Gazans did their best to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the driving rain on Wednesday, as the war raged on with 14 killed, including children, in a strike on their home, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said.
The Israeli military said it struck several targets on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, with a jet hitting a rocket launch site and troops killing a "terrorist cell" in close quarters fighting.
Palestinian nurse Maha Sweylem came to the gutted shell of the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza hoping for yet dreading news of her husband, who she said was a doctor there.
World Health Organization teams arrived at what was Gaza's biggest hospital Monday to help identify the bodies that litter the ruins.
The Israeli military said it battled with Palestinian militants there during two weeks of fierce fighting last month, with the WHO saying that patients were trapped inside.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned Wednesday that Israel's "disproportionate response" in the Gaza war with Hamas risks "destabilising the Middle East, and as a consequence, the entire world".
Sanchez also insisted that the recognition of a Palestinian state, long resisted by Israel and its key allies, is "in Europe's geopolitical interests".
Sanchez had already raised the subject of statehood during a visit last week to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, when he told reporters that Spain could recognise Palestine as a nation by the end of June.
US President Joe Biden issued some of his sternest criticism yet of Israel's war on Hamas, calling its approach a "mistake" as the country faces a Wednesday court deadline to prove it is not throttling aid to hunger-stricken Gaza.
With global outrage over the toll inflicted by the six-month-old war growing, Biden rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the conflict and reiterated the need for a ceasefire.
Egyptian rapper Dareen is a whirlwind of sharp verses and curly hair on stage, bringing the Cairo crowd to its feet and a fresh perspective to Egypt's male-dominated rap scene.
Her raps flow over eclectic beats inspired by her childhood in Alexandria, the coastal city home to many of Egypt's biggest rap stars, including the massively popular Wegz, a male rapper on a rapid rise after a 2022 World Cup performance in Qatar.
In Alexandria "we make art, but in Cairo, it's a whole industry", Dareen, 21, told AFP, her bright pink nails protruding from fingerless leather gloves.
Israel asked for an extension Wednesday before presenting to the country's top court measures to increase aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, where hunger is spreading after more than six months of war.
Five non-profit groups have taken the state to court, accusing authorities of restricting the entry of relief items and failing to respect their "obligations as an occupying power" to provide basic necessities to Gazans.
US President Joe Biden said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Gaza policy was a "mistake" and urged Israel to call for a ceasefire, in an interview aired Tuesday.
Biden's comments were some of his strongest criticism yet of Netanyahu amid growing tensions over the civilian death toll from Israel's war on Hamas and dire conditions inside Gaza.
"I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach," Biden told Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network, when asked about Netanyahu's handling of the war.
The international community has lost its "moral compass" on war-ravaged Gaza, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said Tuesday.
"For me, of great concern is that we have lost our moral compass on Gaza, as a humanity, as the international community," Mohammed told a news conference.
"We need to do something about that fast -- we're late," she added. "There are thousands of children that continue to lose their lives, that live amputated. There are hundreds that we are waiting to come home, hostages."
Palestinian nurse Maha Sweylem came to the gutted shell of the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza hoping yet dreading for news of her husband, whom she said was a doctor there.
World Health Organization teams arrived at what was Gaza's biggest hospital Monday to help identify the bodies that litter the ruins.
The Israeli military said it battled with Palestinian militants there during two weeks of fierce fighting last month, with the WHO saying that patients were trapped inside.
Lebanon's interior minister vowed Tuesday to get tough on Syrians after several were arrested on suspicion of involvement in killing a political official, in a case that triggered uproar.
Anti-Syrian sentiment has soared following the Sunday disappearance and death of Pascal Sleiman, a coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area north of Beirut for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party opposed to the Syrian government and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Sleiman was killed in what the Lebanese army said was a carjacking by Syrian gang members, who took his body to Syria.
