Israel swiftly condemned an agreement brokered by China on Tuesday that would bring Hamas into a "national reconciliation government" for post-war Gaza.

The diplomatic spat came as Israel bombarded Gaza, including the southern city of Khan Yunis, where it had ordered a partial evacuation of civilians.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz insisted that "Hamas rule will be crushed" and accused Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah faction signed the deal, of embracing the group whose October 7 attacks triggered the war.

Palestinian officials said an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday killed five people, including a woman and her daughter, while the Israeli military said it "eliminated" a Hamas commander.

During the pre-dawn operation in Tulkarem refugee camp, Israeli drones struck and killed the head of Hamas's military wing in Tulkarem, Ashraf Nafea, the military said in a statement.

"Ashraf was responsible for manufacturing and embedding explosives intended to attack IDF (Israeli) soldiers," it said.

Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organisations including rivals Fatah to work together for "national unity", with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an "interim national reconciliation government" to govern post-war Gaza.

In Tunisia's seaside town of Hammamet, bulldozers diligently shovel sand from a nearby desert onto a popular beach in an attempt to stop it from disappearing due to erosion.

"This beach is the postcard image of Hammamet," said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Fredj peering nostalgically at the town's iconic Yasmine beach.

"It has been seared in our minds since our childhood," he added, as labourers worked to restore the central Tunisian waterfront to its former sandy glory.

Britain accused Israel of allowing its troops to run "out of control" during a huge military operation in the occupied West Bank two decades ago, UK government archives showed Tuesday.

The newly-released files highlight Western concern over the Palestinian death toll during Operation Defensive Shield launched by then-Israeli premier Ariel Sharon in March 2002.

The comments are similar to concerns expressed by some Western allies over Israel's current military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington to speak at the United States Congress this week in a context of tense relations between the two countries over the Gaza war.

His visit comes just after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

In his fight to get his kidnapped soldier son back from Gaza, Yehuda Cohen has marched through the desert, addressed tens of thousands, been spat at and called a traitor. Now, he's going to Washington.

Cohen is determined to hound the man he blames for failing to get his son Nimrod out of Hamas detention: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As the Israeli leader visits the United States this week to bolster support for the Gaza war, a group of hostage families, including Cohen, plans to publicly challenge him at each step.

The stress shows on the face of Samiha Ismail who since October 7 has been stuck in her home in an occupied West Bank village that lives in constant fear of attack by Israeli settlers.

The day after the Hamas raid into southern Israel, settlers entered Susya, a hilltop village in the south of the West Bank, vowing retribution and "humiliation", the 53-year-old Palestinian recalled.

More than nine months on, Ismail is among 450 inhabitants who spend most of the day indoors. Even their sheep are not allowed out of their sheds.

Israel's Olympic delegation flew to Paris on Monday as the Palestinian contingent called for banning the Israeli athletes over the war in Gaza.

The Summer Games in the French capital open Friday against a backdrop of heightened security concerns and growing international outrage over the death toll and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.

The Palestine Olympic Committee said Monday it sent a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach asking him to ban Israel, citing the bombings of the besieged strip as a breach of the Olympic truce.

To get his family the water they need for drinking, bathing and laundry, Ahmed al-Shanbari steels himself for a lengthy search through the north of the Gaza Strip.

Shanbari said most of the wells near his makeshift shelter in the Jabalia refugee camp have been destroyed.

And the water distribution network barely works after more than nine months of war that has devastated Gaza's infrastructure.