Fierce fights near hospitals, 9 killed at UN shelter, and Raisi visits Türkiye

At least 125 people were killed overnight, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.

"Dozens of Israeli tanks are surrounding Nasser Hospital from all sides, except for a corridor for displaced people to leave," the Hamas government said.

Fierce fights took place near hospitals in Gaza's Khan Yunis after Israel said it had intensified its attacks on the city that is now the focus of its war with Hamas.

The United Nations raised fears about the safety of thousands of internally displaced Palestinians sheltering, who are now unable to come out of the grounds of the hospitals in southern Gaza.

The Israeli army stated that it has "encircled" Khan Yunis, the birthplace of Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, accused of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks that sparked the war.

OCHA said about 18,000 people have been uprooted from their homes at Nasser Hospital alone.

Tank shelling kills 9 at UN shelter in south Gaza

Tank shelling on a UN shelter on Wednesday killed at least nine people in Gaza's main southern city of Khan Yunis, said the Gaza head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"Two tank rounds hit building that shelters 800 people - reports now 9 dead and 75 injured," Thomas White, UNRWA's Gaza director, said on X, formerly Twitter.

Teams from the UNRWA and the World Health Organization were trying to reach the shelter, which has been blocked for two days, White said.

Earlier he said the UNRWA training center, which shelters tens of thousands of displaced people, had been hit, with "buildings ablaze and mass casualties".

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Iran's Raisi flies to Türkiye for delayed Gaza talks

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi flew to Türkiye to attend a twice-rescheduled meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. 

Raisi's visit comes with the war in Gaza starting to inflame tensions and escalate fighting across the Middle East.

The United States and Britain have stepped up joint airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to their attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.

Israel meanwhile has repeatedly targeted Tehran-linked figures in Syria and appears to be on the brink of launching a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Iran and Türkiye share a 535-kilometer (330-mile) border and a long history of both close economic relations and diplomatic feuds.

Iran and Pakistan last week exchanged strikes against "militant" and "terrorist" targets, and Türkiye itself has intensified artillery and drone attacks against Kurdish groups in Syria and Iran.

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