Israel ordered residents and displaced Palestinians to evacuate the Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya areas of Gaza City yesterday, as reports said a “large scale” Israeli army operation is expected to begin there soon.

The United States said it was working “round the clock” to avert an all-out war in the Middle East, as Israel remained on high alert yesterday for potential Iranian retaliation for two high-profile killings.

The Greek coastguard yesterday said it had rescued 75 migrants in an area where one of the Mediterranean’s worst migrant shipwrecks occurred last year.

Iran said yesterday it has the “legal right” to respond to the assassination in Tehran last week of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, an attack blamed on Israel amid the Gaza offensive.

Israel returned the bodies of more than 80 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 more people yesterday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

An Israeli airstrike hit a tent inside a hospital compound in central Gaza, killing at least five people, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed yesterday to 33, Gaza health officials said, after another round of talks ended without result.

Fears of a regional Middle East war grew yesterday after the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.

Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar yesterday following his assassination in the Iranian capital Tehran as senior officials of Hamas and other mourners said their fight against Israel would intensify.

Airlines are avoiding Iranian and Lebanese airspace and cancelling flights to Israel and Lebanon, as concerns grow over a possible conflict in the region after the killing of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah this week.

Hezbollah forces yesterday resumed rocket and artillery attacks against Israel, ending the lull along the border following Israel’s killing of the Lebanese group’s military commander in Beirut.

Nearly two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the Gaza offensive began in October, the United Nations said yesterday.

Iran held funeral processions on Thursday for Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh after he was killed in a strike in Tehran blamed on Israel

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran yesterday morning, the Palestinian group and Tehran said, drawing threats of revenge on Israel in a region already shaken by the offensive in Gaza and a deepening conflict in Lebanon.

Thousands of Palestinians returned to their homes in the ruins of Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis yesterday, after Israeli forces ended a week-long incursion there which they said aimed to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Israel struck Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend, saying it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vowed a “severe” response to a deadly strike that killed youths in the annexed Golan Heights, as diplomats raced to contain escalation between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israeli forces advanced deeper into some towns on the eastern side of Khan Younis in southern Gaza yesterday and tanks advanced in central Rafah, with airstrikes and shelling killing 30 Palestinians over the past day, health officials said.

Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip yesterday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress.

Hamas announced yesterday that it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organisations including rivals Fatah to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the offensive ends.

A top WHO official said yesterday he was “extremely worried” over possible outbreaks in Gaza after poliovirus was detected in the sewage, warning that communicable diseases could cause more deaths than injuries.