Israeli forces in Gaza have systematically destroyed buildings in an attempt to create a buffer zone inside the Palestinian territory, experts and rights groups told AFP, raising fears over the civilian cost.

The UN voiced fears Friday about worsening conditions in southern Gaza, saying a surge in people seeking safety in Rafah had made the town a “pressure cooker of despair”.

The United States launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and militias it backs, reportedly killing nearly 40 people, in retaliation for a deadly attack on US troops.

Israeli airstrikes killed 18 Palestinians in the Gaza cities of Rafah and Deir Al-Balah, Gaza health officials said yesterday, as residents of the enclave feared Israel would expand its ground offensive into those last remaining areas where people have sought shelter.

Israeli forces shelled the outskirts of the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip yesterday, where the displaced, penned against the border fence in their hundreds of thousands, said they feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee.

Iran will not start a war but would “respond strongly” to anyone who tried to bully it, President Ebrahim Raisi said yesterday, a day after the US said it was planning attacks on Iranian sites in Iraq and Syria.

The United Nations said yesterday it estimates that at least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip have been left unaccompanied or separated nearly four months into the offensive.

Hamas is unlikely to reject a Gaza ceasefire proposal it received from mediators this week, but will not sign it without assurances that Israel has committed to ending the offensive, a Palestinian official close to the talks said yesterday.

An armed assailant yesterday raided a plant owned by the US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble near Istanbul and took an undisclosed number of people hostage, Turkish media reported.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organisation said that an explosion was reported at a distance off a vessel’s starboard side west of Yemen’s Hodeidah. UKMTO said that the vessel and crew are safe.

The recent ruling by the International Court of Justice gave a sense of optimism for the Palestinians struggling for 75 long years for liberation, Palestinian Ambassador to Bangladesh Yousef SY Ramadan said yesterday.

Israeli forces pounded areas in northern and southern Gaza yesterday as UN agency chiefs said a bitter row over the main aid agency for Palestinians could “have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza”.

Iran will respond to any threat from the United States, Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ chief Hossein Salami said yesterday, as Washington weighs its response to the killing of American servicemen by Tehran-aligned militants.

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he had decided on a response to a drone strike that killed three American troops in Jordan, while insisting he did not want a wider war in the Middle East

Israel said undercover commandos killed three Palestinians in a raid on a hospital in the occupied West Bank yesterday, a further sign that Israel’s offensive in Gaza is spreading to other fronts.

Israel launched an assault overnight on Gaza’s main northern city weeks after pulling back from there, residents said yesterday, while heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Iran yesterday denied any links to a drone strike in Jordan that killed three US military personnel and said it was not seeking an “expansion” of conflict in the Middle East.

Israeli strikes in Syria yesterday killed seven people, including pro-Iran fighters, a war monitor said, in the latest such attack in the country against groups loyal to Tehran.

Iran executed four men at dawn on Monday after they were convicted of collaborating with the country's arch-foe Israel on a plan to sabotage an Iranian defense site, according to the judiciary

A drone attack on a base in Jordan killed three American troops and wounded more than 30 on Sunday, with President Joe Biden blaming Iran-backed militants and vowing to hold the perpetrators to account