More than 300,000 Palestinians have crossed from southern Gaza into the north, the Hamas-run Gaza media authority said in a statement early yesterday, as the United Nations warned that “needs on the ground remain immense”.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed along the main roads leading north in Gaza yesterday after Hamas agreed to hand over three Israeli hostages later this week and Israeli forces began to withdraw from a main corridor across the enclave.
Israeli forces killed 15 people in south Lebanon yesterday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
US President Donald Trump floated a plan to “just clean out” Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory, as a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas aimed at permanently ending the war entered its second week yesterday.
Palestinian militants and Israel carried out a hostage-prisoner swap yesterday under a Gaza ceasefire deal, but a last-minute dispute blocked the expected return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to devastated northern Gaza.
The Israel-Hamas war has put back development in Gaza by 60 years and mobilising the tens of billions of dollars needed for reconstruction will be an uphill task, the United Nations said.
Israeli operations in the West Bank have killed at least 12 Palestinians since Tuesday and could threaten the newly agreed ceasefire in Gaza, United Nations Human Rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said yesterday.
A Palestinian official said hundreds of residents of the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp were leaving their homes yesterday, days into a large-scale Israeli raid in the area.
The Palestinian group Hamas said yesterday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for today in Qatar, dimming hopes for a negotiated truce that Iranian sources say could hold back an Iranian attack on Israel.`
Iran yesterday rejected Western calls to stand down its threat to retaliate against Israel for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran late last month.
The leaders of France, Germany and Britain said yesterday that “there can be no further delay” in negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza, warning Iran and its allies against any “further escalation” of the conflict.
Israel yesterday faced international condemnation for its strikes on a school in Gaza used for internally displaced people.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards are holding military drills in the western parts of the country that will continue until Tuesday, Iran’s official news agency announced on Sunday.
Iran is set to carry out an order by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to “harshly punish” Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran, a Revolutionary Guards deputy commander was quoted as saying on Friday by local news agencies.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a phone call on Friday that the escalation of tensions in the Middle East was “in no party’s interest” while also stressing the need for a Gaza ceasefire, the State Department said.
Israeli troops yesterday launched a new assault into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal.
A series of attempted attacks using missiles and a sea drone targeted a merchant vessel off areas of Yemen held by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a British maritime security agency said yesterday.
