The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia, accusing them of attempting to interfere in the 2024 U.S. election, Reuters reported.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement the entities - a subsidiary of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and an organization affiliated with Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU) - aimed to "stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election".

"The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns," Treasury's Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley Smith, said in the statement.

"The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy."

Russia's embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters: "Russia has not and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States."

"As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people. All insinuations about 'Russian machinations' are malicious slander, invented for use in the internal political struggles in the United States," the spokesperson added.

Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, read the report.

Republican Donald Trump was elected president in November, beating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House.

The Treasury said the Cognitive Design Production Center planned influence operations since at least 2023 designed to incite tensions among the electorate on behalf of the IRGC.

The Treasury accused the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) of circulating disinformation about candidates in the election as well as directing and subsidizing the creation of deepfakes.

The Treasury said CGE also manipulated a video to produce "baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate." It did not specify which candidate was targeted.

The Moscow-based center, at the direction of the GRU, used generative AI tools to create disinformation distributed across a network of websites that were designed to look like legitimate news outlets, the Treasury said.

It accused the GRU of providing financial support to CGE and a network of U.S.-based facilitators in order to build and maintain its AI-support server and maintain a network of at least 100 websites used in its disinformation operations, Reuters reported.

CGE's director was also hit with sanctions in Tuesday's action.

An annual U.S. threat assessment released in October said the United States sees a growing threat of Russia, Iran and China attempting to influence the elections, including by using artificial intelligence to disseminate fake or divisive information.

Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza have devastated the Palestinian enclave's health system and raised serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international law, the U.N. Human Rights Office said in a report on Tuesday.

The 23-page report, documenting various attacks between Oct. 12, 2023, and June 30, 2024, concluded that since the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the conduct of hostilities in Gaza had had severe consequences on Palestinians' access to medical attention, Reuters reported.

"The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law," it said.

Daniel Meron, Israel's permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, described the report's data as fabricated. He said on X that Israel operates in accordance with international law, would never target innocent civilians, and accused Hamas of using Gaza hospitals for what he called "terror activity".

The Israeli military has accused Hamas of using hospitals as command centres for military operations and said that people Israel has detained at the facilities were suspected militants.

The U.N. report alluded to such arguments but said not enough information had been made public to substantiate them, read the report.

Israel has in the past few days conducted operations against hospitals in Gaza that drew criticism from the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) among others.

The report said deliberately directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are, provided they are not military objectives, would be war crimes.

It also warned that a systemic pattern of rights abuses against civilians could constitute crimes against humanity.

Israel has consistently rejected such suggestions.

The U.N. said that responding to its report, the Israeli government said its military had taken extensive measures to mitigate civilian harm and minimize disruption, including providing aid and evacuation routes, and setting up field hospitals.

In a statement, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said: "As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap."

Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 to Gaza in its attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 45,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's subsequent campaign against Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian health officials say.

Iran confirmed the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala for "violating the laws of the Islamic Republic", Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

Sala, 29, who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, according to the Italian foreign ministry.

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Saturday declined to say whether the case might be linked to the arrest of an Iranian in Italy this month at the request of the United States, Reuters reported.

The case of the Italian journalist being held in Iran is "complicated", but Rome hopes to bring Sala home quickly, Tajani said.

"Italian national Cecilia Sala traveled to Iran on Dec. 13 with a journalist visa and was detained on Dec. 19... for violating the laws of the Islamic Republic," a statement by Iran's Culture Ministry said, according to IRNA.

Chora Media said Sala had left Rome for Iran on Dec. 12 with a valid journalist visa and had conducted several interviews and produced three episodes of her "Stories" podcast. She had been due to fly back to Rome on Dec. 20.

Sala has been in contact by phone with her family and the Italian embassy in Tehran was notified of her detention, the statement said.

In recent years, Iran's security forces have arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals, mostly on charges related to espionage and security, read the report.

Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests. Iran denies taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage.