A Hamas official said the group would respond "within a very short period" to a plan proposed by mediators to halt the fighting for 40 days and to exchange dozens of hostages for many more Palestinian captives. But the group's aim remains an "end to this war", senior Hamas official...

Hamas is considering a plan for a 40-day ceasefire and the exchange of scores of hostages for larger numbers of Palestinian prisoners. Suhail al-Hindi, a senior Hamas official, told AFP the group would "deliver its response clearly within a very short period".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed calls for Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal Wednesday as he started talks with Israel's leadership. "Even in these very difficult times we are determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home -- and to get it now. And the only...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded Tuesday that Hamas accept a proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages

Jerusalem, Undefined - Hopes rose on Monday for a long-sought-after truce and hostage release deal after almost seven months of war in Gaza between Palestinian Hamas fighters and Israel. Washington's top diplomat said he was "hopeful" Hamas would accept the offer, which his British counterpart said could see the release of...

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate a new truce ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Protesters within Israel are demanding that the government secure freedom for other hostages.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Riyadh comes nearly seven months after the eruption of war in Gaza put the brakes on what was intended as a signature foreign policy achievement for his boss, US President Joe Biden. It also comes as Americans prepare to vote in November...

Israeli forces are carrying out "offensive action" across southern Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border. He also claimed that "half of Hizbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated" in months of violence.

Hizbollah fighters fired "dozens of Katyusha rockets" at northern Israel "as part of the response to the Israeli enemy's attacks on... civilian homes, specifically the horrific massacre in Hanin and the killing and injuring of civilians," the group said in a statement.

An unidentified Israeli official told The Washington Post the "strike" was retaliation for Iran's drone and missile barrage and was intended to signal that Israel was able to hit inside Iran. Iran's Tasnim news agency, citing "informed sources", denied that Iran had been attacked from outside.

Ministers from Italy, the UK, US, France, Germany, Japan and Canada also slammed the "unacceptable number of civilians" killed in Gaza during Israel's military offensive.

Hours after the strike on Arab al-Aramshe, an Arab-majority village in northern Israel near the border, Israeli forces hit targets in eastern Lebanon, a Hizbollah source told AFP. According to the source, the strikes targeted a warehouse in Iaat, a residential area near Baalbek, and "lightly" wounded one man.

The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence since early last year, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza on October 7. At least 468 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according...

Iran's attack came in retaliation for an April 1 strike that levelled the five-storey consular annexe of the Iranian embassy in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals. Tehran has since vowed to avenge the strike which was widely blamed on Israel.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Israel "must be punished and will be punished", days after one of his advisers said Israeli embassies are "no longer safe". Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly replied on social media site X that "if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel...

Israel's foreign ministry denounced Ireland's new prime minister for not mentioning the hostages held by fighters in Gaza during a speech to the Irish parliament.

The strike came as talks in Cairo aimed at a ceasefire and a hostage release deal dragged on without signs of a breakthrough. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, suggested the strike was an attempt to shift Hamas's negotiating stance, but insisted it would not work.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had no indication of an "imminent" Israeli assault on the city, the last in the Gaza Strip yet to be the target of a ground invasion and where around 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Amir-Abdollahian is set to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad during the visit, while Syria's information ministry said he was to inaugurate a new Iranian consular section. Syria's pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said the officials' talks would be "mainly focused" on repercussions of last week's strike.

The British government on Friday called for "utmost transparency" and a "wholly independent review" into the killing of seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip. The deaths have also heaped pressure on the UK government to suspend arms export licenses to Israel.

Israel and Hizbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza. Hizbollah targets Israeli positions close to the border, while Israel retaliates with raids that go deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory.

United Nations - Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has escalated into a "betrayal of humanity", the United Nations' humanitarian chief said on Saturday. In a statement on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the war, Martin Griffiths, the outgoing under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, called for...

"The demands ... are complete ceasefire, withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza, the return of the displaced to their residential areas, freedom of movement of the people, offering them aid, shelter, and a serious hostage exchange deal," Hamas said. Its insistence came as US President Joe Biden urged an...

US, Egypt and Qatar have been engaged in weeks of behind-the-scenes talks in a bid to secure a temporary truce in the Gaza Strip. Biden, in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, "made clear that everything must be done to secure the release of hostages, including...

According to a report in magazine +972, Israel has used AI to identify targets in Gaza -- in some cases with as little as 20 seconds of human oversight. Guterres said that he was "deeply troubled by reports that the Israeli military's bombing campaign includes Artificial Intelligence as a tool...

According to reports in US media, Burns would meet in the Egyptian capital with Mossad chief David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. The talks in Cairo would focus on freeing hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas fighters.

Israel said it was targeting a "Hamas gunman" when it killed in Gaza seven aid workers whose deaths caused an international outcry, with its military admitting violations of its own rules of engagement. The drone team who killed them made an "operational misjudgement of the situation", an internal Israeli military...

The threat of regional war compounded fears that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates as much as previously expected, with the focus now on the release of key US jobs data later in the day. The sell-off followed a plunge across the board on Wall Street.

According to statistics cited by Al Jazeera television, about four children die every hour because of the actions of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. Women and minors account for at least 70 percent of the total number of missing persons, which has reached 7,000.

Tehran, Iran - Iran has repatriated the bodies of seven Revolutionary Guard Corps members killed in a strike on the country's consular annex in Damascus, which Tehran blamed on Israel, local media reported. The Guards, including two generals, were killed in the air strike on Monday which levelled the Iranian embassy's...

Jerusalem - The Israeli army has suspended leave for its combat units, it said on Thursday, amid the Gaza war and as tensions with Iran grew after a strike on Tehran's consulate in Damascus. Israeli media reported that the military was also calling up more reservist soldiers "against the background...

Vatican City, Holy See - Pope Francis expressed his "deep sorrow" on Wednesday for the deaths of seven charity workers killed by an Israeli strike while they were delivering aid in Gaza. "I express my deep sorrow for the volunteers killed while they were distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza," the 87-year-old...

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday is set to consider a draft resolution calling for a cessation of arms sales to Israel, nearly six months into the war in Gaza. If the text is adopted, it would mark the first time that UN’s top rights body has taken a...

The British-born official, who spent a week in the besieged Palestinian territory last month, said even when aid got through the border, there were still major problems getting it to those who need it most, particularly women and girls.

World Central Kitchen -- one of two NGOs spearheading efforts to deliver aid by boat -- said a "targeted Israeli strike" on Monday killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian staff. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged a "swift, impartial investigation" into the airstrike and said Israel needed to...

"From different doctors, particularly in the maternity hospitals, they're reporting that they're seeing a big rise in children born with low birth weight, and just not surviving the neonatal period because they're born too small," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said at a briefing in Geneva.

Netanyahu was quick to single out Qatar-based channel Al Jazeera, with which his government has a long-running feud that predates Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. The broadcaster slammed the ban as "part of a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera", including the killing of one of...

Palestinian Territories - Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza's largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex. Israel said it had battled Palestinian fighters hiding inside Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, killed at least 200 enemy fighters...

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israeli police said Monday they had arrested the sister of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh "as part of a terror probe in southern Israel". Police told AFP that Sabah Abdel Salam Haniyeh, who is an Israeli citizen, was taken into custody in the town of Tel Sheva as part...

Palestinian Territories - The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 32,845 people have been killed in the territory in the Israeli aerial and ground assault since Oct 7. The toll includes at least 63 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 75,392...

The Hamas government media office said the Israeli air strikes had provided cover for the withdrawing vehicles. The army launched its operation on March 18 and has described it as a "precise" one targeting Hamas fighters it accused of operating from the complex. Hamas has denied operating from Al-Shifa and...

The prime minister's office said in a statement that Benjamin Netanyahu was in "good shape and beginning to recover after the operation on Sunday evening." His doctors discovered the hernia on Saturday during a routine checkup, and after consultations the decision was made for the premier to undergo surgery.

RAFAH, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – Meters away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky -- a welcome distraction from the horrors of war. "Every day I play with my brothers and cousins with kites next to the Egyptian...

The official said the gap between the two sides' negotiating positions was too wide. "I doubt that there will be any progress in these negotiations because the positions are too far apart," said the official.

The military observers, from Australia, Chile and Norway, and a Lebanese language assistant had been on foot patrol around the so-called Blue Line -- the UN-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon. The four "were injured when an explosion occurred near their location", according to Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for the...

Reports of the new talks in Cairo came as protesters in Israel's biggest city blocked a major road Saturday following demonstrations calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza. A key element of the ceasefire negotiations has been an agreement on releasing the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners...

Beirut, Lebanon - The death toll in Israeli air strikes on Syria has risen to 52, including 38 government soldiers and seven members of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement, a war monitor said on Saturday. Friday's strikes fueled concerns of a wider regional conflagration. They targeted "a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon's Hizbollah"...

The go-ahead for a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire came a day after the world's top court ordered Israel to ensure aid reaches desperate civilians. But despite a binding UN Security Council resolution earlier this week demanding an "immediate ceasefire", fighting raged on unabated in Gaza.

In Syria, "Israeli strikes" targeted a Hizbollah "rockets depot" in Aleppo province, killing 36 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah members and another pro-Iran fighter, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said. It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Tokyo, Japan--Japan is preparing to resume funding to the UN's crisis-hit Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, the government said. Once the sixth-largest contributor to the agency, Japan joined more than a dozen countries in pausing funding after Israel claimed that 12 of UNRWA's 13,000...