Region

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — UN agencies sounded the alarm about war-torn Gaza on Tuesday, saying that 10 children a day are losing one or both legs and half-a-million Palestinians suffer "catastrophic" hunger.

There was no let-up in Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip and fighting against the Palestinian fighter group Hamas over the October 7 surprise attack, as it maintained the siege on the territory's 2.4 million people.

Palestinian officials said one strike killed 10 members of Qatar-based Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh's family, including his sister.

Israel's military did not immediately confirm the strike, which the civil defence agency in Hamas-ruled Gaza said hit the family's house in the northern Al Shati refugee camp, leaving some bodies trapped under the rubble.

The military said its forces struck Hamas operatives "inside school compounds" in Al Shati and another area of northern Gaza overnight, accusing them of involvement in the October 7 attack and "in holding hostages captive".

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP: "There are 10 martyrs and several wounded as a result of the strike, including Zahr Haniyeh, sister of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh."

Haniyeh lost three sons and four grandchildren in a strike in April, when Israel’s military accused them of “terrorist activities”.

At the time, the Hamas chief said about 60 of his relatives had died in the Gaza war.

The reported strike came three days after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war was winding down, but that the war would continue.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in a briefing in Geneva warned of the war’s dire impact on children in Gaza.

“Basically we have every day 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average,” Lazzarini told reporters.

Citing figures from the UN children’s agency UNICEF, he said that figure “does not even include the arms and the hands, and we have many more” of these.

“Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days of this brutal war,” Lazzarini said.

He said amputation often takes place “in quite horrible conditions”, sometimes without anaesthesia.

The UN’s Rome-based World Food Programme, meanwhile, said a new report “paints a stark picture of ongoing hunger”.

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership said its March warning of imminent famine in the north of the Palestinian territory had not materialised.

“However, the situation in Gaza remains catastrophic and there is a high and sustained risk of famine across the whole Gaza Strip,” the report said, warning against complacency.

It said around 495,000 people — around 22 per cent of the territory’s population, according to the UN — are still facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”.

Another 745,000 people are classified as in a food security emergency.

Looking at Israel’s longer-term strategy, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Tuesday that striking Hamas was not enough, and that an “alternative” leadership must take the helm in Gaza.

“Hamas cannot be made to disappear, as it’s an idea,” Hanegbi told a conference in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya about the Islamist militant group.

“Therefore you need an alternative idea, not just damage to its military capabilities. And the alternative is local leadership that is prepared to live alongside Israel.”

Meanwhile, in a politically volatile ruling that could upend Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, Israel’s top court said the government “must act” to draft ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to military service.

Students of Jewish seminaries have historically been granted sweeping exemptions from the otherwise mandatory service, but calls within Israel for more ultra-Orthodox men to join army ranks have swelled during the war, which has seen mass mobilisation.

WASHINGTON — The United States warned Israel on Tuesday that a conflict with Hizbollah could spark a regional war, as UN agencies said 10 children a day are losing one or both legs and half-a-million Palestinians suffer "catastrophic" hunger in Gaza.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon, saying diplomacy is the best option as fears of a major war against Iran-backed militant group Hizbollah  in Lebanon have grown after months of cross-border fire.

"Another war between Israel and Hizbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East," Austin said. "Diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation."

Gallant, speaking at the opening of the meeting with Austin, said that "we are working closely together to achieve an agreement but we must also discuss readiness on every possible scenario".

Israel’s military said last week plans for an offensive in Lebanon were “approved and validated” amid escalating cross-border clashes, but Washington is seeking to lower the temperature and head off another major Middle East conflict.

In Beirut, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “miscalculation” could trigger all-out war between Israel and Hizbollah , and urged “extreme restraint”.

Hizbollah claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on Israeli troops and positions on Tuesday, while Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli air strikes in parts of southern Lebanon.

Baerbock met Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who said the best way to reach “a return to calm in south Lebanon is to put an end to the Israeli aggression... and fully apply United Nations Resolution 1701”, according to a statement from his office.

The resolution ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah  and called for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in the country’s south.

Baerbock also met with her Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib during her brief trip to Beirut, which came after visits to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

She noted that Lebanon’s hosting of many refugees poses “major challenges”, referring to Syrians who have fled conflict in their country across the border since 2011.

“We will therefore provide another 18 million euros ($19 million) for humanitarian aid — specifically for food, accommodation and doctors,” she said in the statement.

On a previous visit in January, the German minister pledged 15 million euros to bolster the Lebanese army, which like other national institutions has faced funding problems since the country’s economy collapsed in late 2019.

Several Western diplomats have visited Lebanon in recent months, seeking to dial down cross-border tensions, including US envoy Amos Hochstein who last week called for “urgent” de-escalation.

On Tuesday, Canada urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave “while they can”, while US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin warned a conflict between Israel and Hizbollah  could spark a regional war.

Eight months of cross-border violence has killed at least 481 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 94 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.

TEHRAN — Iranians broadly deplore Western sanctions that have battered the economy, but the country's six presidential candidates offer differing solutions — assuming the winner gets a say on foreign policy.

Punishing US sanctions, reimposed following Washington's withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, have brought years of economic hardships, fuelling political malaise and wide popular discontent.

With the June 28 snap election fast approaching, debates between the candidates vying for Iran's second-highest office have featured a key question: Should Tehran mend ties with the West?

Under the late president Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash, Western governments have expanded sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme as well as its support for militant groups across the Middle East and for Russia in its war in Ukraine.

The sanctions have sharply reduced Iran's oil revenues, heavily restricted trade and contributed to soaring inflation, high unemployment and a record low for the Iranian rial against the US dollar.

At Tehran's bustling Grand Bazaar, shopkeeper Hamid Habibi, 54, said years of sanctions "have hit people very hard".

"Sanctions should be removed and ties mended with the US and European countries," he said.

In two televised debates focused on the economy ahead of the presidential polls, "almost all the candidates explained that the sanctions have had devastating effects", said Fayyaz Zahed, a professor of international relations at the University of Tehran.

"It is crucial to resolve this issue to alleviate the people's suffering," he said.

While the six contenders — five conservatives and a sole reformist — have all vowed to tackle the economic hardships, they offered varying views on Iran's relations with the West.

'Please the enemy'

"If we could lift the sanctions, Iranians could live comfortably," said reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian, considered one of three frontrunners.

Pezeshkian, who is backed by key reformist groups in Iran, called for “constructive relations” with Washington and European capitals in order to “get Iran out of its isolation”.

On the campaign trail, he had the support of Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former foreign minister who helped secure the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and insists it had positive impact on the Iranian economy.

Since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, Iran has gradually reduced its commitment to its terms, meant to curb nuclear activity which Tehran has maintained was for peaceful purposes.

Diplomatic efforts to revive the deal have long stalled as tensions between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly flared.

Former president Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the deal, said the sanctions cost Iranians “$100 billion a year, directly or indirectly, from the sale of oil and petrochemicals and the discounts they give” — in reference to preferential trade with China, a signatory to the 2015 agreement.

Ultraconservative presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has called for Tehran to press ahead with its long-running anti-Western policy.

“The international community is not made up of just two or three Western countries,” Jalili has repeatedly said in debates and campaign rallies.

He said Iran should bolster its ties with China and Russia, and forge stronger relations with Arab countries, particularly regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia.

Conservative candidate Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the incumbent parliament speaker, has offered a more pragmatic approach, saying Iran should negotiate with Western countries only if it stands to gain an “economic advantage”.

Ghalibaf called for increasing Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, a strategy he said was already “forcing the West to negotiate with Iran”.

Zahed, the international relations professor, said Jalili has positioned himself as “the most inflexible candidate on the diplomatic level”.

In any case, the expert added, the next president will have limited say over strategic issues in the Islamic republic where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, wields ultimate authority.

On Saturday, Khamenei urged the candidates to avoid making any remarks that would “please the enemy” — in reference to the West, mainly the United States.

The president “could only influence foreign policy” if he “earned the trust” of Khamenei and Iran’s most influential government institutions, Zahed said.

GENEVA — The head of the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees warned on Monday that a breakdown of civil order in Gaza had allowed widespread looting and smuggling and blocked aid delivery.

More than eight months of war have led to desperate humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and repeated UN warnings of famine.

"Gaza has been decimated," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the agency's advisory body.

"We have witnessed unprecedented failures of humanity in a territory marked by decades of violence," he said, according to a written version of his address to the event in Geneva, which took place behind closed doors.

"Palestinians and Israelis have experienced terrible losses and suffered immensely."

Pointing to the dire humanitarian situation since the war erupted following Hamas fighters' October 7 attack inside Israel, he warned that Gazans were in "a living hell, a nightmare from which they cannot wake".

Desperation among Gaza's 2.4 million population has increased as fighting rages, sparking warnings from agencies that they are unable to deliver aid.

Vital supplies of food have piled up undistributed on the Palestinian side of the Karam Abu Salem crossing, a key conduit for aid to enter Gaza.

Israel, which has relentlessly attacked the besieged Palestinian territory since October, claims it has let supplies in.

UN agencies and aid groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm about severe shortages of food and other essentials in the Gaza Strip, exacerbated by overland access restrictions and the closure of the key Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in early May.

Lazzarini insisted on Monday that the “catastrophic levels of hunger across the Gaza Strip are the result of human action”.

“The breakdown of civil order has resulted in rampant looting and smuggling that impede the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid,” he said.

“Children are dying of malnutrition and dehydration, while food and clean water wait in trucks,” he lamented.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since then has killed at least 37,626 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories — Teenagers across the Gaza Strip should have been taking their final exams this month, a last hurdle before university and lifelong dreams, but the war in the Palestinian territory has crushed those hopes.

According to the education ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, 85 per cent of educational facilities in the territory are out of service because of the war.

"I was eagerly awaiting the exams, but the war prevented that and destroyed that joy," said Baraa Al Farra, an 18-year-old student displaced from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

"At first we were waiting in the hope that the war would end and we would catch up," he said.

But "We don't know how long it will last or how many years it will deprive us of our educational lives."

Almost nine months of war in Gaza began with an unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas. The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,598 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The Education Cluster, a UN-backed organisation, estimated in a report this month that more than 75 per cent of Gaza’s schools would need full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to reopen.

Many have been turned into shelters for Gaza’s displaced and others have been damaged in bombardment.

‘Books not bombs’ 

Liliane Nihad, an 18-year-old displaced to Khan Yunis from Gaza City, in the territory’s north, said she and her fellow students had “been waiting 12 years to take these exams and pass and feel happy and enter university... but we have been deprived of all that by this damned war”.

Nihad said she had been hoping to study English and to get a doctorate, “but all of that has evaporated”.

Displaying their anger at the situation, dozens of students and teachers held a protest in Gaza City’s Al Rimal neighbourhood on Saturday.

“We demand our right to take high school exams” and “We want books, not bombs” they chanted, while empty chairs were laid out to symbolise those students killed in the war.

Mediation has failed to bring an end to the fighting, leaving Gaza’s young people with deep uncertainty about their futures.

Farra said he wanted to get out of the territory to achieve his dreams.

“I hope that the crossing will be opened so that I can travel in order to complete my education and not waste my years because I am young and want to achieve my ambitions.”

For now, he faces the harsh realities of life under siege.

“I wish I could experience the fatigue of staying up late studying now and not the fatigue of queueing for sweet and salty water” in the territory where clean water is scarce, like many other essentials.

‘Psychologically exhausted’

Pupils in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will take the exams, as will those Gazans who managed to escape to neighbouring Egypt.

Even for these pupils, however, the war has been hugely disruptive.

“We are psychologically exhausted and not well prepared,” said Muhammad Osama, a student from Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, after completing his religious studies exam in Cairo.

In the West Bank, violence has further escalated since the start of the Gaza war. According to the Palestinian official news agency Wafa, 20 high school students are among the hundreds of Palestinians killed there.

Wafa reported that 89,000 students from Gaza and the West Bank had been expected to take high school exams this year.

Back in Gaza, however, there will be no exams at all.

The UN, citing the Palestinian ministry of education, said about 39,000 high school students in Gaza are unable to take their tests.

Sulaf Mousa, an 18-year-old from Al Shati Camp west of Gaza City, hit by a deadly air strike on Saturday, said he had hoped to study medicine and become a doctor.

“Now, we hope we will survive the war and not lose more than we have already lost,” Mousa said.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's Hizbollah militant group said on Sunday it had targeted two military positions in northern Israel with an armed drone in response to the killing of an Islamist commander.

Israel and the powerful Iran-backed group, a Hamas ally, have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war erupted on October 7.

Hizbollah's announcement came hours after it published a video excerpt purporting to show locations in Israel along with their coordinates, amid heightening fears of an all-out conflict between the two foes.

On Saturday, the Jamaa Islamiya group announced the death of one of its commanders, Ayman Ghotmeh, saying he was killed "in a treacherous Zionist raid" in Khiara in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa area.

Israel later confirmed it had carried out the strike, saying Ghotmeh was responsible for supplying the Fajr Forces, Jamaa Islamiya's armed wing, and Hamas with weapons in the area.

Hizbollah on Sunday said its fighters launched a strike "with an attack drone" on a military leadership position in the Beit Hillel barracks "in response to the assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the town of Khiara".

The Israeli military meanwhile said in a statement that a drone had "crossed from Lebanon and fell in the area of Beit Hillel", adding that "no injuries were reported".

Hizbollah later said it had struck with a "squadron of assault drones" the "headquarters of the newly created 91st Division in Ayelet Hashahar" near the northern Israeli city of Safed.

Cross-border tensions have surged in recent days, with Israel's military announcing on Tuesday that a plan for an offensive in Lebanon had been "approved and validated".

Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah responded with threats that no part of Israel would be spared in the event of an all-out war.

The Lebanese armed group on Saturday evening published a video showing Israeli positions and coordinates, along with an excerpt of Nasrallah's speech in which he says "if war is imposed on Lebanon, the resistance will fight without restrictions or rules".

Days earlier, it had circulated a nine-minute video showing aerial footage purportedly taken by the movement over northern Israel, including what it said were sensitive military, defence and energy facilities and infrastructure in the city and port of Haifa.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 480 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.

BEIRUT — An Iraqi fighter from an Iran-backed group was killed in an overnight air strike in eastern Syria near the Iraq border, the group and a war monitor said on Saturday.

The strike occurred in Deir Ezzor province, where Iran wields significant influence and which is regularly targeted by Israel and the United States, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"An Iraqi member in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq was killed, and two others were injured in a preliminary toll, as a result of an unknown air strike," the observatory said, referring to a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups.

The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said an explosion was heard coinciding with the strike “in Albukamal countryside... a few kilometres away from Syrian-Iraqi borders”.

Iraq’s Sayyed Al Shuhada Brigades announced the death of a fighter in a strike on “Friday which targeted his vehicle during a reconnaissance patrol on the Iraqi-Syrian border”, accusing the United States of being behind the attack.

Responsibility for the strike was not immediately claimed, but a spokesperson for the US-led military coalition formed in 2014 to fight the Daesh group told AFP that “neither the coalition nor US forces carried out overnight strikes in Deir Ezzor”.

The observatory said that several hours before the strike, drones flew over the area.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes primarily targeting pro-Iran groups — which it rarely comments on publically.

In late March, 16 Tehran-affiliated fighters, including an Iranian military adviser, were killed in strikes on eastern Syria.

The strikes also killed one civilian working for the World Health Organisation.

Iran has long been a key ally of the Syrian government, most notably providing military advisers.

GAZA STRIP — Israel bombed the Gaza Strip where one hospital reported at least 30 dead on Friday and as exchanges of fire and threats over the Lebanon border raised fears of an even wider war.

After further cross-border fire between Israel and Lebanon's powerful Hizbollah movement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the clashes must not turn Lebanon into "another Gaza".

Increased “bellicose rhetoric” from both sides risked triggering a catastrophe “beyond imagination”, he said.

In Gaza the director of Gaza City’s Al Ahli hospital was quoted by the territory’s health ministry as reporting 30 dead on Friday in intensified Israeli bombardment.

“It has been a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City. So far, around 30 martyrs have arrived at the Al Ahli Arab hospital,” Dr Fadel Naeem was quoted as saying.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said five municipal workers died when a garage in the city was bombed.

Israel’s military reported military operations on Friday “north and south of the Central Gaza Strip Corridor”.

AFPTV captured an overnight strike on Khan Yunis city, showing a ball of fire and sparks erupting in a residential district.

Just before midnight Thursday, Israel’s army said it had “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon”.

Early Friday, Lebanese official media reported new Israeli strikes in the south.

They came after Hizbollah said it had fired dozens of rockets at a barracks in northern Israel on Thursday in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon.

Israel said a Hizbollah operative was killed in that strike.

It said jets struck Hezbollah sites and used artillery “to remove threats in multiple areas in southern Lebanon”.

Hizbollah claimed a number of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Friday, including two using drones.

Experts are divided on the prospect of a wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s campaign to eradicate Iran-backed Hizbollah’s ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.

Exchanges between Hizbollah and Israel have escalated, and Israel’s military said on Tuesday plans for an offensive in Lebanon “were approved and validated”.

Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” in a wider war, and also threatened nearby European Union member Cyprus.

Israel’s ally the United States has appealed for de-escalation.

Two soldiers killed

The violence on the Lebanon border began after the October 7 attack by Hamas militants from Gaza into southern Israel. That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,431 people, also mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Months of negotiations towards a truce and a hostage release have failed to make headway, but mediator Qatar insisted Friday it was still working to “bridge the gap” between Israel and Hamas.

The war has destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure and left residents short of food, fuel and other essentials.

On June 16 the army said it would implement a daily “tactical pause of military activity” in a southern Gaza corridor to facilitate aid delivery.

But on Friday Richard Peeperkorn of the World Health Organisation said “we did not see an impact on the humanitarian supplies coming in”.

Hisham Salem in Jabalia camp told AFP: “The markets... used to be full, but now there is nothing left. I go around the entire market and I can’t find a kilo of onions, and if I do... it costs 140 shekels ($37).”

Dr. Thanos Gargavanis, a WHO trauma surgeon and emergency officer, said the UN in Gaza was trying to “operate in an unworkable environment”.

According to the WHO, only 17 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are operational, but only partially.

It said that as of May 17, just 750 people remained in Rafah city where previously 1.4 million people had been sheltering.

Israel’s military on Friday identified two more soldiers killed in Gaza, bringing to at least 312 killed since ground operations began.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges which he denies, faces regular street protests accusing him of prolonging the war, and demanding an agreement to free the hostages.

‘Vexing’ comments

But Netanyahu told relatives of captives killed in Gaza: “We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all of the hostages return.”

On Thursday he said he was “prepared to suffer personal attacks provided that Israel receives the ammunition from the US that it needs in the war for its existence”.

His statement came as an apparent doubling down after he made a video statement accusing Washington of “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel”.

The White House on Thursday described his comments as “vexing” and “disappointing”.

Except for one shipment, “there are no other pauses. None,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, referring to one paused delivery of 907-kilo bombs.

The war has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

Armenia on Friday declared its recognition of “the State of Palestine”, prompting Israel to summon its ambassador for “a severe reprimand”.

Beirut — US envoy Amos Hochstein on Tuesday called for the "urgent" de-escalation of cross-border exchanges of fire between Lebanon's Hizbollah and Israeli forces raging since the start of the Gaza war.

"The conflict... between Israel and Hizbollah has gone on for long enough," the presidential envoy said on a visit to Beirut.

"It's in everyone's interest to resolve it quickly and diplomatically -- that is both achievable and it is urgent."

The powerful Iran-backed Hizbollah movement, an ally of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, stepped up attacks on northern Israel last week after an Israeli strike killed one of its senior commanders.

Coinciding with the envoy's visit and what Hizbollah called "Israeli threats of war against Lebanon", the Iran-backed group published a more than nine-minute video showing drone footage purportedly taken by the movement over northern Israel, including parts of the city and port of Haifa.

The video, which AFP was unable to immediately verify independently, pinpointed what Hezbollah said were Israeli military, defence and energy facilities, as well as civilian and military infrastructure.

Hochstein met with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hizbollah ally, a day after holding talks in Jerusalem with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Speaker Berri and I had a very good discussion," Hochstein said.

"We discussed the current security and political situation in Lebanon as well as the deal on the table right now with respect to Gaza, which also provides an opportunity to end the conflict across the Blue Line," he added, referring to the demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon. 

US President Joe Biden last month outlined a truce proposal which Hochstein said would ultimately lead to "the end of the conflict in Gaza".

‘Critical moment' 

"A ceasefire in Gaza and, or, an alternative diplomatic solution could also bring the conflict across the Blue Line to an end" and allow the return of displaced civilians to southern Lebanon and northern Israel, the envoy added.

"This is a serious time and a critical moment," Hochstein said later after meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, calling their discussion "excellent".

"What we are working together (to do) is to try to identify a way to get to a place where we prevent a further escalation," he added.

Mikati said "what is required is to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon and return to calm and stability on the southern border".

In a statement from his office, Mikati said "continued Israeli threats" will not distract Lebanon from seeking calm.

Hochstein also met with Lebanese army chief Joseph Aoun.

As the US envoy visited, Hizbollah announced its first attack in days, saying it targeted an Israeli tank with an "attack drone".

Israeli strikes have continued in south Lebanon's border area, including one on Monday that killed a fighter from the Shiite Muslim movement.

Lebanon's National News Agency also reported an "enemy drone" targeted a car in southern Lebanon.

Hizbollah last week said it has carried out more than 2,100 military operations against Israel since October 8, the day after Hamas's attack that sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

The Lebanese group has long said that only an end to the Gaza war would stop its cross-border attacks, which it says it is carrying out in support of Hamas and Gazans.

The violence has killed at least 473 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 92 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country's north.

Mount Arafat, Saudi Arabia — More than 1.5 million Muslims will pray on Mount Arafat in soaring temperatures on Saturday, in the high-point and most gruelling day of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Worshippers from all over the world will climb the rocky, 70-metre hill, about 20 kilometres from Mecca, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his last sermon.

The desert summer heat is expected to hit 43 degrees Celsius, creating challenges especially among the elderly during a day of prayer and reciting the Koran.

The Hajj which takes at least five days to complete and is mostly outdoors, "is not easy because it is very hot", said Abraman Hawa, 26, from Ghana.

“We have sun... but it is not as hot. But I will pray to Allah at Arafat, because I need his support," she added.

Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to drink plenty of water and protect themselves from the sun. Since men are prohibited from wearing hats, many carry umbrellas.

More than 10,000 heat-related illnesses were recorded last year, 10 percent of them heat stroke, a Saudi official told AFP this week.

The Hajj, one of the world's biggest religious gatherings, is increasingly affected by climate change, according to a Saudi study that said regional temperatures were rising 0.4C each decade.

But Mohammed Farouk, a 60-year-old Pakistani pilgrim, was not put off by the Gulf kingdom's scorching summer sun.

The hajj is "very important for me as a Muslim", he said.

Financial windfall 

The enormous crowds of worshippers spent the night in a giant tented city in Mina, a valley several kilometres outside Mecca, Islam's holiest city.

Many of them were tightly packed in the air-conditioned tents, lying close together on narrow mattresses.

They were grouped by nationality and price, depending on how much they had paid for their hajj packages -- usually several thousand dollars.

After Arafat they will head to Muzdalifah, where they will collect pebbles to carry out the symbolic "stoning of the devil" ritual in Mina on Sunday. 

The Hajj is said to follow the path of the Prophet Mohammed's final pilgrimage, about 1,400 years ago.

It is an important source of legitimacy for the Al Saud dynasty, whose monarch has the title "guardian of the two holy mosques", in Mecca and Medina. 

It is also a major financial windfall for the conservative country, which is trying to develop religious tourism as part of a drive to reduce its dependence on crude oil.

The kingdom received more than 1.8 million pilgrims last year for the hajj, around 90 percent of whom came from abroad.

It also welcomed 13.5 million Muslims who came to perform Umrah, the small pilgrimage that can be done all year round, and aims to reach 30 million by 2030.

This year's Hajj takes place in the shadow of the Gaza war, after eight months of bloodshed that is an open wound for many in the Muslim world.