Israel will push on with its offensive against Hamas, including into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite growing international pressure to stop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.

An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then “likely” opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident published yesterday.

Crowds of men ran through rubble-strewn Gaza City streets past fires and bullet-riddled cars in hope of reaching a rare aid convoy, risking their lives to get food for starving families as famine looms five months into Israel’s military campaign.

Talks on a ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas were at an impasse yesterday, as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepened and a merchant vessel was on fire after an attack in the Red Sea.

Hamas negotiators stayed in Cairo for a third day of ceasefire talks yesterday after two days yielded no breakthrough, as a deadline approached to halt the fighting in time for Ramadan, free Israeli hostages and stave off famine in the Gaza Strip.

Iran executed a "staggering" total of at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015 as capital punishment surged in the Islamic republic, two rights groups said today

The Gaza war between Israel and Hamas is a “powder keg” with the potential to spark broader conflict in the Middle East, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday.

Iran yesterday announced a turnout of 41 percent in last week’s elections for parliament and a key clerical body -- a record low since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to voting records.

Mediators in Cairo yesterday made a renewed push for a Gaza ceasefire, but differences remained as fighting raged on in the Palestinian territory gripped by desperate food shortages.

Turnout for Iran’s parliamentary election, seen as a test of the clerical establishment’s legitimacy, appears to have hit a historic low of around 40 percent, according to unofficial reports in Iranian media yesterday. Heavyweight moderates and conservatives stayed away from Friday’s election and reformists called it unfree and unfair as it was mainly a contest between hardliners and low-key conservatives loyal to Islamic revolutionary ideals.

World leaders yesterday called for an investigation and a ceasefire nearly five months into the Gaza war, a day after dozens of desperate Palestinians were killed rushing an aid convoy.

Israeli forces shot dead 104 people when a crowd rushed towards aid trucks yesterday, the health ministry in Gaza said, in one of the worst single incidents of a nearly five-month war. 

Iran announced yesterday the launch of a remote sensing and imaging satellite into orbit from Russia, according to state media.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said yesterday he did not expect “miracles” at talks in Moscow to discuss the formation of a unified Palestinian government and the rebuilding of Gaza.

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.