GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel on Friday revised down the death toll of last month’s Hamas attacks to about 1,200 as it pursued its assault on Gaza despite new calls for a halt to the bombing of civilians.
Palestinians reported deadly strikes or sniper fire at two hospitals and a school.
The Israeli army, which has agreed to some pauses in shelling to allow civilians to flee northern Gaza, has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of using hospitals as command centers and hideouts. Hamas denies the accusations.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s culture minister reiterated the Kingdom’s condemnation of the ongoing “unjustifiable” attacks on civilians in Gaza and facilities, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
“We strongly condemn the continuous attacks on civilians and the destruction of schools, hospitals, and cultural properties in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories,” Prince Badr bin  Farhan said in a speech at UNESCO’s General Conference in Paris.
 He described these actions as “unjustifiable violations that are contrary to international norms and laws.”

DUBAI: Hospitals, clinics and mortuaries in the Gaza Strip have been overwhelmed since the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas began one month ago, with only a trickle of vital medical supplies reaching the embattled territory.

Despite the challenges of humanitarian access, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Egypt have pledged millions of dollars in assistance, negotiating aid deliveries and establishing medical facilities to treat wounded civilians.

WASHINGTON: Israel’s military is performing “exceptionally well” in its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, stressing Israel does not plan to reoccupy the Palestinian territory.
“I think the Israeli army is performing exceptionally well,” he told Fox News, adding: “We don’t seek to govern Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy it, but we seek to give it and us a better future.”

WAD MADANI, Sudan: Corpses littered the streets of a district of Sudan’s capital on Thursday, witnesses said, as the United Nations expressed alarm over escalating fighting in Darfur between the army and paramilitaries.

“The bodies of people in military uniforms are lying in the streets of the city center after the fighting yesterday,” a witness in Omdurman, located across the Nile River from Khartoum, told AFP by telephone.