Belgium will move toward recognizing a Palestinian state, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday, joining a growing list of countries preparing to take the step as Israel steps up its offensive in Gaza.

Maxime Prévot said Belgium's plans to recognize a Palestinian state will be announced at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 9.

British officials are working to get critically sick and injured children out of Gaza so they can receive specialist treatment in U.K. hospitals, the British foreign secretary said Monday, adding that the first patients will arrive in coming weeks.

David Lammy said he was "outraged" by Israel not allowing enough aid to enter Gaza as he announced 15 million pounds ($20 million) more for medical assistance for Gaza and the region.

Israel began mobilizing tens of thousands of reservists on Tuesday as part of its plan to widen its offensive in Gaza City, which has sparked opposition domestically and condemnation abroad.

The beginning of September call-up, announced last month, comes as ground and air forces press forward and pursue more targets in northern and central Gaza, striking parts of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah — two western Gaza City neighborhoods that Israeli forces have repeatedly invaded during the 23-month war against Hamas militants.

The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel's actions in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the accusation.

Hundreds of Yemenis mourned Monday the death of Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, killed last week along with several officials by an Israeli strike, as the group targeted an oil tanker in the Red Sea, renewing their attacks in the crucial global waterway.

The Israeli attack came three days after the Houthis launched a ballistic missile toward Israel that its military described as the first cluster bomb the Iranian-backed rebels had launched at it since 2023.

A flotilla of ships departed from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip Sunday with humanitarian aid and activists on board in the largest attempt yet to break the long Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea.

This comes as Israel has stepped up its offensive on Gaza City, limiting the deliveries of food and basic supplies in the north of the Palestinian territory. Food experts warned earlier this month that the city was in famine and that half a million people across the strip were facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

Yemen's Houthi rebels on Monday said they had fired a missile at a tanker in the Red Sea, days after their prime minister was killed in an Israeli attack.

Israel said Sunday its forces had killed the spokesman of Hamas' armed wing in a strike on Gaza a day earlier, the latest fatality in the group's senior ranks in the nearly two-year war.

The Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Eyal Zamir, vowed Sunday to target Hamas leaders abroad after the military killed Abu Obeida, spokesman for the group's military wing, in Gaza the day before.

French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to recognize a Palestinian state, prompting similar moves from other Western nations, angered Israel and its U.S. ally by putting a two-state solution back at the heart of diplomatic efforts to end the devastating war in Gaza.

In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, Macron wrote that "our determination to see the Palestinian people have their own state is rooted in our conviction that lasting peace is essential to the security of the state of Israel."