Gaza

Unrelenting air strikes by Israel more than 10 months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions of aid entering the besieged territory and hot summer temperatures all threaten the viability of a life-saving inoculation drive.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

The on-and-off truce talks reconvened in Qatar's capital on Thursday without Hamas, which has accused Israel of obstructing a deal and insists on the implementation of previously agreed terms.

The fact that Haifa's industrial area sits next to one of the largest ports in the eastern Mediterranean also stokes fears of environmental disaster

In a veiled warning to Iran, Hamas and Israel, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Wednesday said "no party in the region should take actions that would undermine efforts to reach a deal," the US State Department said.

More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi strikes in Yemen, the State Department said it would return to weapons sales "in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation."

After a week-long pause in November, US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have endeavoured to secure a second truce in the 10-month-old war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.

These bring to at least 11 the number of schools in Gaza to be struck since July 6, killing around 150 people, based on a tally of tolls previously given by officials in the Hamas-run territory.

UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.

The agreement, signed by more than a dozen Palestinian factions on Tuesday, aims to find common ground for future Palestinian political institutions, which are currently divided between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of deliberately undermining negotiations for a truce and hostage release deal because it did not want to end the war.

Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials that casualties among Palestinian civilians "still remain unacceptably high".

The strike on the UN-run Abu Araban site in central Gaza's Nuseirat camp was the fifth on a school-turned-shelter in eight days.

Israel maintains it lets in enough food to feed the entire Gazan population of 2.4 million. It accuses the United Nations of not effectively distributing aid stacked up on the other side of the checkpoint.

Troops, tanks and aircraft were fighting in Gaza's biggest urban area on the eve of new truce talks in Qatar that aim to free the hostages and halt the conflict raging into its 10th month.

As the war entered into its 10th month, the demonstrators called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure a truce and hostage-release deal or step down.

Mohammed Abu Salmiya, former director of Al-Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital, is the latest to report mistreatment by Israel.

Israel confirmed that it was "evaluating" Hamas "comments" on a deal to free its hostages in the Palestinian territory and would reply.

A hospital source in the city said shelling killed eight people and wounded more than 30 others.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighbourhood, where the Israeli army said it has carried out raids and fought Palestinian militants both "above and below ground" in tunnels.

The border between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants ever since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hezbollah's ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Israeli forces launched more deadly strikes, with 13 people killed across two schools and a home hit in Gaza City, according to the Hamas-run territory's civil defence agency.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that "intense" fighting against Hamas militants in the southern Gaza city of Rafah is nearly over, more than eight months into the devastating war.

Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel Thursday in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed one of the group's operatives.

Experts are divided on the prospect of wider war, almost nine months into Israel's vow to eradicate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in western Rafah, where medics said drone strikes and shelling killed at least seven people.

The UN verified 30,705 violations committed against children last year, including 5,301 killings, 6,348 injuries, 8,655 instances of children recruited and used in conflicts, 5,205 denials of humanitarian access and 4,356 kidnappings.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, had been widely criticised for blocking several previous UN draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken's regional tour was preceded by further bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, with witnesses reporting overnight strikes in the centre of the strip and helicopter gunfire on ravaged Gaza City.