Rockets were fired late Sunday from northern Iraq at a military base in Syria housing a US-led coalition, according to Iraqi security forces. In response, the Iraqi forces launched a major search operation in northern Nineveh province and found the vehicle used in the attack, they said in a statement....

Iran downplayed Israel's reported retaliation for its unprecedented drone and missile attack, tamping down fears that escalating attacks between the arch enemies could tip over into a broader war in the Middle East. However a deadly blast at an Iraqi military base underlined the persisting tensions in the region.

Ministers from Italy, the UK, US, France, Germany, Japan and Canada also slammed the "unacceptable number of civilians" killed in Gaza during Israel's military offensive.

If the Gaza war raging since October 7 has created tough challenges for Jordan, it now faces the additional threat of being stuck in the middle of a widening Israel-Iran conflict.

Tehran, Iran Iran temporarily closed its nuclear facilities over "security considerations" in the wake of its massive missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend, the head of the UN's atomic watchdog said Monday. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a UN Security Council meeting, International Atomic Energy...

In light of the military escalation and developments in the Middle East region, the Ministerial Council of the Gulf Cooperation Council held its 44th extraordinary meeting on April 15, 2024, at the headquarters of the Qatari Embassy in Tashkent

It was the first time Hezbollah claimed such an attack in six months of near-daily cross-border clashes between the Iran-backed group and Israel since the Gaza war broke out.

Fears of regional escalation grew after a strike on Iran's consular annex at its embassy in Damascus. Tehran blames the attack on Israel. Airlines said they are avoiding Iranian airspace, nearly two weeks after a strike.

The latest bombardments in Gaza came after Israel said it had strengthened air defences and paused leave for combat units, following a deadly April 1 air strike that destroyed Iran's consulate building in Damascus. Iran blamed its arch foe Israel, which has stepped up strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria...

"Our enemies think that they can pull apart Israel and the United States, but the opposite is true -- they are bringing us together," Gallant said, after the two discussed Iran's threats of retaliation for a deadly air strike on its consulate in Syria.

Israel's foreign ministry denounced Ireland's new prime minister for not mentioning the hostages held by fighters in Gaza during a speech to the Irish parliament.

The strike came as talks in Cairo aimed at a ceasefire and a hostage release deal dragged on without signs of a breakthrough. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, suggested the strike was an attempt to shift Hamas's negotiating stance, but insisted it would not work.

Biden urged Netanyahu "to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country"

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had no indication of an "imminent" Israeli assault on the city, the last in the Gaza Strip yet to be the target of a ground invasion and where around 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.

The new measures come a day after Turkey said Israel had blocked its attempt to airdrop aid to Gaza. "This decision will remain in place until Israel declares a ceasefire immediately and allows adequate and uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza," the trade ministry announced on social media.

At the start of Israel's war with Hamas in October, Donald Trump loudly presented himself as the key US ally's ultimate champion. But six months and more than 33,000 deaths in Gaza later, he has become increasingly vague on the intensity of that support. Trump has halfheartedly commented on the...

The British government on Friday called for "utmost transparency" and a "wholly independent review" into the killing of seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip. The deaths have also heaped pressure on the UK government to suspend arms export licenses to Israel.

Organizers said about 100,000 people converged at a Tel Aviv crossroads renamed "Democracy Square" since mass protests against controversial judicial reforms last year. Chanting "elections now", protesters called for his resignation as the war in Gaza enters its seventh month on Sunday, AFP correspondents reported.

Israel and Hizbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza. Hizbollah targets Israeli positions close to the border, while Israel retaliates with raids that go deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory.

United Nations - Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has escalated into a "betrayal of humanity", the United Nations' humanitarian chief said on Saturday. In a statement on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the war, Martin Griffiths, the outgoing under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, called for...

"The demands ... are complete ceasefire, withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza, the return of the displaced to their residential areas, freedom of movement of the people, offering them aid, shelter, and a serious hostage exchange deal," Hamas said. Its insistence came as US President Joe Biden urged an...

US-based World Central Kitchen -- founded by Spanish-American celebrity chef Jose Andres -- said a "targeted attack" by Israeli forces on Monday had killed seven aid workers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later admitted that his military had "unintentionally" killed the group -- who had helped feed communities affected by...

US, Egypt and Qatar have been engaged in weeks of behind-the-scenes talks in a bid to secure a temporary truce in the Gaza Strip. Biden, in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, "made clear that everything must be done to secure the release of hostages, including...

Monday's strike in the Syrian capital levelled the five-storey consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals. Nasrallah, whose fighters have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the Gaza war began in October, said the strike on the Iran consulate...

Israel said it was targeting a "Hamas gunman" when it killed in Gaza seven aid workers whose deaths caused an international outcry, with its military admitting violations of its own rules of engagement. The drone team who killed them made an "operational misjudgement of the situation", an internal Israeli military...

Brussels, Belgium - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday Washington wanted to see "results" showing more aid was reaching Gazans after Israel announced it would open routes into the territory. Israel announced on Friday that it would allow "temporary" aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours after the...

The threat of regional war compounded fears that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates as much as previously expected, with the focus now on the release of key US jobs data later in the day. The sell-off followed a plunge across the board on Wall Street.

According to statistics cited by Al Jazeera television, about four children die every hour because of the actions of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. Women and minors account for at least 70 percent of the total number of missing persons, which has reached 7,000.

The resolution -- which passed with 28 of the council's 47 member states voting in favour, six opposed and 13 abstaining -- marked the first time the United Nations top rights body has taken a position on the bloodiest-ever war to beset the besieged Palestinian territory.

Dubai, UAE - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decided to halt its coordination of humanitarian aid with Israel following the death of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers in Gaza, i24NEWS reported. According to reports, the Emirati foreign ministry has expressed its outrage to the Israeli ambassador Amir Hayek...

Israel has declined to comment on the Damascus strike but analysts saw it as an escalation of Israel's campaign against Iran's regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war. Among the dead were seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said deadly attacks on humanitarian staff showed either deliberate intent or reckless incompetence, and called for a change in how the war is being conducted. The medical charity added that children were turning up in hospitals with gunshot wounds from drones.

Jerusalem - The Israeli army has suspended leave for its combat units, it said on Thursday, amid the Gaza war and as tensions with Iran grew after a strike on Tehran's consulate in Damascus. Israeli media reported that the military was also calling up more reservist soldiers "against the background...

Israel's armed forces chief Herzi Halevi called the attack a "grave mistake", which he blamed on night-time "misidentification", adding in a video message that "we are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged the "tragic case" would be investigated "right to...

Vatican City, Holy See - Pope Francis expressed his "deep sorrow" on Wednesday for the deaths of seven charity workers killed by an Israeli strike while they were delivering aid in Gaza. "I express my deep sorrow for the volunteers killed while they were distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza," the 87-year-old...

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israel's military said Wednesday it had obtained information that indicated a Hizbollah explosive charge caused the blast that wounded UN peacekeepers in Lebanon last week. The UN peacekeeping force said three military observers and a translator were wounded in Saturday's blast in south Lebanon, where Israel and Hizbollah...

"If it is true that the convoy was deliberately attacked because it was supposed to contain a terrorist, and that civilian lives were therefore sacrificed, I do not know of any (political) system in which this would be justified," he told Polish public radio Trojka.

Former premier Barak said if Netanyahu launches a ground offensive on Rafah, the "hostages will return in coffins. The one who abandoned them on October 7 is now sacrificing them on the altar of absolute victory." He called for snap elections, saying "the man responsible" for the calamity should be...

The World Bank said in its interim damage assessment, this is equivalent to 97 percent of the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022. The report, produced with the United Nations and the European Union, found structural damage affected "every sector of the economy."

The British-born official, who spent a week in the besieged Palestinian territory last month, said even when aid got through the border, there were still major problems getting it to those who need it most, particularly women and girls.

World Central Kitchen -- one of two NGOs spearheading efforts to deliver aid by boat -- said a "targeted Israeli strike" on Monday killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian staff. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged a "swift, impartial investigation" into the airstrike and said Israel needed to...

"From different doctors, particularly in the maternity hospitals, they're reporting that they're seeing a big rise in children born with low birth weight, and just not surviving the neonatal period because they're born too small," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said at a briefing in Geneva.

Netanyahu was quick to single out Qatar-based channel Al Jazeera, with which his government has a long-running feud that predates Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. The broadcaster slammed the ban as "part of a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera", including the killing of one of...

According to the health ministry in Gaza, the bodies of four foreign aid workers and their Palestinian driver were brought to a hospital in the town of Deir el-Balah after an Israeli strike targeted their vehicle. Hamas said the aid workers included "British, Australian and Polish nationalities, with the fourth...

The White House said in a statement that the two sides had a "constructive engagement on Rafah" during two hours of videoconference talks, attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sulliva. The US side expressed its concerns with various courses of action in Rafah.

Palestinian Territories - Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza's largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex. Israel said it had battled Palestinian fighters hiding inside Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, killed at least 200 enemy fighters...

Palestinian Territories - The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 32,845 people have been killed in the territory in the Israeli aerial and ground assault since Oct 7. The toll includes at least 63 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 75,392...

The Hamas government media office said the Israeli air strikes had provided cover for the withdrawing vehicles. The army launched its operation on March 18 and has described it as a "precise" one targeting Hamas fighters it accused of operating from the complex. Hamas has denied operating from Al-Shifa and...

The prime minister's office said in a statement that Benjamin Netanyahu was in "good shape and beginning to recover after the operation on Sunday evening." His doctors discovered the hernia on Saturday during a routine checkup, and after consultations the decision was made for the premier to undergo surgery.

RAFAH, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – Meters away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky -- a welcome distraction from the horrors of war. "Every day I play with my brothers and cousins with kites next to the Egyptian...