Gaza Conflict

The State Department said Blinken would meet Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah II, in the port city of Aqaba on Thursday before flying to Ankara for meetings with Turkish officials Friday

Israel Defence Forces have carried out over 350 strikes in Syria, reportedly eliminating up to 80 per cent of the ousted Assad regime's strategic military capabilities under operation 'Bashan Arrow'

Palestinian medical officials said Monday that Israeli strikes in the central Gaza Strip overnight killed at least six people, including one woman. The strikes came as ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad fled to Moscow on Sunday and received asylum from his longtime ally, according to Russian media, hours after rebels seized control of Damascus. The UN Security Council plans to hold emergency closed consultations on Syria later Monday at Russia's request. Among the dead in the overnight Israeli strikes were Raed Ghabaien, who was released from Israeli detention in 2014, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. He was killed along with his wife when an Israeli strike hit their tent in the central town of Zuweida, the hospital records showed. Two other people were killed in a strike that hit their house late Sunday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp. Another two were killed in a strike in the Wadi Gaza area early Monday. An Associated Press journa

Palestinian officials say at least 29 people were killed, including four medical staff, when Israeli strikes pummeled the area around one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza. Elsewhere in the region, Lebanon said it is closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for a main one that links Beirut with the Syrian capital, Damascus. Jordan also closed a border crossing with Syria because of the security situation on the Syrian side. Syrian insurgents have entered the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, just north of the central city of Homs, bringing them closer to Syria's third largest city. A day earlier, jihadi-led opposition fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria's fourth largest. Israel's war against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 per cent of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilian

Palestinian officials say at least 29 people were killed, including four medical staff, when Israeli strikes pummelled the area around one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza. The situation in and around the Kamal Adwan hospital is catastrophic, according to Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the hospital. Elsewhere in the region, Lebanon said it is closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for a main one that links Beirut with the Syrian capital, Damascus. Friday's decision came hours after an Israeli airstrike damaged a border crossing in northern Lebanon just days after it was reopened. Jordan also closed a border crossing with Syria because of the security situation on the Syrian side. Syrian insurgents have entered the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, just north of the central city of Homs, bringing them closer to Syria's third largest city. A day earlier, jihadi-led opposition fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria's fourth ...

The 12-year-old Palestinian boy was lying in a hospital bed in central Gaza, wracked with leukemia, malnourished and whimpering in pain despite the morphine doctors were giving him, when Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF official, said she saw him in late October. Islam al-Rayahen's family had asked Israeli authorities six times over the past months for permission to evacuate him from Gaza for a desperately needed stem cell transplant, Bollen said. Six times, the request was refused for unexplained security reasons, she said. Islam died three days after she saw him, Bollen said. Thousands of patients in Gaza are waiting for Israeli permission for urgently needed medical evacuation from Gaza for treatment of war wounds or chronic diseases they can't get after the destruction of much of the territory's health care system by Israel's 15-month military campaign. Among them are at least 2,500 children who UNICEF says must be transported immediately. They cannot afford to wait. These children wi

A Hamas official said Thursday that international mediators have resumed negotiating with the militant group and Israel over a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he was hopeful a deal to end the 14-month war was within reach. Ceasefire negotiations were halted last month when Qatar suspended talks with mediators from Egypt and the United States because of frustration over a lack of progress between Israel and Hamas. But there has been a reactivation of efforts in recent days to end the fighting, release hostages from Gaza and free Palestinian prisoners in Israel, according to Bassem Naim, an official in Hamas' political bureau who spoke with The Associated Press in Turkiye. Another official familiar with the talks confirmed the return of Qatari mediators. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations with the media. Since the talks broke down, there have been significant shifts in the global and regional landscape. Donald Trump w

Addressing the Rajya Sabha, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar condemned terrorism and hostage-taking while explaining India's stance on the Israel-Gaza war

Steve Witkoff's conversations appear aimed at building on nearly 14 months of unsuccessful diplomacy by the Biden administration, Qatar and Egypt aimed at a lasting ceasefire

Amnesty International accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip during its war with Hamas, saying it has sought to deliberately destroy Palestinians by mounting deadly attacks, demolishing vital infrastructure and preventing the delivery of food, medicine and other aid. The human rights group released a report Thursday in the Middle East that said such actions could not be justified by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel, which ignited the war, or the presence of militants in civilian areas. Amnesty said the United States and other allies of Israel could be complicit in genocide, and called on them to halt arms shipments. Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now, Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said in the report. Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic blood libel. It i

Israeli airstrikes tore through a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza on Wednesday, sparking fires and killing at least 21 people, according to the head of a nearby hospital, in the latest assault on a sprawling tent city that Israel designated a humanitarian safe zone but has repeatedly targeted. The Israeli military said it struck senior Hamas militants involved in terrorist activities in the area, without providing additional details, and said it took precautions to minimize harm to civilians. The strike on the Muwasi tent camp was one of several deadly assaults across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. An Israeli attack in central Gaza killed at least 10 more people, including four children, according to Palestinian medics. Israel's devastating war in Gaza, launched after Hamas' October 2023 attack, shows no signs of ending after nearly 14 months. Hamas is still holding dozens of Israeli hostages, and most of Gaza's population has been displaced and is reliant on ...

Israeli forces carried out several new drone and artillery strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday, including a deadly strike that the Health Ministry and state media said killed a shepherd, further shaking a tenuous ceasefire meant to end more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah. The shooting came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking with an iron fist against perceived Hezbollah violations of the truce. His defence minister warned that if the ceasefire collapses, Israel will target not just Hezbollah but the Lebanese state an expansion of Israel's campaign. Since it began last Wednesday, the US- and French-brokered 60-day ceasefire has been rattled by near daily Israeli strikes, although Israel has been vague about the purported Hezbollah violations that prompted them. On Monday, it was shaken by its biggest test yet. Hezbollah fired two projectiles toward an Israeli-held disputed border zone, its first volley since the ceasefire began, saying it was a warning

US President-elect Donald Trump said that despite global concern over the Israeli hostages, there has been no significant action taken

The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah fired two missiles toward Mount Dov on Monday but the missiles fell in open areas, causing no casualties.

The International Criminal Court's member states open their annual meeting Monday while the court faces pushback over arrest warrants for Israeli officials, sexual harassment allegations against the court's chief prosecutor and a very empty docket. The Assembly of States Parties, which represents the ICC's 124 member countries, will convene its 23rd conference to elect committee members and approve the court's budget against a backdrop of unfavourable headlines. Last month, judges granted a request from the court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas' military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the nearly 14-month war in Gaza. It marks the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused by the global court of justice. The decision has been denounced by critics of the court and given only milquetoast approval by many of its ..

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least six people overnight, including two young children who died in the tent where their family was sheltering, medical officials said Sunday. The strike in the Muwasi area, a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, also wounded the children's mother and their sibling, according to the nearby Nasser Hospital. An Associated Press reporter at the hospital saw the bodies. A separate strike in the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, killed four men, according to hospital records. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its daily strikes across Gaza often kill women and children. The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around people 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are still being held inside Gaza, around

Thousands of Lebanese displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants returned home on Wednesday as a ceasefire took hold, driving cars stacked with personal belongings and defying warnings from Lebanese and Israeli troops to avoid some areas. If it endures, the ceasefire would end nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah's patron, Iran, and Israel's closest ally, the United States, into a broader conflagration. The deal does not address the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes overnight on two schools-turned-shelters in Gaza City killed 11 people, including four children, according to hospital officials. Israel said one strike targeted a Hamas sniper and the other targeted militants hiding among civilians. The truce in Lebanon could give reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the ...

Israel has approved a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah that would end nearly 14 months of fighting linked to the war in the Gaza Strip. The ceasefire agreed on Tuesday would mark the first major step toward ending the regionwide unrest triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza, where Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages and the conflict is more intractable. Hours before the ceasefire with Hezbollah was to take effect, Israel carried out the most intense wave of strikes in Beirut and its southern suburbs since the start of the conflict and issued a record number of evacuation warnings. At least 24 people were killed in strikes across the country, according to local authorities, as Israel signalled it aims to pummel Hezbollah before the ceasefire takes hold at 4 am local time on Wednesday. Another huge airstrike shook Beirut shortly after the ceasefire was announced. There appea

On Sunday, Hezbollah fired at least 250 rockets and drones into Israel, wounding several people

Israeli airstrikes Saturday in central Beirut killed at least 20 people, officials said, as the once-rare attacks on the heart of Lebanon's capital continued without warning while diplomats scrambled to broker a cease-fire. Lebanon's Health Ministry said 66 people were wounded in the strikes, which were the fourth in central Beirut in less than a week. The escalation comes after US envoy Amos Hochstein travelled to the region in pursuit of a deal to end months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has erupted into full-on war. Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon's population. On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardment in northern Israel and the fighting. An eight-storey building is turned to rubble The 4 am strikes destroyed an eight-storey building in central Beirut. Hezbollah ..