Israeli bombs on Rafah flattened a mosque and destroyed homes in what residents called one of their worst nights yet, while the Hamas chief was in Cairo for talks Gazans hope could bring a truce in time to head off a full-blown assault on the city.

Yemen’s Houthis yesterday sent shippers and insurers formal notice of what they termed a ban on vessels linked to Israel, the US and Britain from sailing in surrounding seas, seeking to reinforce their military campaign in support of Palestinians.

Iran said yesterday that Israel was behind twin sabotage attacks against gas pipelines that disrupted supplies in at least three provinces last week.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki yesterday told the UN’s top court his people were suffering “colonialism and apartheid” under the Israelis, urging judges to order an immediate and unconditional end to the occupation.

Fighting, fuel shortages and Israeli raids put the Gaza Strip’s second-largest hospital completely out of service yesterday, local and UN health officials said, as Israel battled Hamas fighters in the devastated Palestinian enclave.

Egypt is preparing safe areas for Palestinian refugees, Cairo said, as the key Qatar negotiator in the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas admitted they have made no progress in recent days.

A 30-year-old man killed 12 relatives in Iran, official media reported yesterday, in a rare mass shooting in the country.

Israel said it had taken 100 people into custody at one of Gaza’s main hospitals yesterday after troops raided the facility, with fears mounting for patients and staff trapped inside.

There was growing concern yesterday over a key Gaza hospital a day after a raid by the Israeli army, with the Hamas-run health ministry saying several patients had died there due to a lack of oxygen.

Israel’s vow to push ahead with a “powerful” operation in Gaza’s Rafah was met with a growing chorus of international condemnation yesterday, with leaders warning against catastrophic consequences for the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped there.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said yesterday it had received a report of an explosion near a vessel 85 nautical miles east of Yemen’s port city of Aden.

Palestinians jammed into their last refuge in Gaza voiced growing fear yesterday that Israel will soon launch a planned assault on the southern city of Rafah after truce talks in Cairo ended inconclusively.

Two explosions along Iran’s main south-north gas pipeline network yesterday were caused by sabotage, the Iranian oil minister told state TV, without naming any suspects.

Israeli strikes in south Lebanon yesterday killed four civilians including two children and wounded nine other people, a Lebanese security source said, after Israel said it “began a series of strikes in Lebanon”.

The Israel’s offensive in Gaza, ongoing fighting in Ukraine and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific and Africa herald “what is likely to be a more dangerous decade,” a British military think-tank warned yesterday.

Israel freed two Israeli-Argentinian hostages in Rafah yesterday under the cover of heavy airstrikes which local health officials said killed at least 67 Palestinians and wounded dozens in the southern Gaza city that is the last refuge of about a million displaced civilians.

An Iranian court has sentenced a man to death over the killing of renowned filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife months ago at their home near Tehran, the judiciary said yesterday.

The World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus yesterday reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and expressed particular concern at Israeli attacks on Rafah where most of enclave’s inhabitants fled.

Any Israeli ground offensive in Rafah on the Gaza border will “blow up” the hostage exchange negotiations,” Hamas-run Aqsa Television channel quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying yesterday.

Hundreds of thousands of people chanted “Death to Israel” in rallies across Iran to mark the Islamic Revolution’s 45th anniversary yesterday, with some burning US and Israeli flags amid the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza.