The Israeli military rescued two hostages in a dramatic raid under fire from the Gaza Strip early Monday, marking a small but symbolically significant success in its quest to bring home over 100 captives believed to be held by the Hamas militant group. At least 50 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes that were part of the raid, according to Palestinian hospital officials.

The raid took place in Rafah, the city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where 1.4 million Palestinians have fled to escape fighting elsewhere in the Israel-Hamas war.

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the hostages had been held in a second-floor apartment in Rafah, under guard from Hamas gunmen, both in the apartment and nearby buildings.

Hagari said special forces broke into the apartment under fire at 1:49 a.m. Monday, accompanied a minute later by a series of airstrikes on surrounding areas. He said members of the rescue team shielded the hostages with their bodies as a heavy battle erupted in several places at once with many Hamas gunmen.

The hostages were taken to a nearby “safe area” and given a quick medical check before being flown to a hospital in central Israel.

Women and children were among those killed in the Israeli strikes, according to Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital, and dozens were wounded.

Israel has described Rafah as the last remaining Hamas stronghold in Gaza after more than four months of war and signaled that its ground offensive may soon target the densely populated city. On Sunday, the White House said President Joe Biden had warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel should not conduct a military operation against Hamas in Rafah without a “credible and executable” plan to protect civilians.

The army identified the rescued hostages as Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, who it said were kidnapped by Hamas militants from Kibbutz Nir Yizhak in the Oct. 7 cross-border attack that triggered the war.

Both were airlifted to Sheba Hospital and were reported to be in good medical condition. They are just the second and third hostages to be rescued safely. A female soldier was rescued in November.

Hagari said the operation was based on precise intelligence and been planned for some time, but that rescuers were waiting for the right moment to act. Netanyahu joined Israel’s military chief and other top officials as the raid unfolded.

Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others in the Oct. 7 raid. An Israeli air and ground offensive has killed over 28,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, displaced over 80% of the population and led to a massive humanitarian crisis.

Over 100 hostages were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November. Israel says about 100 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, while Hamas is holding the remains of roughly 30 others who were either killed on Oct. 7 or died in captivity. Three hostages were mistakenly killed by the army after escaping their captors in December.

The remaining hostages are believed to be spread out and hidden in tunnels, likely in poor conditions. The rescue is a morale booster for Israelis, but it's a small step toward winning the release of all of them.

Har's son-in-law, Idan Bergerano, told Israel's Channel 13 TV that he and his wife were able to see the released captives at the hospital. He said the two men were thin and pale, but communicating well and aware of their surroundings. Bergernano said Har told him immediately upon seeing him: “You have a birthday today, mazal tov."

Israel has made the return of all hostages one of the main goals of the war. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with Israel's military offensive until a “total victory” that also includes destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities.

CONCERNS ABOUT RAFAH

The strikes hit around Rafah's Kuwait Hospital early Monday morning, an Associated Press journalist in Rafah said. Some of those wounded in the strikes had been brought to the hospital.

The Israeli military earlier said it struck “terror targets in the area of Shaboura” — which is a district in Rafah.

Netanyahu has said sending ground troops into Rafah is essential to meeting Israel's war goals. Biden has urged Israel to exercise extreme caution before moving in. An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza's population — are now crammed into Rafah, increasing its population five-fold. Hundreds of thousands of people are now living in sprawling tent camps and overcrowded U.N. shelters.

Biden's remarks, made in a phone call with Netanyahu late Sunday, were his most forceful language yet on the possible operation. Biden, who last week called Israel’s military response in Gaza “over the top,” also sought “urgent and specific” steps to strengthen humanitarian aid. Israel’s Channel 13 TV said the conversation lasted 45 minutes.

Discussion of the potential for a cease-fire agreement took up much of the call, a senior U.S. administration official said, and after weeks of diplomacy, a “framework” is now “pretty much” in place for a deal that could see the release of remaining hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a halt to fighting.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations, acknowledged that “gaps remain,” but declined to give details. The official said military pressure on Hamas in the southern city of Khan Younis in recent weeks helped bring the group closer to accepting a deal.

Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the call. Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television station earlier quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying any invasion of Rafah would “blow up” the talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Biden and Netanyahu spoke after two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Egypt threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if troops are sent into Rafah. The Camp David peace accords have been a cornerstone of regional stability for over 40 years. Egypt fears a mass influx of Palestinian refugees who may never be allowed to return.

WHERE WOULD CIVILIANS GO?

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries have also warned of severe repercussions if Israel goes into Rafah.

“An Israeli offensive on Rafah would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X. Human Rights Watch said forced displacement is a war crime.

Inside Rafah, some displaced people packed up again. Rafat and Fedaa Abu Haloub, who fled Beit Lahia in the north earlier in the war, placed their belongings onto a truck. “We don’t know where we can safely take him,” Fedaa said of their baby. “Every month we have to move.”

Om Mohammad Al-Ghemry, displaced from Nuseirat, said she hoped Egypt would not allow Israel to force Palestinians to flee into the Sinai “because we do not want to leave.”

Heavy fighting continues in central Gaza and Khan Younis.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that the bodies of 112 people killed across the territory had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The death toll is 28,176 since the start of the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but says most of those killed were women and children.

Israeli strikes hit Rafah after Biden warns Netanyahu to have 'credible' plan to protect civilians

A series of Israeli strikes early Monday hit Rafah, the city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where 1.4 million Palestinians have fled to escape fighting elsewhere in the four-month Israel-Hamas war.

Israel has been signaling its ground offensive in Gaza may soon target the densely populated city on the Egyptian border. On Sunday, the White House said President Joe Biden had warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel should not conduct a military operation against Hamas in Rafah without a “credible and executable” plan to protect civilians.

The strikes hit around Kuwait Hospital early Monday morning, an Associated Press journalist in Rafah said. Some of those wounded in the strikes had been brought to the hospital.

The Israeli military said it struck “terror targets in the area of Shaboura” — which is a district in Rafah. The military statement said the series of strikes had concluded, without elaborating on the targets or assessing the potential damage or casualties.

Palestinian health officials did not immediately offer any casualty information.

Biden's remarks were his most forceful language yet on the possible operation. Biden, who last week called Israel’s military response in Gaza “over the top,” also sought “urgent and specific” steps to strengthen humanitarian aid. Israel’s Channel 13 television said the conversation lasted 45 minutes.

Discussion of the potential for a cease-fire agreement took up much of the call, a senior U.S. administration official said, and after weeks of diplomacy, a “framework" is now “pretty much” in place for a deal that could see the release of remaining hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a halt to fighting.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations, acknowledged that “gaps remain,” but declined to give details. The official said military pressure on Hamas in the southern city of Khan Younis in recent weeks helped bring the group closer to accepting a deal.

Netanyahu's office declined to comment on the call. Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television station earlier quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying any invasion of Rafah would “blow up” the talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Biden and Netanyahu spoke after two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Egypt threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if troops are sent into Rafah, where Egypt fears fighting could push Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula and force the closure of Gaza's main aid supply route.

The threat to suspend the Camp David Accords, a cornerstone of regional stability for nearly a half-century, came after Netanyahu said sending troops into Rafah was necessary to win the four-month war against Hamas. He asserted that Hamas has four battalions there.

Over half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have fled to Rafah to escape fighting in other areas, and they are packed into tent camps and U.N.-run shelters. Egypt fears a mass influx of Palestinian refugees who may never be allowed to return.

Netanyahu told “Fox News Sunday” that there’s “plenty of room north of Rafah for them to go to” after Israel’s offensive elsewhere in Gaza, and said Israel would direct evacuees with “flyers, with cellphones and with safe corridors and other things.” But the offensive has caused widespread destruction, with little capacity to take in people.

The standoff between Israel and Egypt, two close U.S. allies, took shape as aid groups warned that an offensive in Rafah would worsen the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza. Around 80% of residents have fled their homes, and the U.N. says a quarter of the population faces starvation.

A ground operation in Rafah could cut off one of the only avenues for delivering food and medical supplies. Forty-four trucks of aid entered Gaza on Sunday, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority. About 500 entered daily before the war.

WHERE WOULD CIVILIANS GO?

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters on the sensitive negotiations. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries have also warned of severe repercussions if Israel goes into Rafah.

“An Israeli offensive on Rafah would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X. Human Rights Watch said forced displacement is a war crime.

Israel and Egypt fought five wars before signing the Camp David Accords, brokered by the U.S., in the late 1970s. The agreement includes provisions governing the deployment of forces on both sides of the heavily fortified border.

Egyptian officials fear that if the border is breached, the military would be unable to stop a tide of people fleeing into the Sinai Peninsula.

The United Nations says Rafah, normally home to fewer than 300,000 people, now hosts 1.4 million more and is “severely overcrowded.”

Inside Rafah, some displaced people packed up again. Rafat and Fedaa Abu Haloub, who fled Beit Lahia in the north earlier in the war, placed their belongings onto a truck. “We don’t know where we can safely take him,” Fedaa said of their baby. “Every month we have to move.”

Om Mohammad Al-Ghemry, displaced from Nuseirat, said she hoped Egypt would not allow Israel to force Palestinians to flee into the Sinai “because we do not want to leave.”

112 BODIES TAKEN TO GAZA HOSPITALS IN A DAY

Heavy fighting continues in central Gaza and Khan Younis.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that the bodies of 112 people killed across the territory had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The death toll is 28,176 since the start of the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but says most of those killed were women and children.

The war began with Hamas' attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, when Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250. Over 100 hostages were released during a cease-fire in November.

Hamas won't release more unless Israel ends its offensive and withdraws from Gaza. Netanyahu has ruled out both demands.

Israeli strikes kill 44 Palestinians in Rafah after Netanyahu warns of ground invasion

 Israeli airstrikes killed at least 44 Palestinians — including more than a dozen children — in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday, hours after Israel's prime minister said he had asked the military to plan for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people there ahead of a ground invasion.

Benjamin Netanyahu did not provide details or a timeline, but the announcement set off panic and warnings from diplomats. More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are packed into Rafah, many after following Israeli evacuation orders that now cover two-thirds of the territory. It's not clear where they could run next.

Israel says that Rafah, which borders Egypt, is the last remaining stronghold for the Hamas militant group in Gaza after more than four months of war sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned that any Israeli ground offensive on Rafah would have “disastrous consequences,” and asserted that Israel aims to eventually force the Palestinians out of their land.

Shoukry also said Egypt was working to bridge the gap between the warring sides to achieve a permanent cease-fire and free the remaining hostages taken on Oct. 7 in return for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. “The negotiations are complex,” he said.

There is increasing friction between Netanyahu and the United States, whose officials have said an invasion of Rafah without a plan for the civilian population would lead to disaster.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in Rafah almost daily, even after telling civilians in recent weeks to seek shelter there from the current ground combat in Khan Younis just to the north.

Overnight into Saturday, three airstrikes on homes in the Rafah area killed 28 people, according to a health official and Associated Press journalists who saw the bodies arriving at hospitals. Each strike killed multiple members of three families, including a total of 10 children, the youngest 3 months old.

Fadel al-Ghannam said one strike tore the bodies of his loved ones to shreds. He lost his son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren.

He fears even worse with a ground invasion of Rafah, and said the world's silence has enabled Israel to proceed. “To this day, the world has not been fair to us,” he said.

Later Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a home in Rafah killed at least 11 people, including three children, according to Ahmed al-Sawaf, head of Rafah municipality. The dead were taken to Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital, according to an AP journalist there. Two other strikes killed two policemen and three senior officers in the civil police, according to city officials.

In Khan Younis, Israeli forces opened fire at Nasser Hospital, the area’s largest, killing at least two people and wounding five, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

Israeli tanks reached the hospital gates Saturday morning, Ahmed Maghrabi, a physician at the hospital, said in a Facebook post.

Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said hospital staff are no longer able to move between buildings because of the intense fire. He said 300 medical personnel, 450 patients and 10,000 displaced people are sheltering there.

The Israeli military said troops were not currently operating inside the hospital and called the surrounding area “an active combat zone.”

Roughly 80% of Gaza’s people have been displaced, and the territory has plunged into a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food and medical services.

Gaza death toll tops 28,000

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that the bodies of 117 people killed in Israeli airstrikes were brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll from the offensive to 28,064, mostly women and children. The ministry said more than 67,000 people have been wounded.

Israel declared war after several thousand Hamas militants burst across the border into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,300 people and taking 250 others hostage. Not all are still alive.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths because it fights from within civilian areas, but U.S. officials have called for more surgical strikes. President Joe Biden said this week Israel's response is “over the top.”

Netanyahu's office says it is impossible to eliminate Hamas while leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah.

Egypt has warned that any movement of Palestinians into Egypt would threaten the four-decade-old peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The Rafah border crossing, which is mostly closed, serves as the main entry point for humanitarian aid.

Rafah had a prewar population of roughly 280,000, and the United Nations says it is now home to some 1.4 million additional people who fled fighting elsewhere.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that an Israeli offensive on Rafah would be a “humanitarian catastrophe in the making,” adding on X that “the people in Gaza cannot disappear into thin air.”

More deaths in northern Gaza

The Israeli offensive has caused widespread destruction, especially in northern Gaza, and hundreds of thousands of people no longer have homes.

In the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, two medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent were found dead in a destroyed ambulance Saturday after going missing 12 days ago. They had rushed to rescue 6-year-old Hind Rajab, who had been traveling with family to heed evacuation orders.

The PRC previously released a recording of a call from Hind’s cousin saying the car had come under fire and only she and Hind survived. The cousin went silent mid-call.The PRC said the rescue mission was coordinated with Israel’s military, which had no comment.