Haifa's residents gaze warily on to the sprawling industrial port that flanks their Israeli city, knowing the potential for a major blast as they brace for possible bombardment from Hezbollah.

The historic city cascades down a steep hillside to the very edge of the port, a complex which contains Israel's biggest oil refinery, giant fuel tanks and other highly flammable targets.

Gaza's civil defense agency said Saturday an Israeli air strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians killed 93 people, as Israel's military accused militants of using the building as a command center.

AFP could not independently verify the toll which, if confirmed, would appear to be one of the largest from a single strike during 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.

Israeli troops launched a new assault Friday into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire deal.

Israeli evacuation orders triggered yet another exodus of Palestinians from the heavily destroyed eastern districts of Khan Younis, where many had just returned less than two weeks ago — after the Israeli military's last incursion into the city in July.

An agreement to avoid a broad war in the region has likely been reached and the alternative might be a limited response against Israel by Iran and its allies or maybe no response at all, informed sources said.

The Lebanese file will also be separated from the rest of the axis while confrontations will increase on the border with Israel without breaking the rules of engagement, the sources told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper said.

Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in talks with his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin, called for a swift agreement to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Friday.

"While working to secure Israel, minister Gallant raised the importance of swiftly achieving an agreement that will ensure the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza," the military said in a statement, adding the two agreed on "the urgency" of the issue.

Iran may be rethinking the scale and format of its planned reprisal against Israel after the assassination of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, officials have suggested.

Fighting between pro-Iranian groups supporting the Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces left 11 civilians dead, a war monitor said Friday.

Six children were among those killed in intense shelling of the village of Dahla in the eastern region of Deir Ezzor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Three suspected attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, including one that saw private security guards shoot and destroy a bomb-loaded drone boat, authorities said Friday.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a monthslong campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Four Syrian army soldiers were injured in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, Syrian state media reported.

Syrian state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, said strikes targeted “a number of military points in the central region.”

Leaders of the United States, Egypt and Qatar jointly demanded Israel and Hamas return to stalled talks on the war in Gaza next week, saying Thursday that "only the details" of carrying out a cease-fire and hostage release remain to be negotiated. "There is no further time to waste, nor excuses from any party for further delay," they said in a joint statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Thursday, "Pursuant to the proposal by the U.S. and the mediators, Israel will — on 15 August — send the negotiations team to a place to be determined in order to finalize the details of the implementation of the framework agreement."