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TULKAREM, Palestinian Territories — An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian press agency Wafa reported, while the Israeli military said it struck "five terrorists" on their way to carry out an attack.

According to Wafa, an Israeli military drone targeted a vehicle "with two missiles" which caught fire, killing five men.

The director of the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarem said in a statement that "five martyrs" had arrived at the facility after "an Israeli drone strike on a Palestinian vehicle close to the village of Zeita in Tulkarem".

At the scene of the strike a witness told AFP, "I live less than 50 metres from here. We came [after] the sound of an explosion and saw a vehicle on fire" on the road towards Zeita, to the north of Tulkarem.

"Next to it, we saw a body lying on the road. Inside the vehicle, there were three charred bodies, from what we were able to see, completely burnt," added Nasser, who declined to have his last name published. 

Alongside the Israel-Hamas war that began last October in the Gaza Strip, violence has intensified in the West Bank.

At least 599 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures. 

Meanwhile, the European Union's representative office in the Palestinian territories said on Friday that Israel advanced last year the highest number of settlements in the occupied West Bank since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, 

Plans for 12,349 housing units moved towards approval in the West Bank, the EU office said, warning of the impact on a potential two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Another 18,333 units moved forward in the planning process in annexed east Jerusalem, the EU office said.

The total -- 30,682 settler units in both the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- is the highest since 2012, it added.

The report comes at a time of heightened tensions in the West Bank and east Jerusalem over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which has been raging since October 7.

"The EU has repeatedly called on Israel not to proceed with plans under its settlement policy and to halt all settlement activities," the EU office said.

"It remains the EU's firm position that settlements are illegal under international law.

"Israel's decision to advance plans for the approval and construction of new settlement units in 2023 further undermines the prospects of a viable two-state solution."

All of Israel's settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

Dozens of unauthorised settlements have sprung up in the territories -- ranging from a few tents grouped together to prefabricated huts that have been linked to public electricity and water supplies.

Excluding east Jerusalem, some 490,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank alongside some three million Palestinians. Far-right parties in Israel's governing coalition have pressed for an acceleration of settlement expansion.

Since the start of the Gaza war, violence between Palestinians and Israeli troops and settlers has intensified.

GENEVA — Nearly two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the Gaza war began in October, the United Nations said Friday.

"UNOSAT's latest damage building assessment, based on satellite imagery... reveals that 151,265 structures have been affected in the Gaza Strip," the UN Satellite Centre said.

"Of these, 30 per cent were destroyed, 12 percent severely damaged, 36 percent moderately damaged, and 20 percent possibly damaged, representing approximately 63 percent of the total structures in the region."

The assessment was based on comparing imagery from May 2023 onward with images from July 6 this year.

"The impact on civilian infrastructure is evident, with thousands of homes and essential facilities being damaged," the agency said.

The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

UNOSAT said the total debris in the Gaza Strip generated by the conflict amounts to approximately 41.95 million metric tonnes.

The figure is up 83 percent from the nearly 23 million tonnes estimated on January 7.

The conflict has resulted in 14 times more debris than the combined total from all previous conflicts in the Palestinian territory since 2008, UNOSAT said.

The agency estimated that 114 kilogrammes of debris were generated for each square metre in the Gaza Strip.

Geneva-based UNOSAT says its satellite imagery-based analysis helps the humanitarian community assess the extent of conflict-related damage and helps shape emergency relief efforts.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese health ministry said four Syrians were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on the south, where Hizbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire since the Gaza war began in October.

"The health ministry announces... four Syrian nationals were martyred" in an "Israeli strike" on the southern village of Shama, it said in a statement.

The ministry said the toll might rise once DNA tests had been carried out.

The strike also wounded five Lebanese nationals, it added.

Emergency services told AFP that the dead were farmer workers and part of the same family.

Plumes of smoke billowed from the site of the strike, which heavily damaged two nearby buildings and burnt a vehicle to a crisp, a photographer working with AFP reported.

Hizbollah has not claimed any new attacks since an Israel air strike killed its top commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday evening, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying operations will resume on Friday morning.

Nasrallah warned his group was bound to respond to the killing of Shukr.

His death was followed hours later Wednesday, by the killing of Hezbollah ally Hamas's chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing.

The violence since October has killed at least 542 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters but also including 114 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

At least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to army figures. 

TEHRAN — Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.

The Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a "harsh punishment" for his killing.

In Tehran's city centre, thousands of mourning crowds carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags gathered for the ceremony at Tehran University before a procession, according to an AFP correspondent. 

Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced Haniyeh's death the day before. They said he and a bodyguard were killed in a strike on their accommodation in the Iranian capital at 2:00 am (2230 GMT) on Wednesday. 

It came just hours after Israel targeted and killed top Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut, raising fears of a wider regional conflict as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues unabated. 

Israel has declined to comment on the Tehran strike.

Iran's state TV showed the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguard covered in Palestinian flags during the ceremony attended by senior Iranian officials including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami.

Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian's inauguration ceremony on Tuesday. 

Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas's foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that Haniyeh's message will live on and "we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine".

 'Our duty' 

The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-decorated truck through city streets jammed with mourners cooled by water spray on a hot day.

Iran's conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran "will certainly carry out the supreme leader's order (to avenge Haniyeh)". 

"It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place," he said, as crowds chanted "Death to Israel, Death to America!"

Khamenei said after Haniyeh's death that it was "our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran".

The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that Khamenei has ordered that Iran strike Israel directly. 

"The Zionists [Israel] will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act", Pezeshkian said on Wednesday.

The international community, however, called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza -- which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a "dangerous escalation".

The United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran's request to discuss the incident. 

In a phone call, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt blamed Israel for rising tensions and "stressed the need to work on de-escalation to prevent the region from slipping into a comprehensive regional conflict", Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday reiterated appeals for an end to fighting. He said achieving peace "starts with a ceasefire" and called on "all parties" to "stop escalatory actions".

But the prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh's killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.

"How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?" Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site X.

Tensions inflamed 

While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh's death but it did claim the killing of Hezbollah commander Shukr, blaming for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The killings are the latest of several incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the war in Gaza which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

One of them, Yemen's Huthi rebels, "declared three days of mourning" for Haniyeh, according to the group's Saba news agency.

The Huthis earlier this month claimed a drone strike on Tel Aviv, their first fatal attack in Israel. Israel retaliated against Yemen's rebel-controlled Hodeida port, its first claimed strike in Yemen.

In April, after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at its consulate in Damascus, Iran made its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles.

Explosions later hit central Iran, in what US media said was Israeli retaliation.

Hamas has for months been indirectly negotiating a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange deal with Israel, in talks facilitated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

TEHRAN — Hamas said Wednesday its political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he was attending the inauguration of the country's new president, and vowed the act "will not go unanswered". 

Haniyeh's killing came after Israel on Tuesday struck a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, killing a senior commander of the Iran-backed group it said was responsible for a weekend rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

"Brother leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president," the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.

Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk vowed: "The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act and will not go unanswered."

Iran's Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh's residence in Tehran was "hit" and he was killed along with a bodyguard.

"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas-Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, he and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Guards' Sepah news website.

Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday's swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Israeli army declined to comment.

Abbas condemns killing 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh's killing as a "cowardly act" and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel.

Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attacks, which sparked the war in Gaza.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Regional tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, drawing in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal. 

He was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year's parliamentary election.

Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and split his time between Turkey and Qatar.

He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.

Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.

He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.

Hamas is part of the "axis of resistance" of Iran-backed armed groups arrayed against arch-foe Israel around the Middle East.

Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It has hailed Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel but denied any involvement.

TRIPOLI — Libya repatriated Tuesday 369 irregular migrants to their home countries Nigeria and Mali, including more than one hundred women and children, an official told AFP.

Mohammed Baredaa, head of the Libyan interior ministry organisation tasked with halting irregular migration, said two repatriations flights took place transporting 204 Nigerians and 165 Malians.

Nine babies, 18 minors, and 108 women were among the Nigerian irregular migrants, said Baredaa.

He said that the flights were carried out "in coordination with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)."

The UN agency provides free return flights to migrants and help reintegrating them into their home countries with its "voluntary humanitarian return programme".

But some migrants told AFP on Tuesday that they were being forcibly deported.

Libyan authorities "came at night and broke down the door", said Hakim, 59, a Nigerian who has lived in Libya for 25 years who declined to give his surname.

He said they confiscated his passport before detaining him and his wife prior to repatriation.

Libya is still struggling to recover from years of war and chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

Smugglers and human traffickers have taken advantage of the climate of instability that has dominated the vast country since.

Libya has been criticised over the treatment of migrant and refugees, with accusations from rights groups ranging from extortion to slavery.

Situated about 300 kilometres (186 miles) from Italy, it is a key departure point for migrants, primarily from sub-Saharan African countries, risking perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys to seek better lives in Europe.

But with mounting efforts by Libya and the European Union to curb irregular migration, many have found themselves stranded in Libya.

Earlier this month, Libyan authorities said up to four in five foreigners in the North African country were undocumented.

"It's time to resolve this problem", Interior Minister Imad Trabelsi had said at the time, adding that Libya has turned from a "transit country to a country of settlement" — something he deemed "unacceptable".

PORT Sudan, Sudan — Sudan's foreign affairs ministry which is loyal to the regular army fighting paramilitaries said on Tuesday that it "wants more discussions" before accepting a US invitation for ceasefire talks.

"Any negotiation before... the complete withdrawal" of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by general Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, and a "halt" to their expansion, are "unacceptable", the ministry said in a statement.

American secretary of state Antony Blinken last week invited the Sudanese army and the RSF for negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, set to begin on August 14.

The same day, Daglo welcomed the invitation and announced the RSF's intent to participate. The army, headed by General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, did not react.

A war has raged in Sudan since April 2023 between the army and the RSF that has left tens of thousands dead and sparked a major humanitarian crisis.

On Sunday, the foreign affairs ministry asked for "consultations with the Sudanese government on the form and agenda" and for a "meeting with the United States" before any future negotiations.

The talks, co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia, must include the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the UN as observers, Blinken said.

They are aimed at "achieving a country-wide cessation of violence and allowing access for humanitarian aid", said the top US diplomat.

Previous rounds of talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ended in failure.

The war has forced the displacement of more than 11 million people both inside and outside Sudan's borders, according to the United Nations, obliterating infrastructure and pushing the country to the edge of famine.

Some 25.6 million people -- more than half the population -- are facing high levels of "acute food insecurity", the world body said in a report published in late June.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians.

Since the beginning of the war, the army and RSF have also been accused of looting and obstructing humanitarian aid, as well as almost entirely destroying an already-fragile health system.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an Israeli operation in and around the territory's second city of Khan Yunis has killed about 300 people since it began on July 22.

"Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting has meanwhile raged on unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip, with the territory's civil defence agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had been killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation there that began on July 22.

The military meanwhile said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis area, which had seen heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed "over 150 terrorists".

Hamas on Monday again accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of delaying a Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange deal.

It said he had set new conditions that mark a "retreat" from an earlier draft.

The statement came after Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators met with Israeli negotiators in Rome on Sunday as international pressure for a ceasefire grows after more than nine months of war.

"We in the Hamas movement have listened to the mediators regarding what transpired recently in the Rome meeting, concerning the ceasefire negotiations and prisoner exchange," the group said in a statement.

"It is clear from what the mediators conveyed that Netanyahu has returned to his strategy of procrastination, stalling, and evading reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands," it added.

The new terms, Hamas said, represent "a retreat" from an earlier draft communicated by mediators.

US President Joe Biden outlined in late May what he called an Israeli initiative for a truce and hostage release deal, and this has become the basis for subsequent talks.

A source with knowledge of the talks said last week that Israel's return with extra demands was "a recurring theme" in the process and Israel had "moved the goalposts" with three new requests.

'Sabotage' 

Hamas officials have previously accused Netanyahu of hindering negotiations, and Israelis have made similar allegations. Israeli demonstrators, who have taken to the streets sometimes in the tens of thousands to demand a hostage-release deal, have also accused the prime minister of prolonging the war.

Far-right members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose any truce.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group, which seeks the return of hostages still held by militants in Gaza, alleged "deliberate sabotage" of the efforts, after the arrival of Israeli negotiators in Qatar was postponed from Thursday into this week.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been involved in months of mediation efforts aimed at ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.