US President Joe Biden also publicly warned Israel for the first time, in a CNN interview on May 8 that the United States would withhold arms supplies if Israeli forces carried out a threatened assault on the Gaza city of Rafah, given this could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians there.
The war erupted on October 7 when the terror group launched its devastating onslaught on southern communities, murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 252 hostages back to the enclave.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says nearly 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 15,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Two hundred and seventy-one soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. READ MORE