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.

Israeli air strikes killed 17 people in Gaza’s Rafah overnight, medics said yesterday, as over a million Palestinians cramming into the border city await a full-blown offensive with the rest of their enclave in ruins and nowhere left to run.

Any Israeli military advance into southern Gaza’s Rafah area could cause mass deaths among the more than a million Palestinians trapped there, with humanitarian aid in danger of collapse, aid workers said yesterday.

Israeli forces yesterday bombed areas in the southern border city of Rafah where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a proposal to end offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

Iraq yesterday condemned a US air strike that killed a senior commander from a pro-Iran armed group accused of having been involved in attacks on American troops in the region.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi yesterday criticised the deployment of US troops in the Middle East, saying it “disrupts security”.

Hamas has proposed a three-stage ceasefire plan that would quiet the guns in Gaza for four-and-a-half months, during which all hostages would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and an agreement would be reached on an end to the offensive.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched six missiles toward two merchant ships later on Tuesday, reportedly causing light damage to one of the vessels, the US military said.

Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in airstrikes as they pressed their onslaught in Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis yesterday, while the top US diplomat pursued a quest to broker a ceasefire.

Iran said yesterday it “will not hesitate” to respond in the event of US attacks on its territory after the White House declined to say whether strikes on Iran were ruled out.

A Palestinian doctor said Israeli forces in Gaza detained him when they overran a hospital and subjected him to abuse during 45 days of captivity including sleep deprivation and constant shackling and blindfolding before releasing him last week.

Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in operations throughout the Gaza Strip over a 24-hour-period, the military said in a statement yesterday, citing the southern hub city of Khan Younis as one of the locations.