South Korea’s government says it has reached an agreement with the US to release its citizens detained in a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia.

The chief of staff of South Korea’s president said a chartered plane would be sent to bring the detainees home if administration procedures were completed.

Kang Hoon-sik said the authorities were trying to improve the visa system to prevent such incidents in the future.

US officials detained 475 people – more than 300 of them South Korean nationals – who they said were found to be illegally working at the battery facility, one of the largest foreign investment projects in the state.

Media in both countries report that South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is expected to travel to the United States on Monday.

The White House has defended the operation at Hyundai, dismissing concerns that the raid could deter foreign investment. President Donald Trump took aim at the raid in a post on social media and called for foreign companies to hire Americans.

“I am hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws,” Trump said in the post on Sunday.

He said the US would make it easy for foreign companies to legally bring their “great technical talent, to build World Class products” but, asked that in return, these companies “hire and train American Workers”.

A worker at the plant spoke to the BBC about the panic and confusion during the raid. The employee said the vast majority of the workers detained were mechanics installing production lines at the site, and were employed by a contractor.

He also said a minority of those arrested had been sent from head office in Seoul and had been carrying out training, which the BBC has not been able to confirm.

More extensive immigration raids like the operation at the plant are likely, Trump administration border tsar Tom Homan told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“We’re going to do more work site enforcement operations,” Homan said.

“No one hires an illegal alien out of the goodness of their heart. They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, undercut the competition that hires US citizen employees.”

Video released by ICE officials showed Asian workers shackled in front of a building, with some wearing yellow vests with names such as “Hyundai” and “LG CNS”.

“People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the US,” ICE said, adding that the raid was necessary to protect American jobs.

“This operation sends a clear message that those who exploit the system and undermine our workforce will be held accountable,” Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent Steven Schrank said in a statement on Saturday.

South Korea, a close US ally, has pledged tens of billions of dollars in American manufacturing investment, partly to offset tariffs.

The timing of the raid, as the two governments engage in sensitive trade talks, has raised concern in Seoul.

Trump has actively encouraged major investments from other countries while also tightening visa allocations for foreign companies.

LG Energy Solution, which operates the plant with Hyundai, says many of the LG employees arrested were on business trips with various visas or under a visa waiver programme.

The company has said it is suspending most business trips to the US and directing employees on assignment in the US to return home immediately.

South Korean media widely described the raid as a “shock,” with the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper warning it could have “a chilling effect on the activities of our businesses in the United States”.

The factory, which makes new electric vehicles, had been touted by Georgia’s Republican governor as the biggest economic development project in the state’s history, employing 1,200 people.

The arrested workers are being held at an ICE facility in Folkston, Georgia.

LG Energy Solution said 47 of its employees and about 250 workers for contractors at the joint venture factory were detained.

Israel has destroyed another high-rise in Gaza City, bringing the number of buildings razed during its campaign to seize the largest urban centre in the Gaza Strip to at least 50, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence.

The attack on Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday came as Israeli forces killed at least 65 people across the Gaza Strip, including 49 in the northern part of the besieged enclave.

The Israeli military said it struck Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday after issuing an evacuation threat, forcing residents and displaced families sheltering in makeshift tents in the neighbourhood to flee.

The head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, Amjad Shawa, who was near the site of the attack, told Al Jazeera that the situation “is scary”, with panic spreading among the people.

“Today, hundreds of families lost their shelters. Israel [is] aiming to force Palestinians to the southern areas using these explosions, but everyone knows that there is no safe place in the south or any humanitarian zone,” Shawa said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the military was “eliminating terrorist infrastructure and nefarious terrorist high-rises”, a talking point that Israel often repeats as it obliterates civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

The attack on Al-Ruya – a five-storey building with 24 apartments, as well as department stores, a clinic and a gym – follows an earlier one on the Al Jazeera Club in central Gaza City, where tents housing displaced families were also hit.

It comes after Israel targeted the 15-storey Soussi Tower on Saturday and the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower on Friday. Several Palestinians sheltering in tent encampments around those towers were wounded.

One family that had their shelter destroyed when the Soussi Tower was reduced to rubble said, “We have nothing left for us.”

“We quickly left the building without bringing anything with us. The Israelis attacked the building half an hour later,” the Palestinian man said. “Now, we are trying to stay away from the eyes of the other people by trying to sew some fabrics and sheets,” he said, referring to his family’s attempt to put up a new shelter.

Israeli escalation in Gaza City

Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the military occupation of Gaza City in August, a move Netanyahu suggested had already led to the displacement of 100,000 Palestinians.

As Israel pushes to displace residents of Gaza City to the south of the enclave, Palestinians have been saying that nowhere is safe in the territory.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement on Sunday warning Palestinians in Gaza City not to trust Israel’s claim that it had set up a humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

“We call on citizens in Gaza City to beware of the occupation’s deceitful claims about the existence of a humanitarian safe zone in the south of the Strip,” it said in a statement.

The Israeli military had designated al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” early on in its campaign against Gaza. Since then, it has been bombed repeatedly.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that “every five to 10 minutes, you can hear the sounds of explosions from all directions in Gaza City”, including heavy bombing in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.

“Israeli forces are using remotely controlled explosive robots, and detonating them in residential streets, destroying neighbourhoods,” he said. In Sheikh Radwan, Mahmoud added, homes, public facilities, schools and a mosque had been hit.

Rescuers reported that at least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed when Israeli forces bombed the al-Farabi school-turned-shelter, west of Gaza City.

Sohaib Foda, who was sleeping on a mattress in Gaza City’s al-Farabi School when the attack took place, said the attack left her and a young relative wounded.

“I heard a thud, and a block fell on my face. My cousin’s daughter, who was sleeping here, got injured and fell beside me. Another block then fell on her head,” Foda said.

“Everyone was screaming. I was scared. When I touched my face, it was covered in blood, and I realised I had been injured.”

Mohammed Ayed, who witnessed the attack, said the school was hit by two rockets. He said teams were still working in the rubble to rescue missing people or recover their remains.

“We have recovered two hands so far,” he said. “As you can see, these are children’s hands.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,368 Palestinians and wounded 162,776 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as famine continues to spread across the enclave.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, meanwhile, said at least five people, including three children, have starved to death in Gaza over the past day.

These figures bring the total number of malnutrition deaths in Gaza to 387, including 138 children, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since the global hunger monitor, IPC, confirmed the famine in northern Gaza on August 22, at least 109 hunger-related deaths have been recorded, 23 of them children, the ministry added.

Academics, United Nations experts and leading rights groups have described the horrific Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a genocide.

Later on Sunday, United States President Donald Trump suggested that he put forward a new proposal to end the war in Gaza, calling it a “final warning” for Hamas.

The Palestinian group acknowledged receiving “ideas” from the US, saying that it welcomes any efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire.

Huge crowds gathered at Tunisia’s port on Sunday to welcome Greta Thunberg as her aid flotilla, bound for Gaza, docked at the port.

The Swedish climate activist is travelling with 350 pro-Palestinian activists on boats stocked with aid that they are hoping to deliver to Palestinians in Gaza.

Pictures from the Sidi Bou Said port show hordes of people surrounding the 22-year-old as she addressed the crowd. “We all know why were are here,” she said. “Just across the water there’s a genocide going on, a mass starvation by Israel’s murder machine.”

Israel has repeatedly denied that there is starvation in Gaza and has blamed any hunger on Hamas and aid agency failures.

Last month a UN-backed body confirmed that there was famine in the territory and the UN’s humanitarian chief said it was the direct result of Israel’s “systematic obstruction” of aid entering Gaza.

French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan was at the port.

“The Palestinian cause is not in the hands of governments today. It is in the hearts of peoples everywhere,” she said, adding praise for those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Flotilla organisers have said that the aim of their mission is to “break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza”, but the trip has not always been smooth sailing – a previous attempt in June was intercepted by Israeli forces.

This latest attempt started on Monday, when the flotilla of about 20 vessels set sail from Barcelona.

The group will now stay in Tunisia for a few days, before resuming the journey to Gaza, Reuters news agency reports.

“Some of the flotilla ships bound for Gaza has reached Sidi Bou Said port in Tunisia, where it will be expanded, loaded with additional aid, and joined by the Tunisian team for the next stage of the mission,” the collective group of activists Global Sumud Flotilla wrote on X.

Israeli authorities have characterised Thunberg’s previous attempt to sail aid to Gaza as a publicity stunt that offered no real humanitarian assistance.

In March, it introduced a nearly three-month total blockade on supplies entering the Strip, claiming the aid was being taken by Hamas. It started allowing a limited amount of aid back into the territory after increasing international pressure.