Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organisations including rivals Fatah to work together for "national unity", with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an "interim national reconciliation government" to govern post-war Gaza.

In Tunisia's seaside town of Hammamet, bulldozers diligently shovel sand from a nearby desert onto a popular beach in an attempt to stop it from disappearing due to erosion.

"This beach is the postcard image of Hammamet," said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Fredj peering nostalgically at the town's iconic Yasmine beach.

"It has been seared in our minds since our childhood," he added, as labourers worked to restore the central Tunisian waterfront to its former sandy glory.

Britain accused Israel of allowing its troops to run "out of control" during a huge military operation in the occupied West Bank two decades ago, UK government archives showed Tuesday.

The newly-released files highlight Western concern over the Palestinian death toll during Operation Defensive Shield launched by then-Israeli premier Ariel Sharon in March 2002.

The comments are similar to concerns expressed by some Western allies over Israel's current military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington to speak at the United States Congress this week in a context of tense relations between the two countries over the Gaza war.

His visit comes just after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

In his fight to get his kidnapped soldier son back from Gaza, Yehuda Cohen has marched through the desert, addressed tens of thousands, been spat at and called a traitor. Now, he's going to Washington.

Cohen is determined to hound the man he blames for failing to get his son Nimrod out of Hamas detention: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As the Israeli leader visits the United States this week to bolster support for the Gaza war, a group of hostage families, including Cohen, plans to publicly challenge him at each step.

The stress shows on the face of Samiha Ismail who since October 7 has been stuck in her home in an occupied West Bank village that lives in constant fear of attack by Israeli settlers.

The day after the Hamas raid into southern Israel, settlers entered Susya, a hilltop village in the south of the West Bank, vowing retribution and "humiliation", the 53-year-old Palestinian recalled.

More than nine months on, Ismail is among 450 inhabitants who spend most of the day indoors. Even their sheep are not allowed out of their sheds.

Israel's Olympic delegation flew to Paris on Monday as the Palestinian contingent called for banning the Israeli athletes over the war in Gaza.

The Summer Games in the French capital open Friday against a backdrop of heightened security concerns and growing international outrage over the death toll and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.

The Palestine Olympic Committee said Monday it sent a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach asking him to ban Israel, citing the bombings of the besieged strip as a breach of the Olympic truce.

To get his family the water they need for drinking, bathing and laundry, Ahmed al-Shanbari steels himself for a lengthy search through the north of the Gaza Strip.

Shanbari said most of the wells near his makeshift shelter in the Jabalia refugee camp have been destroyed.

And the water distribution network barely works after more than nine months of war that has devastated Gaza's infrastructure.

Israeli strikes on Saturday hit a power plant and fuel storage facilities in Hodeida, the main port under the control of Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Here is what we know about the damage caused by the attack, which set oil tanks ablaze for days and came a day after the first fatal strike by the Huthis in Israel.

- Storage tanks -

Saturday's long-distance strike, the first by Israel on the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, hit the Hodeida harbour, a key gateway for fuel and international aid into Huthi-held parts of Yemen.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that an Israeli operation in the main southern city of Khan Yunis killed 70 people and wounded more than 200, after Israel warned its forces would "forcefully operate" in the area.

Thousands of Palestinians fled southern areas of the territory following the Israeli army's temporary evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, including the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.

Israel's military said it would act to curb rocket fire in the area, which saw heavy fighting earlier this year.