Tehran

Israel's military struck the Gaza Strip on Monday, a day after truce talks in Cairo coincided with a major but brief cross-border escalation involving Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Gaza conflict, triggered by Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has drawn in Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East, repeatedly heightening fears of a broader regional conflagration.

North Korea has unveiled a new "suicide drone," state media said Monday, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing a performance test of the weapons, which experts said could have come from Russia.

Wearing a cream baker boy hat, Kim was shown beaming as he watched, aided by high-powered binoculars, as the drones blew up targets, images in state media showed.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has talked with Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, over the phone to discuss the regional issues and bilateral ties amid rising tension in the Middle East.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi communicated on Friday with his French and British counterparts, indicating that while Iran does not seek to escalate the regional conflict, it retains the right to respond to Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. (AFP photo)

Iran's new foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has called for dialogue with the European Union to resolve bilateral issues, following a phone call with the bloc's top diplomat.

Israeli negotiators were taking part Thursday in talks on Gaza in Cairo, a government spokesman said, as fighting raged on the ground despite U.S. pressure on Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement.

Hopes for a deal have dwindled though as Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas have traded blame for failing to reach a deal after more than 10 months of war in the Gaza Strip.

A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said on Aug. 21.

The crash happened Aug. 20 night in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

"There is no perfect moment for the Iranians to strike," says former Israeli national security adviser General (ret.) Yaakov Amidror. An analyst at the Jewish security and defense think tanks JINSA and JISS, Amidror explains to Kathimerini that "Israel has enough time to prepare for Iran's retaliation and not to be taken by surprise."

Türkiye on Friday strongly condemned a social media post by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, blasting it as "slander" and "disinformation."

Palestinian children sit on a whindow sill at the Asdaa central prison facility which has become a shelter for displaced people in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 14, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas.