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GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least 17 people across the territory, while more trapped under the rubble after a family home was hit.

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month truce that had largely halted the fighting.

"Israeli air strikes in several areas killed 17 people since dawn," civil defence official Mohammed Al Mughayyir told AFP.

A strike on the house of Al-Khour family in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood killed 10 people, Mughayyir said, with witnesses reporting an estimated 20 victims trapped beneath the rubble.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, had earlier said that about 30 people were missing under the rubble.

Umm Walid Al Khour, who survived the attack, said that "everyone was sleeping with their children" when the strike hit.

"The house collapsed on top of us," she told AFP.

"Those who survived cried for help but nobody came... Most of the deceased were children."

AFP footage showed rescuers searching under the rubble as a wounded man was pulled out from the debris.

Elsewhere in the city, three people were killed in Israeli shelling of a house in the Al-Shati refugee camp, Mughayyir said.

More strikes across the Gaza Strip killed four others.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

According to figures released Friday by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, the renewed Israeli campaign since last month had killed at least 2,062 Palestinians, taking the overall war death toll in the territory to 51,439 people since the war began.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Fighters also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel says the renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

QAMISHLI, Syria — Syria's Kurdish parties held a conference on Saturday aimed at presenting a unified vision for the country's future following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, a high-ranking participant told AFP.

Eldar Khalil, an official in the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said that since Kurds were a major component of the country, they "must present a solution and a project proposal for the future of Syria".

On the question of federalism, Khalil said it was "one of the proposals on the table".

More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, took part in the "Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks" conference in Qamishli, according to the Kurdish Anha news agency.

The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which has controlled large swathes of Syria's northeast since the early years of the country's civil war, was represented at the gathering, as were groups opposed to it.

Last month, the Kurdish administration struck a deal to integrate into state institutions, with the new Islamist-led leadership seeking to unify the country following the December overthrow of Assad.

The agreement, however, has not prevented the Kurdish administration from criticising the new authorities, including over the formation of a new government and a recent constitutional declaration that concentrated executive power in the hands of interim President Ahmad Al Sharaa during the transition period.

Mazloum Abdi, head of the administration's armed wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces, said at the conference that "my message to all Syrian constituents and the Damascus government is that the conference does not aim, as some say, at division".

It was being held, he added, "for the unity of Syria".

Abdi included a call for "a new decentralised constitution that includes all components" of society.

"We support all Syrian components receiving their rights in the constitution to be able to build a decentralized democratic Syria that embraces everyone," he said.

Khalil said that the participants will also discuss ways to address the role of the Kurds in the new Syria.

ISTANBUL — Istanbul prosecutors on Saturday said nearly 50 people had been arrested in a probe into the graft case of Istanbul's opposition mayor, whose jailing last month sparked nationwide protests.

When Ekrem Imamoglu from the main opposition CHP was arrested on March 19, huge crowds began rallying in protest outside Istanbul City Hall every night with the demonstrations quickly spreading across the country in Turkey's biggest wave of unrest since 2013.

Istanbul's general prosecutor said "47 people have been arrested". According to local reports, those detained included Imamoglu's aide and brother-in-law Kadriye Kasapoglu and city hall officials.

The Bir Gun news site, which is close to the opposition, said raids were underway in the homes of those detained in Ankara, Istanbul and Tekirdag in the country's north-west.

Ozgur Celik, the provincial head of CHP in Istanbul, said the arrests were linked to the municipality's opposition to a divisive canal project aimed at connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.

The project was initiated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2011 when he was prime minister to relieve congestion in the Bosphorus Strait, a 50-kilometre-long, 150-metre-wide and 25-metre deep stretch.

It has been vehemently opposed by environmentalists because it would encroach on natural and agricultural land and alter a reservoir that partially supplies Istanbul with water.

"Today's operation is no coincidence," Celik said on X, explaining that Istanbul's Water and Sewage Authority had ordered the demolition and shutdown of construction sites along the canal route.

"The municipal employees who opposed [the project] are currently at the main police station," he said.

The deputy chairman of the CHP parliamentary group, Gokhan Gunaydin, said "the real reason for these arrests is the Istanbul Canal".

Turkish authorities have launched a social housing project and recently put land adjacent to the route of the future canal up for sale.

Imamoglu was arrested for alleged graft on the day he was named the CHP's candidate for the 2028 presidential race. He is a key foe of Erdogan, whose AKP has ruled Turkey since 2002.

Imamoglu's arrest, which was widely denounced as a means to leave the CHP leaderless, has also had economic implications.

Aside from an opposition call to boycott firms seen as close to the government, Istanbul's benchmark BIST 100 stock exchange fell by nearly 14 per cent over the month.

And the Turkish lira shed almost eight percent against the dollar, reaching an all-time low despite a $50-billion injection by the central bank to limit the damage.

TEHRAN — A powerful explosion ripped through a key port in southern Iran on Saturday, killing four people and injuring more than 500, state media said.

Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the customs office at the port said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.

State media reported a "massive explosion" at Shahid Rajaee, the country's largest commercial port, located in Hormozgan province on Iran's southern coast.

Footage broadcast on state TV showed thick columns of black smoke billowing from the port area, where many containers are stored, with helicopters deployed to fight the fire.

Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that at least 516 people were injured and "hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres".

"Unfortunately, at least four deaths have been confirmed by rescuers," the head of the Red Crescent Society's Relief and Rescue Organisation, Babak Mahmoudi, later told the broadcaster.

State TV had quoted Esmaeil Malekizadeh, a regional port official, as saying authorities were working to put out a fire at the facility.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had "issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes", dispatching Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni to the area to look into the incident.

Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is the most advanced container port in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

It is located 23 kilometres west of Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, and north of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.

Containers exploded 

Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of Hormozgan province's crisis management authority, told state TV that "the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area".

"We are currently evacuating and transporting the injured to nearby medical centres," he said.

The explosion was so powerful that it could be felt and heard about 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported, with residents saying they could feel the ground shake even at a distance.

"The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged," Tasnim news agency reported.

The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that "the explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines".

It added that "Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption".

The rare explosion comes several months after one of Iran's deadliest work accidents in years.

The coal mine blast in September, caused by a gas leak, killed more than 50 people in Tabas in Iran's east.

Saturday's explosion also came as delegations from Iran and the United States were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran's nuclear programme.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 25 people on Thursday, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City.

Israel resumed its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on March 18, following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded Palestinian territory.

Six members of one family -- a couple and their four children -- were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.

Nidal Al Sarafiti, a relative of the family, said the strike was carried out when the family was sleeping.

"What can I say? The destruction has spared no one," he told AFP.

Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital where the casualties were brought.

The military said it struck a Hamas "command and control centre" in the Jabalia area but did not specify whether the target was the police station.

"The command and control centre was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops," it said in a statement.

Elsewhere, five people died when the tents they had sought refuge in were hit.

Three people were killed, including a child, in the town of Zuwaida in central Gaza, the civil defence said in a statement.

Another two people were killed in a strike on a home in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

"We were sitting in peace when the missile fell.. I just don't understand ... what's happening," said Mohammed Faris, who witnessed the strike on the house.

Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the total death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The war was ignited by a Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency on Wednesday said its crew recovered charred bodies from a school-turned-shelter for displaced people, as Israeli strikes killed 17 people in the Hamas-run territory since dawn.

Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory.

"Seventeen people have been killed since dawn," civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He said 11 of the victims, which included women and children, died in an air strike targeting the Yafa school building in Gaza City's Al Tuffah neighbourhood.

"The school was housing displaced people. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered," he said.

Since the war began following Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans have sought refuge in schools to escape the violence.

Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began.

Bassal said his crew has received distress calls from several areas in Gaza.

"We lack the necessary tools and equipment to carry out effective rescue operations or recover the bodies of martyrs," he added.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military stated that it had targeted approximately 40 "engineering vehicles", alleging they were being used for "terror purposes".

Bassal said air strikes destroyed bulldozers and other equipment needed to "clear debris and recover the bodies of martyrs from beneath the rubble", as well as to "save lives, pull people from the rubble".

Elsewhere in Gaza, additional fatalities were reported on Wednesday.

A child was killed in an air strike on a home in the northern Jabalia area, and another individual was killed in a similar incident in the southern city of Khan Yunis, the civil defence said.

Four more people were killed in Israeli shelling of homes in eastern Gaza City. Several others remain trapped beneath the rubble, according to Bassal.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.

Since Israel's military campaign resumed, at least 1,890 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas's attack on Israel in 2023 that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.