Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe in the territory's south.

Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City's Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets, said AFP reporters.

Israeli police said Wednesday they "neutralized" a suspected assailant who stabbed and wounded two men in a shopping center in the country's north.

The police in a statement said they were treating the incident in the town of Karmiel as "a suspected terror attack".

Investigators in Germany and Sweden on Wednesday arrested eight suspects over alleged participation in crimes against humanity in Syria, prosecutors said.

Three people suspected of committing crimes against humanity in Syria in 2012 have been arrested in Sweden, in an investigation carried out in cooperation with Germany.

The Hamdan family — around a dozen people from three generations — fled their home in the middle of the night after the Israeli military ordered an evacuation from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

They found refuge with extended relatives in a building further north, inside an Israeli-declared safe zone. But hours after they arrived, an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon hit their building in the town of Deir al-Balah, killing nine members of the family and three others.

Victims of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel sued Iran, Syria and North Korea, saying their governments supplied the militants with money, weapons and know-how needed to carry out the assault that precipitated Israel's ongoing war in Gaza.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks at least $4 billion in damages for "a coordination of extrajudicial killings, hostage takings, and related horrors for which the defendants provided material support and resources."

More than half of households in Yemen are not eating enough due to poor economic conditions and a months-long pause in food assistance to millions of people in the rebel-held north, the United Nations food agency said.

The World Food Program update said "severe food deprivation" has reached the highest it's ever seen in parts of northern Yemen including Al Jawf, Al Badya, Hajjah, Amran, and Al Hodeidah. WFP stopped food assistance to the north in December, citing limited funding and the lack of agreement with the rebel authorities on downscaling the program.

Israeli army leaders are privately pushing for a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza, describing it as the “best way” to recover over 100 captives and to “reach a deal with Hezbollah” that would prevent the expansion of the war, according to six current and former security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to the New York Times (NYT).

The top generals reportedly fear being dragged into a “forever war” by a political echelon that has repeatedly sabotaged attempts at reaching a ceasefire deal. According to the officials who spoke with the NYT, the “army is short of spare parts, munitions, motivation, and even troops.”

Four people were killed after armed protesters and Turkish forces clashed in Syria's Ankara-controlled northwest Monday, a war monitor said, in demonstrations sparked by violence against Syrians in Turkey a day earlier.

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes Tuesday on southern Gaza and battled militants after the army again ordered Palestinians to leave areas near the besieged territory's border with Israel and Egypt.

Turkish police were holding 67 people Monday after a mob went on the rampage in a central Anatolian city after a Syrian man was accused of harassing a child.

A group of men targeted Syrian businesses and properties in Kayseri on Sunday evening, with videos on social media showing a grocery store being set on fire.