Live updates on Day 15 of the Israel-Hamas war: Israel plans to step up attacks on the Gaza Strip
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Aid deliveries have begun moving into the besieged Gaza Strip, two weeks after the militant group Hamas rampaged through southern Israel and Israel responded with airstrikes.
Aid deliveries have begun moving into the besieged Gaza Strip, two weeks after the militant group Hamas rampaged through southern Israel and Israel responded with airstrikes.
Israel says Hamas has freed two American hostages who had been held in Gaza since the war began Oct. 7. Israeli airstrikes continued to hit southern Gaza, an area swollen by civilians who fled there from the north on Israeli instructions. Israel's military spokesman said the country planned to step up its attacks starting Saturday as preparation for the next stage of its war on Hamas.
The war, which is in its 15th day on Saturday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that the death toll has reached 4,385, while 13,561 people have been wounded.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Here's what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced late Saturday he was sending additional air defence systems to the Middle East as well as putting more troops on prepare-to-deploy orders.
Austin said the U.S. would be delivering a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery along with additional Patriot missile defence system batteries "to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. troops." Bases in Iraq and Syria have been repeatedly targeted by drones in the days since hundreds were killed in a hospital blast in Gaza, and the destroyer USS Carney intercepted land attack cruise missiles in the Red Sea shot from Yemen on Thursday.
