After seven weeks of bombardment stopped in Gaza for a truce, Tahani al-Najjar used the calm yesterday to return to the ruins of her home, smashed by an Israeli air strike that she said killed seven of her family and forced her into a shelter.

Israeli air strikes yesterday made Damascus airport inoperable just hours after flights had resumed following a similar attack last month, a war monitor said, as state media also reported the attack.

Attackers seized a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, yesterday, authorities said.

Farmers in the occupied West Bank face near-daily incursions and violence from Israeli settlers, to the point that they live in fear of having their homes and land stolen, they say.

Hamas confirmed yesterday that the second release under a truce agreement of Israeli hostages captured in the October 7 attacks will go ahead after a delay.

A temporary ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas forces took hold in the Gaza Strip yesterday, the first respite in 48 days of conflict that has devastated the Palestinian enclave, but both sides warned that the war was far from over.

With children and pets in their arms and their belongings loaded onto donkey carts or car roofs , thousands of displaced Gazans headed home yesterday as a four-day Israel-Hamas truce began.

Western powers have been reluctant to get tough on Tehran for fear of aggravating Middle East tensions as Iran grows its nuclear programme and reduces cooperation with the UN watchdog, diplomats say.

The first pause in a 48-day-old war began at 7:00am (0500 GMT), involving a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, the release of 13 Israeli women and child hostages by the militants later in the day and aid to flow into the devastated Palestinian enclave

War raged on in Gaza yesterday, as a proposed truce and release of hostages was delayed for at least another day.

The business community in Bangladesh strongly condemned the massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military.

A US warship patrolling the Red Sea intercepted multiple attack drones launched from Huthi-controlled areas in Yemen yesterday, the US Central Command said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned that the threat of the Gaza war spreading would grow unless a truce between Israel and Hamas lasts, in an interview as he visited Beirut.

Why a truce if they can’t go home? At Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, war-weary displaced Palestinians remain sceptical about the Israel-Hamas deal to exchange hostages for prisoners.

Israel’s government and Hamas yesterday agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza for at least four days to let in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by Hamas fighters in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.

The leader of Hamas said yesterday that a truce agreement with Israel was close, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped for good news soon about hostages, the most optimistic signals so far of a deal to pause fighting and free captives.

Two journalists working for a Lebanon-based TV channel and a third person were killed by a rocket strike near Lebanon’s border with Israel yesterday, the Lebanese state news agency reported.

A group of US President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats urged him on Monday to encourage Israel to take immediate steps - including reopening a major border crossing - to help provide humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza.

Twenty-eight premature babies were evacuated from war-torn Gaza to Egypt yesterday as the enclave’s health ministry accused Israel of launching a deadly strike on the territory’s Indonesian Hospital.

Iran yesterday dismissed as “invalid” Israel’s accusations that Yemen’s Huthi rebels were acting on Tehran’s “guidance” when they seized a Red Sea ship owned by an Israeli businessman.