India and Iran yesterday signed a 10-year contract to develop and equip the strategic Chabahar port in Iran as India seeks to grow trade in west and central Asia.

Pro-Palestinian protesters yesterday occupied university buildings in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Eindhoven, condemning Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the Dutch protest group behind the action said in a statement.

Israel sent tanks into eastern Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip early yesterday, after a night of heavy aerial and ground bombardments, as the death toll in the Palestinian enclave exceeded 35,000 people. 

About a dozen students arrested by police clearing a sit-in at a Denver college campus emerged from detainment to cheers from fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, several waving yellow court summons like tiny victory flags and imploring fellow demonstrators not to let their energy fade.   

Israeli strikes yesterday hit parts of Gaza including Rafah where Israel expanded an evacuation order and the UN warned of “epic” disaster if an outright invasion of the crowded city occurs. 

The United Arab Emirates hit out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday after the Israeli leader said the Gulf state could be involved in aiding a future government in Gaza after the war. 

Iran’s conservatives and ultra-conservatives clinched more seats in a partial rerun of the country’s parliamentary elections, official results showed yesterday, tightening their hold on the chamber. 

Flash floods that have ripped through northern Afghanistan left more than 200 people dead in a single province, the United Nations said on Saturday

The United Nations General Assembly yesterday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably.”

Police early yesterday dismantled a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and moved to clear protesters from University of Pennsylvania’s campus in Philadelphia, just hours after police tear-gassed protesters and took down an encampment at the University of Arizona.

Israel’s closure of key crossings into Gaza has cut off the main entry point for aid, and particularly fuel, rendering humanitarian operations all but impossible, a senior UN official warned.

Displaced Palestinian Marwan al-Masri, sheltering in Rafah, said “Our lives have completely stopped” since Israeli tanks and troops entered the city’s east, sending desperate people fleeing north in the besieged territory.

Israeli tanks and warplanes bombarded areas of Rafah yesterday, Palestinian residents said, after US President Joe Biden vowed to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces launch a major invasion of the southern Gaza city.

Israeli tanks and warplanes bombarded areas of Rafah yesterday, Palestinian residents said, after US President Joe Biden vowed to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces launch a major invasion of the southern Gaza city.

Iran yesterday freed seven of the 25 crew on a Portuguese-flagged ship seized in the Gulf on April 13, Portugal’s foreign ministry said.

Israel bombarded the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah, as talks resumed yesterday in Cairo aimed at agreeing the terms of a truce in the seven-month offensive.

Three Taliban security personnel were killed when a motorcycle carrying an explosive device blew up near a military vehicle in northern Afghanistan being used in opium poppy eradication operations, an interior ministry spokesman said yesterday.

Fearful medics and patients are fleeing a hospital in Rafah and transfers of the sick and injured via a border crossing with Egypt are at a standstill due to Israel’s military operation, doctors and residents said.

The two main crossings into the southern Gaza Strip remain shut, virtually cutting off the enclave from outside aid with very few stores stationed inside, said UN agencies yesterday.

Israel played down the likelihood of a ceasefire in Gaza yesterday after Hamas said it had accepted a proposal from mediators, even as residents fled the city of Rafah in fear of an Israeli assault.