Netanyahu at Biden's urging will send Israeli officials to Washington to discuss prospective Rafah operation

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Netanyahu at Biden's urging will send Israeli officials to Washington to discuss prospective Rafah operation.

Latest Stories

  • Former CIA head signals full-scale war inevitable if Israel ‘goes all out’

    Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta said the war in the Middle East is at a crucial point now and future actions will signal whether there will be an imminent “full scale war.” In a Friday interview with MSNBC Reports, Panetta, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, spoke about the…

  • Israel says France's call for halting sales of arms used in Gaza is a 'disgrace'

    PARIS/JERSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit out at France's President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for saying that shipments of arms to Israel used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution. "Shame on them," Netanyahu said of Macron and other Western leaders who have called for what he described as an arms embargo on Israel.

  • Frustrated with US, Argentina's Milei seeks rapprochement with China

    Argentine President Javier Milei, who harshly criticised China during his election campaign, has announced plans to visit Beijing in January 2025, signalling a potential shift in his approach to the Asian superpower. In a television interview this week, Milei described China as a "very interesting commercial partner" and said he was "positively surprised by China" - a stark contrast to his earlier rhetoric, in which he referred to China as an "assassin" state while vowing to prioritise relations

  • Netanyahu tells Macron that putting limits on Israel will strengthen Iran

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, his office said, and told him that placing restrictions on Israel will just serve Iran and its proxies. Macron said on Saturday that shipments of arms to Israel used in the war in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution to the conflict. "Just as Iran supports all parts of the Iranian terror axis, so are Israel's friends expected to support it, and not impose restrictions that will only strengthen the Iranian axis of evil," Netanyahu told Macron, according to a statement from his office.

  • Maldives president visits India amid trouble in tourist paradise

    President Muizzu is visiting India at a time when his country is staring at an economic crisis.

  • 'Asian Nato' calls, Taiwan moves: should Beijing worry as Japan's Ishiba gets going?

    Beijing must watch out for the strategies of new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as he seeks to recast Japan's military partnership with the US, and also for whether he reaches out to Taiwan, according to observers. Past weeks have seen headline-grabbing security proposals from Ishiba, who took office on Tuesday after being elected leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). These have included a call to form "an Asian version of Nato" - aimed at deterring Beijing and prevent

  • Hamas says Israel still blocking ceasefire agreement

    A year since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel is still blocking a ceasefire agreement despite Hamas' flexibility, Hamas chief negotiator and deputy Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya said in a speech shown on Hamas' Aqsa television on Sunday. Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to end disputes between the two warring sides and broker a ceasefire agreement that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed by Israel.

  • Opinion - Breaking Iran’s Axis of Resistance, one proxy at a time

    Israel's attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, the West Bank and Gaza are aimed at Tehran, but the real target is the Axis of Resistance, and diplomatic initiatives must be pursued to draw these groups away from Iran's orbit.

  • North Korea and China mark their 75th anniversary of ties as outsiders question their relationship

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The leaders of North Korea and China marked the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relations on Sunday by exchanging messages that expressed hopes for stronger ties, as outsiders raised questions about their relationship.

  • Former Defense chief: Israeli attack on Iran nuclear facilities would be ‘significant strike’

    Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper weighed in on Israel’s likely response to a barrage of missiles launched by Tehran earlier this week and potential attacks on Iran nuclear facilities, saying it would be a “significant strike.” “It’ll be a significant strike,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Friday evening. “And the first question will be is…

  • Russia's envoy to U.S. ends his term at time of bilateral turmoil

    (Reuters) -Russia's envoy to the U.S., a Kremlin hard-liner, was returning to Moscow on Saturday, state media reported, with the end of his term coming at a time of the most hostile relations between the two nations in decades. "Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Ivanovich Antonov is concluding his Washington assignment and heading to Moscow," TASS state news agency cited the foreign ministry as saying. The Siberia-born Antonov, 69, a career diplomat, was seen as a hawk who was still capable of striking compromises.

  • Indian foreign minister rules out bilateral talks at SCO summit in Pakistan

    India's foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will not discuss bilateral relations when he visits Pakistan this month, the first such visit in nearly a decade, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. "I expect there would be a lot of media interest because of the very nature of the relationship," Jaishankar said in response to a query at an event in New Delhi. On Friday, the Indian foreign ministry confirmed that Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to participate in the summit on Oct. 15-16 but did not say if he would meet any Pakistani leaders on the sidelines.

  • China supports Russia at UN Nord Stream debate in united stand against US-led West

    China sided with Russia in a row with the US-led West on Friday as the United Nations Security Council debated accountability for the 2022 explosions on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. It came as both Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this month, and top diplomat Wang Yi vowed this week to deepen ties with Moscow to counter Western pressure. Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, voiced Beijing

  • What is China's next move as the Middle East violence escalates?

    China's stance on the escalating violence in the Middle East may reap some benefits as the United States becomes further distracted, according to analysts, but they warned there are reputational risks if it cannot live up to its self-appointed image as a mediator. The conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies has pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war and also threatens to drag in the US. Meanwhile, China may seek to seize the moral high ground by blaming Washington's pro-Israel

  • Bowen: Year of killing and broken assumptions has taken Middle East to edge of deeper, wider war

    Twelve months on from the 7 October attacks which led to Israel's war in Gaza, our international editor says the region is on the edge of something even worse.

  • China, North Korea mark 75 years of ties with pledge for 'new era' in exchanges

    The leaders of China and North Korea marked 75 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries with a pledge on Sunday to develop a "new era" of relations. In an exchange of messages, Chinese President Xi Jinping told North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un that the two countries had "marched hand in hand" over the decades to strengthen exchanges and cooperation and promote socialism, according to state news agency Xinhua. They had also "collaborated closely" on advancing regional peace and s

  • Macron says 88 French-speaking countries have called for ceasefire in Lebanon

    The demand comes in response to an Israeli ground operation into Lebanon, launched at the end of September to take out Hezbollah positions close to the Israeli border that has killed and displaced thousands.

  • Netanyahu says Macron's call for arms embargo is 'a disgrace'

    The Israeli PM criticised the French president over calls to halt arms deliveries to Israel to be used in Gaza.

  • Opinion - Israel and Iran are on the path toward a catastrophic war

    The history of the Middle East and beyond is being shaped right now.

  • Giuliani’s Daughter Reveals How Dad Reacted to Harris Endorsement

    Caroline Giuliani, who is the daughter of the former New York City mayor and ardent Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani, has revealed how her father responded to her endorsement of Kamala Harris.Giuliani said she has been forced to have “open conversations” with her father since she penned a column in Vanity Fair about her decision to support Harris.“He knows how I feel about all these things,” she said Sunday on MSNBC’s Alex Witt Reports. “I don’t think any of this came as a surprise. I think one thi