Israeli forces bombarded Gaza City early yesterday and columns of tanks advanced into the heart of the city from different directions in what residents said was one of the heaviest attacks in the Palestinian territory since the start of the offensive.

Hamas is waiting for a response from Israel on its ceasefire proposal, officials from the group said yesterday, five days after it accepted a key part of a US plan aimed at ending the offensive in Gaza now in its tenth month.

Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian will be sworn in before parliament in early August as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, state media reported yesterday.

Tank tracks still fresh on his field in southern Gaza’s coastal area of Al-Mawasi, Nedal Abu Jazar lamented the damage offensive has wrought on his trees and crops.

Iran’s reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian yesterday won a runoff presidential election against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, the interior ministry said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and explosive drones at Israeli military positions yesterday as tensions have soared amid the almost nine-months-old offensive raging in Gaza.

Many Palestinians were seeking shelter yesterday after fleeing their homes in southern Gaza and complained of water shortages as Israel pressed on with its military offensive in the densely populated enclave.

Israel has approved its biggest land seizure in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades, a move criticised by activists yesterday as detrimental to Palestinian peace hopes.

Israeli forces bombarded several areas of the southern Gaza Strip yesterday and thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what could be part of a final push of Israel’s intensive military operations in nine months of offensive.

The head of the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital said yesterday after being freed from more than seven months of detention that he had been “tortured” by Israel.

Turkish police were holding 67 people yesterday after a mob went on the rampage in a central Anatolian city after a Syrian man was accused of harassing a child.

Gaza’s few functional hospitals and health facilities could lose power in 48 hours if they don’t receive fuel, causing life-saving medical equipment to stop working.

Iran’s sole reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili have qualified for a runoff presidential election after leading in the first round, an official said yesterday.

Gazan civilians are forced to live in bombed-out buildings or camp next to giant piles of trash, a United Nations spokeswoman said Friday, denouncing the “unbearable” conditions in the besieged territory.

Iran yesterday warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza yesterday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called “unbearable” living conditions in the territory.

Two hardline candidates dropped out of Iran’s presidential election yesterday, a day ahead of the landmark vote, and called for unity among forces supporting the country’s Islamic revolution, state media reported.

Israeli forces pounded several areas in north and south Gaza yesterday, and residents reported fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave.

A UN humanitarian worker described the suffering she witnessed first-hand in Gaza, where she saw children mutilated and families bombed out of their homes, in an emotional testimony Tuesday.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday called for “high participation” in Friday’s presidential election to replace Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash.