Fighting in the war-torn Gaza Strip raged into its 19th day on Wednesday more than two-and-a-half weeks after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Since the October 7 attack, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's relentless retaliatory bombardments, mostly civilians and many of them children.
Here are five key developments from the past 24 hours:
- UN warns of aid collapse -
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said it will be forced to stop its work in Gaza unless it receives fuel by the end of Wednesday.
"Time is running out. We urgently need fuel," UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said.
Six Gaza hospitals have already shut down for lack of fuel, the World Health Organization has said.
A small number of aid trucks have entered Gaza since the weekend, but these are only a fraction of the usual flow of aid across the border.
Aid agencies say emergency shelters and tent cities in Gaza are heaving under the weight of 1.4 million displaced -- more than half the territory's population.
- Gaza, West Bank tolls mount -
The United Nations said Tuesday's death toll, which Gaza's health ministry said was more than 700 people, was the highest reported in a single day since the war began.
Overnight, at least 80 more people were killed and hundreds wounded, the ministry said on Wednesday.
In the occupied West Bank, 102 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 in mounting violence with Israeli troops and settlers, the Palestinian Authority's health ministry has said.
- Israel strikes Syria -
Israeli strikes killed eight soldiers in southern Syria early on Wednesday, Syrian state media said.
The Israeli military said it hit Syrian military infrastructure and mortars in response to rocket fire on Tuesday.
The defence ministry in Damascus said Aleppo airport in the north was bombed by Israel for the fourth time in a fortnight.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes on southern Syria "destroyed arms depots and a Syrian air defence radar" and also targeted an infantry unit.
- Hezbollah meets Hamas, Islamic Jihad leaders -
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon to discuss ways to support the Palestinian militant groups in their war with Israel, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday.
Hezbollah, which has traded cross-border fire with Israel since the onset of the war, said they discussed what was needed to "achieve real victory" in Gaza and stop Israel's "brutal aggression".
- War hitting regional economies -
The Israel-Hamas war is already battering the economies of nearby countries, the International Monetary Fund chief told an investor forum in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
"You look at the neighbouring countries -- Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan -- there the channels of impact are already visible," the IMF's Kristalina Georgieva told the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh.
