Health officials in Gaza say four international aid workers and their Palestinian driver were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike while driving in central Gaza.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry said the aid workers were with the charity World Central Kitchen, or WCK, and included a British, Australian and Polish national. The nationality of the fourth international worker was not known.
A paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent told The Associated Press that the aid workers' car was hit as they were returning from northern Gaza, where they helped to deliver aid that had arrived hours earlier on a ship from Cyprus.
"We are aware of reports that members of the World Central Kitchen team have been killed in an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] attack while working to support our humanitarian food delivery efforts in Gaza," WCK posted on the social media platform X. "This is a tragedy. Humanitarian aid workers and civilians should NEVER be a target. EVER."
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was "conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident." It said it had been "been working closely with WCK" to provide aid to Palestinians.
Earlier Monday, U.S. and Israeli officials held virtual talks about Israel's plan for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza to root out more Hamas fighters, a prospective attack the U.S. opposes for fear it would endanger the more than 1.3 million Palestinians sheltering there.
Following the talks, the White House said Israel would take "into account" U.S. concerns over the planned offensive.
In a statement, the White House said the two sides had a "constructive engagement on Rafah" during two hours of videoconference talks, attended by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The Israeli officials who attended the meeting included national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Minster for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, according to the White House.
"The U.S. side expressed its concerns with various courses of action in Rafah. The Israeli side agreed to take these concerns into account and to have follow up discussions," the statement said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that "there is no victory without entering Rafah, and there is no victory without eliminating the Hamas battalions there." Netanyahu has approved a military operational plan for an attack.
Israel has said it would protect the Palestinians from new warfare in Rafah, located just north of Gaza-Egyptian border, but has given no public indication where it would move them.
Most of the Palestinians sheltering in the area were ordered to move there by the Israeli military to escape clashes in northern Gaza in the earliest weeks of the 6-month-old conflict.
The high-level U.S.-Israeli talks took place a week after Netanyahu at first called them off in protest of the U.S. failure to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. abstained from the vote on the resolution a week ago, allowing it to pass, after previously vetoing other similar resolutions.
Following Monday's secure video conference, the U.S. said it expected that "expert teams" would hold further talks in person.
The U.S. has been Israel's staunchest ally in the fight against Hamas, which started the war with its shock October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 32,700 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, although the Israeli military says a third of those killed have been militants.
The Israeli military said Monday its forces withdrew from the area of the Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza after completing an operation there.
The withdrawal comes two weeks after Israeli forces launched the operation at Gaza's largest hospital, accusing Hamas commanders of using the site to conduct terror operations.
The Israeli military has said it killed 200 militants near the hospital, where it carried out both ground fighting and airstrikes.
Bodies were found inside and outside of the hospital complex as people returned to the site following the departure of Israeli tanks and troops.
Much of Gaza has been left in ruins by the Israeli offensive aimed at defeating the Hamas terrorist group. Many of the Palestinians sheltering in Rafah traveled there from other parts of Gaza in search of safety.
An Israeli airstrike on Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza killed four people and wounded 17 others, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday in a post on X.
Tedros called for an end of Israel's attacks on hospitals in the enclave and for the "protection of patients, health personnel and humanitarian missions."
The strike on a tent camp inside the hospital compound was witnessed by a WHO team that was on a humanitarian mission there assessing the needs and collecting incubators for the north of Gaza, the WHO chief wrote, adding: "WHO staff are all accounted for."
Thousands of people have been sheltering around the hospital after the fighting forced them to flee their homes.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
