Israel-Hamas war highlights: 'Every Hamas member is a dead man', Israel PM vows to keep fighting

More than 260,000 Gaza residents have been forced from their homes, a UN aid agency said, while the European Union called for a "humanitarian corridor" to allow civilians to flee the enclave's fifth war in 15 years.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Israeli shelling of southern Lebanese villages has wounded three civilians and damaged about 10 homes.

The agency said the shelling hit the villages of Marwaheen and Duhaira.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition figure Benny Gantz met on Wednesday and were "finalising the details", Gantz's office said in a statement without elaborating.

Israeli media said their meeting aimed to agree on bringing Gantz's centrist National Unity party into Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition for a broad emergency government.

The move follows concerns about the safety of Indian nationals in the region following the launch of a massive military operation by Israel to retaliate against attacks by Hamas militants last weekend. Read more

The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have died in Israel since Saturday’s incursion.

The Lebanese army says troops have found the launcher that was used to fire rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon.

The army said in a terse statement that search operations led to the discovery of the launcher near the southern village of Qlaileh.

Palestinian envoy to the U.N. Riyad Mansour wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday and said that Israel has declared an all-out war on the Palestinian people, ratcheting up its long-running campaign of violence and State terror against the people it has been ruthlessly occupying and persecuting for decades.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is engaging in discussions with opposition leader and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz to explore the possibility of forming a national emergency government in response to the recent attacks by Hamas.

The Iran-backed militant organization, Hezbollah, has claimed responsibility for launching precision-guided missiles from Lebanon into Israel. The ongoing conflict, triggered by a surprise assault by Hamas based in Gaza against Israel, has resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli lives and roughly 900 Palestinian casualties.

In anticipation of the next stage of their response, the Israeli military is in the process of constructing a base to accommodate thousands of soldiers. It's important to note that Hamas, labeled a terrorist group by the US and Europe, has issued threats of taking hostages in the event of a substantial Israeli offensive.

Nepal will be sending flights from its flagship carrier -- Nepal Airlines -- on Wednesday evening to Israel to evacuate its citizens from Israel, who have been stranded since terrorist outfit Hamas launched 'surprise attacks on Saturday.

Seventeen British nationals including children are dead or missing in Israel after attacks by Palestinian militant group Hamas, BBC reported on Wednesday.

The last time Thai mother Noopar Pansa-ard said she heard from her son, gunfire and explosions crackled in the background as he told her to stay strong if anything happened to him.

"I told him - don't talk like that ... My heart will shatter if you don't return," Noopar said.

A day later, her son Somkuan Pansa-ard, 39, was killed during an attack by Hamas militants on Israel, where he had gone to work in a fruit plantation to send money back to help his family repay a loan.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired missiles on Israel Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of three members earlier this week amid soaring tensions as Israel battles Gaza militants.

Hezbollah "targeted a Zionist (Israeli) position... facing Dhayra village, with guided missiles," in a "firm response to Zionist attacks... which led to the martyrdom of a number of brothers," the group said in a statement.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed and 5,000 others have been injured in Gaza after Israel launched a strong retaliation after the 'surprise attack' by Hamas, CNN reported citing Gaza Health Ministry.

According to the ministry, some 950 people have been killed and 5,000 others have been injured in the strikes on Gaza, according to CNN report.

Israeli shelling hit southern Lebanese towns on Wednesday in response to anti-tank rockets fired from Lebanon, as cross-border violence extended into a fourth day.

The Israeli military said it was attacking Lebanon after one of its northern positions was targeted with anti-tank fire on Wednesday.

Pope Francis on Wednesday called on militant Islamist group Hamas to release all hostages captured during its weekend attack on Israel, while expressing grave concerns about the "total" Israeli siege imposed on Gaza.

"I pray for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released," he said during his weekly audience.

Gaza’s power authority says its sole power plant will run out of fuel within hours, leaving the territory without electricity after Israel cut off supplies.

Israel said it would cut off all electricity to the territory after Hamas’ bloody rampage over the weekend.

All of Gaza’s crossings are closed, making it impossible to bring in fuel for the power plant or the generators on which residents and hospitals have long relied.

The power authority said Wednesday that the plant would shut down in the afternoon.

Israeli border police shot dead two Palestinians in annexed east Jerusalem after they threw fireworks and rocks at fellow officers, the force said on Wednesday, reports AFP.

The deaths came late on Tuesday in the Silwan neighbourhood as officers were operating in the area, the border police said in a statement.

One officer was hit by fireworks, the force said.

"In response to the threat to their lives, the border police officers fired at the two assailants," who were later confirmed dead, the statement said.

Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

The United States' decision to step up military support for Israel after a surprise assault by Hamas is not likely to cause material shortages for Ukraine, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said on Wednesday.

Speaking after a meeting of the parliamentary defence committee, Pistorius said Berlin would do "everything we can to ensure support for Ukraine does not crumble" in light of the recent escalation in the Middle East conflict.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the US for sending a group of warships to the eastern Mediterranean to show support for Israel after this weekend’s deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

“What is the US aircraft carrier doing in Israel?” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with visiting Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Ankara late Tuesday. In an escalation of rhetoric against the US, he warned that their involvement in the Gaza Strip would risk “massacres.”

The Israeli military said one of its northern positions was attacked with anti-tank fire from Lebanon on Wednesday, but did not immediately provide details on any casualties or who might have been responsible.

The attack took place near the Israeli town of Arab al-Aramshe, opposite the Lebanese village of Dhayra, the statement said.

Former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal called for protests across the Muslim world on Friday in support of the Palestinians and for the peoples of neighbouring countries to join the fight against Israel.

"[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday," Meshaal, who currently heads Hamas's diaspora office, said in a recorded statement sent to Reuters.

The Gaza Strip's sole power plant and only current provider of electricity will run out of fuel in 10 to 12 hours, Palestinian Energy Authority Chairman Thafer Melhem told Voice of Palestine radio on Wednesday.

Israel cut off its own electricity supply to Gaza on Monday as part of what it called a "total siege" in response to a mass-infiltration by Palestinian gunmen.

Israeli fighters jets struck the Islamic University in Gaza City on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent and an official with the Hamas-linked institution said.

"The intense air strikes destroyed completely some buildings of the Islamic University," Ahmed Orabi of the university management told AFP.

"No one can enter it due to the fires, and the rocks and rubble scattered on the roads surrounding the university," he said.

Thick clouds of dust billowed into the sky as the buildings collapsed, the AFP correspondent reported.

The spiralling conflict with the Palestinians is set to derail a fragile recovery in Israel's all-important tech sector, say investors and analysts, after a global slowdown and the government's divisive judicial reforms saw funding drop sharply this year.

Israel, one of the world’s most innovative high-tech economies, relies on the sector for 14% of its workforce and nearly a fifth of its overall economic output. It has weathered decades of turmoil and is ultimately expected to see investment return once the conflict ends and fundraising globally recovers, they added.

"Overseas investment will slow for the next couple of weeks and months, especially to the extent that there are still hostilities going on," said Jon Medved, Chief Executive of OurCrowd, one of Israel's largest venture capital firms.

"This is not a particularly easy time to get investment," he added, noting the number of flights to Israel that have been cancelled.

Israel declared war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas after gunmen on Saturday burst across the fence from Gaza in the deadliest incursion into Israeli territory since Egypt and Syria's attacks in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.

Israeli media said deaths from the attacks had reached 900, mostly civilians gunned down in homes, while scores of Israelis and some foreigners were taken to Gaza as hostages. Israel has responded with fierce air strikes into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The death toll from five days of ferocious fighting beween Hamas and Israel rose sharply overnight as Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza Wednesday after recovering the dead from the last communities near the border where Palestinian militants had been holed up.

In Israel, the death toll from Saturday's shock cross-border assault by Hamas militants rose to 1,200, making it the deadliest attack in the country's 75-year history, while Gaza officials reported more than 900 people killed as Israel pounded the territory with air strikes.

Hamas said two of its top officials had been killed, while Israel's military said the bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas infiltrators had been found.