Gaza live: Fresh Israeli order forces over 170,000 Palestinians to leave their homes

A US Department of Defence official told Al Jazeera that five American soldiers and two contractors were injured in yesterday's attack on the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq.

At least eight Palestinians have been killed by Israel in strikes and raids in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent and the health ministry in Ramallah said four people were killed in the Jenin area and four in Tubas district during early morning raids.

"Four martyrs and three wounded, one of whom is very critical, due to the occupation's shelling of two vehicles in the eastern neighbourhood of Jenin," the Red Crescent said in a statement, while the health ministry said there were "four martyrs and seven wounded from occupation gunfire in the town of Aqaba in Tubas district."

The Wafa news agency said the killings occurred after Israeli forces surrounded a house in Aqaba and were confronted by locals.

Israel also said it conducted two separate air strikes in the West Bank without going into detail.

Read more: Palestine: At least eight killed in Israeli strikes and raids on occupied West Bank

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that the British low-cost airline easyJet has decided to suspend its operations in Israel until March 2025.

The Government Media Office in Gaza has announced that the number of journalists killed by Israel has risen to 166 since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has just finished delivering a speech. Here are some of the key points:

• All settlements near the border with Lebanon, from Nahariya to the Golan Heights, are required to be near fortified areas
• Haifa residents in Israel must be prepared for any scenario
• Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire deal and wants to subjugate Gaza in a bid to have absolute security control over it, and the Israelis do not accept a Palestinian state even in Gaza
• The West Bank is being bombed by the air force and drones, and the project there is to expand settlements and displace Palestinians towards Jordan and officially annex it
• The Israelis are telling the international community that there is no Palestinian state
• No political progress has been made since the Oslo Accords were signed 31 years ago and US talk about a Palestinian state is hypocrisy and a lie
• If Netanyahu's government wins in Gaza and the West Bank, this means that Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian cause will be in great danger
• The real project of Netanyahu and his allies is to make Jordan an alternative homeland for the Palestinians
• The goal of this battle is to prevent Israel from winning and eliminating the Palestinian cause
• There is no doubt that the martyrdom of commander Ismail Haniyeh is a great loss for the Palestinian people and the axis of resistance, but this does not weaken or shake us, and the evidence is the escalation of the resistance
• We will respond, but slowly and carefully, and the Israeli wait is part of the punishment

In the past 24 hours, 14 Israeli soldiers were wounded in ground battles in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of injured soldiers to 4,272 since Israel's onslught on Gaza began in October.

According to the Israeli army, 29 soldiers are currently receiving treatment for serious injuries, 179 for moderate injuries, and five for minor injuries.

Since Israel's war on Gaza began on 7 October, 689 Israeli soldiers and officers have been killed, including 329 in ground battles.

The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI) said in a statement that the "numerous testimonies of sexual abuse in detention facilities are horrendous, and require action".

Israeli authorities are systematically abusing Palestinians in torture camps, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault, B'Tselem said on Monday.

In a new 118-page report, the Israeli rights group accused the government of conducting a policy of institutionalised abuse and torture against all Palestinian detainees since 7 October when the war broke out.

"Sexual violence has no 'context', and is never allowed under any circumstances, including in investigation or punishment of the worst of our enemies. It is our duty to guard our moral and legal boundaries even when the rage and pain are bubbling," ARCCI wrote.

Hezbollah announced the death of four fighters following an Israeli strike on Mayfadoun, near Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, where at least five people were killed.

The killed fighters include Amine Badreddine, reportedly the nephew of late commander Mustapha Badreddine, who was killed in Syria in 2016.

Silicon Valley giant Meta apologised on Tuesday for deleting social media posts on Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's Facebook and Instagram accounts. The posts expressed solidarity with Hamas following the assassination of the group's political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran last week.

A Meta spokesman told Reuters and AFP that the posts were removed due to "an operational error" and that the content has been restored with "the correct newsworthy label" attached.

On 31 July, Ibrahim posted a video recording of a phone call he held with a Hamas official to offer his condolences over Haniyeh's killing. He also posted a picture from his last meeting with Haniyeh in Qatar in May, along with a message of condolences.

As of 12pm on Tuesday, the posts were restored but with a notice that read: "This post goes against our Community Guidelines but has been left on Instagram for public awareness."

READ MORE: Haniyeh killing: Meta apologises for deleting Malaysian prime minister's posts

The Israeli army says that the impact on a highway near Nahariya was caused by a malfunctioning Iron Dome interceptor missile.

"According to an initial investigation, it emerged that it was an interceptor that missed the target and impacted the ground," the military said.

At least one person was critically wounded by the impact.

Hezbollah drones also struck the Nahariya area.

Last week's assassinations by Israel of Hezbollah's top military commander, Fuad Shukr, and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh have brought the region to the precipice of all-out war.

Actually, the region is already at war. But so far it has been a controlled, carefully calibrated conflict - tit-for-tat, cat-and-mouse.

Israel has now torn that unstable status quo asunder. In the process, it has destroyed the 75-year-old rules-based order, the laws of war and international humanitarian law. Israel has defied the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

They might as well not exist.

These institutions were founded to prevent a repetition of the Nazi Holocaust. Instead, they have failed to prevent the genocide in Gaza. 

READ MORE: Netanyahu wants a war without end. This could give it to him, opinion by Richard Silverstein

Japan's foreign ministry has urged citizens not to travel to Israel, citing rising tensions in the region.

The announcement comes a day after the ministry urged nationals in Lebanon to leave the country.

The Iraqi military condemned the latest attacks on its bases, after five US personnel were injured in the al-Assad military base on Monday.

"We reject all reckless actions and practices targeting Iraqi bases, diplomatic missions, and the whereabouts of the international coalition’s advisers, and everything that would raise tension in the region," the Iraqi army said in a statement, adding that it has now seized a rocket launcher.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for a restrained response to Israel's suspected killing of the leader of Hamas, advising against attacks on Israeli civilians, two senior Iranian sources said.

The message, according to the sources, was delivered on Monday by Sergei Shoigu, a senior ally of the Kremlin leader, in meetings with top Iranian officials as the Islamic Republic weighs its response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Tehran also pressed Moscow for the delivery of Russian made Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, the two Iranian sources, privy to the meeting in Tehran, the sources told Reuters.

In Moscow, the Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. State-run RIA news agency reported on Tuesday that Shoigu said he discussed Haniyeh's killing on his Tehran visit.

The two sources with knowledge of the matter did not provide further details on the talks with Shoigu, who was defence minister before becoming the secretary of Russia's security council in May.

They said Shoigu's visit was one of several avenues Moscow had used to relay to Iran the need for restraint while at the same time condemning Haniyeh's killing as "a very dangerous assassination", in a bid to prevent a Middle East war.

The Middle East, the sources said, was on the brink of a major war and those behind the assassination were clearly trying to trigger such a conflict.

There was no immediate comment from Iran's Foreign ministry. On Monday it said Tehran did not seek to raise regional tensions but needed to punish Israel to prevent further instability.

Reporting by Reuters