US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit to Israel on Friday, US State Department said on Tuesday. This will be Blinken’s second visit to Israel since war began.

“Secretary Blinken will travel to Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the Israeli government, and then will make other stops in the region,” US State Department spokesman said in his statement.

The visit comes as Israel intensifies its ground offensive in Gaza amid deepening humanitarian crisis.

Earlier On Tuesday, Isareli military carried out air strikes on densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing dozens of people.

Israel also claimed that the top commander of Hamas, who was involved in October 7 attack, was also killed in air strike on Gaza.

Hamas, however, dismissed Israel’s claim and said that no one of its leaders was present in the camp during the attack.

According to Gaza health ministry, more than 8,000 people have been killed, mostly children and women, in Israeli bombardments since war began on October 7.

Here are the live updates on the Israel-Hamas war:

Not content with being arrested for thrashing a policeman, two men from Uttar Pradesh decided to take things up a notch and fired at three police personnel after snatching their rifles while being taken for a medical check-up. A sub-inspector and two constables suffered minor injuries during the clash and the two men were also shot in the leg.

After a child was run over by a speeding bus in Mahoba, about 260 km from Lucknow, on Monday, a policeman who was part of a team which had gone to disperse an angry crowd and ease a traffic jam had been beaten up by some people. The other members of the team had fled. The police had later registered a case and made five arrests. 

When they were being taken to a hospital for a medical check-up on Tuesday, the accused and the police personnel, from Panwari police station in Mahoba, stopped for a washroom break. This was when two of the five accused – 45-year-old Parshuram and 22-year-old Monu – snatched the rifles of two of the police personnel and opened fire. 

Sub-inspector Surendra and constables Ankit Singh and Mithun were injured and the two men were shot in their legs when the police personnel returned fire. All five have been admitted to a hospital.

Mahoba Superintendent of Police Aparna Gupta said, “A case had been registered against five people for misbehaving with, and beating up, a policeman on Monday. The sub-inspector was trying to ease a traffic jam when he was beaten up. They were being taken for a medical check-up when they snatched the rifles of some police personnel and opened fire. A sub-inspector and two constables have suffered minor injuries.”

Two men from Bihar have been arrested in Bengaluru for exploiting the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) to steal money from bank accounts. Unlike typical cyberfrauds, victims of AePS fraud only realize they have lost money after receiving text messages from their banks. At least 116 AePS fraud cases have been registered in Bengaluru alone. The fraudsters stole biometric details from the government’s Kaveri 2.0 portal and used the information to steal money through the micro ATM system. The police have informed the stamps and registration department to block the Aadhaar numbers and biometric details of those using their services.