South Africa wants the ICJ to impose "provisional measures", or emergency actions, while the broader case is being considered -- which would probably take years. "The circumstances could not be more urgent," argues Pretoria, describing an "exceptionally brutal military campaign by Israel in Gaza, which is extensive and ongoing".

The footage from the cemetery in Al-Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City showed bodies wrapped in bags and laid out on mounds of soil. Other bodies were strewn around smashed up graves, as a dozen men clad in masks worked with shovels to rebury them, the video showed.

Peace Now said in the report published on Thursday there had been an increase in the activities of some settlers who are "marginalizing" the Palestinians in the territory, noting a "record" number of new settlements since the outbreak of fighting. Acts of violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West...

World food prices fell in 2023, with considerable declines for grains and oils as supply concerns eased, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said. The FAO's cereals price index fell 15.4 percent last year, "reflecting well supplied global markets" compared to 2022, when prices soared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine,...

More than 80 percent of the displaced Lebanese are staying with relatives, according to the report, and only 2 percent housed in 14 collective shelters spread across the south of the country, mainly in the coastal city of Tyre and in the Hasbaya region. The rest have rented apartments or...

London, UK - Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries. Channel 12 claimed on Sunday that Blair, who left office in 2007 and served as a Middle East envoy...

Nearly three months of conflict have claimed almost 22,000 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated much of the besieged territory. Despite relentless global demands for a ceasefire, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Monday the army was preparing for "prolonged fighting" expected to last "throughout this...

The Palestinian Football Association had celebrated in June last year when the national team won -- for the third time -- a spot in the Asian cup. But with no end in sight to the Gaza war, the team now feels crushed as they try to prepare for the upcoming...

Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but has earned the enmity of longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of "sucking blood" from the poor.

Youssef Salama, the 68-year-old former minister of religious affairs in the Palestinian Authority, was killed in a strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Wafa news agency and the ministry reported. Considered close to Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, Salama served as...

The Belgorod attack came a day after Ukraine said a barrage of Russian missile strikes on several cities killed at least 40 people, wounding dozens more. Fresh strikes Saturday caused more casualties in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. Belgorod lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the...

A massive air attack targeted schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades, blocks of flats, and many other sites, according to Ukrainian officials. The assault triggered international condemnation and fresh promises of military support to Ukraine, which has been fighting off invading Russian troops since late February 2022.

Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the health ministry in Gaza, reported more than 200 deaths "including entire families" over the past 24 hours in strikes across the territory. An AFP correspondent reported heavy artillery strikes overnight particularly on Khan Yunis. The Israeli army has deployed an additional brigade to Khan Yunis,...

Since 2021, France says it has handed over 15,000 visa to Afghans, "mostly women, rights defenders, journalists and magistrates". But Delphine Rouilleault, the head of the France Terre d'Asile ("France Land of Asylum") association, said that hardly anyone had landed in France over the past year.

The Gaza health ministry said an Israeli strike late Sunday killed at least 70 people in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, in the territory's center. Camp resident Zeyad Awad said Israel's army had sown "panic in the hearts of my children" and accused it of targeting civilians "indiscriminately, without mercy".

Riyad, Saudi Arabia -- Key regional players have welcomed the agreement – involving a comprehensive set of measures aimed at establishing a ceasefire, improving living conditions, and resuming political dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) – reached by the warring parties in Yemen.  Jassem Mohamed Albudaiwi, the...

In recent weeks, the army has faced international criticism after viral footage of detainees stripped down to their underwear and blindfolded with their hands tied behind the backs.

The conversation came a day after the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding "safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale," though it stopped short of calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants. "The President emphasized the critical need to protect the civilian population including those...

UN special envoy Hans Grundberg's announcement marks the latest step to end the nine-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. It follows recent meetings by Grundberg with head of Yemen's Saudi-backed presidential council and the chief negotiator of...

Israel's latest evacuation order for civilians in the central Gaza Strip would force them to relocate to areas "where there are ongoing air strikes", the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said. In the evacuation order, the Israeli army instructed residents in the Bureij refugee camp and surrounding areas to head...

The Council in a joint statement denounced attacks on civilians and the spread of the violence "into areas hosting large populations of internally displaced persons, refugees, and asylum seekers." The statement added that the members of the Security Council expressed alarm at the spreading violence and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan."

Fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza raged as the UN Security Council approved a much-delayed resolution to boost aid to the besieged Palestinian territory where civilians are struggling to find food. The Hamas-run health ministry said more than 410 people had been killed in Israeli bombardment over 48 hours.

Lebanon is ready to implement a UN resolution that would help end Hizbollah's cross-border attacks on Israel if Israel also complies and withdraws from disputed territory, Lebanon's prime minister said. The frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and the Iran-backed...

Separate diplomatic efforts were also under way for a fresh pause in the worst-ever Gaza war, which was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel in October. With conditions deteriorating in the territory, the UN Security Council has been locked in negotiations on a resolution that would boost aid...

The Israeli army said Wednesday that "ground, aerial and naval operations were carried out on dozens of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" on military command and control centers in Khan Yunis. Israel's ensuing military campaign in Gaza has so far killed at least 20,000 people, the majority of them children and...

The United Nation says children make up half of the 1.9 million displaced Palestinians and a sizable number have been killed in Israeli strikes.

Geneva, Switzerland - Gaza is "the most dangerous place in the world" for a child, the UN children's agency spokesperson said Tuesday, expressing his rage at the situation there after returning from the Palestinian territory. "I'm furious that those with power shrug at the humanitarian nightmares unleashed on a million children,"...

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the first private trucks entered Saturday and more came through on Monday. Miller, without confirming the meeting, said that the United States supported a new deal that would include the release of remaining hostages held in Gaza.

Following months of fierce bombardment and fighting, most of Gaza's population has been displaced and people are grappling with shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. Israel on Friday approved the "temporary" delivery of much-needed aid to Gaza via its Kerem Shalom crossing.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six other people were injured in the attacks. Earlier, five government soldiers were killed by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, formerly the local branch of Al-Qaeda, in the north of Latakia province, according to the Observatory.

The Israeli government has come under growing pressure from the international community to pause the fighting and do more to protect civilians. The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million Gazans -- around 80 percent -- have been displaced by the war.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was the latest envoy to call for an "immediate and durable" truce leading to a lasting ceasefire as she visited Tel Aviv, stressing that "too many civilians are being killed".

At their meeting, Sunak and Meloni agreed to fund a project to help repatriations of migrants in Tunisia, the departure country for many migrants trying to reach Europe. They "committed to co-fund a project to promote and assist the voluntary return of migrants from Tunisia to their countries of origin",...

Twenty-five people were rescued and transferred to a Libyan detention center, said the IOM. It said the survivors were all in good condition and had received medical support from IOM staff.

As per UN figures, nearly half a million displaced people have sought refuge in Sudan's Al-Jazirah state, more than 86,000 of them in its capital. However, fighting between Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overran the city on Friday, leading the UN humanitarian agency to suspend...

Abu Dhabi, UAE - UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed bilateral ties with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey. The two explored boosting cooperation to achieve further prosperity for the UAE and Turkey, local media reports said. Al Nahyan and Erdogan also exchanged views on various regional...

The latest forecast came after nearly 200 countries at the COP28 UN climate talks adopted a deal stating that the world will be "transitioning away from fossil fuels" to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming. Coal is the largest energy-related source of the CO2 emissions responsible along...

Dubai, UAE - An agreement to "transition away" from fossil fuels may be a landmark moment but don't expect quick changes among the major producers of the Gulf, where the deal was hammered out. After the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman immediately played...

Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency, warned Wednesday that pushing Gazans across the frontier would be "extremely destabilizing for Egypt". "It's very important to insist that this evacuation of people beyond (the border) must not be promoted, must not be advanced, forced," the UNHCR chief told journalists in...

The announcement came more than two months into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as international aid organizations have warned about the dire conditions in the crowded Palestinian territory. The ministry did not specify which vaccinations had run out, and its claim could not be independently verified.

Washington, US - The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is having a severe impact on the Palestinian economy, according to the World Bank, which now estimates sharp economic contraction this year and next. The conflict, sparked by Hamas' cross-border attacks on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and...

The chief of WHO said the convoy was stopped twice at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint on the way to northern Gaza and on the way back, adding that some Palestinian Red Crescent staff were detained both times and questioned for several hours.

COP28 has debated a historic first-ever global "phase-out" from oil, gas and coal, the main culprits in a planetary crisis of warming. A draft put forward on Monday by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber fell well short, instead presenting reductions in fossil fuels as one of several options.

International aid organizations have struggled to get supplies to desperate Gazans under Israeli bombardment, with only the Rafah crossing in Egypt open. UN humanitarian agency OCHA said Sunday that around 100 trucks per day were bringing humanitarian supplies from Egypt into Gaza since a week-long truce ended on December 1.

"The United Nations and several member states, including the US, have firmly rejected forcibly displacing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said. "But the developments we are witnessing point to attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt, regardless of whether they stay there or are resettled elsewhere."...

DOHA, QATAR - Mediation efforts are continuing to secure a new Gaza ceasefire despite ongoing Israeli bombardment that is "narrowing the window" for a successful outcome, Qatar's prime minister said on Sunday. "Our efforts as the state of Qatar along with our partners are continuing. We are not going to give...

With the conference in Dubai due to officially end on Tuesday, COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber urged the nearly 200 nations at the talks to "show flexibility, to act with urgency and to find the common ground". Jaber told reporters that lack of progress or "watering down my ambition" was...

Antonio Guterres had convened an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after two months of fighting in Gaza. He deployed the rarely-used Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring to the council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".

The demonstrators chanted "Climate justice!" and "Ceasefire now!" as they held pro-environment banners painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag in their hands. Mexican activist Isavela Lopez said, "It's the same fight, it's the same thing -- it's colonialism, it's genocide,"as she described the links between climate injustice and...

Washington, US – A committee of the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit under the chairmanship of Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia have held official discussions with the Secretary of State of the US Antony Blinken, here. The committee stressed their call on the...