Britain’s Conservative Party said yesterday it had withdrawn support from two parliamentary candidates who are being investigated over alleged bets placed on the timing of next month’s national election.

A high risk of famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip as long as Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave continues and humanitarian access is restricted, according to an assessment by a global hunger monitor.

A collaborative investigation by international media outlets yesterday shed light on the circumstances behind more than 100 Palestinian journalists and media workers being killed in the Gaza offensive, some while wearing a press vest.

An Israeli air strike at a medical clinic in Gaza City killed the director of Gaza’s Ambulance and Emergency Department, the enclave’s health ministry said yesterday, while Israel’s military said the strike had killed a senior Hamas armed commander.

Teenagers across the Gaza Strip should have been taking their final exams this month, a last hurdle before university and lifelong dreams, but the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory has crushed those hopes.

Israeli forces bombed across the Gaza Strip yesterday, and tanks advanced to the edge of the Mawasi displaced persons’ camp in the northwest of the southern Gaza city of Rafah in fierce fighting with Hamas-led fighters, residents said.

A merchant ship was damaged by a drone attack in the Red Sea near Yemen early yesterday morning, though no injuries were reported, according to a British maritime security agency.

President Ferdinand Marcos said yesterday the Philippines “will not be intimidated” by anyone after a violent clash between the Filipino navy and the Chinese coast guard in the South China Sea.

Israeli army forces strapped a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of a military jeep during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday.

Days after Israel announced a daily pause in fighting on a key route to allow more aid into Gaza, chaos in the besieged Palestinian territory has left vital supplies piled up and undistributed in the searing summer heat.

Israeli forces yesterday bombed several areas from air and the ground, killing dozens and forcing many families living in areas described as humanitarian-designated zones to leave northwards.

Israeli forces pounded Rafah in southern Gaza yesterday, as well as other areas across the enclave, killing at least 32 Palestinians as troops engaged in close-quarter combat with Hamas fighters, residents and Israel’s military said.

A daily “pause” the Israeli military declared in Gaza to facilitate aid flows has had no impact on deliveries of badly needed aid, the UN’s health agency said yesterday.

After years of failing to secure a hajj visa, Yasser finally concluded he had no choice but to perform the holy pilgrimage illegally, a move he has now come to regret

Israeli forces pounded areas in the central Gaza Strip overnight, killing three people and wounding dozens of others, according to medics, while tanks deepened their invasion into Rafah in the south, residents said yesterday.

The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said yesterday, more than half of them unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.

Fears of a regional war rose yesterday after Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement said none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict, and Israel said it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive.

The death toll from this year's hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said on Thursday, more than half of them unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia

Friends and family searched for missing hajj pilgrims yesterday as the death toll at the annual rituals, which were carried out in scorching heat, surged past 900.

Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated the laws of war and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in the Gaza conflict, the UN human rights office said yesterday.