The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel's actions in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the accusation.

Hundreds of Yemenis mourned Monday the death of Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, killed last week along with several officials by an Israeli strike, as the group targeted an oil tanker in the Red Sea, renewing their attacks in the crucial global waterway.

The Israeli attack came three days after the Houthis launched a ballistic missile toward Israel that its military described as the first cluster bomb the Iranian-backed rebels had launched at it since 2023.

A flotilla of ships departed from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip Sunday with humanitarian aid and activists on board in the largest attempt yet to break the long Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea.

This comes as Israel has stepped up its offensive on Gaza City, limiting the deliveries of food and basic supplies in the north of the Palestinian territory. Food experts warned earlier this month that the city was in famine and that half a million people across the strip were facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

Yemen's Houthi rebels on Monday said they had fired a missile at a tanker in the Red Sea, days after their prime minister was killed in an Israeli attack.

Israel said Sunday its forces had killed the spokesman of Hamas' armed wing in a strike on Gaza a day earlier, the latest fatality in the group's senior ranks in the nearly two-year war.

The Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Eyal Zamir, vowed Sunday to target Hamas leaders abroad after the military killed Abu Obeida, spokesman for the group's military wing, in Gaza the day before.

French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to recognize a Palestinian state, prompting similar moves from other Western nations, angered Israel and its U.S. ally by putting a two-state solution back at the heart of diplomatic efforts to end the devastating war in Gaza.

In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, Macron wrote that "our determination to see the Palestinian people have their own state is rooted in our conviction that lasting peace is essential to the security of the state of Israel."

Yemen's Houthi rebels said Saturday their prime minister had been killed in an Israeli air strike earlier this week, the most senior official known to have died in a series of attacks during the Gaza war.

An Israeli army statement later Saturday confirmed the strike and that it had killed Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi.

Dozens of families have fled a historically Alawite neighborhood of Damascus under threat of death, amid fears for the community's future in the Syrian capital under Islamist rule, residents told AFP.

The head of the international Red Cross on Saturday denounced Israel's plans for a mass evacuation of Gaza City ahead of a military takeover, insisting there was no way it could be done safely.