Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been injured in a car accident in the US state of New Hampshire.

Giuliani was a passenger in a Ford Bronco when it was struck from behind in the city of Manchester on Saturday evening, according to local police.

“He was diagnosed with a fractured thoracic vertebrae, multiple lacerations and contusions, as well as injuries to his left arm and lower leg,” a statement from his security guard, Michael Ragusa, said.

Giuliani, 81, became known as “America’s Mayor” after leading New York through 9/11. He later became an adviser and then personal lawyer to Donald Trump, though the two have since parted ways.

All involved in the crash suffered non-life threatening injuries and were taken to hospital, police said.

The incident happened shortly after Giuliani had helped an alleged victim of domestic violence who had flagged him down on a road, Mr Ragusa’s statement added.

“Mayor Giuliani immediately rendered assistance and contacted 911,” he said.

New Hampshire police confirmed officers were investigating a reported domestic violence incident when they saw the crash on the opposite side of the road.

“As a result of the collision, both vehicles went into the median and were heavily damaged,” police added.

Investigators said they have identified the driver who allegedly struck Giuliani’s car, although no charges have been filed and the crash is under investigation.

First elected New York City mayor in 1993, Giuliani was in charge at the time of the 11 September attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

In 2008, he made an unsuccessful run for US president, and later became one of Trump’s advisers during the latter’s 2016 campaign. He joined Trump’s personal legal team in 2018 and remained a part of it through to the 2020 election.

In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump, Giuliani spread baseless claims the election was stolen.

Earlier this year, he reached a tentative settlement with two former election workers who won $148m (£120m) in damages after they successfully sued him for defamation over false election fraud claims.

Israel has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food.

On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defence reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit near the Remal neighbourhood.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, said the Israeli army is also using “explosive robots” in residential areas and forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza City.

In a statement on X on Sunday, al-Thawabta said the army has detonated more than 80 such devices in civilian neighbourhoods over the past three weeks, calling it a “scorched-earth policy” that has destroyed homes and endangered lives.

He said more than one million Palestinians in Gaza City and the north of the enclave “refuse to submit to the policy of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing” despite the destruction and starvation caused by the Israeli assault.

Footage posted on Instagram by Palestinian journalist Faiz Osama and verified by Al Jazeera showed the moments that followed an Israeli aerial attack on the Sabra neighbourhood, in the southern part of Gaza City.

In the footage, as plumes of smoke rise to the sky, a child can be seen screaming with a wound to the leg. A man also lays on the ground with what appears to be a head injury.

The video also shows the destruction left by the strike after residential buildings were flattened by the explosion.

Israel’s forces have carried out sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the area in the latest phase of its nearly two-year genocidal war.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the area a “combat zone”.

‘Fields of rubble’

Reporting from Gaza City on Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said intensifying Israeli attacks have been turning parts of Gaza City, once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, into “fields of rubble”.

“There is non-stop heavy artillery targeting the Zeitoun area and Jabalia, where we are seeing the systematic demolition of homes. There is hardly any fighting going on, but heavy artillery and bulldozers are moving from one street to the other, destroying all of these residential clusters,” he said.

“The majority of people in those areas do not have the luxury to pack up and leave because there is no safety anywhere.”

Another Palestinian journalist was also killed on Sunday. A source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that Islam Abed was killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City and that she worked for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV channel.

The Government Media Office said the “number of martyred journalists has risen to 247″ since the war began. Other tallies have put the number of journalists and media workers killed at more than 270.

On Monday, five journalists – one of whom worked for Al Jazeera – were among at least 21 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

‘Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home’

Many residents in Gaza City are opting to stay put despite Israel declaring it a “combat zone”.

It was Gaza’s most populous city before the war began, home to about 700,000 people. Then hundreds of thousands fled under Israel’s forced evacuation threats before many returned, joined by thousands of other displaced from the south, during a January-to-March ceasefire, which Israel broke.

Fedaa Hamad, who was displaced from Beit Hanoon, said she has “no plans to leave” Gaza City this time despite Israel’s latest warning.

“We are tired from the first displacement. Where are we going to go? Is there a place in the south? We cannot find it,” she said.

Akram Mzini, a resident of Gaza City, said he would not leave “because displacement is very difficult”.

“We were displaced to the south before, and displacement in the south is not simple and it is costly,” he said. “Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home, and whatever God wants will happen.”

Elsewhere in Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli attack on the centre of Deir el-Balah killed at least four people, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Earlier, medical sources said an Israeli bombardment killed at least one person and wounded several in the city, located in the central part of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, including 32 aid seekers, according to medical sources.

Since the war began, Israel has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.

On Sunday, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir held a situation assessment meeting with his top commanders, saying the military must “initiate” more attacks to surprise and reach its targets anywhere.

Many more reserve soldiers will assemble this week “in preparation for the continued intensification of the fighting against Hamas in Gaza City”, Zamir was quoted as saying by the military.

Meanwhile, the armed wing of Hamas said its fighters successfully attacked two invading Israeli military vehicles in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Qassam Brigades said a Merkava tank of the Israeli army was hit with a Yassin-105 shell, while a D9 military bulldozer was targeted with an explosive device on a street southwest of the Zeitoun neighbourhood of the besieged area.

As global condemnation against the situation grows, in the largest attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea, the Global Sumud Flotilla left the Spanish port city of Barcelona on Sunday.

The flotilla’s launch comes after the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a state of famine in Gaza this month.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, which describes itself as an independent group not linked to any government or political party, did not say how many ships would set sail or the exact time of departure, but Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg spoke of “dozens” of vessels.

Sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic.

Two previous attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship to Gaza were blocked by Israel.

Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies told Al Jazeera that while the flotilla was “an important act of symbolic resistance … ultimately, they will be intercepted”.

“This is not going to solve the famine,” he said. “What’s going to solve the famine, ultimately, is governments doing their job to stop genocide and deliberate starvation programmes.”

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, has been killed in an air strike in Gaza City, Israel has said.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz congratulated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, for the “flawless execution” in a post on X.

He gave no detail on the time or location of the operation, but the IDF earlier said its aircraft attacked “a key terrorist” in the al-Rimal neighbourhood on Saturday, prompting reports in Israeli media that Obeida had been the target.

Hamas has not confirmed his death. The Palestinian armed group earlier said dozens of civilians were killed and injured in Israeli strikes on a residential building in the district.

Katz warned on Sunday that many more of Obeida’s “criminal partners” would be targeted with “the intensification of the campaign in Gaza” – a reference to a recently approved Israeli plan to seize control of Gaza City.

Separately, the IDF and Shin Bet offered more details about Saturday’s strikes that targeted the Hamas spokesman.

They said in a joint statement that the operation had been “made possible due to prior intelligence gathered by [Shin Bet] and the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate” that had identified his hiding place.

Obeida was among the few remaining senior members of Hamas’s military wing from before its deadly 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Five missiles struck the second and third floor of the six-storey apartment in the al-Rimal neighbourhood building simultaneously from two different directions.

The flat that was targeted had been used as a dentist’s surgery. Witnesses reported seeing hundreds of thousands of dollars flying in the air after the strikes, with large sums stolen by locals but later recovered by Hamas.

The joint statement said Obeida “served as the public face of the Hamas terrorist organization” and “disseminated Hamas’ propaganda”.

Over the past few years, Obeida – believed to be about 40 years old – delivered a number of long diatribes against Israel on behalf of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades.

Always masked in a Palestinian scarf, he became an idol to Hamas supporters throughout the Middle East.

In what may have been his final speech on Friday, Obeida said the fate of remaining Israeli hostages would be the same as that of Hamas fighters, warning Israel against its planned invasion of Gaza City.

Local journalists reported that at least seven people had been killed and 20 injured in the strikes on the densely populated al-Rimal neighbourhood, with children among the casualties.

Mohammed Emad, who runs a barbershop just 100m (328ft) from the site, told the BBC that “the blasts were terrifying – I couldn’t move for more than an hour”.

He added: “I can’t believe I’m still alive. I saw injured children with blood covering their faces, and people were running in every direction as if the world had ended.”

Footage verified by the BBC of the aftermath of the strikes shows terrified residents fleeing into the streets.

Blood can be seen flowing from a body covered by fabric, while an injured child is carried away by a man.

The IDF said that prior to the attack “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial observations, and additional intelligence information”.

BBC News has been unable to independently verify the claims of either the IDF or Hamas.

In early August, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City in a fresh offensive, with the stated aim of bringing the 22-month-long war to an end.

The UN has repeatedly warned that a complete military takeover would risk “catastrophic consequences” for Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The UK’s ambassador to Israel has said it would be “a huge mistake”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to defeat Hamas and defied international criticism of his plans to expand the war.

Israel’s military operation in Gaza began in response to the Hamas-led 7 October attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Since then, more than 63,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

While the operation to capture Gaza City has yet to begin in earnest, Israeli attacks on the city – where nearly a million people live – have been ongoing.

One local resident told the BBC that the same apartment building struck on Saturday had already been hit in an earlier Israeli air raid months ago.

The Israeli military has said it plans to evacuate Gaza City’s entire population and move it to shelters in the south before troops move in. Most of Gaza’s population has already been displaced many times during the conflict.

More than 90% of the city’s homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed, and the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed.

Last week, conditions of famine were confirmed in Gaza City and its surrounding areas for the first time.

Israel has repeatedly targeted the Houthis in recent months as tensions with the group increase over the war in Gaza.

The leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, has denounced Israel and signalled defiance, hailing assassinated government leaders as “the martyrs of all Yemen”, the day after the group confirmed the death of its prime minister and other cabinet ministers.

“The Israeli enemy, with its crimes and savagery, does not spare even children, women and defenceless civilians,” he said during his first speech on Sunday since the Israeli strikes, according to Houthi media.

“The crime of targeting ministers and civilian officials is added to the criminal record of the Israeli enemy in the region.”

The prime minister of the Houthis’ government in the capital, Sanaa, Ahmed Ghaleb al-Rahawi, was killed in a Thursday Israeli strike on Sanaa along with “several” other ministers, the Houthis said in a statement on Saturday.

Al-Rahawi, who served as prime minister in areas of the divided country that the group controls, was targeted along with other members of the Houthi-led government during a workshop, the statement said.

Al-Houthi added that the “record of the Israeli enemy is one of horrific terror” as it kills people in Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. He called Israel “a criminal foe that demonstrates its savagery, criminality and aggression through practices that know no rules, no commitments, no charters and no considerations”.

The Houthi commander said the group will keep acting against Israel in opposition to the war on Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians suffering, adding that “our people will not be weakened by the aggression they are facing”.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Houthi positions in recent months as the Yemeni group has launched attacks on Israel and on Western vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Quoting unnamed sources, Israeli media reported on Friday that the Israeli army attacked the entire Houthi cabinet, including the prime minister and 12 other ministers, on Thursday.

The attack came four days after Israeli strikes on the Yemeni capital on August 24 killed 10 people and wounded more than 90, according to health officials.

Houthi raids on UN offices

In an apparent effort to tighten security amid Israel’s attacks across Sanaa, the Houthis on Sunday raided offices of the United Nations’ food and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital, detaining at least one UN employee, officials said.

Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told the Associated Press that there was “an ongoing situation” related to their offices in Sanaa, without providing further details.

The UN official said contacts with several other World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF staffers were lost and that they were likely also detained.

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the WFP, told the Associated Press that security forces also raided the agencies’ offices in the Houthi-controlled capital on Sunday morning.

“WFP reiterates that the arbitrary detention of humanitarian staff is unacceptable,” Etefa said.

The raids are the latest in a long-running Houthi crackdown against the UN and other international organisations working in rebel-held areas in Yemen.

They have detained dozens of UN staffers, as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society and the now-closed US Embassy in Sanaa.

In February, the UN also suspended its operations in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after the Houthis detained eight UN staffers in January.