Region

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country's east killed one person and wounded 20 others, hours after it said four people were killed in the south.

The strikes came more than 24 hours after Israel carried out similar raids deep inside east Lebanon and as tensions mounted in the wake of the Israeli killing of a top Hizbollah commander.

"Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa" valley killed one person "and wounded 20 others", the health ministry said in an updated toll.

The statement said one person was in critical condition while "eight children and a pregnant woman were moderately wounded".

A Hizbollah source, requesting anonymity, said several strikes hit east Lebanon near the city of Baalbek, including the village of Nabi Sheet, without specifying what was targeted.

A source from a local hospital told AFP that five children no older than 10, all from the same family, were among the wounded.

The strikes around midnight came after similar raids in the Bekaa region on Monday evening that Israel said targeted "Hizbollah weapons storage facilities".

They also came as Hizbollah said four of its fighters had been killed, after the health ministry said Tuesday that four people died in Israeli strikes in the southern border village of Dhayra.

The Iran-backed Hizbollah, an ally of Palestinian armed group Hamas, has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in October.

The violence has largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck the country's eastern Bekaa valley near the border with Syria where Hizbollah also has a strong presence.

Hizbollah claimed a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions on Tuesday, including sending barrages of Katyusha rockets at several north Israel military positions in stated retaliation for Israeli strikes, including in Dhayra.

The Shiite Muslim movement also said it launched "squadrons of explosive-laden drones" and "intense rocket barrages" at several Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights in response to Monday night's strikes in the Bekaa valley.

Health workers 'targeted' 

The Israeli military in separate statements said a total of around 115 "projectiles" were identified crossing from Lebanon.

It also said that "numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon", with air defences intercepting some of them.

No injuries were reported, though the military said the incidents sparked fires in some areas.

The military also said air forces struck projectile launchers and several "Hizbollah military" structures in south Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said three emergency personnel from the Hizbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were hurt Tuesday when the Israeli military "targeted them" in south Lebanon, causing "significant damage to the ambulance they were travelling in".

The ministry "condemned in the strongest terms the repeated targeting of health workers in south Lebanon".

Several militant groups in Lebanon operate health centres and emergency response operations, with at least 21 rescue workers killed since October, according to an AFP tally.

Fears of a major escalation have mounted since Hizbollah and Iran vowed to respond to twin killings blamed on Israel late last month.

An Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, shortly before an attack in Tehran blamed on Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The cross-border violence has killed some 590 people in Lebanon, mostly Hizbollah fighters but also including at least 128 civilians, according to AFP's tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that at least 40,223 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory in more than 10 months of war with Israel.

The toll includes 50 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to ministry figures, which also listed 92,981 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.

Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, told AFP from Gaza that in war-ravaged Gaza, death appears to be the "only certainty" for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape Israel's relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory.

"It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation."

For the past two weeks, Wateridge has been in the Gaza Strip, witnessing the humanitarian crisis, fear of death and spread of disease as the war rages on.

"Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe, absolutely nowhere is safe. It's absolutely devastating," Wateridge said from the Nuseirat area of central Gaza -- a regular target of Israel's aerial assaults.

Since fighting broke out in October, Israeli forces have pounded the besieged territory from the air, land and sea, reducing much of it to rubble.

Now in its eleventh month, the war has created an acute humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have been displaced several times, running out of basic food and clean drinking water.

Meanwhile, Israel killed a senior member of the Palestinian movement in Lebanon on Wednesday, accusing him of orchestrating attacks in the West Bank. 

In response, the Fatah party accused Israel of seeking to "ignite a regional war".

Khalil Maqdah was killed in a strike on his car in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to Fatah and a Lebanese security source.

The Israeli military said an air force "aircraft struck the terrorist Khalil Hussein Khalil Al-Maqdah in the area of Sidon in southern Lebanon."

The military said Maqdah was the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and accused them both of "directing terror attacks and smuggling weapons" to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The attack marks the first such reported attack on a senior member of Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hiezbollah movement following the Gaza war.

Fatah said Maqdah had been killed "in a cowardly assassination carried out by ... Zionist (Israeli) warplanes on Sidon", describing him as "one of the leaders" of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Lebanon, the movement's armed wing.

In a statement, it said Maqdah had "a central role" in "supporting the Palestinian people and its resistance" during the Gaza war and an "important role in supporting resistance cells" for years in the West Bank.

TEHRAN — Iran shut a German language institute in the capital Tehran Tuesday, prompting condemnation from Berlin where the foreign ministry said it would summon the Iranian ambassador over the row.

The closure of the German Language Institute Tehran (DSIT) comes nearly a month after Germany banned a religious centre over its alleged ties to the Islamic republic.

"Two branches of illegal centres affiliated with the German government, which violated Iran laws, committed numerous illegal acts and extensive financial violations, were closed on Tuesday by order of the judicial authority," the Iranian judiciary's Mizan Online website said.

It added that "reports of violations by other German-affiliated centres" in Iran had been received and that investigations were ongoing.

In a statement, the German foreign ministry condemned the closure of the DSIT as "unjustifiable" and called on "the new Iranian government to allow teaching to resume immediately".

"The Iranian ambassador will be summoned," it added.

The ministry said that the institute was founded in 1995 and employed 85 teachers, calling it "a popular and recognised meeting place where people work with great personal commitment under difficult conditions to promote language learning".

On July 24, Germany banned the Hamburg Islamic Centre over its alleged support for Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah group, as well its relations with the Islamic republic.

Following that move, Iran summoned the German ambassador to condemn what it called the "hostile action" and branded it a "clear example of Islamophobia".

Germany's interior ministry accused the centre of presenting itself as a purely religious organisation with no political agenda but said its probe had found the contrary to be true.

In a statement, the ministry said it "banned the Hamburg Islamic Centre and its affiliated organisations throughout Germany to date, as it is an Islamist extremist organisation pursuing anti-constitutional objectives".

Khan Yunis  — In war-ravaged Gaza, every drop of water counts, making Inas al-Ghul's makeshift sun-powered water filter a vital asset for parched Palestinians surviving endless bombardment under the territory's scorching heat.

Using wood from the few pallets of aid that make it into Gaza, and window panes salvaged from buildings that have largely been abandoned in 10 months of war, the 50-year-old agricultural engineer built a glass-covered trough.

She lets saltwater evaporate from the trough, heated by the greenhouse effect created by the glass panes, allowing the water to distil and leaving behind the salt.

From there, a long black hose carries the evaporated water to other containers filled with activated charcoal to further filter out impurities.

"It is a very simple device, it's very simple to use and to build," Ghul told AFP after taking a long gulp from a glass of filtered water in her house in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Abundant energy 

Ghul's device "doesn't require electricity, filters, or solar panels, it operates solely on solar energy", which Gaza has in abundance, with 14 hours of sunshine per day in the summer, and eight hours in the winter.

This has proven particularly useful at a time when Gaza's only power plant is down and electricity supplies from Israel have been cut for months.

With fuel also in short supply, Gaza's desalination plants that haven't been damaged in the fighting have been working at a drastically reduced capacity.

Mohammad Abu Daoud, a displaced Gazan sweating in the midday sun, said Ghul's invention "comes exactly at the right time".

"For about two months, we have relied on it entirely," he told AFPTV.

This brings crucial help to those who benefit from it, as the available water for Gazans currently averages 4.74 litres per day, "under a third of the recommended minimum in emergencies", Oxfam reported in July.

This represents "less than a single toilet flush", the aid group warned in a report, which estimates that available water per person per day in the Gaza Strip plummeted by 94 per cent since the beginning of the war.

Water was already scarce before the conflict erupted, and most of it was undrinkable. The 2.4 million population relies primarily on an increasingly polluted and depleted aquifer, humanitarian agencies say.

'Water as a weapon of war' 

The war broke out with Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

In the school-turned-shelter where Abu Daoud lives, close to Ghul's house, other displaced families have come to rely on the water filtration system to fill up their bottles.

The 250-litre tank that stores the clean water quickly empties.

Oxfam accuses Israel of using "water as a weapon of war", and has warned of "a deadly health catastrophe" for Gazans, almost all of whom have been displaced at least once.

The aid group calculated that "Israeli military attacks have damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation infrastructure sites every three days since the start of the war".

The lack of clean water has had drastic effects on the population, with "26 per cent of Gaza's population falling severely ill from easily preventable diseases", it said.

Conscious of the pressing need for her device and of the ubiquitous danger of air strikes, Ghul regularly climbs up to her terrace to watch over her creation, and to open or close her precious taps.

EL ALAMEIN — Top US diplomat Antony Blinken met Egypt's president Tuesday for talks about a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Hamas said it was "keen to reach a ceasefire" agreement but protested US modifications in the latest proposal, accusing Israel of "setting new conditions".

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East in more than 10 months of the Israel-Hamas war, flew from Israel to the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El Alamein, where he met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other officials.

"The time has come to end the ongoing war," Sisi told Blinken, according to an Egyptian statement, warning of the consequences of "the conflict expanding regionally".

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce, which diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, after meeting with Blinken, "expressed his hope that the coming round of negotiations sees a genuine Israeli political will to end the war", an official statement said.

More truce talks are expected in Egypt this week.

From El Alamein, Blinken was to head to a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha, where ceasefire mediators held talks last week with Israeli negotiators.

Hamas had called on the mediators to implement a framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

Hamas said on Sunday that the current US proposal, which Washington had put forward after two days of meetings in Doha, "responds to Netanyahu's conditions".

And on Monday, responding to comments by Biden that it was "backing away" from a deal, Hamas said the "misleading claims... do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a ceasefire".

One of the main sticking points has been Hamas's long-standing demand for a "complete" withdrawal of Israeli troops from all parts of Gaza, which Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Blinken said Monday he had "a very constructive meeting" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who "confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal".

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that would stop the fighting, free Israeli hostages and allow vital humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

 Gaza school hit 

Fears of a regional escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an attack last month, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, shortly after an Israeli strike on Beirut killed a top Hizbollah commander.

The powerful Lebanese group said it launched rockets at Israeli army positions in the annexed Golan Heights on Tuesday, in the latest of the cross-border exchanges which have raged almost daily since the Gaza war began.

Blinken said on Monday that there was "a real sense of urgency here, across the region" to end the war.

He said ongoing mediation efforts were "probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire".

Israeli military operations in Hamas-ruled Gaza have continued throughout the truce talks.

An Israeli strike hit a school in Gaza City where the civil defence agency said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and the Israeli military said a Hamas command centre was based.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in the facility, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

AFP photos showed the Mustafa Hafiz school partly reduced to rubble, with Palestinians fleeing after the strike.

In recent weeks across Gaza, Israel has struck numerous schools the military said were being used by militants. Hamas has denied using civilian infrastructure for military activity.

Israel recovers dead hostages 

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.

Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 105 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The military said Israeli forces had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the southern Gaza district of Khan Yunis.

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on the government to "do everything in its power to finalise the deal currently on the table" and rescue the remaining captives.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu, whose ruling coalition relies on the support of far-right members opposed to a truce, said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to "release a maximum number of living hostages" in the first phase of any ceasefire.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and Hamas not to derail negotiations that he said may be a "last opportunity" to secure a Gaza truce and hostage release deal.

Blinken, on his ninth regional tour since Hamas's October 7 attack triggered the war, said he was back in Israel "to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line".

"This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security," Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.

The US secretary of state later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and is due to travel on Tuesday to Cairo where ceasefire talks are expected to resume this week.

Israel and Hamas blamed each other for delays in reaching a truce accord, which diplomats say could help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East.

"We're working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way could move us away from getting this deal over the line, or, for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places, and to greater intensity," Blinken said.

"It is time for it to get done. It's also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process."

Months of on-off talks with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

But the stakes have risen since the late July killings of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip deepened.

Ahead of talks in Qatar last week, Hamas had called on mediators, rather than holding more negotiations, to implement a framework outlined in late May by US President Joe Biden.

Biden said Sunday that a ceasefire was "still possible" and that the United States was "not giving up", in brief comments to reporters.

Trading blame 

After the Qatar meeting, the United States had submitted what mediators called a "bridging proposal", which Hamas on Sunday said "responds to Netanyahu's conditions" and includes terms that the Palestinian group would not accept.

Hamas insisted on "a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip", saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations.

It mentioned Netzarim junction, which sits between northern and southern Gaza, as well as the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor on the Hamas-ruled territory's border with Egypt, which Israel sees as important for preventing the flow of weapons.

Netanyahu was "fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators", the Palestinian movement said in a statement.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, in a post on social media platform X, called on Netanyahu to "not miss this opportunity" and "bring them back".

On Sunday Netanyahu reiterated that Hamas "remains obstinate" and must be pressured, a day after his office said Israeli negotiators had expressed "cautious optimism" about reaching a deal.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators also reported progress.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister's governing coalition oppose any truce.

In southern Gaza, mourners gathered on Monday in Khan Yunis for the funeral of photojournalist Ibrahim Muhareb who was killed the day before, an AFP correspondent said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists advocacy group has said more than 100 Palestinian media workers have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.

Israeli police said a blast in Tel Aviv late Sunday -- shortly after Blinken landed -- was a "terror attack" that wounded one person. The force had earlier reported that the explosion killed one person, who Israeli media said was the suspected assailant.

DUBAI — Flooding caused by torrential rainfall in war-torn Yemen has led to at least 60 deaths since July, with 13 others still missing and a total of 268,000 people affected, the United Nations said Monday.

Yemen, already grappling with an almost decade-long war, suffers from severe floods on a near-annual basis that are triggered by torrential rainfall, while climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of precipitation.

Since July, flash floods have caused 36 deaths in Hodeida province, nine in Ibb, eight in Marib and seven in Taiz, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report released on Monday.

"Public infrastructure, including schools, roads, and health facilities, have been affected. Livelihoods that were already hanging by a thread have been swept away," OCHA said.

At least 600 people were injured due to flooding in Hodeida and Marib alone, it said, adding that a total of 13 people were still missing in Hodeida and Taiz.

It added that a total of 38,285 families -- nearly 268,000 people -- have been affected, saying that "severe weather is expected to persist into September, with additional alerts for heavy rainfall."

The University of Notre Dame's Global Adaptation Initiative ranks Yemen as one of the region's most climate-vulnerable countries.

In recent years, it has experienced an increase in the frequency and intensity of rainfall due to climate change, stimulated by atmospheric circulation in the Indian Ocean, according to a 2023 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Norwegian Red Cross.

The country also suffered heavy flooding in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the report said.

Yemen has been gripped by a war that erupted nearly a decade ago when Iran-backed Huthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, sending the internationally-recognised government fleeing to the southern city of Aden.

The conflict has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with aid deliveries complicated by insecurity and logistical difficulties.

Last week, the UN warned that $4.9 million was urgently needed to scale up the emergency response to Yemen's extreme weather conditions.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — An Israeli soldier and two Hizbollah fighters were killed Monday in clashes, Israel's military and the Iran-backed Lebanese group said, the latest in a wave of cross-border violence.

Hizbollah has exchanged regular fire with the Israeli army in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

Hizbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an Israeli strike last month on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, hours before an attack in Tehran, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The Israeli military said Monday a member of its Bedouin Trackers Unit "fell during combat in northern Israel".

Hizbollah said two of its fighters were "martyred", after Lebanon's health ministry reported that an Israeli strike left two people dead in the border village of Hula.

Israel's military said air forces struck "Hezbollah terrorists" in the Hula area and "Hizbollah military structures" elsewhere in south Lebanon.

Hizbollah had said earlier it launched a "simultaneous air attack" with "explosive-laden drones" on two Israeli military positions -- the Yaara barracks near the border, and a base near the coastal town of Acre, around 15 kilometres from the frontier.

The Israeli military said that "multiple suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon".

Air defences "intercepted some of the targets, and others fell" in the Yaara area, it said.

 'Impunity' 

Hizbollah said that it responded to an Israeli "attack and assassination" in south Lebanon's Tyre area.

On Saturday, the Israeli military had said its aircraft "eliminated" a Hizbollah operative in the Tyre area, describing him as a "commander" in the group's elite Radwan force.

Early Monday, Hizbollah said its fighters targeted a group of Israeli soldiers "infiltrating" near the border and confronted them "with rocket weapons and artillery, forcing them to return".

Hizbollah also claimed attacks on other Israeli positions on Monday.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli shelling and raids on several southern areas and said "enemy warplanes" flying at low altitude broke the sound barrier twice over Beirut and its suburbs.

Imran Riza, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, said in a statement that "nearly 150,000 people continue to live in areas impacted daily by shelling and air strikes" in Lebanon.

"Millions more are reliving painful memories of the 2006 war, traumatised by worry over the risk of further escalation," he said, referring to the last major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

According to the UN's International Organization for Migration, the violence since October has displaced more than 110,000 people in south Lebanon.

In Israel, authorities say some 100,000 people have been displaced in the country's north.

Riza added that "21 paramedics whose duties were to save others have been killed", saying "the seeming impunity with which such actions have been committed reveals a troubling disregard for international humanitarian law".

The cross-border violence has killed some 584 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 128 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

IZMIR, Turkey — Firefighters were battling a strong forest fire in Turkey's Aegean city of Izmir for a third day on Saturday, AFP reporters said, a day after hundreds of local people in nearby villages had to be evacuated.

Firefighters said they had partially beaten back the flames that have been threatening the port city over the last three days, although fires were still burning in the nearby forests.

In the northern suburb of Ornekkoy, AFP journalists saw the charred remains of several buildings and vehicles in an industrial zone while grey smoke billowed into the sky.

"We don't know what to do. Our workplace is located in the middle of the fire. We have lost our livelihood," said 48-year-old Hanife Erbil, who earns a living collecting paper and plastic waste.

The pine trees that once crowned the surrounding hills were also burned.

“It was such a beautiful route, it smelled of pine trees everywhere. It makes me want to cry,” said taxi driver Ayhan.

The smell of smoke was hanging over the city, the third most-populated in Turkey.

Firefighters from other Turkish cities have been sent as reinforcements and the army has been mobilised.

“Everyone is working hard. I’m on my 36th hour of service. We can say the fire is partially under control,” said Izmir firefighter Arjin Erol.

The fire started on Thursday and spread quickly to residential areas by winds blowing at 50 kilometres an hour.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 900 residents in five affected districts had been evacuated Friday night in Izmir.

On Saturday, those villages remained empty for security reasons, except for a handful of volunteers who left food and water for animals living in the forest, AFP journalists saw.

Wild animals, cats and dogs died in the fire but no human victim has yet been reported.

The fire damaged 16 buildings and affected 78 people, with 29 of them admitted to hospital, the Turkish health ministry said.

“Currently, two planes and eleven helicopters are continuing to intervene,” said Agriculture and Forestry Ministry Ibrahim Yumakli, after the strong winds had earlier grounded the helicopters and water bombers.

Residents of the city should not be worried, he added.

Four helicopters were dropping water on the flames throughout the day, backed by two planes, AFP journalists witnessed.

Around 1,600 hectares have been affected, the minister said, adding that the challenging terrain was making it difficult to put out the fire at its origin.

Fresh flames

Five other fires continue to rage in forest areas in other cities in Turkey, including northwestern Bolu and Aydin in the west.

And new fires broke out again in Izmir late on Saturday engulfing several districts including Bayindir and the popular holiday resort of Cesme, local mayor Cemil Tugay said on social media.

The authorities have controlled the fire in Cesme that lies across the Greek island of Chios, he said.

Officials said seven people were detained in Izmir over alleged links to the fire.

To come to the aid of its regional ally, Azerbaijan has sent a water bomber plane, the Turkish presidency announced.

Scientists say climate change makes extreme weather events including heatwaves more likely, longer lasting and more intense, increasing the risk of wildfires.

In June, a fire that broke out in Mardin in southeastern Turkey claimed the lives of 15 people.

Observers however say Turkey has made progress since it was hit by the worst fires in its history in 2021.