Nine Israeli soldiers were due to appear before a military court for an initial hearing Tuesday over what a defense lawyer said were allegations of sexual abuse of a Palestinian at a shadowy facility where Israel has held prisoners from Gaza during the war.

The investigation has stoked tensions between the military command and hard-line nationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government who advocate an even harsher hand in Israel's conduct of the 10-month-old war in Gaza.

Two days after a rocket slammed into a soccer pitch in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children, many questions remain about the attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams.

Israel accused Hezbollah in Lebanon of deliberately targeting civilians, while Hezbollah quickly issued a rare denial of any responsibility for the attack.

Israeli missiles struck two air defence bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday, as tensions surge on Israel's northern border after a deadly rocket strike on the annexed Golan Heights.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported no casualties in the overnight strikes in Daraa province, which abuts the armistice line separating Syrian and Israeli forces on the Golan.

A senior Turkish official on Monday accused the Israeli government of trying to "hide your war crimes" by targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he seemingly threatened to invade Israel.

Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan's head of communications, said on social media platform X that those who threaten the president "do so at their own peril." The post criticized Israel's actions against Palestinians in Gaza.

Some residents of the Golan Heights village where a rocket killed 12 youths over the weekend protested Monday the visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials expressing condolences.

Netanyahu is weighing Israel's response to the attack it blames on Hezbollah, which in a rare move has denied having a role. The prime minister laid a wreath, expressed his shock and said the local Druze community has paid a heavy price. He met with representatives of victims' families.

Officials from Egypt and Hamas said Monday that mediators negotiating a Gaza cease-fire deal were still working to iron out sticking points.

The officials, who have direct knowledge of the negotiations, said the contentious points include Israeli demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway separating Gaza’s south and north.

Osama Siblani's phone won't stop ringing.

Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation's largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit.

Hundreds gathered Monday in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams for the funeral of the last of 12 youths killed by rocket fire.

Eleven-year-old Guevara Ibrahim was initially reported missing after Saturday's strike that hit a football pitch in the Druze Arab town, but has later been confirmed dead.

The Golan Heights, a rocky plateau where 12 youths were killed Saturday amid clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, is a strategic territory partially captured by Israel from Syria.

Following the conquest of about two-thirds of the plateau during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel in 1981 annexed the area in a move not recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United States since 2019.

An Egyptian official said the deadly strike in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights could give urgency to the negotiations to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, which would be reflected on the Israeli-Hezbollah front.

He said mediators will use such an attack to press for a cease-fire in Gaza to avoid an all-out war in the region.