Protesters concerned about the impact of the Paris 2024 Olympics rallied outside the French Interior Ministry offices the capital on Wednesday evening. (AP video: Nicolas Garriga)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was publicly challenged about post-war plans for the Gaza Strip on Wednesday by his own defence chief, who vowed to oppose any long-term military rule by Israel over the ravaged Palestinian enclave. The televised statement by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant marked the most vocal dissent from within Israel's top echelon against Netanyahu during a seven-month-old and multi-front conflict that has set off political fissures at home and abroad. Netanyahu hinted, in a riposte which did not explicitly name Gallant, that the retired admiral was making "excuses" for not yet having destroyed Hamas in a conflict now in its eight month.
The Israeli military is calling on the United Nations to investigate the presence of armed militants at a UN facility in southern Gaza after releasing video that shows armed men at the facility.
Pro-Palestinian protesters occupying a building at the University of Melbourne have been told to leave by university officials, who say they’ve “crossed a line” by entering the building and disrupting thousands of students’ classes.
AMMAN (Reuters) -Jordan has foiled a suspected Iranian-led plot to smuggle weapons into the U.S.-allied kingdom to help opponents of the ruling monarchy carry out acts of sabotage, according to two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the matter. The weapons were sent by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to a cell of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan that has links to the military wing of Palestinian group Hamas, the people told Reuters. The alleged plot and arrests, reported here for the first time, come at a time of sky-high tensions in the Middle East, with an American-backed Israel at war in Gaza with Hamas, part of Iran's "Axis of Resistance" network of proxy groups built up over decades to oppose Israel.
JERUSALEM (AP) — At first, it seemed like the kind of shooting that has become all too common in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A Palestinian aroused suspicions and an Israeli soldier killed him. But then the deceased was identified as David Ben-Avraham, a Palestinian who had made the almost unheard-of decision to convert from Islam to Judaism years earlier. His unusual journey had taken him across some of the deepest fault lines in the Middle East and led to some unlikely friendships. Most Pal
Israel is "fulfilling our obligation to (Rafah's) humanitarian needs," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli troops battled militants across Gaza on Wednesday, including in the southern city of Rafah that had been a refuge for civilians, in an upsurge of the more than seven-month-old war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Antagonism between Israel and the United Nations worsened as the Israeli army sought an explanation for footage showing armed men next to U.N. Palestinian relief agency vehicles. Separately, India was working to bring home the body of a U.N. staffer killed in Rafah by what the global body said was tank fire.
Pro-Palestinian encampments have been cleared from more US college campuses as school officials have called in law enforcement in recent weeks to quell mounting demonstrations over the institutions’ ties to Israel amid its military action in Gaza. Here are the latest developments:
Egypt could consider downgrading relations with Israel if it presses on with a military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, an Egyptian official told CNN.
Israel's defense minister said the military would send more troops into Rafah, a city along Gaza's southern border with Egypt, as fighting also rages in northern Gaza, where Hamas has regrouped. South Africa is seeking emergency measures at the U.N.'s top court to halt Israel’s escalating offensive in Rafah, calling the incursion “the last step in the destruction of Gaza.” Israel has portrayed Rafah as the last Hamas stronghold, brushing off warnings from the United States and other allies that
PARIS (AP) — France imposed an emergency Wednesday in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia for at least 12 days, boosting security forces’ powers to quell deadly unrest in the archipelago where indigenous people have long sought independence. Armed clashes and other violence that erupted Monday following protests over voting reforms have left four people dead, including a gendarme, and injured more than 300, French authorities said. French military forces were being deployed to protect
A Jewish official in the U.S. Interior Department has become the first staffer appointed by President Joe Biden to resign over the administration's stance on Israel's war in Gaza.
MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court judge has refused McGill University's request for an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment that has been set up on its downtown Montreal campus since late April. Justice Marc St-Pierre ruled Wednesday that the school did not prove the situation at the encampment was sufficiently urgent to justify the measure. In a written decision, he said the case also raises questions of conflicting rights — in this case, the protesters' freedom of expression
Shoshan Haran, her daughter and two grandchildren were taken hostage by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The U.S. focused the meeting on "condemning hostage-taking in Israel on Oct. 7 as a psychological tool of terrorism."
Russia shut down a military base in Azerbaijan on Wednesday where nearly 2,000 of its troops had been deployed, after Azeri forces recaptured the area last year despite a two-year Russian mission to prevent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. A total of 1,960 Russian peacekeepers had been housed in 10 barracks at the base in Khojaly, a town in the Karabakh region. Despite the deployment, Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh in a lightning offensive last September, prompting an exodus of 100,000 ethnic Armenians who had enjoyed de facto independence since breaking away in the 1990s in the first of two wars between the South Caucasus neighbours.
Five shots are heard in a video that appears to capture the moment Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico was shot in the town of Handlova on Wednesday.
Palestinians are marking 76 years of dispossession on Wednesday, commemorating their mass expulsion from what is today Israel, as a potentially larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza where over a quarter of the population has been displaced by fighting in the last few days alone. Israel has been pressing its military operations in Rafah, a city along Gaza's southern border with Egypt, and in northern Gaza, where Hamas has regrouped. Around 600,000 Palestinians have been driven out of Rafah since the
WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United States anchored a floating pier in Gaza on Thursday to boost aid deliveries, but Washington is facing the same challenges that have beset the United Nations and aid groups for months when it comes to distributing assistance to millions in need amid a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. The United Nations said on Thursday it was still finalizing its operational plans to handle the distribution of aid once it comes off the pier. Aid trucks are expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days, the U.S. said on Thursday when announcing the anchoring of the temporary pier.
Amir Cohen/ReutersThe Israeli military said Thursday that five of its soldiers were killed in Gaza when they were hit by Israeli tank shells in what is thought to be one of the deadliest instances of friendly fire since the outbreak of the war.Another seven troops were wounded—including three seriously—in the incident in the northern city of Jabalia on Wednesday evening. All of the deceased victims served in the 202nd Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade and were between the ages of 20 and 22.I
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack at a military base west of Israel's Tiberias on Wednesday, in the deepest strike into Israeli territory since the Lebanese armed group began exchanging fire with Israel in parallel with the Gaza war. Hezbollah said it was targeting part of a surveillance system used by the Israeli air force, and that the swarm of attack drones "hit its limited targets accurately and accomplished what it wanted in this limited operation."
