An Israeli strike killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 50 others who were sheltering in a post office in central Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll on Thursday in the enclave to 66.

With no sign of let-up in the 14-month-old conflict, the strike hit a postal facility in Nuseirat camp where displaced families had sought refuge and also damaged several nearby houses, medics told Reuters.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nuseirat is one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic camps originally for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war around the establishment of Israel. Today, it is part of a dense urban area crowded with displaced people from throughout the enclave.

Earlier on Thursday, two Israeli strikes in southern Gaza killed 13 Palestinians who Gaza medics and Hamas said were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks. Israel's military said they were Hamas militants trying to hijack the shipment.

Many of those killed in the attacks on Rafah and Khan Younis had links to Hamas, according to sources close to the group.

The Israeli military said in a statement the two airstrikes aimed to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and accused Hamas members of planning to prevent the aid from reaching Gaza civilians who need it.

The statement said the Hamas members aimed to hijack the aid "in support of continuing terrorist activity".

Armed gangs have repeatedly hijacked aid trucks, and Hamas has formed a task force to confront them. The Hamas-led forces have killed over two dozen members of the gangs in recent months, Hamas sources and medics said.

Hamas said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 700 police tasked with securing aid trucks in Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023. It has accused Israel of trying to protect looting and "creating anarchy and chaos to prevent aid from reaching the people of Gaza".

Separately, the Israeli military on Thursday ordered residents of several districts in the heart of Gaza City to evacuate, saying it would respond to rockets launched from those areas.

"This is a pre-warning before an attack," read a military statement posted on X that some residents also received as text and audio alerts on their mobile phones.

The evacuation orders caused a new wave of displacement. At nightfall, dozens of families streamed out of the areas heading toward the centre of the city.

ISRAELI STRIKES IN GAZA CITY, CENTRAL GAZA

Israeli bombings of a residential building in Gaza City's al-Jalaa Street and a house west of Nuseirat killed 22 people, medics and the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

In the northern Gaza refugee camp of Jabalia, where the army has operated since October, health officials said an orthopaedic doctor, Saeed Judeh, was shot dead by Israeli forces while on his way to Al-Awda Hospital where he usually treated patients.

The health ministry said his death raised to 1,057 the number of healthcare workers killed since the war began.

Months of ceasefire efforts by Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, have failed to conclude a deal between the two warring sides.

On Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire and the immediate release of all hostages seized in Israel in October 2023 and held by Hamas in Gaza.

The war in the Palestinian enclave began after Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to Hamas-run Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel's military has levelled swathes of Gaza, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing more than 44,800 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Refugees from Syria's long civil war were making their way home on Wednesday, as a new interim prime minister said he had been appointed with the backing of the rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. officials, engaging with rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), urged them not to assume automatic leadership of the country but instead run an inclusive process to form a transitional government.

The new government must "uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

HTS is a former al Qaeda affiliate that led the anti-Assad revolt and has lately downplayed its jihadist roots, Reuters reported.

In a brief address on state television on Tuesday, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1.

"Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the Salvation Government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime," he said.

Bashir ran the rebel-led Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning rebel offensive swept into Damascus.

Rebuilding Syria will be a colossal task following a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities have been bombed to ruins, swathes of countryside depopulated, the economy gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.

With European countries pausing asylum applications from Syrians, some refugees from Turkey and elsewhere began making their way home.

Ala Jabeer cried as he prepared to cross from Turkey into Syria with his 10-year-old daughter on Tuesday, 13 years after the war forced him to flee his home.

He returns without his wife and three of his children who died in devastating earthquakes that struck the region last year.

"God willing, things will be better than under Assad's government. We've already seen that his oppression is over," he said.

"The most important reason for me to return is that my mother lives in Latakia. She can take care of my daughter, so I can work," Jabeer said.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, banks reopened for the first time since Assad's overthrow on Tuesday. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.

The lightning overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad left Syrians, countries in the region and world powers nervous on Tuesday about what comes next as the rebel alliance took its first steps in a government transition.

The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors late on Monday, and diplomats said they were still in shock at how quickly Assad's overthrow unfolded over 12 days, after a 13-year civil war that was locked in stalemate for years.

"Everyone was taken by surprise, everyone, including the members of the council. So we have to wait and see and watch ... and evaluate how the situation will develop," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after the body met.

Russia played a major role in supporting Assad's government and helping it fight the rebels. The Syrian leader fled Damascus for Moscow on Sunday, ending more than 50 years of brutal rule by his family.

With the mood in Damascus still celebratory, Assad's prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, on Monday agreed to hand power to the rebel-led Salvation Government, an administration based in rebel-held territory in northwest Syria, Reuters reported.

The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, met with Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss the transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters. Jalali said the handover could take days to carry out.

Al Jazeera television reported the transitional authority would be headed by Mohamed al-Bashir, who has headed the Salvation Government.

The steamroller advance of the militia alliance headed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, was a generational turning point for the Middle East.

The civil war that began in 2011 killed hundreds of thousands, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble, countryside depopulated and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.

But the rebel alliance has not communicated plans for Syria's future, and there is no template for such a transition in the fractious region.

The U.S. was seeking ways to engage with Syrian rebel groups and is reaching out to partners in the region such as Turkey to start informal diplomacy, Washington said.

Qatari diplomats spoke with HTS on Monday, an official briefed on the developments told Reuters, as regional states race to open contact with the group.

Some insurgent fighters who milled about the capital on Monday, clustering in the central Umayyad Square, expressed hope a civilian administration would soon be running the country.

"We want the state and security forces to be in charge," said Firdous Omar, a fighter who intends to resume farming in provincial Idlib.

Golani has vowed to rebuild Syria, and HTS has spent years trying to soften its image to reassure foreign nations and minority groups within Syria.

But fears of reprisals remained. HTS said it will not hesitate to hold security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people accountable, describing them as criminals and murderers.

"We will release a list that includes the names of the most senior officials involved in the torturing of the Syrian people," Golani said in a statement. "Rewards will be offered to those who will provide information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes."

HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by many states and the U.N., and its governing credentials are uncertain.