Protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across the United States, some of which included Jewish Passover Seders, as demonstrators demanded an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.

The Israeli army said yesterday it struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon as near-daily exchanges of fire rage on the border between the two countries.

The Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, an official from the World Food Programme said yesterday.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday that he was "horrified" by the destruction of the Nasser and Al Shifa hospitals in Gaza and reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies there, according to a spokesperson.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said yesterday it had launched a drone attack against Israeli military bases north of the city of Acre, in its deepest strike into Israeli territory since the Gaza offensive began.

Tensions flared between pro-Palestinian student protesters and school administrators at several US universities Monday, as in-person classes were cancelled and demonstrators arrested.

US forces in Iraq and Syria faced two separate rocket and explosive drone attacks in less than 24 hours, Iraqi security sources and US officials told Reuters yesterday, the first reported after a near three-month pause.

Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday it downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.

Gaza was hit by heavy Israeli shelling yesterday, with strikes reported in several areas in the centre and south of the besieged territory, as Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed “painful blows” on Hamas to free hostages.

Egypt welcomed home a 3,400-year-old statue depicting the head of King Ramses II after it was stolen and smuggled out of the country more than three decades ago, the country’s antiquities ministry said on Sunday.

Israel carried out deadly strikes in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, first responders in the Palestinian territory said yesterday, as violence flared in the occupied West Bank.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the country’s armed forces for their “success” in his first public comments since Tehran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel last week.

The Gaza offensive is speeding up Israel’s “annexation” of the Palestinian economy, say analysts, who argue it has been hobbled for decades by agreements that followed the Oslo peace accords.

Iran has dismissed as akin to child’s play Israel’s reported retaliation for an unprecedented Iranian strike, as both sides yesterday appeared to step back from wider conflict stemming from the war in Gaza.

One person was killed and eight wounded in an overnight explosion at an Iraqi military base housing a coalition of pro-Iranian armed groups, officials said Saturday.

The Israeli army yesterday said troops had killed 10 militants in an ongoing raid around Nur Shams, a refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank.

When record downpours sent water flooding into his Dubai home, Riaz Haq expected the levels to drop once it stopped raining. But instead of falling, the water kept rising higher

World leaders appealed for calm Friday after reported Israeli retaliation against Iran added to months of tense spillover from the war in Gaza, with Iranian state media reporting explosions in a central province

Explosions echoed over an Iranian city yesterday in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.

The United States on Thursday effectively stopped the United Nations from recognising a Palestinian state by casting a veto in the Security Council to deny Palestinians full membership of the world body.