Middle East conflict live updates: Israel renews fight in north Gaza, while advancing on Rafah in south

The United States has been vocal in its opposition to the Israeli ground operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians fled from earlier conflicts. Blinken spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday, reaffirming U.S. opposition to the Rafah operation and urging Israel to protect civilians, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

The Israel Defense Forces said fighter jets struck some 30 targets over the weekend in the Jabalya area in northern Gaza, where Hamas has regrouped after Israeli forces claimed victory after weeks of intense combat with militants last year. Blinken mentioned Khan Younis, a major city to the north, as another place where Hamas is coming back.

The renewed fighting is leaving Gazan civilians with “nowhere safe to go,” according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees. In the south, some 300,000 people have fled Rafah since the IDF first issued evacuation orders for the city on May 6, in some cases returning to places reduced to rubble in previous attacks.

The death toll has risen over 35,000 and 78,755 have been injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 272 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.