CIA director William Burns met with Mossad chief David Barnea in Cairo for a new round of talks on a Qatari-brokered plan to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages. The two intelligence chiefs were joined by Qatar's prime minister and Egyptian officials, Egyptian media reported -- two...

"The current military-security situation heralds what is likely to be a more dangerous decade, characterized by the brazen application by some of military power to pursue claims," the report said.

Hizbollah and Israeli army have traded near-daily fire since war broke out on October 7 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip. In the past few days, a series of Israeli strikes has injured officials from Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups in southern Lebanon.

Speaking at the White House while US President Joe Biden stood next to him, King Abdullah of Jordan said that "we cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah." He said that it will result in another humanitarian catastrophe, and called for a lasting ceasefire and that war must end.

As the West Bank grapples with its worst economic crisis in two decades, sparked by Israel's ban on Palestinian day laborers, poverty and despair escalate.

World Bank President Ajay Banga said that "what's going on Gaza, but also the challenges of Ukraine... and the Red Sea" are among the top challenges to the global economic outlook. "When you add variables to what is turning out to be probably the lowest growth of the last 55...

Despite maintaining its ties with Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the UAE has been at pains to express solidarity with Palestinians as anger mounted in the Arab world over the conflict.

Talks have been underway for weeks to secure a second truce in the four-month war, which would see more hostages freed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The Appeals Court in The Hague sided with a group of human rights organizations that argued the parts contributed to violations of law by Israel in its war with Hamas.

Witnesses heard an intense series of strikes and saw smoke billowing above the city, which now hosts more than half of Gaza's total population after they fled bombardment elsewhere on the Strip. The strikes hit 14 houses and three mosques in different parts of Rafah, according to the Hamas government.

Foreign governments, including Israel's key ally the United States, and aid groups have voiced deep concern over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to extend operations. Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has remained the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israel's relentless bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

TEANECK, US - They are only teenagers, but a pair of New Jersey high school students -- one Jewish and one Muslim -- are tackling an issue much bigger than themselves, bridging divides in their suburb shaken by the Israel-Hamas war. The effort originated soon after the October 7 attacks by...

While the Israel-Lebanon violence has been largely contained to the border area, a strike earlier on Saturday hit the coastal town of Jadra. The second-farthest deadly attack from the border in four months of hostilities "was a failed attempt to assassinate a senior official in the (Hamas) movement", a Palestinian...

Palestinian Territories - Six-year-old Hind Rajab pleaded to be rescued, after her family's car came under fire in war-ravaged Gaza City, leaving her alone, frightened and injured, surrounded by the bodies of her dead relatives. "I am so scared," she had said in a desperate phone call to the Palestine...

Beirut, Lebanon - Israeli air strikes that targeted a building in an upscale area near the Syrian capital killed three people early on Saturday, a war monitor said. State media reported that Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli "air attack". Since Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week said he had ordered troops to prepare to go in to the city, crowded with displaced Palestinians, as it hunts down those responsible for the deadly October 7 attacks on southern Israel. The announcement has prompted concern from foreign governments including the United States...

New defense technologies including artificial intelligence-powered gunsights and robotic drones form a bright spot in an otherwise dire period for Israel's tech industry. Over 150 countries in December backed a UN resolution identifying "serious challenges and concerns" in new military tech, including "artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems."

Hospitals are granted special protection under the laws of war, but they have been repeatedly hit in Gaza over the past four months. There are no fully functioning hospitals left in the Palestinian territory, the United Nations said Wednesday, while just over a third of them are working at limited...

Fitch -- which is the last of the big three US ratings agencies -- placed Israel on negative watch over risks from the conflict. "The weakened security environment implies higher social risk and indicates weaker executive and legislative institutions than Moody's previously assessed," the ratings agency said Friday in the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the army to prepare to "evacuate" hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza's Rafah, his office said, after US warned it would not support any ground assault. Netanyahu's planned offensive on Rafah, where an estimated 1.3 million civilians have sought refuge, drew condemnation...

The number of checkpoints and barriers in the Palestinian territory has greatly increased since October 7, adding hours to already lengthy commutes and forcing residents to either wait at the checkpoints or take long detours. Largely unaffected are the 490,000 Israelis living across the West Bank in settlements -- considered...

"We expect the negotiations to be very complex and difficult but Hamas is open to discussions and the movement is keen to reach a ceasefire," added the official, who is familiar with the negotiations. "The two parties will hold several rounds of negotiations indirectly," he said on condition of anonymity

Washington, US - The United States military confirmed on Thursday its forces conducted multiple strikes against Houthi missile systems as the Yemen-based rebel group prepared to launch attacks that threatened US Navy and merchant ships. Late Wednesday Sanaa time US Central Command forces "conducted self-defense strikes against two Houthi mobile anti-ship...

In Beirut, a senior Hamas official responded, saying Netanyahu's "insistence on continuing the aggression totally confirms that the goal... is genocide against the Palestinian people". The official, Osama Hamdan, urged "all resistance factions... to continue the fight" and to be cautious of Israeli "treachery during the final quarter-hour of this...

"The presence of US forces in our region has no justification," Raisi said in a Tehran ceremony ahead of the 45th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution on February 12.

"Ten people, including six civilians and two Hizbollah fighters, were killed in Israeli strikes on a building in the Hamra neighborhood of Homs," the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP. The strikes completely levelled the building in one of the city's most affluent...

"There's a lot of work to be done, but we are very much focused on doing that work and hopefully being able to resume the release of hostages that was interrupted" after a week-long truce in November, he said. The US top envoy, on his fifth Middle East tour since...

The move comes two weeks after Britain and the United States unveiled new coordinated asset freezes and travel bans on the fighters. Hamas itself, along with several linked groups, is already listed by Ottawa as a banned terrorist organization.

Last week, a Hamas source said the truce deal calls for a six-week pause to fighting as Hamas frees hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and more aid for Gaza. On Monday, Netanyahu said Hamas had presented "demands that we will not accept" for an exchange involving...

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that five people have been killed including three civilians, and seven others were injured in Israeli strikes on a building in the Hamra neighbourhood of Homs city. The country's defence ministry reported that "the Israeli enemy launched air strikes targeting a number of...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia drew 27 million foreign tourists in 2023 and has more than doubled its goal for the end of the decade, an official said on Tuesday. The announcement came less than five years after the Gulf kingdom fully opened up to tourism and as fears persist...

Hamas has for more than a week mulled the deal drawn up in its absence at Paris talks, as international pressure mounts to end the four-month war. Hamas said the proposal was aimed at "ending the aggression against our people, securing relief and shelter, reconstruction, lifting the siege on the...

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said last week that the movement's armed forces had targeted an American merchant ship named KOI with "several appropriate naval missiles". The ship, he said, had been heading to "the ports of occupied Palestine", a phrase which is sometimes used to mean Israel.

The US forces targeted many positions in Syria and Iraq in retaliation for a drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three US soldiers. The strikes, which targeted elite Iranian units and pro-Iranian militant groups, have led to fears that the ongoing war in Gaza could spiral into...

The OECD raised its 2024 world economic growth forecast Monday but warned that the Middle East conflict posed a risk, with disruptions in Red Sea shipping threatening to increase consumer prices. Global growth "proved unexpectedly resilient" in 2023, reaching 3.1 percent as inflation declined faster than anticipated..

The US secretary of state is expected to discuss a proposed truce hammered out in a Paris meeting in January of top US, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials. The diplomatic push has become more urgent with the surge in attacks by Iran-backed groups in solidarity with Hamas, triggering counterattacks by...

The Gaza health ministry said that at least 127 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the previous 24 hours in the territory. A kindergarten where families were sheltering was hit in Rafah, which is teeming with Palestinians displaced by the war, ahead of another visit to the region by...

Since Hamas fighters stormed across the border on October 7, Israeli forces have targeted structures in Gaza within a kilometre (0.6 miles) of the border, said Adi Ben Nun, a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has carried out an analysis of satellite imagery.

Scaling up attacks in the Middle East, US and UK carried out joint air raids in Yemen after a separate wave of US strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria carried out in response to the killing of three US soldiers in Jordan. It is the third time the western...

Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official in Lebanon, said the movement's leaders were reviewing a proposed framework hammered out by top officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United States. Speaking at a news conference, he said Hamas "has repeatedly said" it was "open to discussing any initiative.

Palestinian group Hamas condemned overnight US strikes in Iraq and Syria, saying Washington had poured "oil on the fire" in the Middle East. The US "bears responsibility for the consequences of this brutal aggression against both Iraq and Syria, which pour oil on the fire," the group said in a...

Tyre, Lebanon - When Ines Tehini and her family fled their south Lebanon village after Hizbollah and Israel began exchanging fire in October, she thought they would be home in a matter of days. But nearly four months later in a school turned shelter, her hopes for a swift return to...

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled south to Rafah since the outbreak of the war, with the former city of 200,000 now housing more than half of Gaza's two million-plus population, a WHO representative said Friday. The United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA said it was deeply concerned about...

The attack was the latest in a series of drone and missile strikes launched by the Houthis since the start of the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian fighters group Hamas nearly four months ago. The Houthis have also repeatedly targeted vessels in the Red Sea with strikes they say...

"Any (US) strike will result in an appropriate response," Al-Nujaba leader Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement, adding the group would continue its actions until its demands are met for US troops to leave Iraq and an end to Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.

The targets included a site operated by Lebanese group Hezbollah on a road leading to the Sayyida Zeinab district and a site on the road to Damascus airport that had recently been vacated by pro-Iran groups, the Britain-based war monitor said.

A Hamas source had told AFP the three-stage plan would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting that would see more aid deliveries into Gaza. Only "women, children and sick men over 60" held by fighters would be freed during that stage in exchange for Palestinian captives in...

CENTCOM earlier announced that the USS Carney had shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Houthis, and then downed three Iranian drones less than an hour later. It did not specify if the drones shot down by the naval destroyer were designed for attack or surveillance.

As Qatari and Egyptian-led mediation efforts intensified, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was due in Cairo on Thursday to discuss a truce proposal thrashed out in Paris last weekend with CIA chief William Burns. Israel's withering air, land and sea offensive has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of...

Palestinian Territories - International efforts towards a new pause in the devastating Gaza war gathered pace Wednesday, as Israel bombarded the Palestinian territory during fierce fighting with Palestinian fighters. Hamas was reviewing a proposal for a six-week truce in its war with Israel, a source told AFP, after mediators gathered...