Middle East updates: Several killed in Syria airstrikes

The Israeli army says it has detained a UN convoy in northern Gaza, claiming it had intelligence indicating the presence of Palestinian suspects on board.

Israeli soldiers stopped the convoy to question the suspects, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA), Philippe Lazzarini, later said "the convoy was stopped at gun point just after the Wadi Gaza checkpoints with threats to detain UN staff. Heavy damage was caused by bulldozers to the UN armored vehicles."  

"All staff & convoy are now released & back safely in the UN base," Lazzarini said.  

Relations between Israel and the UN have deteriorated during the conflict in Gaza.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with the AP news agency that the level of destruction and death in Gaza is the worst that he has ever seen.

"The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations," Guterres said.

The UN chief said they are ready to "support any cease-fire in Gaza," but that he thinks it was "unrealistic" to think the UN could play a role in Gaza's future because Israel is unlikely to accept one.

According to Guterres, a two-state solution is the only viable option to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected international pressure to agree to a cease-fire deal and has criticized the UN for its alleged bias.

A judge in Lebanon ruled that Riad Salahmeh, the country's former central bank governor, will remain in jail while facing charges of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from state coffers.

Lebanon's Financial Public Prosecution division charged Salameh last week with embezzlement of $42 million (€38 million) after he was detained following an interrogation by Lebanon's top public prosecutor over several alleged financial crimes.

On Monday after Salameh appeared at a court hearing, Judge Bilal Halawi issued an arrest warrant against him, meaning he will remain behind bars while the case is tried. A second hearing is scheduled for next Thursday.

Salameh has maintained that he is innocent.

Salamehended his term as Central Bank governor last yearafter three decades in office. 

Many in Lebanon blame him for the country's economic crisis that has left depositors unable to access their savings.

Protesters and independent lawmakers demand that the ex-central bank boss and his collaborators face strict punishment. 

UNRWA, the UN's main agency for Palestinian refugees, has said that over 446,000 children in Gaza have been vaccinated against polio so far, after Hamas and Israel agreed on limited pauses in their fighting.

"As of tomorrow, the campaign will move to the north, entering its most complex phase. Many more children urgently need the vaccine," UNRWA wrote in a post on X.

The World Health Organization says at least 90% of children under 10 must be immunized in a short time frame for the campaign to work.

All schools remain shut in Gaza as the Palestinian enclave enters a second school year amid war, with children helping their families in the daily struggle to survive.

Humanitarian workers say Gaza's children face long-term damage from being deprived of education.

Younger children suffer in their cognitive, social and emotional development, and older children are at greater risk of being pulled into work or early marriage, said Tess Ingram, regional spokesperson for UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children.

"The longer a child is out of school, the more they are at risk of dropping out permanently and not returning," she said. 

About 625,000 students are registered to study at schools in Gaza, according to the Education Ministry in the Palestinian territory.

The European Union's top diplomat is on a multiday Middle East trip to campaign for a cease-fire, with stops in Egypt and Lebanon but not Israel.

Josep Borrell plans to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo on Monday and will also visit the Rafah border crossing to the Gaza Strip, according to the diplomat's office, adding that a meeting with mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States is "high on the agenda."

On Tuesday, Borrell plans to meet Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and participate in a meeting of the Arab League.

Borrell will be in Lebanon on Wednesday and Thursday. There he will meet with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri and Lebanese Armed Forces Commander General Joseph Aoun. He will also meet with Lebanon's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Abdallah Bou Habib.

Syrian state media reported on Monday that overnight Israeli strikes had killed at least 14 people in the central Hama province.

"The number of martyrs resulting from the Israeli aggression on a number of sites in the vicinity of Masyaf has risen to 14 martyrs and 43 wounded including six critically," according to Syria's official news agency SANA, citing a medical source.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported "intense Israeli strikes" overnight, giving a higher death toll of "18 people" including eight Syrian fighters. More than 30 others were injured after the strikes, the war monitor stated.

Israeli strikes on Syria since 2011 have mainly targeted army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group with political and military branches.

Israeli medics said three people were shot dead at a West Bank border crossing to Jordan.

Jordan's Interior Ministry identified the man who killed the three as one of its citizens. He was shot dead at the scene.

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at an Israeli town after an alleged Israeli attack.

Elsewhere, the Qatar Red Crescent and the main UN agency in Gaza (UNRWA) signed an agreement worth $4.5 million (€4.07 million) from a Qatari state development fund to aid more than 4,400 stranded Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that at least 40,972 people have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The toll includes 33 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said that 94,761 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

jsi/kb (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)