By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAM METZ and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Friday it plans to take over Gaza City — in what would be an escalation of its 22-month war with Hamas that drew a dismissal from the group, renewed international calls to end the conflict, and stirred fears for hostages still held in Gaza.

Related Articles

Ukrainian troops have little hope for peace as Trump’s deadline for Russia arrives

Today in History: August 8, Nixon announces his resignation

Scientists thought this Argentine glacier was stable. Now they say it’s melting fast

Netanyahu says Israel plans to take over all of Gaza in bid to destroy Hamas

How India ended up facing steep US tariffs despite its strategic partnership

Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The timing of another major ground operation remains unclear since it will likely hinge on mobilizing thousands of troops and forcibly evacuating civilians, almost certainly exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, mediators from Egypt and Qatar are working on a new framework that will include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go in return for an end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip, two Arab officials told the Associated Press.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier outlined more sweeping plans in an interview with Fox News, saying Israel planned to take control of all of Gaza. Israel already controls around three-quarters of the territory.

Hamas rejected Israel’s current plans in a statement. “Expanding of aggression against our Palestinian people will not be a walk in the park,” the group said.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Netanyahu had signaled plans for even broader war

An expanded offensive could widen discord between Israel and international powers, which have intensified criticism of the war amid reports of famine in Gaza but largely stopped short of concrete action. Australia and the United Kingdom urged Israel to reconsider.

Palestinians struggle to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israel’s “decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement. “It will only bring more bloodshed. … Both parties must step away from the path of destruction.”

Tensions could rise further if Netanyahu follows through on the more sweeping plans to take control of the entire territory.

Israel’s current plan, announced after the Security Cabinet met through Thursday night, stopped short of that, and may be aimed in part at pressuring Hamas to accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms.

It may also reflect the reservations of Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who reportedly warned that expanding operations would endanger the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and further strain Israel’s army after nearly two years of regional wars.

The military “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after the meeting.

Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Asked in the interview with Fox News ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting if Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there.”

“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” Netanyahu said.

Hamas triggered the war when they stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 in an act of terrorism, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 people. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza. Israel believes around 20 of them to be alive.

Mediators try again to end the war

The new efforts for a ceasefire have the backing of major Arab Gulf monarchies, the officials said, as they are concerned about further regional destabilization if Israel’s government proceeds with a full reoccupation of Gaza, two decades after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the strip.

The officials spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the discussions. One is involved directly in the deliberations and the second was briefed on the efforts.

The yet-to-be finalized framework aims to address the contentious issue of what to do with Hamas’ weapons, with Israel seeking full disarmament and Hamas refusing. The official directly involved in the efforts said discussions are underway about “freezing arms,” which may involve Hamas retaining but not using its weapons. It also calls for the group to relinquish power in the strip.

A Palestinian-Arab committee would run Gaza and oversee the reconstruction efforts until the establishment of a Palestinian administration with a new police force, trained by two U.S. allies in the Middle East, to take over the strip, he said. It is unclear what role the Western-backed Palestinian Authority would play.

The second official said that a powerful Gulf country is supporting the efforts.

A senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media, said the group’s leadership has been aware of the Arab mediators’ efforts to revive the ceasefire talks, but has yet to receive details.

AP reached out to the governments in Qatar, Egypt and Israel for comment.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff told hostage families during his recent visit that Israel was shifting its approach to pursue a comprehensive “all-or-nothing” deal aimed at ending the war and securing the release of hostages, a person who attended the meeting told the AP, speaking on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak about the private meeting.

‘There is nothing left to occupy’

Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to neighborhoods again and again as militants regrouped. Today, it is one of the few areas in Gaza that hasn’t been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders.

A major ground operation there could displace tens of thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the hunger-stricken territory.

It’s unclear how many people reside in the city, which was Gaza’s largest before the war. Hundreds of thousands fled under evacuation orders in the opening weeks of the conflict, but many returned during a ceasefire at the start of this year.

Palestinians were already anticipating even more suffering ahead of the decision, and at least 42 were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings on Thursday, according to local hospitals.

“There is nothing left to occupy,” said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. “There is no Gaza left.”

Of those killed Thursday, Nasser Hospital said at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where U.N. aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by hungry crowds and people stealing food to resell it. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to the hospital, which received the bodies.

GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday. Israel’s military said its forces did not fire in the morning and that it knew of no encounters in the area. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.

Israel’s military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals.

The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry’s figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Joseph Krauss in Ottawa, Ontario, contributed.

Today is Friday, Aug. 8, the 220th day of 2025. There are 145 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day.

Also on this date:

In 1814, during the War of 1812, peace talks between the United States and Britain began in Ghent, Belgium.

Related Articles

Judge stops hazardous waste shipments to Michigan landfill from five states

Neo-Nazi group leader sentenced to 20 years in prison for planned Maryland power grid attack

Hubble Space Telescope takes best picture yet of the comet visiting from another solar system

Roblox rolls out open-source AI system to protect kids from predators in chats

OpenAI launches GPT-5, a potential barometer for whether AI hype is justified

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena to spend the remainder of his days in exile.

In 1876, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric pen—the forerunner of the mimeograph machine.

In 1908, Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers’ first public flying demonstration, at Le Mans racecourse in France.

In 1911, President William Howard Taft signed a measure raising the number of U.S. representatives from 391 to 433, effective with the next Congress, with a proviso to add two more when New Mexico and Arizona became states.

In 1963, Britain’s “Great Train Robbery” took place as thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.

In 1969, photographer Iain Macmillan took the iconic photo of The Beatles that would appear on the cover of their album “Abbey Road.”

In 1988, Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted its first-ever night baseball game; the contest between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies would be rained out in the fourth inning.

In 2000, the wreckage of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864 after attacking the Union ship Housatonic, was recovered off the South Carolina coast and returned to port.

In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third female justice.

In 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida; over 13,000 government documents, including 103 classified documents, were seized.

In 2023, a series of wind-driven wildfires broke out on the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the town of Lahaina and killing more than 100 people.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Nita Talbot is 95.
Actor Dustin Hoffman is 88.
Actor Connie Stevens is 87.
Actor Larry Wilcox is 78.
Actor Keith Carradine is 76.
Movie director Martin Brest is 74.
Radio-TV personality Robin Quivers is 73.
Percussionist Anton Fig is 72.
Actor Donny Most is 72.
Rock musician Dennis Drew (10,000 Maniacs) is 68.
TV personality Deborah Norville is 67.
Rock musician The Edge (U2) is 64.
Rock musician Rikki Rockett (Poison) is 64.
Rapper Kool Moe Dee is 63.
Rock singer Scott Stapp is 52.
Country singer Mark Wills is 52.
Actor Kohl Sudduth is 51.
Rock musician Tom Linton (Jimmy Eat World) is 50.
Singer JC Chasez (‘N Sync) is 49.
Actor Tawny Cypress is 49.
R&B singer Drew Lachey (lah-SHAY’) (98 Degrees) is 49.
R&B singer Marsha Ambrosius is 48.
Actor Lindsay Sloane is 48.
Actor Countess Vaughn is 47.
Actor Michael Urie is 45.
Tennis player Roger Federer is 44.
Actor Meagan Good is 44.
Britain’s Princess Beatrice of York is 37.
Actor Ken Baumann is 36.
Pop singer Shawn Mendes is 27.

Pantera didn’t headline Minneapolis’ Target Center on Thursday night, but a reasonable facsimile of the groove metal pioneers did.

Lead singer Phil Anselmo was the first to admit it, announcing to the crowd early on that “everything we do is for Dimebag and Vinnie,” a reference to the late Abbott brothers, who founded the group under their stage names Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. Because, really, those two were the heart of Pantera, who broke up in 2003 amid ongoing problems between the brothers and Anselmo. (Dimebag was murdered onstage in 2004 by an unstable fan, while Vinnie died of heart failure in 2018.)

In 2022, Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown announced they were reuniting with the help of two high-profile metal veterans who also happened to be close to the Abbotts: Zakk Wylde, who is best known as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante.

Thursday marked Pantera’s first local arena headlining gig in two dozen years. (The foursome opened for Metallica last year at U.S. Bank Stadium and also played a last-minute show at First Avenue.) While, again, it wasn’t the “real” Pantera, the band still turned in a fierce and fiery 90-minute performance that kept the crowd of about 10,000 glowing.

Anselmo’s Rob Halford-inspired vocals sounded as strong and heavy as ever, as if the 57-year-old hadn’t aged a day since Pantera’s heyday in the ’90s. He fondly remembered first playing the area in 1990 and said Minneapolis was one of the first cities to embrace the band. And in addition to his impressive vocal stamina, Anselmo also found time to knock out a meaty guitar solo during “Goddamn Electric.”

Wylde and Benante proved to be perfect additions to the band, which wasn’t too surprising given they’re two of the most talented players in the genre. Benante in particular impressed the crowd with his muscular, yet precise, drumming. (Two dudes sitting next to me were raving about him all night.)

The bulk of the songs in the set list came from Pantera’s two biggest albums, “Vulgar Display of Power” and “Far Beyond Driven,” but the other three core records each got at least one track aired. The fans ate them all up, from “Hellbound” to “Mouth for War” to “I’m Broken” to “Walk.”

The spirit of Osbourne, who died last month at age 76, was palpable throughout the entire show, which included opening sets from Amon Amarth and King Parrot. The Prince of Darkness got shout-outs from all three acts, which wasn’t too surprising given that Pantera postponed a pair of shows after his death to allow time for grieving. I’m guessing Ozzy would have approved.

Related Articles

What’s hot (Nine Inch Nails, Benson Boone) and not (Linkin Park, the Offspring) at local arenas this month

Concert review: Swedish metal band Ghost camps it up at Xcel Energy Center

Stevie Nicks moves August show at the X to November due to shoulder injury

Longtime Minnesota Orchestra board member Nancy E. Lindahl steps down as chair, donates $15 million

Kenny Chesney, Wynonna Judd and Steve Earle added to Farm Aid bill

By MELINA WALLING

An iconic Argentinian glacier, long thought one of the few on Earth to be relatively stable, is now undergoing its “most substantial retreat in the past century,” according to new research.

Related Articles

July was Earth’s third-warmest on record, EU scientists say

Trump’s push for drilling, mining sharpens debate for Alaska Natives about land they view as sacred

Great Barrier Reef records largest annual coral loss in 39 years

AI is fast-tracking climate research

New studies tie unrecognized deaths and health problems to Maui and LA wildfires

The Perito Moreno Glacier in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field for decades has been wedged securely in a valley. But it’s started losing contact with the bedrock below, causing it to shed more ice as it inches backward. It’s a change, illustrated in dramatic timelapse photos since 2020, that highlights “the fragile balance of one of the most well-known glaciers worldwide,” write the authors of the study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

They expect it to retreat several more kilometers in the next few years.

“We believe that the retreat that we are seeing now, and why it is so extreme in terms of values that we can observe, is because it hasn’t been climatically stable for a while now, for over a decade,” said Moritz Koch, a doctoral student at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and one of the study authors. “Now we see this very delayed response to climate change as it is slowly but surely detaching from this physical pinning point in the central part of the glacier.”

Koch and his team did extensive field work to get the data for their calculations. To measure ice thickness, they flew over the glacier in a helicopter with a radar device suspended beneath. They also used sonar on the lake and satellite information from above.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit Glaciar Perito Moreno, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. It’s a site known to “calve” ice chunks that fall into Lake Argentino below.

FILE – Tourists walk on the Perito Moreno Glacier at Los Glaciares National Park, near El Calafate, Argentina, Nov. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

The basic physics of climate change and glaciers are intuitive: heat melts ice, and global warming means more and faster glacial melting, said Richard Alley, an ice scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the study. But much like a dropped coffee mug, it’s harder to predict when and exactly how they’re going to break apart.

He said people who deny climate change frequently point to anomalies like Perito Moreno, which for a long time wasn’t retreating when most other glaciers were.

Even without climate change, glaciers fluctuate a bit. But if the climate were stable, ordinary accumulation of snow and ice would offset the melting and movement, said Erin Pettit, a glaciologist at Oregon State University who was also not involved in the study.

Glacial melting, especially at the poles, matters because it could cause catastrophic sea level rise, harming and displacing people living in coastal and island areas. While the changes can be locally spectacular in places like Patagonia, Alley said the bigger concern is using studies like this one to understand “what might happen to the big guys” in Antarctica.

But even smaller glaciers have a powerful presence in communities, Pettit said. Ice has carved out many of the landscapes people love today, and they are intimately tied to many cultures around the world. Glaciers can be a source of drinking water or, when they collapse, a destructive force leaving mudslides in their wake.

“We are losing these little bits of ice everywhere,” Pettit said. “Hopefully we’re slowly gaining more respect for the ice that was here, even if it’s not always there.”

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.