Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry released a statement yesterday condemning any ground operations by Israeli forces that may threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Kazakhstan said yesterday that 32 people were killed in a fire in yet another deadly accident in a mine owned by ArcelorMittal, with over a dozen still missing, in the Central Asian country’s worst disaster in years.

Israel’s military has told international news organisations Reuters and Agence France Presse that it cannot guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, under Israeli bombardment and siege for almost three weeks.

The UN yesterday warned that “many more will die” in Gaza from catastrophic shortages as Israeli air and ground forces stepped up operations in the Palestinian enclave.

Projectiles hit two Egyptian Red Sea towns yesterday, sources and officials said, injuring six people and showing the risk of regional spillover from the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Israel said its ground forces had made a big push into Gaza overnight to attack “Hamas targets” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was still preparing for a ground invasion that could be one of several.

Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have had to flee south from Gaza City and work in fear for their lives in appalling conditions as Israeli air raids pound the territory.

Israel has agreed to delay an expected invasion of Gaza for now so that the United States can rush missile defences to the region to protect its troops there, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and Israeli officials.

AFP, DohaThe foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar yesterday accused the international community of “double standards” in its reaction to escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

With so many bodies, Palestinians in Gaza are burying the unidentified dead in mass graves, with a number instead of a name, residents say. Now some families are using bracelets in the hope of finding their loved ones should they be killed.

More than 700 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes, Gaza’s health ministry said yesterday, the highest 24-hour death toll since Israel began a bombing campaign to crush Hamas members who stunned the country with a deadly October 7 attack.

Six people, including two children, were killed yesterday in Russian strikes on a displacement camp in Syria’s northwest, the country’s last main rebel bastion, a war monitor said.

An elderly Israeli hostage who was released by Hamas overnight said she had been beaten by the group’s members when she was abducted and taken to Gaza on October 7, but was then treated well during her two-week captivity in the Palestinian enclave.

The White House on Monday said Iran was in some cases “actively facilitating” rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups on US military bases in Iraq and Syria, and President Biden has directed the Department of Defense to brace for more and respond appropriately.

Doctors in Gaza say patients arriving at hospitals are showing signs of disease caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation after more than 1.4 million people fled their homes for temporary shelters under Israel’s heaviest-ever bombardment.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign more than two weeks ago.

When the Israeli army told Palestinians in the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City to flee south because it was safer, 18-year-old Dima Al-Lamdani’s family prayed they would escape relentless air strikes.

The lives of at least 120 newborn babies on incubators in war-torn Gaza’s hospitals are at risk as fuel runs out in the besieged enclave, the UN children’s agency warned yesterday.

On October 15, Iran issued a stinging public ultimatum to its arch-enemy Israel: Halt your onslaught on Gaza or we’ll be forced to take action, its foreign minister warned.

Israel yesterday stepped up strikes on Gaza killing at least 266 Palestinians as fears of a wider conflict grew.