution to the conflict, broke off diplomatic ties with Israel last year.

Netanyahu says the government is advanc

ing plans to develop ‘all parts of Jerusalem'

The Israeli prime minister spoke at a special government meeting marking Israel's conquest of the city's eastern sector.

The meeting was held in a divisive east Jerusalem location known as The City of David. It is a popular archaeological and tourist site in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, with some of the oldest remains of the 3,000-year-old city. Critics accuse the site's operators of pushing a nationalistic agenda at the expense of local Palestinian residents.

At the meeting, the government approved a resolution to encourage and financially support foreign countries in establishing or relocating their embassies to Jerusalem, according to a joint statement by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Minister for Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Meir Porush.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to the city's most sensitive holy sites, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.

"Jerusalem, our eternal capital, was reunited 58 years ago in the Six-Day War. It will never be divided again,'' Netanyahu said in remarks at the start of the meeting. ''We will preserve a united, complete Jerusalem, and the sovereignty of Israel.''

Young Israeli nationalists march and chant 'Death to Arabs'

Groups of young Israelis made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem's Old City ahead of an annual march marking Israel's conquest of the eastern part of the city.

Palestinian shopkeepers had closed up early and police lined the narrow alleys ahead of the march, which often becomes rowdy and sometimes violent. The march commemorates Jerusalem Day, marking Israel's 1967 capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Police said they had detained a number of individuals to prevent confrontations.

Germany's chancellor says he doesn't understand what Israel is trying to achieve in Gaza

Friedrich Merz told a forum organized by WDR television that ''what the Israeli army is now doing in Gaza — I don't understand, to say it openly.''

"Affecting the civilian population to the extent that has increasingly been the case in recent days can no longer be justified by a fight against the terrorism of Hamas,'' Merz said.

Israeli protesters who stormed the UN compound are joined by a lawmaker

The Israeli protesters who stormed the UNRWA compound in east Jerusalem were joined by Yulia Malinovsky, one of the legislators behind an Israeli law that banned UNRWA.

Israel has accused the agency, which is the biggest aid provider in Gaza, of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the U.N.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli police.

UN agency for Palestinians says Israeli protesters have broken into its compound in east Jerusalem

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli protesters have broken into its compound in east Jerusalem.

UNRWA West Bank coordinator Roland Friedrich said around a dozen Israeli protesters, including a member of parliament, forcefully entered the compound on Monday.

Israeli far-right Cabinet minister visits flashpoint Jerusalem holy site

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Jewish worship was allowed at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site as he visited the holy hilltop compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

''Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount, to bow (in prayer) on the Temple Mount,'' he said, according to a statement from his office.

Palestinians and the broader Muslim world view Jewish visits to the sacred site as a provocation. An understanding between Israeli and religious authorities at the site holds that Jews cannot pray there.

Hamas warns Palestinians not to work with the new aid group backed by US and Israel

Hamas is warning Palestinians in Gaza not to cooperate with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, claiming that the group aims to further Israel's plans to transfer Gaza's population to other countries. Hamas didn't offer evidence for the claim.

U.N. agencies and aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, saying it would fail to meet Gaza's mounting needs, give Israel control over who receives aid and cause mass displacement by forcing Palestinians to relocate to distribution hubs.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visits Israel after Washington shooting

Noem's visit comes in solidarity with Israel after the fatal shooting in Washington last week of two Israeli Embassy employees.

Noem said that President Donald Trump had asked her to come to Israel after the shootings of Sarah Milgrim, an American citizen, and Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli. A suspect identified as Elias Rodriguez said he ''did it for Palestine,'' according to court papers.

Noem told Israel's leaders that Trump ''stands with you as we fight this hatred in the world.'' She said Milgrim and Lischinsky's lives ''will bring a unity among us that will help us defeat our enemies.''

The Israeli military says 3 projectiles have been fired from Gaza

The military says the projectiles were fired toward southern Israel. Two landed inside Gaza and one was intercepted by Israel's missile defense system.

Militants in Gaza still occasionally fire rockets toward Israel, a sign of their tenacity even after more than 19 months of grueling war in the territory and an intensifying Israeli offensive.

A US-backed group still plans to begin aid distribution in Gaza after its director resigns

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's executive director, Jake Wood, said he was stepping down because the GHF would not be allowed to operate independently.

The foundation — made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials — is the linchpin of a new aid system for Gaza that would wrest aid distribution away from aid groups who have traditionally carried out the task.

''Our trucks are loaded and ready to go,'' GHF said, adding that it plans to reach more than 1 million Palestinians by the end of the week.

Australia's prime minister calls Israel's blockade of Gaza aid ‘outrageous'

It was the strongest language to date from Anthony Albanese on the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

''It is outrageous that there be a blockade of food and supplies to people who are in need in Gaza,'' Albanese told reporters in the Australian capital Canberra on Monday.

Albanese said that Australia finds ''Israel's excuses and explanations completely untenable and without credibility.''

"People are starving, and the idea that a democratic state withholds supply is an outrage,'' he added.