The Israeli military has said it has detained a convoy of United Nations vehicles in northern Gaza because it has intelligence indicating that a number of "Palestinian suspects" are in the convoy and wants to question them.
"We emphasise that this is not a convoy carrying polio vaccines, but a convoy whose purpose is to exchange UN personnel. The incident is not yet over," an Israeli military spokesperson said.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it was aware "of an ongoing incident involving UN personnel and vehicles" and was working to establish the facts.
Mr Dujarric said the top UN priority "is the safety and security of our colleagues.
It comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to convene an emergency summit to discuss the war in Gaza and what he called Israel's attacks on Jerusalem.
Mr Erdogan, who has been a vocal critic of Israel during its war against the Hamas militant group in Gaza, called on Islamic countries at the weekend to form an alliance against what he described as Israel's "expansionism".
Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Mr Erdogan said Israel was targeting the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as part of its "expansionist" drive. Jerusalem and the mosque - known to Jews as Temple Mount - was Ankara's "red line", he added.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has 57 member states and claims to be the collective voice of the Muslim world.
"It is unthinkable for the OIC, whose duty is to take care of the Jerusalem cause, to remain indifferent to these attacks. It is urgent that the organisation convenes at the leadership level without losing more time," Mr Erdogan said.
He added that Turkey would apply to the International Court of Justice in The Hague over Israel's killing of a Turkish-American woman, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, at a protest in the West Bank last week.
"We will take every legal step for her blood not to remain on the ground," Mr Erdogan said.
"The genocide-committing Israeli leadership will absolutely be held accountable for the crimes it has committed," he added.
Israeli strikes on Syria kill 18, says minister
Meanwhile Syria's health minister said that overnight Israeli strikes killed 18 people in central Hama province, updating earlier figures, while a war monitor gave a higher death toll for the raids on military sites.
The Israeli military, which has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since its civil war started in 2011, declined to comment on the latest reported attack.
"The number of martyrs of the brutal Israeli aggression reached 18 martyrs and 37 wounded," Syria's Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash told AFP.
This was "one of the most violent Israeli attacks" in Syria in years, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
Earlier, official news agency SANA, citing a medical source, said the number of dead "in the Israeli aggression on a number of sites on the outskirts of Masyaf" was "16 martyrs and 36 wounded, including six critically".
SANA citing a military source reported that at "around 11.20 pm (9.20 Irish time) on Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack" from the direction of northwest Lebanon "targeting a number of military sites in the central region".
Air defences "shot down some" of the missiles, SANA reported.
The Observatory war monitor reported "intense Israeli strikes" overnight, providing an updated toll of 26 dead including "five civilians, four soldiers and intelligence personnel and 14 Syrians working with pro-Iran groups".
Three more bodies were unidentified, it added.
Israeli strikes on Syria since 2011 have mainly targeted army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Lebanon's Hezbollah group.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in the country.
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The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had earlier said the strikes targeted sites "where pro-Iran groups and weapons development experts are stationed".
The Observatory said "Israeli strikes... targeted the scientific research area in Masyaf" in Hama province and other sites, destroying "buildings and military centres".
Observatory chief Rahman said Iranian experts "developing arms including precision missiles and drones" worked in the scientific research centre that was hit.
Charred cars were visible on both sides of the road, with nearby trees still burning, observed an AFP correspondent present at the scene as part of a media tour organised by authorities.
The raids also blew five large craters in the main road to Masyaf, the correspondent said.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told a media briefing: "We strongly condemn this criminal attack by the Zionist regime on Syrian soil."
Syria's foreign ministry condemned the raids, accusing Israel of trying to "provoke a further escalation in the region".
Israeli raids on Syria surged after Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel sparked war in Gaza, then eased somewhat after a 1 April strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus.
Syria has sought to stay out of the Israel-Hamas conflict, whose fallout has raised fears of a broader regional war.
In late August, several pro-Iranian fighters were killed in Syria's central Homs region in strikes attributed to Israel, the Observatory had said.
Days later, the Israeli military said it killed an unspecified number of fighters belonging to the Hamas ally Islamic Jihad in a strike in Syria near the Lebanese border.
The Syrian government's brutal suppression of a 2011 uprising triggered the conflict that has killed more than half a million people and drawn in foreign armies and jihadists.
Iran-backed groups including Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement have bolstered President Bashar al-Assad's forces during Syria's civil war.
Israeli raids on Syria have also sought to cut off Hezbollah supply routes to Lebanon.
Gaza school year begins with all classes shut due to war
The new school year in the Palestinian territories officially began today, with all schools in Gaza shut after 11 months of war and no sign of a ceasefire.
Israel has also announced new orders to residents of northern Gaza to leave their homes, in response to rockets fired into Israel.
The Palestinian Education Ministry said all Gaza schools were shut and 90% of them had been destroyed or damaged in Israel's assault on the territory, launched after Hamas militants attacked Israeli towns in October last year.
The UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, which runs around half of Gaza's schools, has turned as many of them as it can into emergency shelters housing thousands of displaced families.
"The longer the children stay out of school the more difficult it is for them to catch up on their lost learning and the more prone they are to becoming a lost generation, falling prey to exploitation including child marriage, child labour and recruitment into armed groups," UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma said.
In addition to the 625,000 Gazans already registered for school who would be missing classes, another 58,000 six-year-olds should have registered to start first grade this year, the education ministry said.
Last month, UNRWA launched a back-to-learning programme in 45 of its shelters, with teachers setting up games, drama, arts, music and sports activities to help with children's mental health.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.
In the latest evacuation order, Israel told residents of an area in northern Gaza they must leave their homes, following the firing of rockets into southern Israel the previous day.
"To all those in the specified area. Terrorist organisations are once again firing rockets at the state of Israel and carrying out terrorist acts from this area," an Israeli military spokesperson said in Arabic on X.
"The specified area has been warned many times in the past. The specified area is considered a dangerous combat zone," the spokesperson added.
The United Nations urged Palestinians in northern Gaza to attend medical facilities to get children under the age of 10 years old vaccinated against polio.
Limited pauses in fighting have been held to allow the vaccination campaign, which aims to reach 640,000 children in Gaza after the territory's first polio case in around 25 years.
