After surviving on bitter loaves made from animal feed instead of proper flour, three young brothers who fled their home in Gaza City for a tent further south were tucking into a tub of halawa, a sweet crumbly paste.

Israel and Hamas, as well as Qatari mediators, all sounded notes of caution yesterday about progress towards a truce in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden said he believed a ceasefire could be reached in under a week to halt the war for Ramadan.

Israel said yesterday its army had readied a plan to evacuate Gazans ahead of a feared invasion of far-southern Rafah, which the UN chief warned would “put the final nail in the coffin” of aid operations.

Israel struck Hezbollah targets near the city of Baalbek yesterday, killing two group members, security sources said, the first such attack on Lebanon’s east since hostilities began after the Gaza invasion.

Dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed in the latest Israeli strikes, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said yesterday, after Israel’s spy chief joined talks in Paris seeking to unblock negotiations on a truce.

At the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Abu Gibril was so desperate for food to feed his family that he slaughtered two of his horses.

Iran denied on Friday that it had provided ballistic missiles to Russia, after the United States said there would be a severe international response to any such move.

Saudi Arabia has issued a warning to visitors and residents not to participate in the upcoming Hajj in 2024 without the required permits

Israeli air strikes targeted homes in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said yesterday, adding to what aid groups describe as an increasingly hopeless humanitarian situation despite efforts towards new truce talks.

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.