Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials said.

Israel bombed and shelled Gaza yesterday, witnesses and first responders said, with fallout from the war bringing a resurgence of tensions to the Lebanon border and Yemen.

Israeli strikes hit Gaza yesterday as truce talks with Hamas failed to progress and tensions surged on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Israeli tanks advanced deeper into the western area of Rafah, amid one of the worst nights of bombardment from air, ground, and sea, forcing many families to flee their homes and tents under darkness, residents said yesterday.

More than 1.5 million Muslims will begin the annual hajj pilgrimage in the Saudi holy city of Makkah today.

A merchant ship caught fire after being attacked off Yemen, a British maritime security agency said yesterday, following months of attacks in the area by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

More than half of Gaza’s agricultural land, crucial for feeding the territory’s hungry population, has been degraded by conflict, satellite images analysed by the United Nations show.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said yesterday it had launched rockets and weaponised drones at nine Israeli military sites in a coordinated attack, ramping up hostilities on Lebanon’s southern border for the second consecutive day.

A merchant ship issued a distress call after being struck in the Red Sea off Yemen, a security firm said yesterday, in what appeared to be the latest attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Violence against children in armed conflicts reached “extreme levels” in 2023, particularly in Gaza and Sudan, according to a forthcoming UN report obtained by AFP on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday that Hamas had proposed numerous changes, some unworkable, to a US-backed proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, but that mediators were determined to close the gaps.

A fire in Kuwait killed 49 people, all Indian nationals, when it ripped through a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers yesterday, the government said.

No Bangladeshi casualties were reported in the fire that broke out at a hostel in Mangaf, southern Kuwait, early today, which killed at least 41 people, according to the Bangladesh Embassy in Kuwait

At least 35 people were killed in a building fire in the city of Mangaf in southern Kuwait, the country's state media reported on Wednesday

A boat carrying more than 200 migrants sank off Yemen, leaving at least 49 dead, mostly women and children, in the latest disaster on the perilous migration route from Africa, a UN agency said yesterday.

Hamas accepts a UN resolution backing a plan to end the Israeli offensive in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian group said yesterday in what the US Secretary of State called “a hopeful sign”.

Hezbollah said yesterday that it targeted an Israeli military position following overnight strikes in eastern Lebanon that killed three of its fighters, hours after the Iran-backed group downed an Israeli drone.

Israel’s relentless bombardment and obstruction of humanitarian efforts are making it nearly impossible for aid agencies to reach starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East yesterday hoping to deliver the ceasefire that President Joe Biden proposed last month, in an all-out push by Washington to secure an end to the Gaza offensive.

Israeli forces pounded eastern and southern Gaza anew yesterday, a day after killing 274 Palestinians during a hostage rescue raid, and tanks advanced into further areas of Rafah in a bid to seal off part of the southern city, residents and Hamas media said.