The Latest | Israeli soldier killed in cross-border fire with Hezbollah

Israel’s military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in northern Israel as the country’s army and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continue to trade cross-border fire.

The military did not specify how the 33-year-old sergeant was killed. The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been trading near daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last year.

The previous night, President Joe Biden acknowledged disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right government, but pointed to increased hopes of a cease-fire to end the Israel-Hamas war devastating the lives of Gaza’s people. Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for further talks with mediators on a proposed deal with Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday.

Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew following a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said that so far they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top United Nations court has ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians as it examines genocide allegations against Israeli leaders. Israel denies the charge.

Currently:

— Israeli army acknowledges Oct. 7 failures, including slow response times and disorganization.

— ‘We have nothing’: Palestinians return to utter destruction in Gaza City after Israeli withdrawal.

— The U.S. says the end of its pier for Gaza aid is coming soon.

— A boy in Gaza was killed by an Israeli airstrike. His father held him and wouldn’t let go.

— Head of U.S. aid agency says Israel has pledged to improve safety for humanitarian workers in Gaza.

— Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an Iranian missile at ship, debris analyzed by U.S. shows.

— Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s the latest:

Emergency workers collect bodies in Gaza City

Dozens of bodies collected throughout a western neighborhood of Gaza City arrived at Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning as Palestinian emergency workers said they continued to unearth the dead throughout the neighborhood’s destroyed streets and buildings.

The hospital’s director, Fadel Naem, told The Associated Press that people both dead and wounded had been brought to the hospital from the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, transported in groups of up to 10, amid sniper fire and the buzz of helicopters.

Meanwhile, emergency crews from the civil defense were continuing to recover bodies scattered in destroyed streets and buildings, where entire families appear to have been killed by artillery fire and aerial bombardment, Mahmoud Basal, the group’s spokesperson said.

The Israeli army said it could not comment on its activities in the area.

“There are homes that we cannot reach, and there are those who were burned inside their homes,” Basal said, noting many of those who were killed had left nearby shelters after being ordered to evacuate.

In recent months, Israel has intensified operations in various neighborhoods of Gaza City, including the Shati refugee camp and Shujaiya, and has issued multiple evacuation orders in the north of the territory.

The scenes in Tal al-Hawa mirror those in other Gaza City neighborhoods from which Israel’s military has withdrawn in recent days. On Thursday, civil defense workers found 60 bodies in Shujaiya under similar circumstances, with more believed to be buried under rubble.

Israeli soldier killed in cross-border fire with Hezbollah

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in northern Israel as the country’s army and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continue to trade cross-border fire.

The military did not specify how the 33-year-old sergeant was killed.

The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been trading near daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last year.

Hezbollah says it is striking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, another Iran-allied group that ignited the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. The group’s leadership says it will stop its attacks once there is a cease-fire in Gaza, and that while it does not want war, it is ready for one.

President Biden acknowledges disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right government

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden acknowledged disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right government Thursday, but pointed to increased hopes now of a cease-fire to end the Israel-Hamas war devastating the lives of Gaza’s people.

Biden looked back over the course of his efforts in Israel’s war against Hamas during a much-watched press conference at the site of the just ended NATO summit.

He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government the most conservative Israeli administration he had experienced, and said he had urged Israeli leaders not to follow the example that the U.S. set against al-Qaida and other extremist militant groups. “’Don’t think that’s what you should be doing, doubling-down,”’ he recounted telling them.

He said he had been “disappointed” his order for the U.S. military to build a pier to bring aid by sea to Gaza, along with some other efforts, “have not succeeded as well.”

But Biden said Israel and Hamas had now both agreed to the broad terms of a deal to pause fighting and free hostages, and said that made prospects brighter now. Mediators were helping work on gaps in agreement, he said.