Israel’s military says ‘large number’ of militants dead in Shujaiya area near Gaza City amid reports of bodies in streets

• See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news.

Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called “unbearable” living conditions in the territory.

Israel’s foreign minister said Iran’s message of an “obliterating war” made it worthy of destruction. “A regime that threatens destruction deserves to be destroyed,” Israel Katz said in a post on X on Saturday. He also said Israel would act with full force against Iran-backed Hezbollah if it did not stop firing at Israel from Lebanon and move away from the border. Iran’s UN mission said on Friday that if Israel embarked on a “full-scale military aggression” in Lebanon, “an obliterating war will ensue”.

Four bodies were pulled from an apartment after an Israeli strike in central Gaza , the territory’s civil defence agency said on Saturday. Further south, in the Rafah area, witnesses reported dead and wounded after a new Israeli incursion. Tarek Qandeel, director of the medical centre in al-Maghazi, central Gaza, said it was seriously damaged when a neighbouring house was bombed, making it the latest Gaza medical facility affected by the war.

A UN spokesperson said she had just returned to central Gaza after four weeks outside the territory and “it’s really unbearable”. Louise Wateridge said by video link that the situation had “significantly deteriorated”. “There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food,” and people were returning to live in “empty shells” of buildings. In the absence of toilets they were “relieving themselves anywhere they can”.

At least 37,834 Palestinians have been killed and 86,858 wounded in Israel’s offensive on Gaza since 7 October , the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Saturday.

Hamas said there had been no progress in ceasefire talks with Israel . A senior official of the militant group, Osama Hamdan, also told a news conference in Beirut on Saturday that it was still ready to “deal positively” with any ceasefire proposal that ended the war. Hamas and Israel have both blamed each other for the impasse. Axios reported on Friday that the US had proposed new language for parts of the hostage and ceasefire proposal in an effort to secure a deal.

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Turnout estimated to be as low as 40%, a record low since the revolution and a rebuff for the regime

Iran is heading to a runoff election in a week’s time after the reformist lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian secured a narrow lead over hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili but failed to secure more than 50% of the votes.

Turnout may end up low as 40%, a record low for an Iranian presidential election since the revolution in 1979.

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Islamic republic’s UN mission says an ‘obliterating war will ensue’ if Israel launches ‘full-scale military aggression’ in Lebanon

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations has warned that if Israel embarks on a “full-scale military aggression” in Lebanon, “an obliterating war will ensue”.

Israeli forces deepened their incursion into two northern and southern areas of Gaza on Friday , and Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people. Residents and Hamas media said tanks advanced further west into the Shakoush neighbourhood of Rafah, forcing thousands of displaced people there to leave their tent camps and head northward to nearby Khan Younis.

Airstrikes hit five homes in Gaza City’s Shijaiyah neighbourhood, killing at least three people and injuring another six, civil defence responders said. Rescuers were still digging through the rubble for survivors, it said. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said the number killed in Shijaiyah by Israeli strikes was at least seven.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it conducted several strikes in northern Gaza and that “dozens of terrorists who were hiding in Unrwa schools and facilities were eliminated”. It also said a fighter jet struck a Hamas operative in a building in central Gaza’s Deir al Balah, within the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone”. Ahead of the strike, it said, it worked to evacuate the civilian population from the area of the building.

Israeli soldiers have destroyed 11 homes and other structures in an isolated community in the West Bank , leaving 50 people homeless, amid a reported increase in house demolitions and spiralling violence in the occupied territory. Contractors with bulldozers accompanied by IDF troops arrived in Umm al-Kheir, a village mostly home to shepherds, on Wednesday and about a third of the village’s infrastructure was destroyed.

An intervention by the UK government at the international criminal court is expected to delay a decision over whether an arrest warrant can be issued against Benjamin Netanyahu , the Israeli prime minister, for alleged war crimes in Gaza. ICC judges ruled on Thursday they would allow the UK to make legal arguments in the case as they consider whether to approve requests made by the ICC’s chief prosecutor for warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

The Biden administration has sent Israel large numbers of munitions – including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles – since the start of the war in Gaza , Reuters reported two US officials as saying. Between October and recent days, the US has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who had been briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments but were not authorised to speak publicly. The officials didn’t give a timeline for the shipments but the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in US military support for its ally, despite a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.

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The election comes at a time of high regional tensions between Iran and Israel and the United States

More than 61.5 million Iranians aged over 18 have been given a chance to vote for a new president and send a message to the regime about the state of the economy. However, millions are expected to boycott the election on Friday, the outcome of which they believe will be manipulated by the regime to ensure a loyalist victory.

Iran’s leaders want to renew their legitimacy after a steady decline in turnout reached crisis point last year with fewer than 41% voting in parliamentary elections, and fewer than 10% in the capital, Tehran.

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Blinken says Tehran has expanded uranium enrichment project ‘in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose’

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has announced fresh sanctions against Iran’s petroleum sector in response to what he described as an expansion of the country’s nuclear programme which has provoked renewed fears that it is preparing to build an atomic bomb.

The embargoes – on three unnamed entities involved in the transport of Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products – were announced amid a chorus of warnings of a renewed conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah , the powerful Shia group that dominates Lebanon.

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Fiery former foreign minister enters campaign to elect mild-mannered consensual reformist Masoud Pezeshkian

Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister and probably the Iranian politician best known to the west, has thrown himself into the campaign to elect the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the country’s president.

Zarif emerged from academia back to frontline politics to face heckling at public rallies, outright bans from one university and allegations that he is seeking to settle scores with those who thwarted his foreign policy when in office between 2013 and 2021.

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Israeli PM says he hopes for diplomatic solution to conflict but will solve it in ‘a different way’ if necessary

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

Israel’s prime minister has said the most intense phase of the assault against Hamas in Gaza is coming to an end, freeing up forces to move to the Lebanese border, where escalating exchanges of fire with the militant group Hezbollah have increased fears of a wider war.

In his first public interview with a Hebrew-language network outlet during more than eight months of conflict, Benjamin Netanyahu also walked back on his commitment to a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hamas, instead suggesting a far more limited offer.

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From Netanyahu to Nasrallah, the region’s politicians are flailing. Will no one stop the lunacy?

When Benjamin Netanyahu flies to Washington next month, he would be advised to avoid British airspace and airports. As a founding party of the international criminal court (ICC), the UK could find itself legally and morally obliged to detain Israel’s prime minister should he stray into its territory.

That’s because the ICC’s chief prosecutor is seeking a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 37,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people.

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Musician, 33, faces retrial after being sentenced to death for ‘corruption on Earth’

Iran’s supreme court has overturned the death sentence imposed on the rapper Toomaj Salehi, his lawyer said.

The decision comes in the middle of Iran’s presidential election campaign but seems unrelated to the fierce public debates under way about Iran’s future direction, including the rights of women not to wear the hijab if they wish.

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