Israel-Gaza war live updates: WHO denounces ‘effective destruction’ of Kamal Adwan Hospital

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to meet Israeli officials during his tour of the region, which began with stops in Kuwait and Bahrain. He intends to discuss how Israel plans to mitigate civilian harm and what the next phase of the war will look like, the Defense Department said.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday announced the discovery of one of the largest and longest Hamas tunnels ever found in Gaza. The cement-walled network is 2½ miles long, spokesmen said, and stopped a quarter-mile from the Israeli border, near the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. It was unclear whether Israel knew about the tunnel before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. In a news briefing, the IDF spokesmen said the tunnel supported the attack, but they did not say how.

Telecommunications were gradually being restored in parts of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, after a three-day blackout that the cybersecurity monitoring firm NetBlocks said was the longest on record since the war began Oct. 7. “Service remains significantly below pre-conflict levels,” it said on social media.

Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, said in a phone interview that Israel struck three buildings in Jabalya on Sunday evening. As of 8 p.m. local time that day, 30 people were dead, 20 were injured and more than 100 were reported to be under the rubble, he said. The IDF did not respond to a request for comment.

At least 18,787 people have been killed in Gaza and 50,897 wounded since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.