2 hostages were murdered after being featured in Hamas video, kibbutz says

Israeli hostages Itay Svirsky and Yossi Sharabi, among more than 240 people kidnapped Oct. 7, were murdered by Hamas and their bodies are being held by the militant group in Gaza, the Kibbutz Be'eri said.

Earlier this week Hamas released videos showing Sharabi, 53, Svirsky, 38, and Noa Argamani, 26, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the military mission in Gaza. They say they don't have enough food or water and are endangered by Israel's airstrikes. The videos include a shot of what appears to be the bodies of Svirsky and Sharabi, and Argamani saying they were killed and she was wounded by airstrikes.

The White House accused Hamas of "cruelty and barbarism" for releasing the videos.

"The loss and suffering of the families is enormous and unimaginable,” the kibbutz said. “We call on the war Cabinet to do everything to return the members of the Sharabi family home as well as the other abductees.”

More strikes: U.S. conducts 3rd attack on Houthi missile sites in Yemen

Developments:

∎ Gaza residents spent a sixth day in a row almost entirely without access to communications services such as phone and internet because of facilities damage caused by the fighting, which also hinders repairs.

∎ Netanyahu rejected an offer from Saudi Arabia to normalize relations − presented to him last week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken − in exchange for agreeing to a pathway for a Palestinian state, NBC News reported.

∎ Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Hezbollah leaders told him they would stop all military actions if Israel stopped its war on Gaza.

∎ The Israeli military said it killed at least 10 Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday, half of them in the urban Balata refugee camp, including a militant leader.

∎ Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, told troops training for possible combat in northern neighbor Lebanon that “the likelihood of war in the north is higher than before,” the Times of Israel reported.

Houthis targeted: White House to brand Houthis global terrorist group

US launches more air strikes on Houthi missile bases

U.S. forces conducted strikes on Houthi missile sites in Yemen late Wednesday in a continuing series of reprisals and attacks on the Iranian-backed militants.

The strikes targeted 14 missiles on launch rails that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region,” U.S. Central Command announced in a statement.

The U.S. attacks came after Houthi militants struck a merchant ship in the Red Sea with a drone earlier in the day. That attack caused no injuries and limited damage. The U.S. strikes are the fourth in a week designed to destroy the Houthi’s ability to target international shipping, a tactic they say is a reaction to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Rebuilding Gaza may cost $15B just for housing, official says

The enormous toll of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza won't be known until well after the war is over, but the chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund is willing to hazard a monetary guess: at least $15 billion.

That's what it would cost just to rebuild some of the housing lost so far, Mohammed Mustafa said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The figure, based on spending $100,000 each to rebuild 150,000 of the estimated 350,000 units damaged or destroyed in Gaza, does not include repairing or replacing infrastructure and hospitals.

Other losses can't be replaced no matter how much money's available. More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and 85% of the territory's prewar population of 2.3 million has been displaced by the Israeli offensive in response to the Hamas assaults of Oct. 7. That has led to high levels of disease and a dire shortage of basic necessities like food, water and shelter.

"If the war in Gaza continues,'' Mustafa said, "more people are likely to die of hunger or famine than war."

Medicines for hostages reach Gaza

Medical supplies for hostages arrived in Gaza on Wednesday, the Qatar Foreign Ministry said, after a last-minute snag on the deal to transport them was resolved. As the plane with the supplies arrived in Egypt, Netanyahu’s office said Israeli authorities would inspect the cargo. That had not been part of the deal, although Israel has inspected everything bound for Gaza.

The agreement requires that, for every box of medicines provided for the hostages, 1,000 boxes and humanitarian aid will be sent in for Palestinians, Hamas says. The shipment comes after Qatar and France mediated the first agreement between the combatants since November’s weeklong cease-fire that resulted in the release of more than 100 hostages and a few hundred Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu conveys his appreciation to all those who have assisted in the endeavor,” his office said in a statement, adding that “Israel insists that all the medicines reach their destination.”

Netanyahu says war could last another year or more

Netanyahu, citing recent assessments of the Hamas war, said the conflict could continue into 2025 and once again vowed to keep fighting until Hamas has been destroyed, Israel media outlets reported Wednesday.

Netanyahu revealed the assessments at a meeting with leaders of settlements and kibbutzim near the Gaza border, N12 News reported. The revelations come as the U.S. and other nations press Israel to wrap up its military operations in Gaza, which the Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday has now killed more than 24,000 Palestinians.

Netanyahu vowed to rebuild the damaged Israeli communities and repeated his pledge that the Israeli military will not relent until it has crushed Hamas, the militant group that led the raid on Israel border communities Oct. 7. More than 1,200 people were killed in the raid and more than 240 were taken back to Gaza as hostages, where more than half of them remain.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaking at at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, warned fighting could intensify if Israel doesn’t halt "genocide" in Gaza and the West Bank.

Pakistan-Iran relations on edge after Iranian airstrike

Pakistan recalled its ambassador from Iran and suspended high-level visits Wednesday following what it described as an "unprovoked" violation of its airspace by Iran on Tuesday. Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch also said the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, currently out of the country, might not return any time soon.

Iran said Tuesday that it "obliterated through precision missile and drone strikes” strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adls in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province. Pakistan said two young children died in the assault.

Iran blamed the militants for an attack last month near its Pakistan border that killed 11 Iranian police officers. Baloch chastised Iran for failing to communicate its plan despite "several channels of communication" between the two nations.

“Pakistan reserves the right to respond to this illegal act," she said. "The responsibility for the consequences will lie squarely with Iran."

Another ship attacked just as US designates Houthis terrorists

A Houthi drone strike on a ship in the Gulf of Aden caused a fire onboard Wednesday, the same day the Biden administration once again declared the Yemen rebels as specially designated global terrorists.

The British military initially reported the attack without specifying the source. U.S. Central Command later confirmed the Genco Picardy cargo ship − American-owned and Marshall Islands-flagged − was targeted by the Houthis, who have launched repeated assaults on commercial vessels in the area, citing support for Palestinians in Gaza.

The ship’s captain said the fire was extinguished and, “Vessel and crew are safe and proceeding to next port of call,” the British military reported.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military said Navy SEALs seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry from a ship bound for the Houthis in a raid last week. That same day, the U.S. launched its third strike against the Iran-backed Yemen militants, destroying four anti-ship ballistic missiles prepared to launch at vessels in the Red Sea, according to U.S. Central Command.

The U.S., along with Great Britain, has struck dozens of missile and radar sites used by the Houthis since Thursday. Two Navy SEAL commandos previously reported as lost at sea were "directly involved" in last week's raid. “We are conducting an exhaustive search for our missing teammates,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, the USCENTCOM Commander.

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel Hamas war updates: 2 hostages killed after making video