The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, ordered the air force to provide support to Kurdish forces combating Sunni Militants, reports the BBC.

Iraq’s army spokesman, Qassem Atta in a statement on Monday, said,

“The  commander in chief of the armed forces has issued orders to the leadership of the air force and the army’s aviation units to provide air support to Peshmerga forces."

A 72-hour ceasefire was agreed between Hamas and Israel followed by talks in Cairo was agreed Monday, reports Reuters.

The agreement, which was facilitated by Egypt, was accepted by both sides after representatives met with Egyptian officials in Cairo to formulate a plan to end the violence.

Officials in Gaza say that 1,834  mostly civilian Palestinians have been killed, whilst Israel says that it has lost 64 soldiers in combat and 3 civilians.

The agreement comes after Israel on early Monday withdraw most of its ground troops from Gaza after destroying a vast network of Hamas tunnels.

FCO investigates reports of British national death in Gaza

The British Foreign Office is urgently trying to investigate claims that a British national working as an aid worker as died in Gaza, reports The Independent.

The British Premier, David Cameron, speaking on reports of a British National death, said,

“I’m extremely concerned about these reports and we are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of them and find out exactly what has happened.”

France condemns 'massacre' in Gaza, calls for world to 'impose' political solution

France, in a damning statement condemned Israel’s ‘massacre’ in Gaza, whilst urging the international community to impose a political solution between Palestine and Israel, reports the Independent.

The French Foreign Minister, in a statement on the ongoing conflict, according to the Jerusalem Post, said,

“This is why we need a political solution, of which the components are known, and which I believe should be imposed by the international community, because the two parties - despite countless efforts - have unfortunately shown themselves incapable of completing talks.”

"How many more deaths must there be to stop what must be called the carnage in Gaza? The tradition of friendship between France and Israel is old and Israel's right to security is total, but this right does not justify the killing of children and the massacre of civilians," Laurent Fabius added.

Talks between South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar, resumed on Monday in the Ethopian capital, Addis Ababa.

"This session of negotiations must make progress, we must end the war," the chief mediator Seyoum Mesfin was quoted by the BBC as saying.

The talks, which began following internal conflict between the government and rebel groups backing Riek Machar in December, came to a halt in June.

2nd lead

At least 10 people were killed at a United Nations school in Rafah following an Israeli airstrike according to Palestinian officials, as fighting continued in the Gaza strip.

The attack, the second on a UN school this week, also killed at least one UN staffer. Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said:

"It is believed that there was an air strike that hit outside the gate of an UNRWA school, a designated shelter for at least 3,000 displaced residents."

The Telegraph obtained a video of the aftermath of the strike here.

 

International condemnation of UNRWA school shelling

The United States condemned the attack as "disgraceful" and added that the coordinates of the school had "been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli Defense Forces".

"The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians," the US added in a statement released on Sunday shortly after the attack.

Full statement:

The United States is appalled by today's disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3000 displaced persons, in which at least ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed. The coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli Defense Forces. We once gain stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties. UN facilities, especially those sheltering civilians, must be protected, and must not be used as bases from which to launch attacks. The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians. We call for a full and prompt investigation of this incident as well as the recent shelling of other UNRWA schools.

We continue to underscore that all parties must take all feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties and protect the civilian population and comply with international humanitarian law.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said the attack was "a moral outrage and a criminal act", AFP reports.

"This madness must stop," he added.

Describing the attack as "unacceptable", the French president Francois Hollande said "those responsible for this violation of international law answer for their actions."

The US President, Friday, criticised CIA’s previous treatment of terror suspects as having "crossed the line", whilst stating that he could understand why controversial techniques were used in the aftermath of 9/11, reports The Guardian.

"We tortured some folks," Obama said at a White House press conference, ahead of a widely-anticipated Senate report, which is expected to criticise the CIA for abusing terrorist suspects in its custody without yielding any life-saving intelligence.

ISIS fighters made significant gains on Sunday, seizing control of Iraq's largest electricity generating dam, an oilfield and two towns, report Reuters and Al Jazeera.

This is the first major defeat experienced by Kurdish troops, which including the elite Peshmerga fighters.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah called the offensive in Gaza a "war crime" and "state sponsored terrorism" on Friday, breaking his silence after over three weeks of violence in between Israel and Hamas.

“We see the blood of our brothers in Palestine shed in collective massacres that did not exclude anyone, and war crimes against humanity without scruples, humanity or morality,” Abdullah said on state television.

“This [international] community, which has observed silently what is happening in the whole region, has been indifferent to what is happening, as if what is happening is not its concern. Silence that has no justification."

See here and here.

Chile, El Salvador and Peru followed Brazil and Ecuador on Wednesday by recalling their ambassadors from Israel, protesting against Israel's offensive.

Violence escalated on Saturday as Israel launched a hunt for a missing soldier, that it alleges was captured alive by Hamas during the humanitarian cease that broke down on Friday. 

Fighters from the Al-Nusra Front have killed two Lebanese soldiers and seized a police station in Lebanon, as fighting spilled across the border from Syria earlier today.

The town of Arsal saw fighters from the Islamist group clash with Lebanese security forces and storming a security building, with at least two civilians also reported dead.

Nabil Boumonsef from the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar told Reuters,

France, Germany and the UK have advised their nationals in Libya to leave immediately, as the conflict between government forces and militias intensified, reports the BBC.