Israel-Gaza war news: U.N. agency calls Gaza ‘a living hell’; U.S. official heads to Israel

Biden met Wednesday with relatives of U.S. nationals held captive in Gaza, including Aviva Siegel, who was released by Hamas last month and whose husband is still thought to be in captivity. Officials say there are at least eight remaining hostages with American citizenship.

Almost half the population of Gaza — about a million people — are now squeezed into Rafah at the Egyptian border, Lynn Hastings, the top U.N. humanitarian official for the occupied Palestinian territories, said Wednesday. The health system has collapsed, she said, and Gaza is experiencing a “public health disaster.”

Britain and the United States imposed a new round of sanctions targeting Hamas on Wednesday, including on individuals in Turkey and elsewhere whom the U.S. Treasury has accused of representing the militant group’s financial interests.

Amid deteriorating ties between Israel and the United Nations, Josep Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, on Wednesday defended the United Nations and Secretary General António Guterres. He said while people can disagree with Guterres’s call for a cease-fire in Gaza, it cannot be argued that in doing so, he becomes a “threat to peace.”

At least 18,608 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 50,594 wounded since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.