The Israeli settlers who attacked Hassan Arman's village of Jit in the occupied West Bank had a simple aim, he says: "To burn, kill, or destroy" -- all of which took place that night.

Residents hid in fear while dozens of settlers ransacked their northern village late on Thursday, burning homes and cars, until eventually a young Palestinian man was shot dead.

Arman, whose car was destroyed by fire during the attack, said he had "never seen anything like it" in Jit as he opened the charred door of his vehicle.

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory's wastewater in June.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Friday his country expected support from foreign allies "in attacking" Iran if it strikes Israel, comments deemed "inappropriate" by France's visiting top diplomat.

Iran and its regional allies have vowed retaliation for high-profile killings late last month blamed on Israel, including an attack in Tehran that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, which Israel has not claimed responsibility for.

Undertakers are working like bricklayers in a Gaza cemetery, piling cinder blocks into tight rectangles, side by side, for freshly dug graves.

More than 10 months into the Gaza war, so many bodies are arriving at the cemetery in Deir el-Balah that the men, working in the hot sun, hardly have space to bury them.

"The cemetery is so full that we now dig graves on top of other graves, we've piled the dead in levels," says Saadi Hassan Barakeh, leading his team of gravediggers.

The smell of fuel wafts from storage tanks to Dovi Sonny's apartment -- a long-time irritant, and now a major worry after Hezbollah revealed that the facility in northern Israel was in its sights.

Sonny, 66, has no idea what would happen should a rocket hit one of the towering circular containers about 100 metres (yards) from his building in Haifa.

He, like everyone else in the port city, just 30 kilometres (less than 20 miles) from the Lebanese border, has been left in the dark about the risks from the industrial area -- and so fears the worst.

Hamas said Friday it rejected "new conditions" in a Gaza ceasefire proposal that US-led mediators presented during two days of talks in Qatar.

Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to alleviate the suffering endured over more than 10 months of war, but US President Joe Biden insisted after the latest round of talks that "we are closer than we have ever been".

He is sending US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push the latest proposal, the State Department said.

Wrench in hand, Asawar Mustafa, a female Sudanese refugee in Libya, inspects an oil filter in the women-only section of a garage in western Libya, where being a mechanic is considered a man's role.

That hasn't deterred the 22-year-old whose main concern until recently was survival, having fled the war in Sudan with her family and abandoned her last year of studies in pharmacy.

"At first, the experience was a bit difficult," said Asawar, who came to Libya with her four sisters, mother and brother, who works in the men's section at the same garage.

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said Thursday from Beirut that a cease-fire in Gaza was "necessary" for peace in the region including Lebanon, as talks resumed in Qatar aiming to end the conflict.

"We are all worried about the regional situation," Sejourne said after meeting parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Lebanon's Hezbollah group.

France "supports Lebanon, and in this context and in the context of regional peace, we hope for the ceasefire... in the Gaza Strip, which... will be necessary to guarantee peace in the region," he said.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to Gaza.

He was speaking as health ministry officials in the Hamas-run territory said the death toll from Israel's assault there had passed 40,000 people.

"I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership," Abbas said to applause from Turkish lawmakers.

Abbas is based in Ramallah in the West Bank, and Gaza Strip is controlled by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

With Gaza largely in ruins after more than 10 months of war, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry has struggled to count the death toll, which on Thursday surpassed 40,000.

Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the daily figures put out by the ministry and US President Joe Biden did so too in the early stages of the war.

But several United Nations agencies that operate in Gaza have said the figures are credible and they are frequently cited by international organisations.

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