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The first batch of United States-built F-16 fighter jets are being transferred to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, as world leaders pledge continued support for Kyiv at a NATO summit in Washington, DC.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday, Blinken said the F-16s were being transferred from Denmark and the Netherlands.

“And those jets … will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression,” the top US diplomat said.

The Biden administration will resume shipping 500lb bombs to Israel but will continue to hold back on supplying 2,000lb bombs over concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza, according to a a US official.

The US in May paused a shipment of 2,000lb and 500lb bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in Gaza during the war that began with Hamas’ deadly 7 October cross-border raid.

The administration’s particular concern had been use of such large bombs in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had taken refuge.

“We’ve been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs, particularly for Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding,” a US official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

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An Israeli missile slammed into a tent encampment in southern Gaza on Tuesday just as displaced people had gathered there to watch a football match at a school, eyewitnesses said Wednesday.

At least 29 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian officials, which took place as spectators crowded the school grounds in Abassan, east of the city of Khan Younis, and hawkers sold smoothies and biscuits.

"They were watching a football match. There were injuries and martyrs. I witnessed this...people thrown around and body parts scattered, blood," a young woman, Ghazzal Nasser, told Reuters in Abassan.

"Everything was normal. People were playing, others were buying and selling" food and drinks, she said. "There was no sound of planes or anything."

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A village in a border region of western Russia was evacuated Sunday following a series of explosions after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set fire to a nearby warehouse, local officials said.

Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession.

Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the “detonation of explosive objects.” No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.

A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that a strike had been carried out on a warehouse storing ammunition in the village of Serhiivka in the Voronezh region.

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Several officials in the Middle East and the U.S. believe the level of devastation in the Gaza Strip caused by a nine-month Israeli offensive likely has helped push Hamas to soften its demands for a cease-fire agreement.

Hamas over the weekend appeared to drop its longstanding demand that Israel promise to end the war as part of any cease-fire deal. The sudden shift has raised new hopes for progress in internationally brokered negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday boasted that military pressure — including Israel’s ongoing two-month offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — “is what has led Hamas to enter negotiations.”

Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction and took control of Gaza in 2007, is highly secretive and little is known about its inner workings.

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Russian missiles hit targets across Ukraine − including a children's hospital − killing 36 civilians in a daylight attack as President Joe Biden prepared to welcome NATO leaders to a summit aimed as shoring up the beleagured nation more than 800 days into Moscow's invasion.

Monday's barrage was the deadliest air strike in months, officials said, and a pointed message to the Western military alliance.

“They are not collateral damage. They are not the victims of mishap or a misfire," Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of Ukraine's parliament told USA TODAY. "That was a premeditated and targeted attack on the children's hospital.”

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