Region

WASHINGTON — Israel and Hamas are still close to a ceasefire deal, the White House insisted Wednesday, despite growing fears of a regional war following the assassination of a key Hamas leader.

Washington is still engaged in "intense diplomacy" to prevent further escalation after Iran threatened revenge for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar -- the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack on Israel -- as its new leader, sparking fears the torturous negotiations have become even more difficult.

"We are as close as we think we have ever been" to a deal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

US officials have said on several occasions in recent weeks that a deal is close, while urging both Israel and Hamas to accept the current proposal which would lead to an initial six-week truce.

On Tuesday the White House said negotiations had "reached a final stage," in a readout of calls between President Joe Biden and the leaders of Qatar and Egypt, but did not elaborate.

The United States is now working to prevent an all-out war in the region, and has moved planes and warships into the area to help defend Israel if necessary.

"We're involved in some pretty intense diplomacy here across the region," Kirby said. 

He added that he was "not going to talk about intelligence assessments" of when, or whether, Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah might attack.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that he had told both Iran and US ally Israel to avoid escalating conflict.

"No one should escalate this conflict. We've been engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, communicating that message directly to Iran. We communicated that message directly to Israel," Blinken told reporters.

Blinken, speaking after talks with the Australian foreign and defense ministers at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland said the United States was working "intensely to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East and to prevent a spread of conflict."

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hassan Nasrallah said his Hizbollah group and Iran were "obliged to respond" to Israel as the Middle East braced for the the pair's promised retaliation following high-profile killings last week.

The United States said earlier it was working "around the clock" to avert an all-out war in the region, following the killings last week of Hizbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Speaking in a televised address to mark one week since Shukr's death, Nasrallah said Tehran "finds itself obliged to respond, and the enemy is waiting in a great state of dread".

Hizbollah was also "obliged to respond", he said, adding that it will retaliate "alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis" of Iran-backed groups in the region, "whatever the consequences."

Minutes before his speech, Israeli jets flew low over the Lebanese capital, breaking the sound barrier.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hit out on Monday at what he called the "criminal acts" of Israel "against the oppressed and defenceless people of Gaza", as well as for Haniyeh's killing.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is in no way seeking to expand the scope of war and crisis in the region, but this regime will definitely receive the response for its crimes and arrogance," Pezeshkian said during talks with a senior visiting Russian official, according to the official news agency IRNA.

Israel has not commented on the Haniyeh killing but confirmed it killed Shukr. 

Israel held the Hizbollah commander responsible for a rocket attack in the annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children, calling him the "right-hand man" of Nasrallah.

 'Playing with fire' 

Hizbollah has engaged in near-daily cross-border clashes with Israeli troops since the day after Hamas attacked Israel in early October.

The group claimed several attacks on Israel on Tuesday, including one with "explosive-laden drones" targeting a barracks north of the coastal town of Acre.

Regional councils in northern Israel urged residents to stay close to shelters on Tuesday after a barrage of rockets.

In southern Lebanon, six Hizbollah fighters were killed in Israel strikes, according to a Lebanese security source.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, on a visit to Cairo, acknowledged that there was "a possibility of a war between us and Israel... We can't deny that."

A European diplomat in Tel Aviv said "a coordinated response" from Iran and its proxies was expected against Israel but de-escalation efforts persisted.

"That doesn't mean there will be a simultaneous response from all fronts," he added, declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak on the issue.

"We're telling them they have to stop playing with fire, because the risk of flare-ups is higher than at any time since October 7," he said.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours.

Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines put on extra flights for people wanting to leave or return, a company source said.

The Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is to meet on Wednesday at the request of "Palestine and Iran", to discuss developments in the region, an OIC official said.

The United Nations' rights chief Volker Turk called on "all parties, along with those states with influence, to act urgently to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation".

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Diplomatic pressure mounted on Monday to avert an escalation between Iran and Israel following high-profile killings that have sent regional tensions soaring, while numerous governments urged their citizens to leave Lebanon.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday that his country was "determined to stand against" Iran and its allied armed groups "on all fronts".

As its war against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza nears its 11th month, Israel has been bracing for retaliation from the Tehran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" for the killing of two senior figures.

Palestinian armed group Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel, which has not directly commented on it.

The killing came hours after an Israeli strike on Beirut left Hizbollah military chief Fuad Shukr dead.

Tehran said on Monday that "no one has the right to doubt Iran's legal right to punish the Zionist regime" for Haniyeh's killing.

United States President Joe Biden, whose country has sent extra warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, was to hold crisis talks on Monday with his national security team.

The head of the US military command covering the Middle East, General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel and met Israel's military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi for a security assessment, an Israeli military statement said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 nations in a conference call on Sunday that any attack by Iran and Hizbollah could happen as early as Monday, US news site Axios reported.

Blinken asked his counterparts to place diplomatic pressure on Tehran, Hizbollah and Israel to "maintain maximum restraint", it added.

Government spokesman David Mencer said Israel is "preparing for any scenario both offensively and defensively".

In the northern port city of Haifa, shop owner Yehuda Levi, 45, told AFP that Israelis are used to conflict, but facing a multi-pronged attack "is a little tricky".

"It's difficult, but we believe we're a strong country. We're going to win this war."

'Path of dialogue'

Experts and diplomats fear that the expected attack on Israel could rapidly spiral into a regional war, in which Lebanon would be on the front line.

Turkey on Monday joined multiple nations calling on their citizens to leave Lebanon, where Hizbollah is based.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to the country or limited them to daylight hours.

Germany's Lufthansa, which has already suspended flights to the region including Tel Aviv, said its planes would avoid Iraqi and Iranian airspace until at least Wednesday.

Royal Jordanian Airlines said it would be operating three flights this week to transport nationals out of Beirut.

The United Nations' rights chief Volker Turk called on "all parties, along with those states with influence, to act urgently to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation".

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, whose country currently holds the rotating G7 presidency, similarly appealed for "the parties involved to desist from any initiative that could hinder the path of dialogue and moderation".

French President Emmanuel Macron joined the chorus of countries calling for "restraint" in the Middle East, during conversations with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

On Sunday, Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi made a rare trip to the Iranian capital during which he delivered a message from King Abdullah to President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Political analyst Oraib Rantawi said Jordanian "airspace will probably be a theatre for missiles and anti-missile" fire in any direct Iranian-Israeli clashes, but Amman would strongly object to violations of its sovereignty.

The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on Israel, has already drawn in Iran-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,623 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Cross-border clashes

As the region braced for further escalation, Hizbollah and Israel kept up their near-daily exchanges of fire.

The Lebanese health ministry said three people were killed on Monday in Israeli strikes on the country's south. Israel's military said it had struck militants operating a drone in the Mais Al Jabal area.

Hizbollah later said a fighter from that village had been killed.

Tehran has said it expects Hizbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.

Far from the Lebanese border, the Israeli military said around 15 rockets had crossed from the southern Gaza Strip into Israel on Monday, with medics saying they were treating an injured man.

The war in Gaza has destroyed much of Gaza's housing and other infrastructure and uprooted most of the populated as malnutrition and disease spreads, according to the United Nations.

The main aid body in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Monday said nine of its employees, out of thousands it employs in the territory, "may have been involved" in the October 7 attack. They have been fired, a UN spokesman said.

Months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States aimed at a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage-release deal have repeatedly stalled, but diplomats say a Gaza truce would help to calm the wider region.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Once a day, Umm Omar picks up the phone and calls her late husband, humouring their four-year-old daughter who does not understand yet her father was killed early in the Gaza war.

Little Ella "wants us to call him, to tell him about her day", said Umm Omar, who has fled with her three children to Al Mawasi, a coastal area teeming with mostly displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip.

A steadily climbing death toll, reported by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, nears 40,000 people killed in Gaza since war between Israel and Palestinian fighters broke out on October 7.

Umm Omar told AFP she did not understand "how the months have gone by" since her husband, Ibrahim al-Shanbari, was killed in an Israeli strike on northern Gaza.

When he died, Umm Omar said she lost everything "in a fraction of a second", but there was little time to bury him properly, grieve or process the loss of the "kind" man that he was.

There was no funeral procession or "any of the usual mourning [rituals] because it's wartime", Umm Omar added.

"It was very difficult to say goodbye... because the martyrs were buried very quickly," she said, with fighting raging across the besieged territory.

To help Ella, "I ended up pretending" her father was still alive, said Umm Omar.

Still, according to her, others had it worse, "those who have lost an entire family, those who have not been able to say goodbye, or those who find their children in pieces".

With more than 1.5 per cent of Gaza's 2.4 million people killed during the war, many inhabitants of the besieged coastal territory have lost loved ones.

The smell of death is everywhere, but under constant bombardment, shelling and battles, Gazans often have little time — or place that is not in ruins — to process their grief.

'Death has replaced life'

Some bled to death before reaching hospitals, many of which had gone out of service due to the fighting or facing severe shortages amid an Israeli siege imposed early on in the war.

Other victims were crushed under their toppled homes, their bodies eventually retrieved from the rubble of bombed-out neighbourhoods. Some are still missing, feared buried under the ruins.

To Mustafa Al Khatib, 56, who has lost several relatives, "death has replaced life".

The incessant violence has rendered many cemeteries inaccessible, often forcing Gazans to dig makeshift graves with whatever tools they can find, Khatib told AFP.

And "there are no stones or cement to make a concrete covering for the grave either", he said.

The hasty interment of Khatib's uncle in a hospital yard has left him with a "heavy heart", he said.

His sister was laid to rest at a long abandoned cemetery, which Khatib said was later bombed.

In central Gaza's Al Maghazi refugee camp, a woman placed her hand on the ground outside a school used a displacement shelter: this is where she said her daughter was buried after dying in her arms, fatally wounded in a blast.

With nearly all Gazans displaced at least once by the war, and often far from home, they have resorted to burying loved ones on any available patch of land, in the street, or sometimes on football fields.

Many do not know when they may be able to return to their burial spots or even find them again.

Longing for a final embrace

In the nearly 10 months since the war began, AFP correspondents have witnessed mass burials and bodies put in the ground in blood-stained blankets.

Some were wrapped in plastic sheets, marked with a number rather than a name, either because the bodies were unrecognisable or because no relatives had come to claim them.

Across the ravaged territory, which had already suffered for years under a crippling Israeli-led blockade and past cycles of violence, hasty burials are now conducted daily in the midst of fighting, evacuation orders and hazardous journeys to find food, water and medical care.

Khatib said he had "grown accustomed" to the often chaotic and fleeting farewells before friends and family return to their daily task of survival.

Some never had the chance to say goodbye.

Gazans interviewed by AFP have struggled or were outright unable to express their grief and loss. Many said they await their own death to rejoin their loved ones.

For more than six months, Ali Khalil has known that his 32-year-old son Mohammed was killed in the bombing of his home in the Al Shati refugee camp, on the outskirts of Gaza City.

But he was far, having fled for safety with his grandchildren to the coastal territory's south, when he heard the news.

"What hurts me the most is not having been able to bury my son, not having hugged him and not having said goodbye to him," said the grieving 54-year-old man.

"I wonder if his body remained intact or if it was in pieces. I have no idea."

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes killed three people on Monday in the country's south, with Hizbollah announcing one of its fighters killed and a rescue group mourning a paramedic.

Since last week, tensions have soared as Iran and Tehran-backed groups, including Hizbollah, vowed revenge for the killing of Hamas's political leader in Tehran and Israel's killing of the Lebanese group's military chief in Beirut.

Hizbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian fighter group's October 7 surprise attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

The twin killings have raised fears of full-blown war between Israel and Hizbollah, which last went to war in the summer of 2006.

Lebanon's health ministry said an "Israeli enemy strike that targeted a motorbike" in the southern village of Ebba killed one person, wounded another and caused a pregnant woman who was near the site to miscarry due to "shock".

It was not immediately clear whether the person killed was a fighter or a civilian.

Earlier, the health ministry said an "enemy raid" near the cemetery in the border village of Mais Al Jabal "killed two people".

An Israeli army statement said that "soldiers identified a terrorist cell operating a drone" in the Mais Al Jabal area, and that air forces "struck and eliminated the terrorists".

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said one of the dead in Mais Al Jabal was a paramedic with the Risala Scouts association, which is affiliated with the Hizbollah-allied Amal movement.

The frontline village is less than two kilometres from the border with Israel and has experienced heavy bombardment since the cross-border clashes began, forcing most residents to leave.

Hizbollah later also announced that a fighter from Mais Al Jabal had been killed by Israeli fire.

Ali Abbas, a Risala Scouts rescue worker, told AFP the paramedic had travelled by motorcycle with another person to inspect the site of an earlier raid when they were hit.

Hizbollah claimed a series of attacks on Israeli military positions on Monday, while the NNA reported Israeli strikes on other areas of south Lebanon.

The Iran-backed group said early Monday it had targeted military sites in northern Israel with "explosive-laden drones" in response to previous Israeli "attacks and assassinations" in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said "numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon" into northern Israel, starting a fire and leaving an officer and a soldier "moderately injured".

Also Monday, Lebanon received 32 tonnes of emergency medical supplies from the World Health Organisation for "treating war wounds" in efforts to increase readiness for "escalation in the Israeli aggression on Lebanon", a health ministry statement said.

Health Minister Firass Abiad said another supply shipment was due to arrive in the coming days, according to the statement.

Lebanon is ill-prepared for war, with public services including the health sector hit hard by a more than four-year-long economic crisis that has also pushed many medical professionals to emigrate.

Amid rising tensions, Israeli jets broke the sound barrier twice in the skies over Beirut around noon, according to the NNA, sparking worry in the Lebanese capital.

The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 550 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including the occupied Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.