Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group yesterday said it had fired rockets at Israel and its arch-foe said it had struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation, as top US and EU diplomats visited the region to seek ways to halt spillover from the war.

The United Arab Emirates is to put 84 people on trial for terror-related offences, state media said yesterday, a decade after a similar mass trial of government critics.

The West Bank has experienced an “unmatched surge” in the number of new Israeli settlements since the start of the war in Gaza, an Israel-based NGO has said.

Water purifiers, medical supplies and tent poles are among items Israel has blocked from entering Gaza on aid trucks, according to an Egyptian Red Crescent document seen by Reuters and sources in Gaza, but Israel denied blocking any such items.

The Israeli military yesterday launched air, land and sea attacks on more than 100 targets across the Gaza Strip, forcing displaced families to flee for safety riding donkey carts loaded with belongings and children.

More than 76,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon in almost three months of near-daily fighting along the border with Israel, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said.

Mourners yesterday wept over the coffins of victims of two deadly blasts in Iran, and the interior minister said a number of suspects had been arrested over the attacks claimed by Islamic State.

The Islamic State jihadist group yesterday said that it carried out the twin bombings which killed at least 84 people at a memorial ceremony in Iran..The claim from IS came as Iran observed a day of national mourning for those killed in Wednesday's blasts. The blast also wounded 284 people

Israeli shelling killed 14 Palestinians yesterday in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area of the Gaza Strip packed with people who had fled attacks in other parts of the enclave, Gaza health ministry officials said.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday he was “very disturbed” after comments by senior Israeli officials calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza.

The Islamic State jihadist group yesterday said that it carried out the twin bombings which killed at least 84 people at a memorial ceremony in Iran.

At least 103 people were killed in Iran yesterday as two bombs in quick succession struck a crowd commemorating slain general Qasem Soleimani on the anniversary of his killing, state media reported.

Israeli forces intensified their bombing of the Gaza Strip yesterday and told civilians to leave a refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave after the offensive stretched into Lebanon with the killing in Beirut of the Hamas deputy leader.

Turkey said yesterday it had detained 56 high-priority suspects wanted by 18 countries for crimes ranging from drug dealing and money laundering to murder, counterfeiting and assault.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels fired two missiles late Tuesday toward merchant ships travelling in the Red Sea near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the US military said following a report by the British maritime security agency UKMTO.

Saudi state TV said yesterday that the kingdom had officially joined the BRICS bloc of countries.

An armed drone was shot down over Erbil airport in northern Iraq yesterday, where US and other international forces are stationed, two security sources said.

Israel launched pre-dawn air strikes near the Syrian capital yesterday, state media said citing a military source, at a time of heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war.

Israel killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut yesterday, Lebanese and Palestinian security sources said, as its forces kept pummelling parts of Gaza, vowing further “high-intensity” warfare against Hamas in the enclave.

Turkey yesterday announced the detention of 33 people suspected of planning abductions and spying on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.