Middle East conflict live updates: 7 World Central Kitchen workers killed in Israeli strike, group says

An airstrike near Iran’s embassy in Damascus, Syria, killed a senior Iranian commander and several Iranian diplomats Monday, according to Iranian state media, which said it was an Israeli attack. The strike killed a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Iranian news reports.

The United Nations is planning a mission to Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital as soon as it can gain access, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, said Monday. The Israel Defense Forces said it had pulled back from the hospital, after a roughly two-week-long siege that left the sprawling medical campus in ruins.

Israeli lawmakers voted in favor of a bill that, if enacted, would allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network from operating in Israel.

A fresh round of cease-fire talks is expected this week in Cairo, according to the Egyptian state-run television channel Al Qahera. An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations, confirmed that working-level talks are to take place in the Egyptian capital this week.

At least 32,845 people have been killed and 75,392 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and says 256 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.