Live updates | More Palestinians fleeing combat zone in northern Gaza, UN says

The pace of Palestinian civilians fleeing the combat zone in northern Gaza has picked up as Israel’s air and ground campaign there intensifies. The pace appeared to be greater Wednesday, after the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said about 15,000 people fled Tuesday, compared to 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday.

The densely populated northern area of Gaza, specifically Gaza City and adjacent crowded urban refugee camps, are the focus of Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. The war, now in its second month, was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

The number of Palestinians killed in the war passed 10,500, including more than 4,300 children, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said.

In the occupied West Bank, more than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the violence and Israeli raids. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 239 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.

Currently:

— US launches airstrike on site in Syria in response to Iranian-backed militia attacks on bases housing U.S. troops

— Israel pressured by allies over plight of civilians in Gaza as thousands flee enclave’s north

— Americans divided over Israel response to Hamas attacks, AP-NORC poll shows

— U.S. House of Representatives censures only Palestinian American in Congress

— Blinken urges united future Palestinian government for Gaza and West Bank, widening gulf with Israel

— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

US LAUNCHES STRIKE ON SITE IN SYRIA IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKS BY IRANIAN-BACKED MILITIAS

WASHINGTON — The U.S. launched an airstrike Wednesday on a facility in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation to an increasing number of attacks over the past several weeks on bases housing U.S. troops, the Pentagon said.

Two U.S. F-15 fighter jets carried out the strike on a weapons storage facility linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

President Joe Biden "directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that the U.S. has bombed facilities used by the militant groups, many operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which U.S. officials say have carried out at least 40 such attacks in the region since Oct. 17.

UN RIGHTS CHIEF SAYS GAZA TURNED INTO A ‘LIVING NIGHTMARE’ BY ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

GENEVA — The U.N. human rights chief said collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians and their forced evacuation, as well as atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups on Oct. 7 and their continued holding of hostages, amount to war crimes.

Volker Türk, standing in front of Egypt's Rafah border crossing into Gaza, told reporters Wednesday: “These are the gates to a living nightmare.”

“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue,” he said later in Cairo.

Türk said international human rights and humanitarian law must be respected to help protect civilians and allow desperately needed aid to reach Gaza’s beleaguered population of some 2.3 million people.

He said the U.N. rights office received reports in recent days about an unspecified orphanage in northern Gaza with 300 children who need urgent help, but communications were down and access were impassable and unsafe, so “we cannot get to them.”

“I feel, in my innermost being, the pain, the immense suffering of every person whose loved one has been killed in a kibbutz, in a Palestinian refugee camp, hiding in a building or as they were fleeing,” Türk said. “We all must feel this shared pain — and end this nightmare.”

GAZA HOSPITALS STRAIN UNDER ISRAELI SIEGE, WITH PREMATURE BIRTHS ON THE RISE

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza City — Hospitals in Gaza are nearing collapse under Israel's wartime siege, which has cut power and deliveries of food, fuel and other necessities to the territory.

Inside the maternity department at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the workload has doubled because of the mass displacement from Gaza’s north. That's according to neonatal specialist Dr. Asaad al-Nawajha, who said Wednesday his team has seen an increase in premature births as the monthlong war intensifies.

Shouq Hararah is one of those mothers. She says her delivery took place with “no proper birth procedures, no anesthesia, painkillers or anything.”

“I gave birth to twins. The boy was discharged, but the girl remains in the maternity ward,” she said.

Standing before a row of beeping incubators, al-Nawajha emphasized the war's life-threatening consequences.

“All of our work depends on electricity; all the machines you see here rely on it,” the doctor said. “When the electricity is cut, these devices stop working, and all the babies will face certain death.”

SYRIA SAYS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES HIT MILITARY POSITIONS

Israel airstrikes hit several Syrian military positions late Wednesday, Syrian state media reported.

Quoting an unnamed military source, state news agency SANA said the strikes caused material damage, and did not mention any casualties nor the locations where the airstrikes took place. Pro-government radio station Sham FM said the sounds of explosions could be heard in southeast Sweida province and in some suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

Meanwhile, Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike in Sweida province targeted an air defense and radar unit, while at least three strikes in suburbs near Damascus were not far from Syria’s military airbase and wounded three people, without giving further details.

Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment next door, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of neighboring Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them. Israel did not immediately comment on the alleged airstrikes.

93 ROMANIANS WHO ESCAPED GAZA FLY TO BUCHAREST

BUCHAREST, Romania — A group of 93 Romanian citizens landed Wednesday evening at an airbase near Romania’s capital on a flight from Egypt after being evacuated from the Gaza Strip.

The specially chartered flight touched down at Base 90 at Bucharest’s Otopeni Airport around 10.00 p.m. local time. The plane also brought back 36 Moldovan citizens, according to Romania’s foreign ministry.

Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had flown to Egypt earlier on Wednesday to meet the evacuees and returned with them on the flight to Romania.

“I was overwhelmed to see the joy and hope in the eyes of the children who escaped the hell in Gaza,” Ciolacu wrote on Facebook after arriving in Egypt. “The Romanian Government will continue to act to facilitate the evacuations by all the means at our disposal.”

Another 51 Romanians have also been granted permission to leave Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, the foreign ministry said, but did not specify when.

Six Romanians who hold dual Romanian-Israeli citizenship are among the hostages held by Hamas. Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, at least five Romanian citizens have been confirmed killed.

BRAZIL STOPS TERROR PLOT AGAINST JEWISH COMMUNITY, OFFICIAL SAYS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Authorities in Brazil foiled a terror plot on Wednesday when they arrested two people in Sao Paulo state, the Federal Police said in a statement.

The two suspects were recruited and financed by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and planned to target buildings tied to the Jewish community, according to an official with information about the plot who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The police statement did not give details about the suspects. It said police also executed 11 search warrants in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and the Federal District that were aimed at obtaining proof of possible recruitment of Brazilians for carrying out extremist acts in the country, adding that it was targeting both recruits and recruiters.

Local paper O Globo reported that police arrested one of the two suspects when they returned to the international airport in Sao Paulo, with information in hand to carry out the attack. There are two additional targets for arrest in Lebanon, the paper reported, without saying how it obtained that information.

The Brazilian Israelite Confederation celebrated the police operation on X, formerly Twitter.

“The tragic conflicts in the Middle East cannot be imported into our country, where different communities live peacefully, harmoniously and without fear of terrorism,” the group said.

Brazil has one of the world’s largest Lebanese populations; most estimates put their total well above that of Lebanon itself.

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Associated Press writer David Biller contributed.

US DRONE SHOT DOWN BY YEMEN'S HOUTHI REBELS

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. drone was shot down by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Wednesday, according to the Iran-backed group’s military arm and a senior U.S. military official.

The Houthis said it was an MQ-9 Reaper drone that was in Yemeni air space and was shot down by air defenses. The senior U.S. official said the military is still analyzing the episode, including whether the drone was in international airspace or over Yemen. A second U.S. official said the MQ-9 Reaper was over international waters when it was shot down. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The Houthis have fired at least four batches of drones and missiles toward southern Israel since Oct. 7. The group controls the capital and much of northern and western Yemen where the majority of the county's population lives.