Israeli ground forces fought deadly battles with Hamas fighters inside Gaza yesterday and sent tanks to the outskirts of the biggest city while air strikes kept raining down on the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israel’s army said yesterday it carried out air strikes on military infrastructure inside Syria as fears grow that its war against Hamas could spur a broader regional conflict.

Israel yesterday pounded Hamas-ruled Gaza in an escalating air and ground campaign as the UN warned civil order was “starting to break down” in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israel has a responsibility to protect the lives of innocent people in Gaza, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said yesterday amid a growing outcry over Palestinian civilian deaths.

Gazans searched for loved ones and heard news of family members killed as communications gradually returned to the enclave yesterday after a near total blackout as Israel’s troops and armour pushed into the Hamas-ruled enclave.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi yesterday said Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza “may force everyone” to act in the latest warning issued by the Islamic republic since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

An Iranian high school student died yesterday, nearly a month after falling into a coma in disputed circumstances on the Tehran metro, media in the Islamic republic said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday called Western powers “the main culprit” behind the Israeli army’s “massacre” of Palestinians in Gaza.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry released a statement yesterday condemning any ground operations by Israeli forces that may threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Kazakhstan said yesterday that 32 people were killed in a fire in yet another deadly accident in a mine owned by ArcelorMittal, with over a dozen still missing, in the Central Asian country’s worst disaster in years.

Israel’s military has told international news organisations Reuters and Agence France Presse that it cannot guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, under Israeli bombardment and siege for almost three weeks.

Gaza was largely cut off from the outside world yesterday as Israel rained more bombs from the air and suggested its long-promised ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave was underway.

A dig in northern Iraq has unearthed a 2,700-year-old alabaster sculpture of the winged Assyrian deity Lamassu, which was found largely intact despite its large dimensions.

Six people were lightly injured when two drones struck an Egyptian Red Sea resort on the border with Israel on Friday, the army said.

The UN yesterday warned that “many more will die” in Gaza from catastrophic shortages as Israeli air and ground forces stepped up operations in the Palestinian enclave.

Projectiles hit two Egyptian Red Sea towns yesterday, sources and officials said, injuring six people and showing the risk of regional spillover from the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Israel said its ground forces had made a big push into Gaza overnight to attack “Hamas targets” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was still preparing for a ground invasion that could be one of several.

Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have had to flee south from Gaza City and work in fear for their lives in appalling conditions as Israeli air raids pound the territory.

Israel has agreed to delay an expected invasion of Gaza for now so that the United States can rush missile defences to the region to protect its troops there, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and Israeli officials.

AFP, DohaThe foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar yesterday accused the international community of “double standards” in its reaction to escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.