Israel's military on Tuesday responded to accusations by the World Health Organization (WHO) that its forces attacked the UN agency's facilities in central Gaza and detained staff members. The military said soldiers came under fire in the city of Deir al-Balah on Monday and returned fire in the direction the shots originated.

"Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint," the World Health Organization said.

World Health Organization staff and their families were stripped and interrogated at gunpoint as they sheltered from an Israeli offensive in central Gaza.

A Zionist and Israel advocate who once led a major Bay Area Jewish organization says Israel’s conduct crosses moral lines.

Mr. Stephens argues that if Israel intended genocide, its military could have caused far more deaths. But genocide is about intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group. Dismissing genocide because a powerful state didn’t maximize killing reduces it to a numbers game and ignores reality.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has accused the Israeli military of strip-searching and detaining aid workers during attacks on staff housing and a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

Hundreds of people have been killed in days of violence in southern Syria which began with clashes between members of the Druze minority group and Bedouin tribes and drew a military intervention from Syria.

Strikes in the central part of the territory targeted a city, Deir al-Balah, that had largely been spared and that had become an informal refuge for Palestinians fleeing other areas.