By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -More Palestinian families left Gaza City on Tuesday after a night of Israeli shelling on its outskirts, as Israelis launched a day of nationwide protests calling for hostages to be released and the war in Gaza to end.

Residents said Israeli aerial and tank shelling continued throughout the night and early on Tuesday in the eastern Gaza City suburbs of Sabra, Shejaia, and Tuffah, as well as in Jabalia town to the north, destroying roads and houses.

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon will come up with a plan on August 31 to convince Hezbollah to disarm, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria and Lebanon Thomas Barrack said on Tuesday.

Israel will give a counterproposal when it receives Lebanon's plan, Barrack said after meeting with the Lebanese president in Beirut.

Barrack said the plan Lebanon was preparing would not necessarily involve military action to persuade Hezbollah to give up its weapons.

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday Germany would not join an initiative of western allies to recognise the Palestinian state at next month's United Nations General Assembly.

Merz was speaking at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said last month that Canada planned to recognise the state of Palestine at the General Assembly, following similar announcements by France and Britain.

The World Food Programme warned Tuesday that the aid Israel is allowing to enter Gaza remains a "drop in the ocean", days after famine was formally declared in the war-torn Palestinian territory.

The United Nations declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming the "systematic obstruction" of aid by Israel during its nearly two-year war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Carl Skau, WFP's chief operating officer, said that over the past two weeks, there has been a "slight uptick" in aid entering, averaging around 100 trucks per day.

By Emma Farge, John Irish and Parisa Hafezi

GENEVA (Reuters) -Senior officials from Iran and Europe's top three powers are due to meet in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss the Westerners' demand that Iran revive nuclear inspections and diplomacy or face the reimposition of sanctions that were lifted under a 2015 deal.

France, Britain and Germany, known as the E3, have long threatened to trigger the "snapback" of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council by October 18, when a now largely defunct nuclear deal struck 10 years ago between Tehran and major powers expires.

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany is set to end its months-long halt on the entry of vulnerable Afghan nationals it had pledged to admit, following mounting legal pressure at home and a deportation push by Pakistani authorities, Welt newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Around 2,000 Afghans approved for relocation to Germany under a program for those deemed at risk under Taliban rule have been stranded in neighbouring Pakistan for months, after Berlin froze the scheme amid a pledge to curb migration.

Thousands of demonstrators massed in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, seeking to push the government to end the war in Gaza and strike a deal to return hostages, as the security cabinet convened.

The first protests began at daybreak as demonstrators blocked roads in the commercial hub, where they waved Israeli flags and held up pictures of the hostages, AFP journalists reported.

Israeli media said others rallied near the US embassy branch in the city, as well as outside the houses of various ministers.

Australia expelled Iran's ambassador on Tuesday, accusing the country of being behind antisemitic arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

It marks the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.

Intelligence services reached the "deeply disturbing conclusion" that Iran directed at least two antisemitic attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Tehran was behind the torching of a kosher cafe in Sydney's Bondi suburb in October 2024, the prime minister told a news conference.

Like his father, Iraqi buffalo herder Watheq Abbas grazes his animals in Iraq's southern wetlands, but with persistent drought shrinking marshland where they feed and decimating the herd, his millennia-old way of life is threatened.

"There's no more water, the marshes are dead," said 27-year-old Abbas, who has led his buffaloes to pasture in the marshland for the past 15 years.

"In the past, the drought would last one or two years, the water would return and the marshes would come back to life. Now we've gone without water for five years," the buffalo herder told AFP.

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia will expel the Iranian ambassador to Australia over Iran's involvement in two antisemitic attacks in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)