Israel's footballers are aiming to make history by reaching the European Championship for the first time amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, with the final three places at Euro 2024 up for grabs over the next week.

Twelve teams still have dreams of reaching Germany later this year with three sets of four nations to face off in Thursday's semi-finals and the winners progressing to a final on March 26.

Israel became a member of Europe's governing body UEFA 20 years ago, but are yet to reach the continent's major international competition.

Torrential rains lashed a tent camp for displaced people in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where frightened Palestinian children can no longer distinguish between thunder and Israeli bombardment.

The storm fell overnight Monday to Tuesday in the southernmost Gaza Strip city, adding to the anguish of Palestinians who fled the war between Hamas and Israel, many without warm clothes, blankets or proper footwear.

Oum Abdullah Alwan said her children "screamed in fear" because "we can't tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling".

The United States on Tuesday approved a $2.2 billion sale of advanced battle tanks to Bahrain, a Gulf Arab ally once under an arms embargo over a crackdown on Shiite dissent.

The State Department said it had notified Congress it is ready to sell 50 M1A2 Abrams tanks, generally used for ground warfare, to the small island nation which has tense relations with nearby Iran.

The United States said Tuesday that the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees should be allowed into war-ravaged Gaza, after Israel said he was denied entry because he made paperwork errors.

Israeli officials have long criticized the UN Relief and World Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known by its initials UNRWA, and ramped up pressure after several of the agency's employees were alleged to have participated in the October 7 attack on Israel.

South Africa's top diplomat on Tuesday accused Israel of setting a precedent for leaders to defy the top UN court, as she again alleged a campaign of starvation in Gaza.

South Africa has hauled Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to allege genocide in the war triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack, infuriating Israel and drawing US criticism.

Naledi Pandor, South Africa's foreign minister, said Tuesday that Israel had defied a January interim ruling by the ICJ that it should take action to prevent acts of genocide as it fights Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The makeshift shelter sits atop the ruins of the Kahlout family's shattered Gaza home, which took them 30 years to build but was destroyed in moments by war.

They were shocked to return to rubble after fleeing fighting around their house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, yet they had to decide what to do next.

"We pitched a tent over the rubble and we are staying here. Where to go? There's no where to go, there's no shelter," said 60-year-old Oum Nael al-Kahlout.

Tensions surged as Hamas's chief accused Israel on Tuesday of sabotaging talks for a Gaza truce after it raided the devastated Palestinian territory's largest hospital for a second time.

Months of war have pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the besieged territory to the brink of famine, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying everyone in Gaza was now in need of humanitarian aid.

A UN-backed assessment meanwhile said 300,000 people in the territory's north would face famine by May without a surge of aid.

From conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to salt mining in Brazil -- courts in the Netherlands have become Ground Zero in a global legal battlefield with far-reaching implications.

A strong legal tradition, home to many multinationals and international organisations, and global ease of reach: the country has several trump cards making it the preferred legal arbiter of choice.

Israel has vowed to let Palestinians crammed into southern Gaza leave before its planned invasion of Rafah, but experts have warned it was practically impossible to get those civilians out of harm's way.

The roughly 1.5 million Gazans in the territory's southernmost tip have the Mediterranean Sea to their west and sealed borders to the south and east, while Israeli forces are poised to push in from the north.

Putrid rubbish piles and sewage-contaminated puddles are increasingly encroaching on the makeshift encampments of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, compounding the health risks facing people who have fled Israel's invasion.

"We suffer from foul smells and illnesses among children, who are always suffering from colds," said Sayed Rafik Abu Shanab, who lives in the southern city of Rafah, where the majority of Gazans have sought refuge from the war.

"The sewers here are infested with mosquitoes, which bite people and transfer infections to others."