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.

UN aid deliveries to Gaza were suspended again yesterday due to shortages of fuel and a new communications shutdown, deepening the misery of thousands of hungry and homeless Palestinians as Israeli troops battled Hamas in the enclave.

Israeli troops yesterday advanced in their campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza, fighting gun battles and taking control of a key port a day after a raid on the territory’s main hospital.

Israeli forces, some wearing facemasks and firing guns into the air, raided early yesterday Gaza’s biggest hospital which was packed with thousands of Palestinian patients and displaced people, in the army’s battle against Hamas.

Israeli soldiers yesterday raided and combed through Gaza's main hospital in an offensive against Hamas, raising fears for thousands of patients and other civilians trapped inside.

Gaza’s main hospital buried 179 dead patients in a “mass grave”, said the director of the hospital.

Iranian authorities urged young schoolchildren and many civil servants in the capital Tehran to stay at home today due to a spike in air pollution levels.