An Israeli airstrike killed four members of a family in a house in a border village in southern Lebanon yesterday, civil defence and security sources said.

The chief of the United Nations’ food program has warned of a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza and reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

Students at Trinity College Dublin protesting Israel’s offensive in Gaza have built an encampment that forced the university to restrict campus access yesterday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland’s top tourist attractions.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels threatened to extend their attacks on Israel-bound shipping to the Mediterranean after months of strikes on vessels in the Red Sea.

Hamas negotiators yesterday began intensified talks on a possible Gaza truce that would see a halt to the fighting and the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director already present in Cairo for the indirect diplomacy.

An Israeli military incursion into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah could lead to a “bloodbath”, the World Health Organization warned Friday, announcing contingency plans.

Police have arrested nearly 2,200 people during pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings.

An Israeli incursion in Rafah would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians at risk and be a huge blow to the aid operations of the entire enclave, the UN humanitarian office said yesterday, as the World Health Organization announced contingency plans for an incursion.

Doubts grew yesterday over the fate of a Gaza truce plan that, as the week began, had raised hopes of an end to nearly seven months of Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

At least 141 Palestinian journalists and media professionals have been killed and 70 others injured in Israel’s ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip, the government media office said yesterday.

Rebuilding homes in the Gaza Strip could drag into the next century if the pace follows the trend of previous conflicts, according to a UN report released yesterday.

Schools and many offices were closed across the United Arab Emirates yesterday as heavy rains returned to the desert country just two weeks after record downpours that experts linked to climate change.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vowed that the military would launch a ground offensive on Gaza’s far-southern Rafah city “with or without” a truce deal being negotiated with Hamas.

Six people were killed when a gunman stormed a mosque in western Afghanistan, a government spokesman said Tuesday

US top diplomat Antony Blinken yesterday said he was “hopeful” Hamas would accept the latest proposal for a long-sought Gaza truce and hostage release deal as negotiators from the Palestinian group were due in Egypt.

The United States is nearly ready with a security package to offer Saudi Arabia if it normalises relations with Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, as he seeks incentives for Israel to support a Palestinian state.

A Malta-flagged container ship was reportedly targeted with three missiles while on route from Djibouti to the Saudi city of Jeddah, British maritime security firm Ambrey said yesterday.

As garbage piles up and the heat rises in Gaza, flies and mosquitoes proliferate in crowded Rafah city and life becomes even more grim for displaced people living in tents.

Hundreds of students have been arrested across universities in the United States, with scuffles reported between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, as rallies for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israel spread across US campuses.

Diplomatic efforts increased yesterday to reach a long sought-after truce and hostage-release deal in Gaza, as Israel carried out further air strikes and shelling on the Palestinian territory.