4 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza, Tel Aviv launches fresh strikes on Lebanon | Updates

The Israeli military on Thursday said that four of its soldiers were killed, and one severely injured in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israel is pushing forward with the ground offensive in Gaza even as it launched fresh strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli army carried out strikes in three towns in southern Lebanon. (AFP)

The strikes on Yemen come after Israel carried out similar attacks in Qatar's Doha and Yemen's Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port. After the attack on Hamas' political bureau in Doha, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took “full responsibility” for the strikes.

Israeli troops and tanks are moving deeper into Gaza City, the urban hub in the Gaza Strip. The military has opened up another corridor south of Gaza City for two days to allow more people to evacuate, as Palestinians flee the city by cars or on foot.

Netanyahu has been focused on military victory, vowing to eliminate groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. On the other hand, the famine and war in Gaza has led to the death toll surpassing 65,000, while families of Israeli hostages implore the end of the Israeli PM to end the war to free their loved ones.

Turmoil in Middle East deepens: Top updates

• Israeli tanks are advancing in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city centre, and are currently in control of the urban hub's eastern suburbs.

• The Israeli military has been pounding Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas in order to advance forward on central and western areas, where most the population has been sheltering, Reuters reported.

• Internet and phone lines have been cut off across the Gaza Strip, thus signalling that the ground operations will further escalate. In the past 24 hours, at least 85 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza's health ministry.

• The Israeli army also carried out strikes in three towns in southern Lebanon. Several strikes were reported in Mais al-Jabal, a border town destroyed by the last war, and Debbin and Kfar Tibnit, AFP reported quoting Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was “conducting strikes on Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon”. It published maps of four buildings situated in three different villages, and urged residents of these buildings and adjacent ones to evacuate and “stay at least 500 metres away” from these areas.

• A drone "launched from the east" crashed in the Israel's southern city of Eilat after air raid sirens, the IDF said. The Israeli media reported that the drone, which resulted in material damage but no casualties, had been launched from Yemen.

• Meanwhile, the United Nations will vote Friday to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, AFP reported. Britain, France and Germany, which triggered the vote, who are signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, said Tehran had broken its promises under that 2015 treaty.