Jerusalem, Undefined -- Israel's national carrier El Al said Sunday its Warsaw to Tel Aviv flight was not allowed to refuel at Antalya airport after making an emergency landing to evacuate a passenger for medical reasons. Turkish workers at Antalya airport refused to refuel flight LY5102 before it could take off...

Hamas insists on a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. Hamdan said the proposals were "merely a waste of time and provide additional time for the occupation (Israel) to practise genocide".

Palestinian Territories -- Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called "unbearable" living conditions in the territory. An AFP correspondent reported ongoing explosions from the Shujaiya...

The flare-up in the northern Gaza Strip's Shujaiya district, which witnesses and medics said caused numerous casualties, comes as fears grow of a wider regional conflagration involving Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israel's top court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the state must draft ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into military service, potentially destabilizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. The High Court of Justice's decision on the politically charged issue comes as calls grow for ultra-Orthodox men, historically exempt from mandatory...

Netanyahu said Israel would be able to "redeploy some forces to the north" on the border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire with the Hezbollah movement have escalated, but said this would be "primarily for defensive purposes".

Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP that at least 20 were killed in a strike on a house in Al-Tuffah neighborhood, while a strike in Al-Shati refugee camp claimed the lives of four others. Against a grey backdrop of destruction, men used a donkey cart to remove...

Hammoud sidesteps the question of whether he could ultimately endorse Biden under the right circumstances, emphasizing that whatever he might say, it's too late for some of his constituents who have lost dozens of relatives to Israeli bombs.

Palestinian Territories -- Israel bombed Gaza on Friday as exchanges of fire and threats over the Lebanon border raised fears of a wider war. Five municipal workers died "during an Israeli bombing" of a garage in Gaza City, said Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the civil defense agency in the territory. In...

Palestinian Territories - The Israeli army on Tuesday said plans for an offensive in Lebanon were "approved and validated" amid escalating cross-border clashes with Hizbollah and a relative lull in Gaza fighting. The war in Gaza has heightened tensions across the region, with Israeli forces and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah, a...

Witnesses reported gunfire and artillery shelling near Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where the civil defence agency said at least 13 people died in two separate strikes on a family home and on a commercial building. Al-Awda hospital in central Gaza said it received the bodies of "six martyrs...

The military said the soldiers were killed when the Namer armored vehicle they were travelling in exploded near Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, where troops are engaged in fierce street battles. There was no immediate word on what triggered the blast.

Beirut, Lebanon -- Hezbollah said it fired a new wave of rockets and drones at the Israeli army on Thursday, after an Israeli strike killed one of its senior commanders. It was Hezbollah's largest simultaneous attack in near-daily cross-border fire between it and the Israeli army since its ally Hamas's October...

Doha, Qatar - Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said Wednesday that a truce and hostage release deal to end the Gaza war was still possible, wrapping up a Middle East tour as deadly fighting rocked the Palestinian territory. Lebanon's Iran-backed group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, rained rockets on northern Israel, a...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading on Wednesday to talks in key mediator Qatar after Hamas gave a reply to a US-led proposal for a ceasefire in war-ravaged Gaza. Blinken, on a four-country swing around the Middle East to push Hamas to accept the truce proposal, will meet...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with key Israeli opposition figures on Tuesday, a day after he arrived in the country to push a ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza. His visit is part of a drive by the United States to secure a ceasefire in...

The Israeli military said it shot at a group of four people who attempted to flee in a vehicle and tried to "run over forces" when Israeli police went to Kfar Naima to arrest a suspect. One Israeli officer was lightly hurt, an army statement said.

The text of the resolution "welcomes" the truce and hostage release proposal announced on May 31 by President Joe Biden, and "urges both parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition." Unlike earlier drafts, the resolution states that Israel has "accepted" the US ceasefire proposal.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading back to the Middle East on Monday to push a ceasefire plan, but Israeli politics and silence from Hamas raised further questions on whether he can succeed. The top US diplomat is paying his eighth visit to the region since the war...

Israel's army said Sunday that a senior commander had resigned over what he called his failure to prevent the October 7 attack by Palestinian fighters. "The commander of the 143rd Division, Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, informed his commanders today of his intention to end his service in the (Israeli army),"...

In a new diplomatic push, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel and key regional partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar from Monday on his eighth Middle East trip since the war began, the State Department said.

Geneva, Switzerland -- The war in Gaza has seen the unemployment rate in the besieged Palestinian territory surge to nearly 80 percent, the United Nations said Friday. The UN's labour agency said the war between Hamas and Israel had "caused loss of jobs and livelihoods on a massive scale". Since the...

"The government of Israel has said that they are going to release more information about this strike, including the names of those who died in it. We expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

The hospital reported an electrical generator failure earlier in the night, which risked complicating the treatment of patients. Prior to the strike, the hospital had received at least 70 dead and more than 300 wounded since Tuesday, mostly women and children.

Jerusalem, Undefined -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was "prepared for a very intense operation" along the border with Lebanon, where Israeli troops have exchanged near-daily fire with Hezbollah fighters. Almost eight months of exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified over the past week, with Israel...

Geneva, Switzerland -- Some 55 percent of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, damaged or possibly damaged since war erupted in the Palestinian territory eight months ago, according to preliminary satellite analysis by the UN. The analysis showed more than 137,000 buildings affected, UNOSAT, the United Nations satellite...

Deir El-Balah, Palestinian Territories -- Amira al-Taweel scoured pharmacies in northern Gaza for milk to feed her child but could not find a single bottle to satisfy his hunger. "Youssef needs treatment and milk, but there' none available in Gaza," the 33-year-old mother told AFP at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central...

Rafah, Palestinian Territories - Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators called on Israel and Hamas Saturday to "finalise" the truce deal outlined by US President Joe Biden, as Israeli forces pounded Rafah in southern Gaza. Fighting has raged in the besieged Gaza Strip since Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap...

The US president urged Hamas to accept the Israeli offer. "It's time for this war to end, for the day after to begin," he said, in comments echoed by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. Hamas in a statement on Friday evening said it "considers positively" Biden's speech regarding "a permanent...

"The exodus that we've seen in the past 20 days or so out of Rafah has been an awesome and horrific experience for many, many people," Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Programme (WFP) director for the Palestinian territories. They have fled the fighting to areas where there was not enough...

A car ramming attack killed two Israeli soldiers near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said early Thursday. The army had earlier reported a car-ramming attack on Wednesday near an Israeli settlement outside Nablus. It later identified them as soldiers Eliya Hilel and Diego...

Meeting Sisi on Wednesday, Xi said he was "deeply pained" by the "extremely severe" situation in Gaza, where the Hamas-run territory's health ministry now says 36,171 people, mostly civilians, have been killed. He said China was ready to work with Egypt to continue to assist the people of Gaza "and...

"In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won't be a day after. And this is where we need to go, and (what) we need to get, as quickly as possible," Blinken told reporters on a visit to Moldova. Such a plan would ensure that Israel is...

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group identified him as Alexander (Sasha) Trupanov, and called on the Israeli authorities to secure the release of all captives held in Gaza. It was unclear when the footage, in which he is seen wearing a T-shirt, was taken.

A "strong" Palestinian Authority is needed to bring peace in the Middle East, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said just before going into the meeting with Mustafa. The talks were being held as efforts were narrowing to try to find a Gaza truce and a hostage-release deal.

Djerba, Tunisia - Only a dozen pilgrims turned up Friday at this year's Jewish pilgrimage on Tunisia's island of Djerba amid heightened security concerns after a deadly attack last year and as the Israel-Hamas war rages in Gaza. The pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue, Africa's oldest, usually draws thousands of...

Soldiers are present in the hospital's courtyard and in nearby houses," said hospital's acting director, Dr Mohammad Saleh, adding that there was "continuous gunfire and shelling" towards it. Troops stormed the hospital building on Wednesday evening, he said.

North Gaza's last two functioning hospitals, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan, are barely operational, doctors and the World Health Organization said Tuesday with the Israel-Hamas war now in its eighth month. Hospital officials said Israeli forces had fired on the facilities and that snipers had been deployed near one of them....

Israel has also fought and bombed resurgent Hamas forces in northern and central areas of the coastal territory previously considered to be under army control, sparking US warnings that it could become mired in a lengthy counterinsurgency campaign.

"If fuel runs out, aid doesn't get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming anymore. It will be present," Martin Griffiths said. "And I think our worry, as citizens of the international...

Jerusalem, Undefined -- New divisions have emerged among Israel's leaders over post-war Gaza's governance, with an unexpected Hamas fightback in parts of the Palestinian territory piling pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli army has been battling Hamas across Gaza for more than seven months while also exchanging near-daily fire...

The Israeli army said Thursday that two Thai hostages earlier believed to be alive in Gaza were killed in the October 7 attack and their bodies are being held in the Palestinian territory. "We informed the families of two kidnapped Thai citizens, who worked in agriculture in the plantations near...

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said "additional forces will enter" the Rafah area and "this activity will intensify". "Hundreds of targets have already been struck and our forces are maneuvering in the area," Gallant said following a troop visit on Wednesday.

Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday said the movement will be involved in deciding post-war rule in Gaza along with other Palestinian factions. "We say that the Hamas movement is here to stay ... and it will be the movement and all national (Palestinian) factions who will decide the post-war rule in...

Tens of thousands of civilians fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah ahead of a threatened Israeli ground offensive, as Palestinians on Wednesday mark the anniversary of their "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of 1948. During the war that accompanied Israel's creation, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes...

Fighting has flared in north Gaza four months after the army said Hamas's command structure there had been dismantled, and six months after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had "lost control" of the Palestinian territory.

The city on the Egyptian border had been sheltering 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the United Nations, but Israel's military operation sparked an exodus of nearly 360,000 people from Rafah so far, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Pretoria brought its case to the ICJ in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza. In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of "continuing violations of the Genocide Convention" and of being "contemptuous"...

Popplewell was kidnapped from his home during Hamas's October 7 attack along with his mother, Hanna Peri, who was released during a one-week truce in November -- the only pause so far in more than seven months of war. Popplewell's older brother was killed in the attack.

The US has warned that the reputational damage Israel will suffer if it storms a city where an estimated 1.4 million civilians are sheltering will far outweigh any possible military gain. UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday that Gaza risked an "epic humanitarian disaster" if Israel launched a full-scale ground...