Tel Aviv, Israel - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) suspended its military operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, for four hours for humanitarian aid, said Avichay Adraee, the IDF spokesperson for the Arab media. "We will allow a tactical pause in fighting in...

Youssef Abu Rish told AFP seven premature babies and 27 patients had died in recent days in Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, the Palestinian territory's largest. The hospital has been at the center of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas.

In Geneva, the second-largest UN headquarters after New York, the UN flag on Monday flew at half-mast and none of the other flags of the 193 member countries were hoisted along the main alley of the compound.

"We heard that there was an impending deal of this kind or of that kind and then we learned that it was all hokum. But the minute we started the ground operation, that began to change," Netanyahu told NBC show "Meet the Press."

Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which condemned Israeli forces' "barbaric actions" in Gaza without approving concrete punitive measures. He is due to visit Germany on Friday and plans to travel to Egypt and host Iran's president in the...

Perched on trucks, crammed into cars, pulled by donkeys on carts, and on foot, tens of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Israeli army strikes on the territory squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.

Crowds of people have crammed into the corridors of Al-Shifa to escape the fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, adding to the overwhelming number of war casualties at the hospital. The facility was hit repeatedly overnight in a new round of strikes that knocked out the power for several...

Dubai, UAE-- Turkey has suspended joint-energy projects with Israel over the latter's invasion and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, according to Turkish Minister of Energy Alparslan Bayraktar. The minister in a statement said: "It would be inappropriate to talk about the implementation of projects with Israel under such conditions. The...

US EUCOM did not specify the type of plane or where it was flying from, but the US has deployed a carrier strike group to the area as part of efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a regional conflict. It said the plane suffered a mishap and...

Pleading for an end to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, thousands of pro-Palestine supporters took to streets in Paris under the rallying cry "Stop the massacre in Gaza." The left-wing organisers called for France to "demand an immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas", as the death toll in Gaza...

The Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit, held in Riyadh calls for an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of a just and lasting peace based on a two-state solution.

Arab and Muslim leaders condemned Israeli forces' "barbaric" actions in Gaza but declined to approve punitive economic and political steps against the country over its war against Hamas. The joint summit in the Saudi capital of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation highlighted regional divisions over how...

Paris, France - Russia has been spreading "disinformation" about the situation in the Middle East, the president of Microsoft said on Saturday, as tensions soar in the region due to the Israel-Hamas war. Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, was asked about the role of the US tech giant in...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that the Kingdom will hold a joint Arab Islamic extraordinary summit here instead of two summits. “In response to the unprecedented circumstances in Gaza, and after consultation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the League of the Arab States...

The suffering and death in Gaza has prompted growing calls for a halt in five weeks of fighting in order to protect civilian lives in the densely populated territory. French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel to stop bombing civilians in Gaza, saying there was "no justification" and the deaths...

New York, USA - There are no safe zones left in Gaza amid Israeli strikes, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said. "(Israel’s) deliberate strikes on civilian facilities are a blatant violation of international humanitarian law," he pointed out at a UN Security Council meeting on the...

Emmanuel Macron, speaking to the BBC, cited examples of "these babies, these ladies, these old people" in urging Israel to stop bombing and killing people in Gaza, adding "there is no reason for that and no legitimacy." He said the continuous assault and the deaths in the Gaza Strip were...

New Delhi, India - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a marathon diplomatic push on Friday in India after a whirlwind Middle East trip and G7 talks, saying Israel's pauses in its Gaza offensive would "save lives" but more was needed. "Far too many Palestinians have been killed," Blinken...

The high-level meeting in Cairo comes ahead of Saturday's summits in Saudi Arabia, where Arab and Muslim leaders are expected to press for an end to more than a month of fighting.

The Red Cross called for medical facilities and workers in war-ravaged Gaza to be protected, warning the health system there had "reached a point of no return". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that its teams in recent days had distributed critical supplies to medical structures across...

President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran sees it as "its duty to support the resistance groups" but insisted that they act independently.

"The present course chosen by the Israeli authorities will not bring the peace and stability that both Israelis and Palestinians want and deserve," Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), wrote in a media opinion piece.

About 10 non-governmental organizations told a press conference on the sidelines of a humanitarian summit hosted by France that a simple pause in the fighting would not alleviate what they called a humanitarian "catastrophe". Their appeal came as US President Joe Biden said there was "no possibility" of a ceasefire,...

Tehran, Iran - Iran on Thursday rejected a G7 statement which called on Tehran to stop supporting Hamas members and taking actions that "destabilize" the Middle East. Tehran's comment came a day after foreign ministers from the G7 group of advanced economies, meeting in Tokyo, expressed support for "humanitarian pauses and...

Ramallah, Palestinian Territories - Ten Palestinians were killed on Thursday during an Israeli raid on Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, updating an earlier toll. A statement from the ministry said the current death toll in Jenin stood at 10, up from five...

Israel has agreed to daily four-hour military pauses in northern Gaza for humanitarian purposes, the White House said. President Joe Biden has been pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for longer breaks in the fighting after over a month of war sparked by the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

The emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation come after over one month of Israeli bombardment has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza, many of them children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. With Israel's leaders rebuffing talk of a ceasefire until the captives...

sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will be no fuel delivered to Gaza and no ceasefire with Hamas unless the hostages are freed. Macron spoke to Netanyahu on Tuesday and the pair will talk again once Thursday's aid conference is over, the Elysee Palace said.

Tashkent will host the Iranian and Turkish presidents, as well as Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar and Central Asian leaders. The war between Israel and Hamas is not on the agenda, Uzbekistan said.

After more than a month of intense bombardment, hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped in a "dire humanitarian situation" in battle zones without enough food and water, the United Nations said. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday his forces were "tightening the stranglehold" around Gaza City.

Geneva, Switzerland - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has described hostage-taking by Palestinian armed groups and Israel's "collective punishment" of Palestinian civilians as war crimes. "The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on October 7 were heinous, brutal and shocking, they were war crimes - as is...

According to the official, the Rafah crossing point remained closed because Israel refused to approve the list of wounded who were to be evacuated. As a result no wounded Palestinians or dual nationals were evacuated on Wednesday from Gaza to Egypt. The crossing reopened on November 1 to allow people...

A month of Israeli strikes on targets within the Gaza Strip have destroyed or damaged 45 percent of all housing units in the Palestinian territory, Balakrishnan Rajagopal said, warning the destruction comes at a "tremendous cost to human life". The UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing stressed...

Macron had spoken on Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the pair will talk again once the aid conference is over, the Elysee Palace added.

"We stress the need for urgent action to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza... we support humanitarian pauses and corridors to facilitate urgently needed assistance, civilian movement, and the release of hostages," the ministers said in a joint statement after talks in Japan.

"The United States believes key elements should include: no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, not now, not after the war; No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks; No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends," Blinken told reporters. He added that other conditions...

Dubai, UAE - Eighteen hospitals in the Gaza Strip were forced to end their work in the Gaza Strip amid heavy Israeli shelling and air raids, the healthcare authority of the Palestinian exclave has told Al Jazeera. "A total of 18 hospitals, including eight state-run facilities, had to stop their...

In a rebuke to the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu who vowed to have "overall security" of Gaza after the war, the State Department said that the US does not support the reoccupation of the enclave, "Palestinians must be at the forefront of these decisions and Gaza is Palestinian land and...

Beirut, Lebanon - Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein on Tuesday urged for calm to return to Lebanon's southern border with Israel, after weeks of skirmishes following the start of the Israel-Hamas war. "The United States does not want to see conflict in Gaza escalating and expanding into Lebanon," Hochstein told a...

Sotheby's and Christie's will be moving a host of big-ticket lots, though they may still have a hard time topping last year, when total sales hit a record $16 billion.

In the relentless bombardment and ground attacks, 10,328 Palestinians have been killed in the besieged enclave, 300 since Monday alone. The toll includes more than 4,000 children.

Over 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what is referred to by Palestinians as the "Nakba" (catastrophe in Arabic). Around 180,000 fled to Gaza, with the rest scattered across the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries, specifically Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The United Arab Emirates, a wealthy Gulf monarchy, broke with Arab tradition to establish ties with Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords agreements. It has previously announced plans to bring about 1,000 Palestinian children and their families from the Gaza Strip for treatment at UAE hospitals.

The upcoming summit is being organised by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-member bloc of majority Muslim countries. It will be Raisi's first visit to the kingdom since the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations after seven years of estrangement, a deal brokered by China in March.

The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza by air, land and sea since October 7, when Hamas militants launched a cross-border attack that left 1,400 dead in Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and over 240 hostages taken. The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 people,...

"By doing so the European Union will spend a total of 100 million euros in humanitarian aid for the civilians in Gaza," EU chief von der Leyen told EU diplomats in Brussels. Von der Leyen said flows of aid into Gaza from Egypt "remain too small" and the EU was...

Some world leaders like Turkey's President Erdogan use the term genocide to describe Israeli actions in Gaza. Israel has also been accused of war crimes by rights organizations.

Beirut, Lebanon -- At least 61 per cent of employment, equivalent to 182,000 jobs, has been lost in the Gaza Strip since the start of the current Israel-Hamas war, a new ILO report estimates. The conflict in Gaza is also having a spillover effect in the West Bank, where an...

Its net profit is US$2.4bn in the six months to September end.

Dubai, UAE-- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China have called for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for Monday. The UN Security Council will discuss, in particular, the strikes on the Palestinian refugee camp Jabalia in the north of the Gaza Strip and...