President Joe Biden yesterday told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that continued US support would depend on Israeli actions to protect Gaza civilians, for the first time suggesting conditions on aid as he urged an “immediate ceasefire.”

A surprise Houthi attack killed 11 fighters loyal to the Yemeni government in the country’s south early yesterday, a spokesperson for the southern forces said, in a rare flareup.

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza’s critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

An Israel airstrike killed seven aid workers who were unloading food brought by sea to the Gaza Strip.

Dominic Allen, the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) covering Gaza, said he was “terrified” of what could happen if the Israeli offensive goes on any longer.

Iran yesterday warned its arch foe Israel that it will retaliate for an airstrike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals, and destroyed its consular annex building in the Syrian capital.

Israeli strikes hit an Iranian embassy annex building in Syria’s capital yesterday, state media said, as a war monitor reported 8 people were killed in the building.

President Tayyip Erdogan yesterday vowed to correct any mistakes that led to his party’s defeat in Turkey’s local elections where the opposition capitalised on economic woes and alienated Islamist voters, casting uncertainty over his reform plans.

Israeli strikes killed 77 Palestinians in Gaza in 24 hours, health authorities said yesterday, as Egypt hosted an Israeli delegation for a new round of talks in a bid to secure a truce with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Metres away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky -- a welcome distraction from the horrors of Israeli offensive.

The death toll in Israeli air strikes on Syria has risen to 52, including 38 government soldiers and seven members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a war monitor said yesterday.

Heavy clashes and explosions shook Gaza, witnesses said yesterday, as the Red Crescent reported several people killed during the latest chaotic aid distribution in the territory’s north, where famine looms.

Israel has hit back against a UN-backed report that warned of imminent famine in Gaza, alleging the assessment contained inaccuracies and questionable sources.

Some 9,000 patients in the Gaza Strip require evacuation for emergency care, with the war-torn Palestinian territory down to just 10 barely functioning hospitals, the head of the WHO said Saturday.

A war monitor said Israeli air strikes on Syria’s north killed 36 soldiers and six Hezbollah fighters yesterday, the latest deadly raid on Iran-backed forces in the country since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with US counterpart Joe Biden at the White House on May 9, a Turkish official told AFP yesterday.

Famine is both a risk and quite possibly present in at least some areas of the northern Gaza Strip, a senior US State Department official said yesterday, while adding that a scarcity of trucks was an obstacle to getting more aid into the densely populated enclave under Israel siege.

At least 24 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are non-functional, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Israeli forces yesterday stepped up assault on Gaza defying a ceasefire demand by UN Security Council.

Gazans waited again Tuesday in their hundreds for food to fall from the sky at beaches in the famine-stalked north, a day after nearly 20 died trying to get to parachutes carrying aid.