Israel Gaza news: Satellite photos reveal damage from Israeli strike on Iran amid reports of ‘war crimes’

Iran‘s supreme leader on Sunday dismissed any discussion of whether Tehran‘s unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel hit anything there, a tacit acknowledgment that despite launching a massive assault, few projectiles actually made through to their targets.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s comments before senior military leaders didn’t not touch on the apparent Israeli retaliatory strike Friday on the central city of Isfahan, even though air defenses opened fire and Iran grounded commercial flights across much of the country.

Jack Straw was the first foreign secretary to visit Iran after the 1979 revolution and is used to negotiating with its leaders – even, on one occasion, from a train loo. Here, he explains why Netanyahu and Khamenei are throwing each other a lifeline to stay in power, and warns we could all pay a terrible price…

Major General Aharon Haliva’s resignation could set the stage for more fallout from Israel’s top security brass over the attack, when Hamas blasted through Israel’s border defenses, rampaged through Israeli communities unchallenged for hours killing around 1,200 people, and took roughly 250 hostages into Gaza. That attack set off the war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its seventh month.

Israel has yet to provide evidence that employees of the United Nations’s Palestinian refugee Agency (UNRWA) are members of terrorist organisations, according to an independent review led by the French former minister Catherine Colonna.

The UN appointed Ms Colonna to lead the UNRWA neutrality review in February after Israel alleged that 12 of its staffers took part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack, during which militants killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 33,000 people, and UN aid agencies say sparked a man-made famine.

Below are some of the latest photos from Gaza and Israel

At least 34,183 Palestinians have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry has said in its latest update.

European Union sanctions announced following Iran’s attack against Israel are “regrettable” because the country was acting in self-defence, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has said.

Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles on Israel in what it said was retaliation against a suspected Israeli bombing of its embassy compound in Damascus.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to expand sanctions on Iran by agreeing to extend restrictive measures on Tehran’s weapons exports of any drone or missile to Iranian proxies and Russia.

“It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran just because Iran exercised its right to self-defence in the face of Israel’s reckless aggression,” Amirabdollahian said on X, before calling on the EU to apply sanctions on Israel instead.

More work will need to follow in Brussels to approve a legal framework before the expansion of the sanctions can take effect.

The Israeli military has said its head of intelligence has resigned over failures surrounding Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack.

Major General Aharon Haliva has become the first senior Israeli figure to step down after Hamas breached the country’s defences, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking roughly 250 more captive, and sparking the war against Hamas in Gaza.

The official said shortly after the attack in October that he shouldered the blame for not preventing the assault.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the military chief of staff accepted Maj Gen Haliva’s request to resign and thanked him for his service. His resignation could set the stage for more of Israel’s top security officials to accept blame for not preventing the attack and step down.

Maj Gen Haliva wrote in his resignation letter, which was provided by the military: “The intelligence directorate under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with. I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the pain with me forever.”

Isra Hirsi said that she and two of her classmates from Barnard College at Columbia were the first of nearly 100 students to be suspended over pro-Palestine protests.

The university’s president moved classes online on Monday due to tensions, while one rabbi called for Jewish students to leave campus over fears of antisemitic violence and harassment on Monday, the first day of Passover.

For the past week, hundreds of pro-Palestine student activists have demanded that Columbia divest its financial ties with Israel due to the country’s war in Gaza, launching street demonstrations and building a massive encampment on the college campus, leading the school to call in the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Here’s everything you need to know about the protests at Columbia, and other major US universities.