The first pause in a 48-day-old war began at 7:00am (0500 GMT), involving a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, the release of 13 Israeli women and child hostages by the militants later in the day and aid to flow into the devastated Palestinian enclave

War raged on in Gaza yesterday, as a proposed truce and release of hostages was delayed for at least another day.

The business community in Bangladesh strongly condemned the massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military.

A US warship patrolling the Red Sea intercepted multiple attack drones launched from Huthi-controlled areas in Yemen yesterday, the US Central Command said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned that the threat of the Gaza war spreading would grow unless a truce between Israel and Hamas lasts, in an interview as he visited Beirut.

Why a truce if they can’t go home? At Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, war-weary displaced Palestinians remain sceptical about the Israel-Hamas deal to exchange hostages for prisoners.

Israel’s government and Hamas yesterday agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza for at least four days to let in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by Hamas fighters in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.

The leader of Hamas said yesterday that a truce agreement with Israel was close, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped for good news soon about hostages, the most optimistic signals so far of a deal to pause fighting and free captives.

Two journalists working for a Lebanon-based TV channel and a third person were killed by a rocket strike near Lebanon’s border with Israel yesterday, the Lebanese state news agency reported.

A group of US President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats urged him on Monday to encourage Israel to take immediate steps - including reopening a major border crossing - to help provide humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza.

Twenty-eight premature babies were evacuated from war-torn Gaza to Egypt yesterday as the enclave’s health ministry accused Israel of launching a deadly strike on the territory’s Indonesian Hospital.

Iran yesterday dismissed as “invalid” Israel’s accusations that Yemen’s Huthi rebels were acting on Tehran’s “guidance” when they seized a Red Sea ship owned by an Israeli businessman.

Israel seeks to end the Palestinian people’s presence on their “historical land,” Palestine’s foreign minister has said.

Iran has unveiled an improved version of its own hypersonic missile 'Fattah' for the first time

Hamas gunmen battled Israeli forces trying to push into Gaza’s largest refugee camp yesterday and Israeli air strikes to the south killed dozens of Palestinians, witnesses said, as a US media report of a nascent hostage release deal was denied.

Iranian authorities have released on bail a popular rapper jailed for more than a year over supporting nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in custody.

Iraq’s powerful pro-Iranian armed group Kataeb Hezbollah has denounced as “ridiculous” sanctions unveiled this week by the United States over recent attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria.

Ministers from Arab and Islamic countries will visit China today on the first stop of a tour aims at ending the war in Gaza, Saudi Foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.

A Hamas health official said more than 80 people were killed yesterday in twin strikes on a northern Gaza refugee camp, including a UN school used as a shelter for people displaced by the Israel-Hamas war.

Five countries, including South Africa and Bangladesh, on Friday called for an International Criminal Court investigation into the Israel-Hamas war that has left thousands of people dead, its chief prosecutor said.