Middle Eastern Headlines at 5:17 a.m. GMT
US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel
US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel
Rebel group claims what would be first missile to have landed in Israel from Yemen, but no reports of casualties
A Hezbollah official said the explosions were the biggest security breach the group had experienced in nearly a year
Israel said Tuesday that halting Hezbollah's attacks in the country's north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could ignite an all-out conflict. Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to take heavier military action to halt the near-daily attacks, which began shortly after the outbreak of the nearly yearlong Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israel has regularly launched airstrikes on Lebanon in response and has targeted and killed senior Hezbollah commanders.
Israel has told the United States that hopes for a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Hezbollah are dwindling and a full-scale war is looming.
The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed that three Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza in December were “most likely” killed as a result of an Israeli airstrike.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Israel’s military of striking schools, humanitarian workers and civilians in Gaza in a sign of growing American frustration with its close ally as the war approaches its first anniversary. Israel has repeatedly said it targets Hamas militants, who often hide with civilians and use them as human shields, in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and launched the war in Gaza. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was unusually outspoken against the Israeli military at a U.N. Security Council meeting, saying many of the strikes in recent weeks that injured or killed U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers “were preventable.”
It has warned it might use force against Hezbollah, whose attacks have forced mass evacuations.
Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar said Monday the Palestinian group had the resources to sustain its fight against Israel, with support from Iran-backed regional allies, nearly a year into the Gaza war.Sinwar, in his letter to Yemen's Huthis, threatened that Iran-aligned groups in Gaza and elsewhere in the region would "break the enemy's political will" after more than 11 months of war.
Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes killed 16 people Monday in the Gaza Strip, including five women and four children. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the Israel-Hamas war nearly a year ago.
Would a fully honest portrayal of what has happened in Gaza this year be unbroadcastable? This film is full of unforgettably harrowing moments – but still, so much more should have been said
CAIRO (Reuters) -The U.S. offered to recognize the Houthi government in Sanaa in a bid to stop the Yemeni rebel group's attacks, a senior Houthi official said on Monday, in remarks that a U.S. official said were false. The Houthi official's remarks came a day after a ballistic missile from the Iran-aligned group reached central Israel for the first time, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say Israel would inflict a "heavy price" on them. "There is always communication after every operation we conduct," Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement's political bureau, told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.
Nothing justifies Israel's collective punishment of the people of Gaza as they endure "unimaginable" suffering, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP on Monday."It is unimaginable, the level of suffering in Gaza, the level of deaths and destruction have no parallel in everything I've witnessed since (becoming) secretary-general," said Guterres, who has led the embattled international organization since 2017.
The hard truth is, no matter how it was spun, Afghanistan was lost well before the planes left the runway at Bagram Airfield.
The scale of the protest movement that erupted after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and the brutal repression of those demonstrations have left an indelible mark on Iranian society. More and more women are flouting the veil requirement when out in public in what one NGO has described as a "quiet revolution" while men's behavior and awareness have also seen a shift in the years since. September 16 marks two years since a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman died after being detained by Iran’s moralit
Protesting workers want higher wages, better working hours, and recognition of labour union
Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages. Unlike in recent mediating missions, America's top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations. Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip.
Days of tribal violence in Papua New Guinea’s mountainous interior have left more than 35 people dead, a police official said on Tuesday. Police Assistant Commissioner Joseph Tondon in Enga province said the death toll from the violence blamed on illegal miners was still being assessed. A United Nations’ humanitarian adviser for the South Pacific island nation, Mate Bagossy, said as many as 50 people had been killed in days of violence in Enga.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the weekend bombing that killed two police officials in restive southwestern Pakistan, officials said Monday. Analysts say the latest violence is a sign of increasing coordination between Islamic militants and separatists who for years have been targeting security forces and civilians in the oil- and gas-rich Balochistan province bordering Iran and Afghanistan. The Islamic State group said in a statement on Sunday that it detonated an explosive device a day earlier targeting a Pakistani police vehicle in Kuchlak town near Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.
STORY: These triplets in Jerusalem are video calling with their mother, who is in Gaza.It’s the only way they can see each other.They haven’t been physically together since shortly after the girls’ birth in August 2023... when their mother, 26-year-old Hanan al-Bayouk, traveled from Gaza to Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem for a high-risk birth. Her triplets – Najwa, Nour and Najmah – were born prematurely and underweight, and had to stay in intensive care.Israel's restrictions on the movement of Palestinians meant al-Bayouk – in fear of falling foul of the law – returned to Gaza while her babies were still in intensive care.By the time they were ready to go home, war had broken out and she got stuck. Doctors and nurses call al-Bayouk via WhatsApp, but at times she is unable to get internet in Gaza.When they do get a hold of her, they repeat “Mama, mama” to encourage the girls to focus on her small image on the phone.Where al-Bayouk's triplets are being cared for is worlds away from conditions for children in Gaza, which has been blockaded and pounded by Israeli forces since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.The director of the neonatal intensive care department at Al-Makassed Hospital, Hatem Khammash, says the babies are doing well. “We are happy with their development, the only thing that makes us sad is that they are far away from their mother,” he says.
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan granted bail Monday to 10 lawmakers from jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party, an AFP journalist witnessed. The anti-terrorism court granted them bail of 30,000 rupees ($100).