Ahead of the gathering in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, African Union Commission head Moussa Faki Mahamat voiced alarm at the violence gripping many nations, both in Africa and other parts of the world. Sudan was in "flames", Faki said, while also highlighting the jihadist threat in Somalia, "eternal tensions"...

Friday's strike came as a US decision in January to redesignate the Houthis as "terrorists" formally came into force. The designation would not prohibit "the shipping of commercial goods into ports and airports in Houthi-controlled areas," the State Department spokesperson said.

Five patients from the intensive care unit had died "as a result of the stopping of generators that caused a cut in oxygen supply", the health ministry in Gaza said, raising fears for four other patients admitted at the unit and three children in a nursery. A witness, who declined...

Speaking before an Arab League meeting in Cairo, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on his second trip to Egypt and his first during his current term, condemned Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, saying that there must be and end to "this inhumanity and cowardice" in the besieged enclave...

In a post in Hebrew on social media platform X, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Jewish country will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition, in his opinion, would offer an "enormous reward to unprecedented terrorism.

The raid came after days of intense fighting between troops and Hamas around the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis -- one of the largest medical sites in southern Gaza, and one of the few hospitals that are still operational in the territory. The health ministry in Gaza reported that thousands...

Access to reliable, high-speed internet will "enable potentially life-saving medical consultations via real-time video calling," UAE Foreign Ministry spokesperson Afra Al Hameli said on social media, welcoming the deal. Gaza's hospitals have been overwhelmed by more than four months of war, during which 68,291 people have been wounded according to...

Turkey and Egypt cut ties in 2013 after Sisi, then Egypt's defense minister, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Turkey and part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. At the time, Erdogan said he would never speak to "anyone" like Sisi, who in 2014 became president of the Arab...

Chief Executive James Quincey described consumers in North America as "holding up well," although he acknowledged "a little softening" through 2023 in the United States due to persistently higher prices that have pressured low-income shoppers. Coca-Cola projected 2024 revenue growth of six to seven percent when foreign exchange and the...

The UN and many governments across the world have expressed alarm about the possible civilian toll of an Israeli assault against the southern city of Rafah. The negotiations, which also involved Qatar's prime minister and Egyptian officials, were part of an intensifying effort to secure a ceasefire.

Reporter Ismail Abu Omar's life is at risk and cameraman Ahmad Matar was severely wounded when the pair were hit in Gaza's southern city of Rafah. The network said the strike was a "fully fledged crime which adds to Israel's crime against journalists" and was aimed at preventing reporters covering...

Doha, Qatar-- Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has affirmed that the ties between Qatar and Iran have never been closer. The emir stated this in a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Doha. During the meeting, Amir-Abdollahian conveyed the greetings of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi...

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.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his military to prepare for an offensive in the southern Gaza city, where the UN says roughly 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering after fleeing fighting in other areas of the territory. Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza...

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.

Another security firm, Ambrey, said the Marshall Islands-flagged, Greece-owned bulk carrier "was targeted by missiles in two separate incidents" within 20 minutes and "was reportedly hit and sustained physical damage on the starboard side". The Houthis, part of the anti-Western, anti-Israel "axis of resistance" of Iran-backed groups, have been targeting...

The military said in a statement that "during a joint IDF (military), ISA (Shin Bet security agency), and Israel Police operation in Rafah, overnight, two Israeli hostages were rescued, Fernando Simon Marman (60) and Louis Har (70), who were kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7th from Kibbutz...

According to the military spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, the discussions aim to schedule a timeline for a pullout of coalition forces from Iraq, leading to the end of its mission. He said the meetings will take place on a regular basis in order to achieve the commission's works as...

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.

Saudi Arabia said it had disbursed $250 million in aid to the internationally-recognized government in Yemen. The money follows an initial payment of the same amount announced in August, when Riyadh committed to provide a total of $1.2 billion to ease the government's budget deficit and pay salaries for civil...

Amir-Abdollahian met top officials in Beirut including Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a powerful ally of the group. He also met Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhaleh, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan, and deputy chief of the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine Jamil Mazhar,...

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...

Israel's massive military offensive in Gaza as per the territory's health ministry has killed at least 28,064 people, mostly women and children. To critics who say an assault on Rafah is crossing a red line, Netanyahu said: "Those who say that under no circumstances should we enter Rafah are basically...

Israel's army and the Shin Bet security agency said operations in Gaza City in recent weeks had led to the discovery of a "tunnel shaft" near a school run by the humanitarian agency. Documents and weapons in the UN compound itself "confirmed that the offices had in fact also been...

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...

Rafah is the southernmost city in the Palestinian enclave that has been hit by a fierce Israeli offensive since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Many of the population of 2.2 million have taken refuge there. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told officials to "submit to the cabinet...

During a two-hour long interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Russia's President Vladimir Putin defended his decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022. The president said the West now realizes that Russia will not be defeated, despite US, European and NATO help to Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Israel without securing a pause in fighting, wrapping up his fifth crisis tour of the Middle East since the war started. In fact, Israeli PM said he has ordered troops to 'prepare to operate' in Rafah.

Four students and a woman and her son were among the dead along with an unidentified civilian, the Observatory said, while a Syrian working with Lebanon's Hizbollah group and an unidentified pro-Iran fighter were also killed. A source close to Hizbollah confirmed to AFP that two of the Iran-backed fighters...

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...

French minister denounced anti-Palestinian rhetoric and "even calls to commit war crimes" by Israeli officials, after some Netanyahu allies have appeared to endorse Jewish re-settlement of the Gaza Strip after the war. Sejourne called for supporting the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority of president Mahmud Abbas.

For EU leaders, it is their way or the highway as the wealthy, powerful bloc seeks to tame opposition and browbeat defiant countries and individuals into submission.

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...

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne was in Egypt and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expected in the region in the coming days to push for a ceasefire and hostage release. The health ministry in the territory, most of which has been left uninhabitable by Israeli bombardments, said at least...

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.

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...

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - An assailant on Thursday took a number of people hostage at a plant owned by US cosmetics giant Procter & Gamble near Istanbul in protest at the war in Gaza, a police spokesman said. It was not immediately clear how many people were being held at the plant,...

The trip comes days after the Democratic incumbent's campaign manager traveled to the city of Dearborn -- home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States -- only to be snubbed by the Detroit suburb's mayor. It was an ominous sign for Biden, for whom swing states...

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.

With inflation up at 35 percent, and amid a severe foreign currency crunch, the Egyptian pound is plunging and the US dollar has become hard to come by. The country's highly import-reliant economy, dominated by military-linked enterprises and with a fondness for infrastructure mega-projects, has been hit hard by a...

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...

Maritime security firm Ambrey said that a merchant ship had been targeted with a missile in southwest of Aden, Yemen. The vessel has reported an explosion on board, Ambrey said. The security firm said it was aware that a missile was fired from Taiz. It comes after Houthis claimed an...

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...

The Houthis, part of the anti-Western, anti-Israel "axis of resistance" of Iranian-backed groups, have been harassing Red Sea shipping for months, triggering US and British reprisal attacks. The attacks have prompted some shipping companies to detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea, a vital route that normally carries...

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah movement, a Hamas ally. Hizbollah claimed responsibility Monday for at least 12 attacks on Israeli army positions near the border, using...

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.

Sheikh Mohammed confirmed that the framework -- which he said might lead to a permanent ceasefire -- includes a phased truce that would see women and children hostages released first, with aid also entering besieged Gaza. A senior Hamas official, Taher al-Nunu, said it wanted a "complete and comprehensive ceasefire,...

The carrier flies mostly throughout Europe.