JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday that more humanitarian aid will enter Gaza as it announced two additional checkpoints for examining relief supplies before dispatching them to the Palestinian territory through Rafah gateway.
International aid organizations have struggled to get supplies to desperate Gazans under Israeli bombardment, with only the Rafah crossing in Egypt open.
No new direct crossings will be opened, Israel stressed on Monday, but the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom crossings will be used to carry out checks before sending the trucks through Rafah.

BAGHDAD: A drone and rockets targeted two military bases in Iraq and Syria on Monday housing forces of the international coalition against the Daesh group, a US military official said.
Both attacks were claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose formation of armed groups affiliated with the Hashed Al-Shaabi coalition of former paramilitaries that are now integrated into Iraq’s regular armed forces.

TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s defense minister on Monday pushed back against international calls to wrap up the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying the current phase of the operation against the Hamas militant group will “take time.”

RAFAH: In a workshop in the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip, Ibrahim Shouman is bringing old brass stoves back to life, giving hope to displaced people deprived of gas for cooking.
With a squeeze of pliers, a new wick, and a refill of homemade fuel, a flash of fire miraculously begins to crackle.
“People have gone back to the old times and are bringing their brass camping stoves for repair because there is no gas or fuel available,” Shouman said in Rafah in the south of Gaza, near the border with Egypt.

PARIS: A French frigate that shot down two drones in the Red Sea was acting in self-defense after coming under attack from the unmanned aerial vehicles, the Foreign Ministry in Paris said on Monday.
The French general staff reported on Sunday that the Languedoc frigate, operating in the Red Sea, had opened fire on two drones heading straight toward it from the Yemen coast, destroying both.
The incident came after Houthis threatened on Saturday to attack any vessels heading to Israeli ports unless food and medicine were allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip.