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...

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.

Several countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Japan, have announced the suspension of further funding to the agency. "The secretary-general is personally horrified by the accusations against employees of UNRWA," Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

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....

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,...

Tehran carried out strikes against an anti-Iran group in Pakistan on January 16, the same week the nation's military targeted Iraq and Syria. Two days later, Pakistan responded in kind with a pre-dawn raid on "militant targets" in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim regions in...

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...

US President Joe Biden held Iran-backed fighters responsible for the killing of US troops and vowed to hold the perpetrators to account. It is the first time American soldiers have been killed by hostile fire in the region since Israel launched its war on Gaza, and the incident will further...

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...

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...

The exchange came as the head of the CIA is to meet in Europe with his counterparts from Israel and Egypt and the prime minister of Qatar with the goal of negotiating a truce and the release of the remaining hostages in the Israeli-Hamas war, US media reported. Biden also...

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.

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...

The top UN court said Israel should do everything it could to prevent any acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, in a highly anticipated ruling. Israel must do everything to "prevent the commission of all acts within the scope" of the Genocide Convention, said the International Court of Justice.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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 --...

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hizbollah, an ally of Gaza-based Hamas. On Monday, Hizbollah announced that three of its fighters had been killed "on the road...

"We worked to find the victims until the last hours," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, indicating the difficulty in extracting bodies buried under the rubble. "Our reservists sacrificed what was dearest to them, so that we could all live here in complete safety,” he said.

A separate campaign is urging supporters to write Biden's name on the ballot in exactly the same manner that "Vote Ceasefire" is promoting. The outcome will not affect the nomination process in any case, as the Democratic National Committee has declared the New Hampshire primary illegitimate.

The US news site Axios reported, citing unnamed Israeli officials, that the deal would take place in multiple stages, the first of which would see the release of women, men over 60 and those in critical medical condition. Later phases would involve the release of soldiers, younger civilian men, and...

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza-based Hamas. On Monday, HIzbollah announced that two of its fighters had been killed "on the road...

Abdelrahman Iyad, wounded in Gaza and now being treated aboard the French helicopter carrier Dixmude, docked in Egypt, said he did not have time to leave his house before it was hit. "I was with my parents, my brother, my sister, my second sister and her husband and their daughter....

The group admitted in a 16-page report justifying the attack that "some faults happened... due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza". The document was the group's first public report released in English and Arabic explaining...

"Dozens are still under the rubble," the Hamas government's media office said, adding that the dead and injured "could not be transferred to hospitals due to the continued artillery shelling on... Khan Yunis and the Tal al-Hawa area in Gaza City and the north".

Istanbul served as a base for Hamas political leaders before the October 7 attacks. Turkey asked the Hamas chiefs to leave after some were captured on video celebrating the deadliest attack in Israel's history. But Turkish president has since turned into one of the harshest critics of the scale of...

In its final summit communique, the Non-Aligned Movement on Saturday "strongly condemned the illegal Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip", and called for "a lasting humanitarian ceasefire". The assembled leaders in Kampala also called for "the independence and sovereignty of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its...

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi vowed not to let the "cowardly assassination" go unanswered. Israel has been blamed for intensifying strikes targeting senior Iranian and allied figures in Syria and Lebanon -- backers of the Palestinian movement Hamas -- raising fears that fighting in the Gaza Strip could spread further.

A senior Hamas official dismissed comments by US President Joe Biden about the possibility of Israel agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Biden said it was still possible that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state after the two leaders spoke by...

Washington is seeking to reduce the Iran-backed Houthis' capabilities, but the Yemeni rebels are still able to attack despite a week of strikes, and they have vowed that they will keep targeting merchant vessels. The Houthis began striking Red Sea shipping in November, saying they were hitting Israeli-linked vessels in support...

Netanyahu has said Israel expects the war to continue for months, but his comments on Thursday rejecting a so-called two-state solution suggested a rift with key backer the United States. Biden said after Friday's call with Netanyahu, with whom he has had a complicated relationship over some 40 years, it...

Hamas was created in December 1987 shortly after the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories by a group of fighters claiming to be from the Muslim Brotherhood, including the influential Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Twenty years later, in June 2007, Hamas took control of...

Thousands of Gazan men may have been detained by Israeli forces since war erupted on October 7, often facing conditions that could amount to torture, the UN's human rights representative in the Palestinian territories said. Some of those released have reported being blindfolded, beaten and ultimately freed wearing only diapers,...

Palestinians held funerals and assessed the damage of a days-long Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since war erupted in Gaza. Israeli forces withdrew on Friday after raiding the Tulkarem area for almost two days, during which the military said troops killed "at least eight...

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has been targeted with a criminal complaint during a visit to Switzerland, Swiss prosecutors said, amid allegations of crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza. The Federal Prosecutor's Office (BA) confirmed that it had received a criminal complaint against the Israeli president, who was in...

BEIRUT, LEBANON - "Good morning, madame. This is the bank calling. Are you at home?"   Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out more than three months ago, residents of southern Lebanon have been receiving strange phone calls from Lebanese numbers and from people speaking in Lebanese accents. The voices on the...

At least 24,448 Palestinians, more than 70 percent of them women, young children and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and ground assaults, according to the Gaza health ministry's latest figures. "When we talk about rebuilding Gaza, it's not anymore like before, where we had to rehabilitate some shelter and...