Thousands of Palestinians stream into Rafah as Israel expands its offensive

The Israeli-Hamas war has already driven around 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes, levelling the northern part of the territory and heightening fears about a similar fate for the south as Israel's air and ground offensive widened Friday.

Here's what's happening in the war:
 

ISRAELIS WOUNDED BY A CAR DRIVEN BY A PALESTINIAN IN THE WEST BANK TEL AVIV —
Israeli authorities say four Israelis were wounded after a Palestinian rammed his car into them in the occupied West Bank.
 

The military said the incident Friday occurred near a military post in the southern West Bank. Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said four people in their 20s were wounded, one moderately and the rest lightly.
 

The military said troops had stopped the driver, whose condition was not immediately known.
 

Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside Israel and Hamas' war in Gaza.
 

The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas' attacks against Israel on Oct 7, in Israeli raids or in clashes with Israeli forces. More than 2,500 have been arrested, according to the military.
 

AID GROUP WARNS OF FAMINE; UN OFFICIAL SAYS ISRAEL FIRED ON AN AID CONVOY CAIRO —

The international aid group Mercy Corps is warning about famine and disease affecting Palestinians in Gaza as Israel and Hamas continue their war.
 

Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of Mercy Corps, said that relentless fighting and insufficient humanitarian aid were compounding the crisis.
 

She said the amount of lifesaving goods being allowed inside Gaza is a drop in the ocean and has not yet increased to the level necessary to meet Gazans' basic and critical needs, even after Israel opened its Kerem Shalom border crossing.

She said half a million people face “catastrophic hunger and starvation”.
 

Phillips-Barrasso said the aid delivery is further complicated by the security risks involved.
 

A senior UN official said Friday that Israeli troops opened fire on an aid convoy returning from northern Gaza, damaging one vehicle. Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, wrote on X that the convoy was driving Thursday on a route designated safe by the Israeli military.
 

He said no injuries were reported among the convoy's team.
 

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
 

ISRAELI STRIKES HIT DAMASCUS AIRPORT, SYRIAN STATE MEDIA SAY BEIRUT —
Israeli strikes late Thursday and early Friday hit the Damascus airport and Syrian military sites, state media and an opposition-linked war monitor said.
 

Syria's SANA news agency, citing military sources, reported Israeli airstrikes at 1:20 am local time “targeting a number of points in the vicinity of Damascus,” which it said caused “some material losses”. Late Thursday night, strikes had hit “some points in the southern region,” it said.
 

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strikes had hit the Damascus airport, a day after it returned to service after a two-month stoppage due to previous strikes. Other strikes hit Syrian air defense sites in the Damascus countryside and a military facility in the southern province of Sweida, injuring two soldiers, the monitor said.
 

There was no statement from Israel on the strikes. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on sites in government-controlled Syria in recent years but rarely acknowledges them. When it does, Israel says it's targeting Iran-backed groups there that have backed the government of President Bashar Assad.