Iran warned its arch foe Israel on Tuesday that it will retaliate for an air strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals, and destroyed its consular annex building in the Syrian capital.
Israel declined to comment on Monday's strike in Damascus, which fuelled Middle East tensions already inflamed by the Gaza war and violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel's defence chief said Wednesday a strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza was a "grave mistake", after the deaths prompted a chorus of international outrage.
"This incident was a grave mistake," IDF chief Herzi Halevi said in a video message after the strike that hit a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy delivering aid on Monday.
"It shouldn't have happened," Halevi said, as he blamed the strike on a nightime "misidentification".
"We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK."
Israeli businessman Maoz Inon lost both his parents to the October 7 attacks by Hamas but while some bereaved have been baying for vengeance the 49-year-old has been preaching peace.
"We didn't want to take revenge," Inon told AFP at a small peace rally in Shefa Amr in northern Israel that united Jews and Palestinians, a rare event since the war broke out.
Inon admitted that at first he struggled to call for peace and forgiveness "but this is the legacy of my parents. The future is going to be better," he said.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday condemned a deadly air strike blamed on Israel against his country's consular annex in Damascus, saying the "cowardly crime will not go unanswered".
"After repeated defeats and failures against the faith and will of the Resistance Front fighters, the Zionist regime has put blind assassinations on its agenda in the struggle to save itself," Raisi said on his office's website.
In a small village in central Iraq, children cram into dilapidated classrooms in a converted farmhouse with open-air toilets, a symptom of how education has been neglected in the oil-rich but war-weary country.
"We close the school when it rains because water leaks through the roof," said Oudai Abdallah, director of a public elementary school in Bani Saad district, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Baghdad.
"We fear it might collapse on students," he said of the makeshift roof of wood and straw.
A US-based charity said Tuesday it was pausing its Gaza aid operations after seven of its staff were killed in a "targeted Israeli strike" as they unloaded desperately needed food aid delivered by sea from Cyprus.
Monday's deaths came as the Israeli army wrapped up a two-week military operation in and around the Al-Shifa Hospital which reduced the besieged territory's largest medical complex to charred ruins.
"World Central Kitchen is devastated to confirm seven members of our team have been killed in an IDF strike in Gaza," the US-based charity said in a statement.
Thousands of angry Israelis took to the streets on Monday for the third consecutive night to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quit -- and the demonstrators say they are not going away.
Mass protests uniting families of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and an anti-government street movement that failed to unseat Netanyahu last year brought Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to a standstill on Saturday and Sunday.
Hundreds of people stared at the smoke-blackened ruins of Gaza's biggest hospital on Monday, horrified by the damage and death left behind by a fierce two-week battle between militants and Israeli troops.
The crowd stood amid debris and large mounds of dirt at the foot of a shell-pocked five-story building in the sprawling Al-Shifa complex that was once a shelter for both patients and displaced Gazans.
Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy's consular annex in Damascus on Monday, Syrian and Iranian officials said, with a top Revolutionary Guard commander among seven members the force said were killed.
Israel said it would not comment on the attack, but Iranian officials vowed a stiff response, with fears of even further violence between Israel and Iran's allies amid the Gaza war.
Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza's largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation against Hamas, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies in the sprawling complex.
Further raising regional tensions during the Gaza war, Israeli air strikes destroyed an Iranian embassy consular annex in Syria, Damascus and Tehran said. Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed two high-ranking generals were among 11 people reported dead.
