New Israeli legislation regulating foreign aid groups has increasingly been used to deny their requests to bring supplies into Gaza, a joint letter signed by more than 100 groups said Thursday.

Ties between foreign-backed aid groups and the Israeli government have long been tense, with Israeli officials often complaining that the organisations are biased.

Those rocky relations have become even more strained since Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

Israel's finance minister backed plans on Thursday to build 3,400 homes in a particularly contentious area of the occupied West Bank, calling for the territory's annexation in response to several countries' plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

The United Nations chief warned that building Israeli homes in the area would "put an end to" hopes for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Reuters) -Mossad spy chief David Barnea is visiting Qatar to revive Gaza peace talks, two Israeli officials told Reuters on Thursday.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Aidan Lewis)

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Weakened by war and diplomatic deadlock, Iran’s clerical elite stands at a crossroads: defy pressure to halt its nuclear activity and risk further Israeli and U.S. attack, or concede and risk a leadership fracture.

For now, the Islamic Republic establishment is focusing on immediate survival over longer-term political strategy.

A fragile ceasefire ended a 12-day war in June that began with Israeli air strikes, followed by U.S. bunker-busting bombings of three underground Iranian nuclear sites.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Russia on Wednesday became the latest country to restrict some WhatsApp calls, accusing the Meta-owned platform of failing to share information in fraud and terrorism cases.

Here is a list of nations restricting WhatsApp:

FULLY BLOCKED

China started blocking WhatsApp in 2017, using its so-called Great Firewall to filter and block traffic with overseas servers. Chinese users rely on an alternative called WeChat.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli forces demolished houses in eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people in aerial and tank fire, local health authorities said, as the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas told mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks.

Residents and medics said eight people were killed when Israeli tank shelling hit a house in Zeitoun neighbourhood, while a man was killed in an airstrike on a building in the nearby Shejaia suburb. Two other people were killed in tank shelling in Tuffah, a third Gaza City suburb.

People are buying water by the truckload in Beirut as the state supply faces its worst shortages in years, with the leaky public sector struggling after record-low rainfall and local wells running dry.

"State water used to come every other day, now it's every three days," said Rima al-Sabaa, 50, rinsing dishes carefully in Burj al-Baranjeh, in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Even when the state water is flowing, she noted, very little trickles into her family's holding tank.

GENEVA (Reuters) -War crimes were likely committed by members of interim government forces as well as by fighters loyal to Syria's former rulers during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria's coastal areas that culminated in a series of March massacres, a U.N. team of investigators found in a report on Thursday.

Some 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were reported killed during the violence that primarily targeted Alawi communities, and reports of violations continue, according to a report by the U.N. Syria Commission of Inquiry.

A UN commission investigating sectarian bloodshed in Syria's Alawite heartland documented systematic violence at the hands of government forces and allied groups, warning Thursday that some of the acts could constitute war crimes.

The violence in March unfolded along Syria's predominantly Alawite Mediterranean coast, where security personnel and their allies were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly targeting civilians from the religious minority, with a war monitor saying more than 1,700 people were killed.

GAZA CITY (Reuters) -A boy's lilting song filled the tent in Gaza City, above an instrumental melody and backing singers' quiet harmonies, soft music that floated into streets these days more attuned to the deadly beat of bombs and bullets.

The young students were taking part in a lesson given on August 4 by teachers from the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, who have continued classes from displacement camps and shattered buildings even after Israel's bombardments forced them to abandon the school's main building in the city.