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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Airlines suspended flights to Lebanon on Monday as diplomatic efforts were under way to contain soaring tensions between Hizbollah and Israel after deadly rocket fire in the annexed Golan Heights.

Mourners gathered in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams for the funeral of 11-year-old Guevara Ibrahim, the last of 12 victims — all aged 10 to 16 — of the rocket that hit a football pitch in the Druze Arab community on Saturday.

Israel and the United States have blamed the attack on Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah group, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza war in early October.

The White House said on Monday it is “confident” that a wider war between Israel and Hizbollah can be avoided despite the deadly rocket attack.

“Nobody wants a broader war, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to avoid such an outcome,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a call with reporters.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said a flurry of diplomatic activity has sought to contain the anticipated Israeli response, after defence minister Yoav Gallant threatened to “hit the enemy hard”.

“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hizbollah will respond in a limited way... These are the assurances we’ve received,” Bou Habib said in an interview late Sunday with local broadcaster Al Jadeed.

The United States, France and others were trying to contain the escalation, he added, while Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had also said that “talks are ongoing with international, European and Arab sides to protect Lebanon and ward off dangers”.

Several airlines including Lufthansa, Air France and Transavia announced Monday the suspension of their Beirut lines.

But in central Beirut, shop owner Muhammad Saad, 53, said life went on as usual.

“We’re already at war, what more could happen?” he told AFP.

Hizbollah has denied responsibility for the Majdal Shams rocket attack, though the group claimed multiple strikes on Israeli military positions that day.

Gaza battles 

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the site of the rocket strike Monday, has said “Hizbollah will pay a heavy price”.

He convened Sunday his security cabinet, whose members “authorised the prime minister and the defence minister to decide on the manner and timing of the response”, Netanyahu’s office said without elaborating.

Hizbollah has evacuated some positions in south and east Lebanon, a source close to the group told AFP.

On Monday, Hizbollah said it had launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli military site following the “assassination” of two of its fighters.

A source close to the group told AFP the pair were killed in an air raid on Lebanon’s southern village of Mais al-Jabal.

The cross-border violence has so far killed at least 529 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 104 civilians.

On the Israeli side, 24 civilians and 22 soldiers have been killed, according to the military.

Hizbollah is an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

The Lebanese group has said its attacks are in support of Hamas, and that they would stop if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Months of efforts have failed to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal, though mediators and Israeli negotiators met on Sunday in Rome to discuss the latest proposal.

“The negotiations on the main issues will continue in the coming days,” an Israeli statement said.

On the ground in the besieged Palestinian territory, the Israeli military said its forces were “continuing precise, intelligence-based operational activity in the Rafah area” and in nearby Khan Yunis, where troops had “eliminated dozens of terrorists”.

Israeli aircraft struck 35 targets across Gaza in 24 hours, the military added.

In the territory’s north, Hamas’s armed wing said its fighters were “engaging” an Israeli force in Gaza City’s Tal Al Hawa district.

Witnesses reported shelling overnight and into the morning in Tal al-Hawa and other parts of the city.

 ‘Forcing people to flee’ 

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli 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 39,363 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Late Sunday, the Israeli military announced its latest evacuation order for parts of central Gaza, asking Palestinians to head to a declared safe zone near Khan Yunis.

It said Israeli forces would “operate forcefully” against militants in the area of Al Bureij refugee camp after rockets had been fired from there.

Witnesses said hundreds were fleeing the area on Monday.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Israeli evacuation orders cover the vast majority of the besieged territory.

“Only 14 per cent of areas in Gaza are not under the evacuation orders,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini on social media platform X.

“Every other day, the Israeli authorities issue these orders forcing people to flee,” he said.

HODEIDA, Yemen — An Israeli strike on Yemen's rebel-held Hodeida port has caused at least $20 million in damage, adding to losses due to the destruction of fuel storage facilities, a port official has said.

The July 20 attack on Hodeida, the main harbour under the control of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, destroyed most of the port's oil storage capacity and triggered a massive inferno that burned for days.

Nine people were killed in the strike, according to the rebels, the first attack ever claimed by Israel on Yemen which came a day after a Houthi attack on Israel.

Speaking to AFP on Sunday from the harbour after operations resumed last week, port official Nasr Al Nusairi relayed the results of a preliminary damage assessment, saying two cranes were destroyed, a small vessel was burnt and a number of buildings were torched.

"There is also damage to the docks," said Nusairi, the vice president of the Yemen Red Sea Ports Corporation which runs the Hodeida Harbour.

Nusairi estimated the cost of port damage to "exceed $20 million", noting, however, that the sum does not factor in losses incurred by the destruction of fuel storage facilities which "is the responsibility of the oil ministry".

The port damage caused a temporary interruption of activities but operations resumed quickly, Nusairi said.

The first two container ships docked in Hodeida three days after the Israeli raid, according to Houthi officials.

The port appeared to be operational on Sunday, with container ships anchored on its docks and workers unloading containers using cranes, according to an AFP photographer who toured the area.

The Houthis have launched attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November, in a campaign they say is to signal their solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

BRUSSELS, GAZA — EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Saturday called for a "political solution" to end the "madness" in Gaza after the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

"Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness," Borrell said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In another post, he said "yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younis... At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight".

The latest strike, which Israel said targeted "terrorists", was at least the eighth time since July 6 a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.

With most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war started by Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday that Israel’s military operation around Khan Yunis has killed about 170 people and wounded hundreds since it started on Monday.

“Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in the Khan Yunis area, we are talking of approximately 170 martyrs and hundreds of wounded,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He said many people had been displaced again on Saturday as the Israeli operation continued.

“The questions is where will these residents go?” Basal said.

“Anyone who sees the situation in Khan Yunis will witness thousands of people spread out on the ground, on the roads, in areas that unfortunately are not suitable for living.

“With no other options available, they are exposing themselves to death.”

Earlier on Saturday the military issued new evacuation orders for residents of the southern city, after retrieving the bodies of five Israelis and warning of new operations.

The United Nations said more than 180,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Yunis since the Israeli operation began on Monday.

The evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, it added, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” across the Palestinian territory.

MAJDAL SHAMS — Israel's emergency medical service said at least 10 people were killed in the annexed Golan Heights on Saturday by a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon.

The 10 were killed when a rocket hit a football pitch in the Arab town of Majdal Shams, where many residents retain Syrian nationality decades after the territory's occupation in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Magen David Adom said.

The rocket fire came after an Israeli strike killed four Hizbollah fighters in south Lebanon prompting the Iran-backed group to announce a flurry of retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan and northern Israel.

Magen David Adom reported 10 dead and 19 wounded after the rocket hit on the town of Majdal Shams.

But the Iran-backed militant group denied it was responsible.

"The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident," it said, referring to its military wing.

The police and the army said rockets had struck multiple locations in the Golan, including Majdal Shams.

Ambulances, helicopters and mobile intensive care units were deployed to the site, the army said.

“We arrived at a football pitch and saw destruction and objects on fire. Injured people were lying on the grass,” paramedic Idan Avshalom said in a statement issued by Magen David Adom.

An AFP correspondent saw medics carrying away the wounded for treatment.

“Officers and police bomb disposal experts from the northern district police are currently securing the area and searching for additional [rocket] remnants to eliminate any further risk to the public,” the police said in a separate statement.

The rocket fire came after a Lebanese security source said an Israeli strike killed four Hizbollah fighters in the southern village of Kfar Kila.

Hizbollah, which has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted last October, confirmed the deaths of four of its fighters.

It said it carried out a dozen retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets, nine in the space of two hours.

Hizbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli forces since the Gaza war erupted last October.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing and injuring people according to Palestinian medical sources, as the military said it had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken to Gaza by Hamas fighers after they were killed on October 7.

A group supporting Israeli hostages still held in the Palestinian territory welcomed the rescue but alleged "sabotage" of efforts to free others. The accusation from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum came with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Washington.

Netanyahu — whose critics accuse him of prolonging the fighting — is on Thursday to meet US President Joe Biden, who has been pushing a truce and hostage-release deal.

In a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu downplayed Palestinian civilian casualties during the more than nine months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas.

At least 39,175 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not give details of civilian and fighter deaths.

The latest toll includes 30 deaths over the previous 24 hours.

Palestinian medical services on Thursday said their teams had transported four dead and 12 wounded after a strike on a house in the Gaza City area in the north of the territory.

'Crisis of trust'

An AFP correspondent reported air strikes and machine gun fire from tanks in Gaza City. To the south, witnesses said there was shelling in the Khan Yunis city and Rafah areas, as well as air strikes in Al-Qarara, near Khan Yunis.

Israel's military said the five bodies recovered from Gaza, including those of two soldiers and two reservists, had been returned to Israel following a rescue operation on Wednesday in Khan Yunis.

After the military warned it would “forcefully operate” in the area, the Gaza health ministry on Monday said an Israeli operation had killed 70 people and wounded more than 200.

The five Israelis recovered had previously been announced as having died, and the military as well as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said militants had killed them on October 7.

The Forum has regularly protested in Israel for a deal to get the remaining captives home.

On Thursday it demanded an urgent meeting with Israel’s team for negotiating a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying a “crisis of trust” had emerged.

“It has now become apparent that the information provided to the hostages’ families did not accurately reflect the situation’s reality,” the group said in a statement.

“This foot-dragging is a deliberate sabotage of the chance to bring our loved ones back. It effectively undermines the negotiations and indicates a serious moral failure.”

Anti-government protesters who have also regularly demonstrated, sometimes by the tens of thousands, have accused Netanyahu of dragging out the war. So have some analysts.

Far-right members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition oppose a truce, which would involve Palestinian prisoners being freed in exchange for the hostages.

After Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, Hamas issued a statement saying the Israeli premier “thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners”, despite Egyptian and Qatari mediation.

Delegation delayed

A senior US administration official said negotiations for a Gaza deal were in the last stretch and Biden would try to close some “final gaps” with Netanyahu.

But a source with knowledge of the talks said separately that the arrival of an Israeli delegation in Doha for talks on Israeli demands for a deal had been postponed from Thursday to next week.

Washington has been increasingly alarmed by the humanitarian toll of the Gaza war, but in his speech to Congress, Netanyahu dismissed “all the lies” about civilian fatalities.

He said “the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare”.

AFP correspondents in Gaza have daily witnessed children and women brought into hospitals injured or dead.

In May, the United Nations said women and children made up at least 56 per cent of those killed during the war, based on a breakdown provided by Gaza’s health ministry at that time.

Washington on Wednesday criticised an Israeli bill that would declare the UN agency for Palestinian refugees — the main aid agency in Gaza — a terrorist organisation.

“UNRWA is not a terrorist organisation,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, urging a halt to the legislation.

HODEIDA, Yemen — Two container ships have docked in Yemen's Hodeida harbour, the first since a deadly Israeli strike hit fuel storage tanks at the rebel-held port, according to Houthi media and ship trackers.

The strikes on Saturday, the first claimed by Israel on Yemen, triggered a massive blaze that burned for days at the dock amid slow firefighting efforts.

It destroyed some cranes and dozens of oil tanks, according to experts. Another tank exploded overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, reigniting some flames at the harbour, a critical gateway for fuel imports and humanitarian aid into Houthi-held areas.

Despite the ongoing threat, "the port of Hodeida is working normally around the clock" to receive commercial ships, Ahmed Al Murtada, the deputy director of the container terminal, told the Houthi-run Saba news agency on Tuesday.

The port's director of maritime operations, Mohamed Al Sais, told Saba that two ships had docked at the harbour on Tuesday.

He identified them as "Marsa Zenith", a vessel that carried 514 containers of "various goods", and "Brother 1", which was loaded with 22,803 tonnes of iron, Saba said.

Ship tracking website marinetraffic.com confirmed the arrival on Tuesday of Marsa Zenith, identifying it as a Panama-flagged vessel that departed from the port of Djibouti.

It additionally reported the arrival of the Tanzania-flagged Brother 1, which also sailed from Djibouti, according to the website.

The quays of Hodeida were spared major damage in the Israeli strike that rebels say killed nine people and targeted a fuel storage depot owned by the Yemen Petroleum Company as well as a power plant north of the port.

Maritime security firm Ambrey said there were no reports of major damage to vessels in or near the harbour following the strike.

The port, however, is still at risk of another “catastrophe”, said Mwatana for Human Rights, a Yemeni right group which dispatched an assessment team to the dock.

“Based on [the findings of] our field team, the risk of more fuel tanks exploding still remains,” it told AFP in an e-mailed statement.

“Whenever the firefighting teams tried to extinguish the fires, the explosions and flames reignited,” Mwatana said.

“There are major concerns that the teams may not be able to... prevent another explosion.”

WASHINGTON — The United States announced Tuesday that it had invited Sudan's warring sides to hold ceasefire talks in Switzerland next month.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had invited Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to start US-mediated negotiations beginning on August 14.

"The United States remains committed to working with partners to end this devastating war," Blinken said in a statement.

The commander of the RSF, at war with the army for over a year, said he "welcomed" Blinken's invitation and that his side would join the negotiations.

"I declare our participation in the upcoming ceasefire talks on August 14, 2024, in Switzerland," Mohamed Hamdan Daglo wrote on social media site X.

Previous negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have failed to put an end to fighting that has displaced millions, sparked warnings of famine and left swaths of the capital Khartoum in ruins.

Subsequent mediation attempts, including by the African Union, have failed to get the warring parties in the same room, as experts said both forces vied for the tactical advantage on the ground.

For more than a year, the brutal war has raged in the northeast African country between the regular military under army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Daglo.

The conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and uprooted more than 10 million people, including 2 million who have fled across borders, according to the United Nations.

“The talks in Switzerland aim to reach a nationwide cessation of violence, enabling humanitarian access to all those in need, and develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure implementation of any agreement,” Blinken said.

The US-mediated talks will be co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and will include the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations as observers, the State Department said.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that “there is no military solution to the conflict in Sudan”.

“Convening these national ceasefire talks and making clear that they are backed by key international stakeholders is the only way to prove to end the conflict,” he said.

Asked about the chances of the talks succeeding, however, Miller acknowledged that “we just want to get the parties back to the table”, calling it “the best shot that we have right now at getting a nationwide cessation of violence”.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes including deliberately targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, and blocking humanitarian aid, while the fighting has caused many humanitarian organisations to cease operations in the country.

A recent UN-backed report said nearly 26 million people, or slightly more than half of the population, were facing high levels of “acute food insecurity”.

Indirect talks between the RSF and Sudanese military, held this month in Geneva by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, were called an “encouraging” first step by the UN.

The talks focused on humanitarian aid and protecting civilians, though neither side met directly with the other.