At least seven Palestinians were killed and several others injured early Sunday in a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting Gaza City and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA) reported.
According to local medical sources, five people, including two women and a child, were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a tent sheltering displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis. Several others sustained injuries in the same attack.
It comes as Israeli forces continued to demolish residential buildings in central Khan Younis. Heavy artillery shelling was also reported in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah, compounding the already dire humanitarian situation in southern Gaza.
This escalation comes as the overall death toll in the Gaza Strip continues to rise since October 7 2023, bringing the total to 56,412, the majority of whom are women and children, and 133,054 injured, according to the latest figures released by Palestinian health authorities.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army issued mass evacuation orders on Sunday warning residents of multiple densely populated neighbourhoods in Gaza City and Jabalia of “intensifying military activity” across the northern part of the Strip.
Iran seized two container ships seeking to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after firing on them and another vessel, in its first seizures since war with the United States and Israel began in February.
US President Donald Trump said he would indefinitely extend the ceasefire with Iran to allow for further peace talks, although it was not clear on Wednesday if Iran or Israel, the US ally in the two-month war, would agree.
At least four people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon's state news agency reported, and Hezbollah said it launched an attack drone at Israeli forces in the south, straining a ceasefire between the Iran-backed group and Israel.
The Trump administration is in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo to resettle 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting US visas, according to an advocacy organisation that works on their behalf.
President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that a second French soldier had died following an attack on United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon last week, which he said was carried out by Iran‑backed Hezbollah.