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The United Nations on Wednesday called the deaths in Israel's new military strikes on Gaza "appalling", as it urged all sides not to let peace "slip from our grasp".Israel said it had carried out strikes on dozens of Hamas targets following the death of a soldier, with the Gaza Strip experiencing its deadliest night of bombing since a US-brokered truce went into effect earlier in October.UN rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks had reportedly hit schools, homes and tents for internally displaced people within the Palestinian territory."Reports that over 100 Palestinians were killed overnight in a wave of Israeli airstrikes mainly on residential buildings, IDP tents and schools across the Gaza Strip, following the death of an Israeli soldier, are appalling," he said in a statement."The laws of war are very clear on the paramount importance of protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure."Turk said Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law, and would be accountable for any violations."It is distressing that these killings occurred just as the long-suffering population of Gaza started to feel there was hope that the unrelenting barrage of violence may be at an end," he said.Turk called for all parties in the conflict to act in good faith and implement the ceasefire, and urged other countries, particularly those with influence in the region, to do everything in their power to ensure compliance."The past two years have brought untold suffering and misery, and the near wholesale destruction of Gaza," he said."We must not allow this opportunity for peace and a path towards a more just and secure future to slip from our grasp."

Their faces contorted with pain, relatives mourned two children killed in overnight Israeli strikes on Gaza, leaning over small bodies on the pavement wrapped in sheets, one stained blood red.In the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, Palestinians combed through piles of broken cement in a house flattened by an air strike, trying to salvage what they could."We had dinner and sat down, and then it was as if Judgment Day had come. All these stones were on top of us," Muneer Mayman told AFP in the morning, pointing to a pile of cinder blocks and concrete under which he had been found."We lay there for more than two hours while they were removing the rubble from over us."Behind him, men and children were at work sifting through debris, hauling off belongings wrapped in blankets for lack of bags or wheelbarrows.In south Gaza's Khan Yunis, an elderly woman held her face between her hands as she sat by a few utensils relatives had salvaged from rubble, an AFP journalist saw.Nuseirat's Al-Awda hospital reported at least 31 people killed in the strikes that broke the relative peace brought by a ceasefire that began on October 10.Gaza's civil defence agency said that 101 people including 35 children were killed since the strikes began, a figure confirmed by an AFP tally of medical officials in five hospitals.Jalal Abbas, a 40-year-old displaced man living in a tent in the central city of Deir al-Balah, told AFP he fears the war will return for good."The return of war is what we feared most. I expected the escalation and bombardment to resume because Israel always creates pretexts," he said."Every day they threaten to bring back the war, using the issue of the bodies as an excuse -- it's all lies," he added.Abbas was referring to Israel's declaration that Hamas broke the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal by not returning the bodies of deceased hostages quickly enough.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday the military had launched the strikes "in response to the attack on soldiers and the blatant violation of the agreement to return the abducted missing".At least one Israeli soldier was killed in clashes on Tuesday.In Khan Yunis, members of the civil defence, a rescue force acting under Hamas authority, had been searching by flashlight through the rubble through the night.Women wailed as the rescuers took away the bodies of deceased relatives on stretchers, before search and rescue teams moved on to the next site, a plot of land where two tents were struck.In north Gaza's Al-Shati camp too, bombardments tore through the night."We had just started to breathe again, trying to rebuild our lives, when the bombardment came back -- bringing war, explosions and death," Khadija al-Husni, 31, told AFP.Husni also lives in a tent, having been displaced at least once like nearly all Gazans after two years of war.She deplored the ambiguity of the current ceasefire, which has been sporadically broken by Israeli air strikes or fighting with Hamas since its beginning."Either there is a truce or a war -- it can't be both. The children couldn't sleep; they thought the war was over," Husni said."Are we condemned to live in endless suffering?"

Israeli planes launched strikes in Gaza City Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the resistance group Hamas of violating a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory and ordered the military to carry out "powerful attacks".At least two people were killed and four wounded in a strike on a residential building in the city's Sabra neighbourhood, and an area close to Shifa hospital, the largest operational hospital in northern Gaza, was also hit, according to Gaza officials, witnesses and Hamas media.The strikes were the latest violence in a fragile three-week-old ceasefire and which followed a statement by Netanyahu's office saying he had ordered immediate attacks.The statement did not give a specific reason for the attacks but an Israeli military official said Hamas had violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack against Israeli forces in an area of the enclave that is under Israeli control.The US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, halting two years of war that has devastated the narrow coastal strip.Both sides have accused each other of ceasefire violations.Earlier yesterday, Israeli media reported an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.Hamas denied responsibility for an attack on Israeli forces in Rafah. The group also said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire deal in Gaza.Tuesday's strikes on Gaza City followed what Israel called a "targeted strike" on Saturday on a person in central Gaza.Netanyahu said earlier yesterday that Hamas had violated the ceasefire by turning over some wrong remains in a process of returning the bodies of hostages to Israel.Hamas said Netanyahu was looking for excuses to back away from Israel's obligations.Witnesses in Khan Younis said the Egyptian teams, working with armed Hamas fighters, were digging deep near the Hamad Housing City in the western side of Khan Younis, reaching tunnel shafts.Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people are confirmed killed in the Israeli strikes and thousands more are missing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered the military to carry out intense strikes on the Gaza Strip, after accusing Hamas of violating the US-brokered ceasefire.Minutes later, Hamas said it would delay handing over the remains of another hostage under the terms of the truce deal over what it called Israel's truce "violations"."Following security consultations, Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed the military to immediately carry out powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip," a statement from the premier's office said, without elaborating.Hamas had earlier said it would hand over another hostage body, scheduled on Tuesday, amid mounting Israeli pressure after Hamas returned only the partial remains of a previously recovered captive."We will postpone the handover that was scheduled for today due to the occupation's violations," Hamas's armed wing said in a statement, adding that any Israeli "escalation will hinder the search, excavation, and recovery of the bodies".Hamas handed over late on Monday what it said was the 16th of 28 hostage bodies it had agreed to return under the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on October 10.But Israeli forensic examination determined Hamas had in fact handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body had already been brought back to Israel around two years ago, according to Netanyahu's office.In returning only the partial remains of an already returned captive, Netanyahu's office and a campaign group representing hostage families accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire.Netanyahu's office decried a "clear violation of the agreement" after identification procedures revealed the latest remains belonged "to the fallen hostage Ofir Tzarfati, who had been returned from the Gaza Strip in a military operation about two years ago".Netanyahu's latest instructions came after he held security consultations earlier in the day.Israeli government spokeswoman, Shosh Bedrosian, later told journalists that "in terms of consequences for Hamas nothing is off the table right now, but all of this is in full coordination with the United States, with (US) President (Donald) Trump and his team."The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the government to take action.Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem rejected claims the group knows where the remaining bodies are, arguing that Israel's bombardment during the two-year conflict had left locations unrecognisable."The movement is determined to hand over the bodies of the Israeli captives as soon as possible once they are located," he told AFP.Hamas has already returned all 20 living hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.Hamas also accused Israel of ceasefire violations, with the territory's health ministry saying that at least 94 people had been killed in Israeli fire since the truce began.On the ground in Gaza, 60-year-old Abdul-Hayy al-Hajj Ahmed told AFP he was afraid the war would start again because of the mounting pressure on Hamas."Now they accuse Hamas of stalling, and that is a pretext for renewed escalation and war," he said."We want to rest. I believe the war will come back."Israel's far-right national security minister accused Hamas of stalling the release of the remaining bodies."It is time to break its legs once and for all," Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on X.

A convoy of Egyptian trucks and vehicles transporting heavy machinery entered Gaza overnight to help locate the remains of Israeli hostages in the territory, AFP footage showed.The vehicles were filmed in Khan Yunis in the south of Gaza.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request on Sunday morning for confirmation that the vehicles had entered.But The Times of Israel had reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally approved the entry of the Egyptian team and several engineering vehicles to the Palestinian territory to locate the missing remains.On Saturday night, Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera News channel reported that the team was on its way to Gaza.Two Egyptian military sources had also confirmed to AFP that the convoy was at the Kerem Shalom crossing Saturday night, awaiting authorisation to cross into the Palestinian territory.On October 17, a Turkish official had announced that a team of 81 rescuers sent by Ankara to locate the hostages' bodies in Gaza was waiting in Egypt to enter the strip.But the Turkish team never received approval from Israel, amid reports that Israel objected to any Turkish involvement in Gaza.Based on the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, Hamas was due to return all 48 remaining hostages, alive and dead, who were still held in the territory, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians held by Israel.But only 15 of the 28 dead hostages have been returned so far, with the remaining bodies buried under the rubble across the devastated territory and Hamas calling for tools and assistance to locate them.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has issued an appeal on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. In a series of statements, the UN agency painted a grim picture of life for Gaza's children, saying that although the latest ceasefire had offered a brief window of survival, current aid levels remained vastly insufficient to meet the scale of destruction and need.UNICEF reported devastating statistics on the impact of the conflict, stating that more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured, while over 56,000 have lost one or both parents.The UN agency said Israel had caused widespread destruction across the territory.While acknowledging a slight increase in the flow of humanitarian aid, UNICEF insisted that the current assistance remains far from enough. The agency urged Israeli authorities to open all crossings immediately and unconditionally to ensure that humanitarian supplies can enter Gaza freely.Beyond emergency relief, UNICEF said it is working to preserve Gaza's future by supporting education.

Israeli forces carried out a "targeted strike" on an individual in central Gaza, Israel's military said Saturday.A US-backed ceasefire is in force between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas more than two years after the war in the Gaza Strip began.Witnesses said they had seen a drone strike a car and set it ablaze. Local medics said four people had been wounded, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.Witnesses said separately that Israeli tanks had shelled eastern areas of Gaza City, the Gaza Strip's biggest urban area.Several Israeli media sites said Israel, in a reversal of a policy of barring entry to foreign forces, had allowed Egyptian officials into the Gaza Strip to help locate the bodies of hostages taken captive on October 7, 2023.As part of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas has said it will return all the hostages, but the remains of 18 are still in the enclave. Reuters

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Israel's moves to annex the West Bank threaten the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip. In response to the Knesset's preliminary approval of two bills aimed at imposing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and one of the settlements, Rubio added that this would threaten President Donald Trump's plan to end the conflict in Gaza. Regarding Trump's announcement of the cancellation of a summit scheduled to be held with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Rubio confirmed that the United States still wants to hold meetings with Russia.

Pakistan called on the international community to take effective and urgent measures to halt the Israeli occupation's violations and ensure the full implementation of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned in a statement the renewed attacks by the Israeli occupation forces on Gaza, which have resulted in the martyrdom of dozens of civilians. It added that such actions contradict the spirit of the peace agreement signed in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh in the presence of leaders of the Arab and Islamic world, the United States, Europe, and the United Nations. The Ministry reiterated Pakistan's continued and steadfast support for the Palestinian people and its demand for an immediate cessation of Israeli hostilities and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

WFP says just two aid crossings are open and none to northIsrael says aid is entering in accordance with ceasefire planGazans store supplies for fear they will halt againThe UN World Food Programme said on Tuesday that supplies into Gaza were ramping up after the US-brokered ceasefire but were still far short of its daily target of 2,000 tons because only two crossings are open, and none to the famine-hit north of the enclave.Around 750 metric tons of food are now entering the Gaza Strip daily, according to the WFP, but this was still well below the scale of needs after two years of conflict between Israel and Hamas that has reduced much of Gaza to ruins."To be able to get to this scale-up, we have to use every border crossing point right now," WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a Geneva press briefing.She said only two of the Israeli-controlled crossings into Gaza were operational - Kerem Shalom in the south and Kissufim in the centre.The ceasefire plan brokered by US President Donald Trump envisages "full aid" being sent into Gaza. An Israeli security official said that humanitarian aid continues to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing and additional crossings in accordance with the plan, without naming them.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed until further notice, with its reopening dependent on Hamas handing over bodies of deceased hostages.The UN children's agency spokesperson Ricardo Pires said on Tuesday the humanitarian response was still far below the required scale and called for all entry points to reopen.Some nutrition supplies for children and pregnant women have reached the north via the south, Etefa said, but far short of the level required. "We haven't had large-scale convoys into Gaza City or to the north of Gaza," she said, adding that WFP had not been granted permission to use the main north-south Salah al-Din road.Food supplies delivered so far are enough to feed around half a million people for two weeks, she said.Many Gazans were storing the food they are receiving because they are afraid that supplies might again dry up."They eat part of it, and they ration and keep some of the supplies for an emergency, because they are not very confident how long the ceasefire will last and what will happen next," she said.

The Israeli occupation forces have committed 80 documented violations since the announcement of the ceasefire in Gaza, resulting in the slaying of 97 Palestinians and injuries to over 230 others, with varying degrees of severity, including 21 violations recorded on Sunday, the Government Media Office in Gaza reported in a statement Monday.The statement added that these breaches included direct shooting at civilians, deliberate bombing of residential compounds, creation of fire belts, and unleashing field detentions in several areas.These practices confirm the persistent Israeli occupation's belligerent approach and its determination to field escalation in an unequivocal violation of the ceasefire decision and the international humanitarian rules-based order, the statement continued.The statement further pointed out that in their assaults, the occupation forces operated tanks stationed at the perimeter of residential neighborhoods, alongside remotely-operated sensor-equipped cranes with electro-optical targeting capability, in addition to fighter jets and quadcopters that daily hover over populated areas and directly launch firepower at civilians.The Israeli breaches have been recorded in various governorates across the Gaza enclave, emphasising the Israeli occupation's non-compliance with the ceasefire and its persistent pursuit of the policy of killing and terrorising against the population, the statement clarified.The Media Office held the Israeli occupation forces fully responsible for these violations and called on the UN and nations that guaranteed the ceasefire deal to urgently intervene to compel the Israeli occupation to stop its attacks and protect the unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aati held two phone calls on Monday with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, discussing the rapid developments in the Gaza Strip and support for security and stability in the region. During the two phone calls, Abdel Aati stressed the critical importance of both parties to the Sharm el-Sheikh pact adhering to the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that respecting the agreement represents a fundamental step toward consolidating the ceasefire, permanently ending the war, and alleviating the humanitarian suffering in the Gaza Strip. He also emphasized the need for full access to humanitarian and relief aid to the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The two calls addressed the ongoing preparations for Egypt to host the International Conference on Early Recovery, Reconstruction and Development in Gaza next November. The Egyptian Foreign Minister stressed the importance of beginning the implementation of early recovery and reconstruction plans for Gaza as soon as possible, within the framework of a comprehensive vision that preserves the rights of the Palestinian people, in accordance with the Arab-Islamic Plan for Early Recovery and Reconstruction, and US President Donald Trump's Middle East Peace Plan. In turn, the Danish and French foreign ministers affirmed their full support for Egypt's tireless efforts to promote stability in the region, expressing their aspiration to continue coordination with Egypt on issues related to early recovery and reconstruction in Gaza.