Israel Hamas conflict

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.

The strikes came more than 24 hours after Israel carried out similar raids deep inside east Lebanon and as tensions mounted in the wake of the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah commander.

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."

The Islamic republic and its allies have blamed Israel for Haniyeh's killing on July 31 during a visit to the Iranian capital for the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not commented.

International mediators had invited Israel and Hamas to resume talks towards a long-sought truce and hostage-release deal, after the fighting in Gaza and the killings of Iran-aligned militant leaders sparked fears of a wider conflict.

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.

The comment came a day after the US vice president was heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters at a rally for the first time since she became the Democratic candidate less than three weeks ago.

US President Joe Biden, whose country has sent extra warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, held crisis talks on Monday with his national security team.

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.

On Wednesday, Iranian officials met in Tehran with representatives of the so-called "Axis of Resistance" -- a loose alliance of Tehran-backed groups hostile to Israel -- to discuss retaliation for the deaths of Hamas's leader and Hezbollah's top military commander, said a source close to Lebanese group.

The Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a "harsh punishment" for his killing.

The strike, which was followed by another, hours later, which killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, triggered fears the war in Gaza could escalate into a region-wide conflict.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei too threatened "harsh punishment" for Haniyeh's killing, saying: "We consider it our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Israeli civilians protested outside a military base where the nine soldiers were being held, while several others -- also in an attempt to show support -- broke into a detention facility where the alleged abuse occurred.

Israel vowed on Sunday to "hit the enemy hard" after rocket fire from Lebanon killed 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and fanned fears that the war in Gaza will spread.

It said the bodies of Maya Goren as well as soldiers Tomer Ahimas and Kiril Brodski, along with Ravid Aryeh Katz and Oren Goldin -- military reservists -- had been returned to Israel following a rescue operation.

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.

Across United States campuses and on the Democrats' left wing, calls to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza have reached unprecedented levels.

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.

Kibbutz Beeri saw one of the fiercest battles of the Hamas incursion into southern Israel with hundreds of militants and troops fighting for control for nearly 24 hours.

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 believes dozens of hostages are still alive in Gaza and with the war taking an increasing human toll in the devastated Palestinian territory both sides face mounting international pressure to reach a deal.