Israel's army chief told troops on Wednesday to be prepared for possible entry into Lebanon as Israeli fighter jets bombarded targets in north, east and south of Lebanon. More than 90,000 people are displaced within Lebanon, says United Nations.

Major airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Air France have suspended growing numbers of flights to Lebanon as tensions rise between the powerful militant group Hezbollah and Israel.

The sheer scale of destruction from the deadliest war in Gaza's history has made the road to recovery difficult to imagine. Also, 11 months of war in Gaza has battered Israel's economy with poverty threatening communities.

The Palestinian group has not been crushed outright, and a year on from its unprecedented attack on Israel, an end to its hold over Gaza remains elusive. Hamas sparked the Gaza war by sending hundreds of fighters across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023, to attack communities in...

US President Joe Biden's top priorities for the past 11 months has been to prevent the Gaza war from spiraling into an all-out regional conflict. With the unstoppable Netanyahu, the haughty has beaten the mighty - black and blue.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused Israel of seeking regional war, as he attempted to cast Tehran as restrained and appealed to the West, including the United States, for talks on flashpoint issues.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the death toll in Israeli strikes Monday rose to 492, including 35 children, the bloodiest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.

Lebanon's health ministry said more than 700 were injured on Monday in the worst toll by far in nearly a year of cross-border clashes with Israel, while Iran warned Israel of "dangerous consequences". The United Nations has also expressed concerns about Israeli escalation against Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt serious blows to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, as rapidly escalating cross-border exchanges raised fears of an all-out war. Netanyahu's remarks follow a night of intense rocket fire at northern Israel that had sent hundreds of thousands of people to...

Gaza civil defence official Mohammed Al-Mughair told AFP early Tuesday that "40 martyrs and 60 injured were recovered and transferred" to nearby hospitals following the overnight strike. "Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan...

"We have enough forces to deal with Gaza and we should concentrate on what is going on in the north," Gantz said, speaking in Washington at a Middle East forum where he also said Iran and its proxies were "the real issue." "The time of the north has come and...

Palestinian Territories - Hamas called on the United States Thursday to "exert real pressure" on Israel to reach a Gaza ceasefire agreement as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was no deal in the making. The two sides have traded blame over stalling talks for a ceasefire and hostage exchange...

Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP that even he does not know exactly what is happening inside the camp, where the latest fighting appeared to be concentrated. "The Israelis are besieging the hospitals and cutting off the city from the refugee camp, which has become a military zone with...

Cairo, a key mediator in efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, "reiterated to all parties that it will not accept any Israeli presence" along the strategic Philadelphi Corridor, state-linked Al-Qahera News said, citing a high-level source.

The result was perhaps the biggest exchange of fire in 10 months of a war which began with a Hamas attack launched from Gaza and has triggered both new violence on the Lebanon-Israel border and fears of a broader conflagration in the Middle East.

Doha, Qatar - Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy. The US secretary of state closed his ninth wartime trip to...

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since Hamas's October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, said he had "a very constructive meeting" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who "confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal."

Making his ninth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war began when Hamas attacked Israel in October, the US secretary of state is to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders in a renewed bid to seal a deal that could help avert a wider conflagration.

"To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion," Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. "We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats." He was responding to Biden's comment on Friday that "We are closer...

Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been seeking to finalize details of a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, and which he said Israel had proposed. But months of talks have so far failed to pin down the details of a truce and hostage release deal. The mediators said...

With tensions soaring in the Middle East, the United States says that Iran along with its proxies might attack Israel as early as this week. The world leaders are trying to persuade Iran and Israel to avoid war, but Iran says it has a right to defend itself just like...

Iran blames Haniyeh's death on Israel and has vowed to avenge him, while Hamas's Lebanese ally Hizbollah has also pledged to retaliate for his killing and that of its military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut hours earlier.

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the attack, the White House said. "They discussed the steps we are taking to defend our forces and respond to any attack against our personnel in a manner and place of our choosing," it said in a statement.

Israel on Saturday again traded fire with Hezbollah, carried out a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank, and struck a school compound in Gaza City in an attack that the Hamas-ruled territory's civil defence agency said killed at least 17 people.

Jerusalem, Undefined - The killing of Palestinian militant group Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran could embolden hardliners in the Islamist movement and risks retaliations against Israel, analysts say. Almost 10 months into the latest Gaza war, with no ceasefire deal in sight, here is what to expect. Who will...

Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran's political affairs, said after Haniyeh's death that it was "our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic republic of Iran". The Hamas leader was in Tehran for the inauguration ceremony of newly...

The meeting has been requested by Iran and supported by representatives of Russia, China and Algeria, said a spokesman for the Russian presidency, which holds the rotating leadership of the council. Separately, UN chief Antonio Guterres denounced the attacks on Tehran as well as Beirut as a "dangerous escalation".

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was a "cowardly act" and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel. "President Mahmud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious...

"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Sepah news website.

"Fuad Shukr was the commander responsible for the Majdal Shams massacre, in which 12 children were murdered after Hizbollah fired an Iranian Falaq-1 rocket directly at a soccer field in northern Israel on Saturday evening," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a separate video statement.

A source with knowledge of the talks said last week that Israel's return with extra demands was "a recurring theme" in the process and Israel had "moved the goalposts" with three new requests. On Monday evening Netanyahu's office said "Hamas leadership is preventing an agreement" and denied Israel had made changes to...

Washington has said repeatedly that it opposes post-war government of Gaza by either Israel or Hamas and has called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge instead. The Palestinian Authority has had no presence in Gaza since Hamas seized sole control of the territory in 2007.

Chanting "yes, to peace, yes, to a deal", hundreds of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis marched noisily through Tel Aviv on Thursday night, demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the cycle of violence. While Tel Aviv's various protest groups may diverge on politics, they overlap in the call...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, using an American football image, said Friday that negotiators were "inside the 10 yard line and driving toward the goal line". Hamas has accused Netanyahu of seeking to block a deal however and Blinken said he wants to "bring the agreement over the finish...

The health ministry said a strike on a fuel station in Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza killed 17 people, and the Palestinian Red Crescent said a separate strike at almost simultaneously hit the UN-run Al-Razi School in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing five people.

Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since the Hamas October 7 attacks on Israel set off the Gaza war, with violence also soaring in the West Bank where Fatah is based. China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed.

A Hamas official said Sunday that the Palestinian group was withdrawing from Gaza truce talks, as Israeli bombardments hit a school a day after a deadly strike targeting the militant commander Mohammed Deif. Speaking after the strike on southern Gaza's Al-Mawasi, which the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said...

Israel has launched major new offensives in Gaza City, even as it also embarks on contacts with international mediators on conditions for negotiating a truce with Hamas

Jerusalem, Undefined - Qatari and Egyptian mediators are cajoling Israel and Hamas towards negotiations on a plan to end their war, which has left tens of thousands dead. US President Joe Biden first outlined in late May what he called an Israeli initiative for a truce and hostage release deal. Mediators are...

Large protests, also demanding elections, have taken place across Israel's commercial hub every Saturday night, with smaller ones throughout the country. On Saturday night, anti-government demonstrators blocked a highway in Tel Aviv. Some clashed with police on horseback before officers deployed water canon to force people from the road.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij in central Gaza. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district. "Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe," said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Baghdad, Iraq - As war rages in Gaza and threatens to spread to Lebanon, Iraqi militant groups warn they are ready to enter the fray against Israel and the United States. A field commander of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said there would be "escalation for escalation" in the event of...

Sydney, Australia - Protesters scaled Australia's national parliament on Thursday, unfurling banners reading "Palestine will be free", and accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of complicity in the Gaza war. The small protest follows recent divisions within the Labor government, which suspended a Muslim senator who crossed the floor to vote in...

After a visit to troops on Monday, he said: "I saw very considerable achievements in the fighting being carried in Rafah. We are advancing to the end of the stage of eliminating the Hamas terrorist army." The Israeli army has resumed some operations in northern Gaza and other zones where...

United Nations, United States --The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said Tuesday that 1.9 million people -- 80 percent of the territory's population -- were now displaced, adding she was "deeply concerned" by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis. The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people...

Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the devastating conflict. Witnesses and the civil defence agency reported Israeli air strikes in the southern Rafah area and in the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

A Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the Islamist movement had received the latest proposal but said it presented "no real progress in the negotiations". Hamas has called for a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel.

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...

Top Israeli officials have suggested they are open to a diplomatic resolution of the border tensions, though Gallant said Israel should be ready for "every possible scenario".