Israeli troops are preparing for ground operations in central Gaza for the first time since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, raising hopes that some of the remaining 50 hostages may be located.

People in Deir al-Balah are told to leave, as the IDF prepares to launch its first ground offensive in the city during its war against Hamas.

Violence in Syria's Druze province has triggered Israeli military action, complicating relations with Turkey and creating a power vacuum that Iran could exploit.

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday attacked the entrance to the Syrian regime’s military headquarters in the Damascus area in response to reports of atrocities against local Druze residents.

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck "the entrance" of Syria's military headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday.

Israel has threatened to increase its involvement in Syria and vowed to protect the Druze religious minority, which began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam, the Associated Press reported. Most of the world’s Druze population lives in Syria, with the rest predominantly in Israel and Lebanon.

Israel's air force dominated Iran's airspace and dealt a heavy blow to the country's air defenses while Iranian armed forces launched successive barrages of missiles and drones on Israeli territory.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.

The expansion of the 21-month-long offensive into the densely populated area comes as Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with the UN warning that Israel’s assault on the territory and restriction of aid deliveries had left its entire 2.1mn population at risk of famine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Israel's military actions in Syria, accusing the country of being a "terrorist state" as well as a destabilizing force in the region.

They were driven by something else: a sense of responsibility toward the Druze community in Syria.Past strikes typically followed a narrow script: preventing weapons transfers, blocking entrenchment near the border,