Middle East crisis: seven killed in Israeli airstrike on Iran-linked military site in Syria, says war monitor

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says military scientific research centre housing pro-Iranian weapons experts was hit, with the death toll including three civilians

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Welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider crisis in the Middle East.

Israeli airstrikes in central Syria have killed at least seven people, including three civilians, a UK-based war monitor has said, in an attack believed to be targeting a military scientific research centre.

The number of dead in the Israeli strikes on the Masyaf region stands at seven, namely three civilians, including a man and his son who were in a car, and four unidentified soldiers.

Thirteen violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centres in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present.

Jordan’s foreign ministry has said it believes the killing of three Israeli civilians at a border crossing in the occupied West Bank was an individual act. A gunman crossing from Jordan carried out the shooting before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said earlier. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the victims were private security guards. The Jordanian ministry said the attack was being investigated and that it “rejected and condemned violence and targeting civilians for any reason”. Israel announced the closure of its land crossings with Jordan, and later said all would reopen on Monday.

Speaking after the attack, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “a difficult day”, adding: “A loathsome terrorist murdered in cold blood three of our civilians.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, urged all parties to investigate the incident to prevent repeats, Reuters reported.

An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza has killed a senior aid official and four members of his family. Gaza’s civil defence group, which fights fires and rescues people trapped in rubble, said its deputy director for northern Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, had been killed in an airstrike. The organisation said our members of his family also died in the bombing of Morsi’s house in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, north-east of Gaza City.

Huge numbers of Israelis again poured into the streets on Sunday to protest against the government’s failure to secure the return of remaining hostages in Gaza. The new protest came a week after one of the largest demonstrations of the war after the discovery of another six dead hostages in Gaza, and after Netanyahu pushed back against pressure for a ceasefire deal and declared that “no one will preach to me”.

The Qatar Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) signed an agreement on Sunday, with $4.5m from a Qatari state development fund, to aid more than 4,400 stranded Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza in the West Bank.

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