Since the relentless Israeli aerial and ground assault, triggered by Hamas's deadly October 7 attacks inside Israel, the United Nations said the decline in living conditions had been "precipitous". The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that by late November, 37,379 buildings -- the equivalent of 18 percent...

"We urge fellow donor countries to reflect on the wider consequences of cutting their funding to UNRWA," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement to AFP. "UNRWA is a vital lifeline for 1.5 million refugees in Gaza," he said, adding that "to avoid collectively punishing millions of...

"Container shipping... has declined by almost 30 percent," said Jihad Azour, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, adding that "the drop in trade accelerated in the beginning of this year."

The Houthis, part of the anti-Western, anti-Israel "axis of resistance" of Iranian-backed groups, have been harassing Red Sea shipping for months, triggering US and British reprisal attacks. The attacks have prompted some shipping companies to detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea, a vital route that normally carries...

Several countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan, have suspended funding to the UNRWA agency, and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was holding crunch talks with donor countries. Agency chiefs in the UN's highest-level humanitarian coordination forum warned defunding UNRWA risked a "catastrophic" humanitarian collapse in Gaza.

Heavy Israeli strikes and urban combat across the besieged Gaza Strip killed 128 more people overnight, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory said. The epicenter of fighting has been the southern city of Khan Yunis, where vast areas have been reduced to a muddy wasteland of bombed-out buildings.

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah movement, a Hamas ally. Hizbollah claimed responsibility Monday for at least 12 attacks on Israeli army positions near the border, using...

Sheikh Mohammed confirmed that the framework -- which he said might lead to a permanent ceasefire -- includes a phased truce that would see women and children hostages released first, with aid also entering besieged Gaza. A senior Hamas official, Taher al-Nunu, said it wanted a "complete and comprehensive ceasefire,...

Taher al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, said his group wanted a "complete and comprehensive ceasefire, and not a temporary truce." Speaking to AFP, he said that once the fighting stopped "the rest of the details can be discussed" including a hostage release. Qatar, Egypt and the US have led mediation...

Ankara, Turkey - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday expressed serious apprehensions about the escalating situation in the Gaza Strip, warning that unless the global community takes immediate action, two million people may die. "Humanitarian aid and medical supplies are not allowed into Gaza. This is a harbinger of...

Palestinian Territories - Even the dead are not spared by the Hamas-Israel war raging in Gaza, with bodies dug up by Israeli troops and hurried burials happening in hospitals and even a school. In Gaza City's Al-Tuffah district, shrouded corpses of Palestinians torn from their graves lay atop muddied earth....

Gazans lamented the suspension of funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees by several donor countries after Israel charged that some UNRWA staff took part in Hamas's October 7 attack. The agency has fired several staff over Israel's accusations and has promised a thorough investigation into these claims, which...

Israel's relentless military offensive has since killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The Gaza war has forced more than one million Palestinians to flee to the far-southern Rafah area near the Egyptian border, according to the UN,...

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that "radical Iran-backed fighters groups operating in Syria and Iraq" were behind the strike on the frontier base in Jordan's northeast. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated a call for Iran "to de-escalate in the region".

The firebrand politician Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel should "encourage voluntary emigration" of Palestinians from Gaza, echoing past remarks that drew sharp rebuke from close ally the United States and the wider international community. Several participants carried guns, while outside the convention center vendors sold t-shirts that read: "Gaza is part...

For about a dollar per trip, male-only groups of visitors can board wooden boats five times a week to the hijacked car carrier, which the Houthis hail as a trophy in their fight in solidarity with the Palestinians. On the deck of the Galaxy Leader, none of the visitors interviewed...

French authorities were also in touch with these four countries with the aim of negotiating a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the besieged territory, the sources said. A security source on Friday told AFP that CIA chief William Burns would meet his counterparts...

Heavy fighting raged in Gaza amid a row over the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that has called its future into question. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on donor states to guarantee aid to Gaza after several halted funding to UNRWA, over Israeli claims that some of its staff participated...

The row between Israel and UNRWA follows the UN's ICJ ruling that Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide in the conflict and allow more aid into Gaza. Israel's envoy to the UN slammed Guterres, saying the UN chief had repeatedly ignored "evidence" presented to him regarding UNRWA's involvement in...

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on UNRWA Commissioner-General to quit his post. Katz said in a statement that the UNRWA "must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace" in Gaza's rebuilding. Hamas slammed Israeli "threats" against UNRWA, urging the UN not to "cave in to the threats and...

Waving Palestinian flags and shouting slogans denouncing Israel, protestors expressed gratitude to South Africa for having brought the case against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Spain has been one of the most critical voices in Europe of Israel's offensive against Hamas and was one of those to...

US forces struck an anti-ship missile in Houthi-held Yemen that they said was ready to fire, hours after the Iran-backed rebels caused a fire on a British tanker in the Gulf of Aden. US and British forces have launched joint strikes aimed at reducing the Houthis' ability to target vessels...

The British government said it had "considerable concerns" about a ruling by the United Nation's top court that Israel should do everything it can to prevent any acts of genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague handed down its first judgement in a landmark case...

Baghdad, Iraq - Iraq and the United States on Saturday held a "first round" of talks on the future of American and other foreign troops in the country, with the Middle Eastern country expecting discussions to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence. The office of Prime Minister Mohamed Shia...

UNRWA said Friday it had sacked several employees accused by Israel of involvement in Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack, prompting the United States to suspend critical funding. The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, vowed to hold "accountable, including through criminal prosecution" any UNRWA employee found to have taken part...

Australia and Canada have suspended their funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, after Israel accused several employees of involvement in Hamas's October 7 attack. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was "deeply concerned" by the allegations against the agency, UNRWA.

The reactions to the top UN court's ruling Friday in the Israel-Gaza case were split along the lines of the war raging in the Palestinian territory. Saudi Arabia welcomed the ICJ's decision and called for the international community to "hold Israel accountable" for "violations" of international law.

US and British forces have launched two rounds of joint strikes aimed at reducing the Houthis' ability to target vessels transiting the key Red Sea maritime trade route. The attacks by the rebels -- who are part of the anti-Israel have disrupted trade in the Red Sea, which carries around...

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israeli flag carrier El Al said Friday it will scrap direct flights to South Africa following "a significant fall in demand by Israeli travelers" to the country and other destinations. "From the end of March 2024, El Al will suspend its operations on the Johannesburg-Tel Aviv route," an...

"WHO refutes Israel's accusation at the executive board meeting yesterday that WHO is in 'collusion' with Hamas and is 'turning a blind eye' to the suffering of hostages being held in Gaza," WHO chief Tedros said on X. "Such false claims are harmful and can endanger our staff who are...

"Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people," said the foreign affairs ministry of South Africa, which brought the case before the ICJ.

Washington, United States -- A US Navy warship shot down a missile Friday that was fired at it by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have carried out two months of attacks on international shipping, the military said. US and British forces have launched two rounds of joint strikes aimed at reducing...

At this stage, the ICJ is only deciding whether to impose emergency orders on Israel ("provisional measures" in the court's jargon). A ruling on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza will be for a second stage of the procedure and is likely to take years.

India's urban unemployment rate -- the percentage of people wanting work who cannot find a job -- dipped to 5.1 percent in July 2022-June 2023, from 6.6 percent between the same months a year earlier. Over the same period, nearly 22 percent of India's workforce was classified as "casual labour",...

According to Axios, Israel has offered Hamas a two-month pause in fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of all hostages. Vowing to crush Hamas, Israel has launched a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 25,900 people in the Palestinian territory, mostly women and children, according to...

"The army called the UNRWA official through the loudspeaker, she went over to them next to the tanks, and they told her to notify us to vacate the premises by 5 pm tomorrow," said Amal Lubbad, a displaced Gazan at the facility. "We don't know where we'll go."

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on tape allegedly telling hostages' families this week that Qatar's mediation was "problematic" when it came to resolving the hostage crisis. Smotrich accused Western governments of being "hypocritical" in maintaining close relations with Doha.

The deadly incident came after the Israeli army said it had encircled the city, where footage released by the military showed soldiers engaged in urban combat amid ruined buildings. Hamas's press office also reported fierce clashes in the center and west of Khan Yunis, while its health ministry counted multiple...

Israeli prime minister accused Qatar of financing Hamas at a meeting this week with the families of hostages held in Gaza. Making his annoyance with the country known, he said he was upset at a US decision to extend the presence of a military base in the Gulf state, according...

Palestinian Territories - Tank shelling on a UN shelter on Wednesday killed nine people in Gaza's main southern city of Khan Yunis, said the Gaza head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. "Two tank rounds hit building that shelters 800 people - reports now 9 dead and 75 injured," Thomas...

Basil Shehadeh was arrested on suspicion of helping two other Palestinians carry out the deadly shooting at a petrol station near Eli settlement in the northern West Bank.

"Heavy fighting is reported in proximity to hospitals in Khan Yunis, including Al-Aqsa, Nasser and Al-Amal, with reports of Palestinians trying to flee to the southern town of Rafah," the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said. "No-one can enter or exit (Nasser Hospital) due to ongoing bombardments," OCHA said citing medics...

The US strikes come against an already explosive regional backdrop, fueled by the war in Gaza between Washington's ally Israel and the Iranian-backed Hamas. The US Central Command said the strikes targeted Ketaeb Hizbollah "headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV (drone) capabilities".

Planned talks in Ankara in early January were called off when twin blasts claimed by IS group jihadists killed 89 people at the shrine of assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Qasem Soleimani. A trip he had planned for November was cancelled because of conflicting schedules of diplomats involved in...

US and Britain have carried out two rounds of joint strikes aimed at reducing the Houthis' ability to target shipping, while the US has also launched unilateral air raids on the Iran-backed rebels' missiles. Washington is seeking to put diplomatic and financial pressure on the Houthis, redesignating them as a...

In a speech to the Security Council, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded that "Israel's occupation must end." Guterres warned that "this refusal and the denial" of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and...

The expulsion followed joint strikes by the United States and Britain against the Houthis aimed at ending the group's attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, threatening global trade. The United States has launched multiple further strikes and on Tuesday carried out a second set...

Raisi will meet Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara, making a visit that was postponed twice -- once in November and once earlier this month -- because of spiraling tensions across the Middle East.

A study conducted between November 24 and December 7 found that all 2.2 million people living in the Palestinian territory were in a crisis level of acute food insecurity, or worse. The situation has only deteriorated since then, said Abeer Etefa, the WFP's senior Middle East spokeswoman.

American and British forces carried out a first wave of strikes against the rebel group earlier this month, and the United States launched further air raids against missiles that Washington said posed imminent threats to both civilian and military vessels. But the Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks --...