The Israeli military said Thursday that friendly fire had killed five soldiers the previous day in the northern Gaza Strip, where intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war has resumed in recent days.

Asked to confirm media reports that the five fatalities announced earlier in an official statement were caused by Israeli fire, a military spokesperson told AFP: "Yes."

The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it would send more than $1 billion in additional arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said. But it was not immediately known how soon the weapons would be delivered.

It's the first arms shipment to Israel to be revealed since the administration put another arms transfer, consisting of 3,500 bombs of up to 2,000 pounds each, on hold this month. The Biden administration, citing concern for civilian casualties in Gaza, has said it paused that bomb transfer to keep Israel from using those particular munitions in its offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Palestinian officials said Israeli troops killed a man on Wednesday as clashes broke out after a West Bank march commemorating the mass displacement of Palestinians in the "Nakba" of 1948.

"A young man was killed by occupation bullets at the northern entrance of the city of Al-Bireh," the Palestinian health ministry said. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported the man killed was a 20-year-old student at Birzeit University.

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor is facing demands for speedy action against Israeli leaders and a blistering Russian attack over the ICC's arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin stemming from Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Karim Khan responded by telling the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that he will not be swayed or intimidated as his team investigates possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza and the Palestinian territories as well as in Ukraine.

The grills were fired up, the blankets were spread across the grass, the smoke was pungent from sizzling slabs of meat. As in previous years, Israelis marked Independence Day with barbecues in parks across the country. Usually, parties crush so close that not even a tuft of grass is visible between the picnic blankets as Hebrew techno music reverberates through the trees from dueling speakers.

But this year, the day parties Tuesday were smaller and quieter, with far fewer celebrants, in the shadow of the war in Gaza and immediately after the country marked an emotional Memorial Day. Families grappled with their desire to mark Independence Day even as the country is facing a drawn-out war and one of its most difficult tests in decades.

Palestinians across the Middle East on Wednesday are marking the anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel with protests and other events across the region at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

The Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe," refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what today is Israel before and during the war surrounding its creation in 1948.

The European Union on Wednesday urged Israel to end its military operation in Gaza's Rafah "immediately", warning that a failure to do so would undermine ties with the bloc.

"Should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU's relationship with Israel," said the statement issued in the EU's name by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

More than half a million Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in Rafah and northern Gaza, the United Nations says.

Israelis celebrated their Independence Day on Tuesday with barbecues in parks across the country, although the normally raucous parties were smaller and quieter this year because of the war in Gaza.

Israel's military operation in Rafah has "set us backward" in negotiations with Hamas, mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks are at "almost a stalemate".

"Unfortunately things didn't move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate. Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward," Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum.

Human Rights Watch says Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers and their convoys, killing at least 15 people, including two children, since the start of the war in Gaza.

The New York-based rights group said in a report Tuesday that in each case the aid groups had provided their coordinates to Israeli authorities to ensure their safety. It says no advance warning was given before the strikes, which also wounded at least 16 people.