Region

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Israel launched a large-scale operation Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, where the army said it killed Palestinian fighters, as the nearly 11-month-old war against Gaza showed no signs of abating.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 10 deaths in the West Bank, where violence has surged during the war sparked by Gaza rulers Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.

The war has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry, and caused widespread destruction and displacement.

Early Wednesday, Israel launched coordinated raids across four northern West Bank cities -- Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem.

Columns of armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin.

By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, AFP photographers said, with soldiers firing at the camps from which gunfire and explosions were heard.

The Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed 10 people and wounded 22 others in the raids.

The medical organisation's West Bank chief Younes Al Khatib said ambulances came under Israel fire and "one of our staffers was hit".

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to "follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression", Palestinian official media said.

Mediation efforts seeking an end to the Gaza war continued in Qatar where an Israeli delegation was present Wednesday, said a source close to the negotiations.

Israeli minister declares 'war' 

In the West Bank, a Tulkarem municipality official told AFP the scale of the destruction was "very big".

Israeli forces "attacked the infrastructure, in particular in the city of Tulkarem and the Nur Shams camp" and "destroyed" water and sewage systems, Hakim Abu Safiyeh said.

Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

A spokesman said troops were exchanging fire with militants. The army reported no casualties on its side.

The military carries out daily raids in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, but it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.

Wednesday's operation, according to army spokesman Nadav Shoshani, was not "extremely different" from regular activity.

Since October 7, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures, and Palestinian attacks have killed at least 19 Israelis, officials say.

The UN Human Rights Office said the latest Israeli raids risk "deepening the already catastrophic situation" in the West Bank.

Fleeing Gaza hospital 

Last week, the army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian militant in Lebanon, accusing him of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, early Wednesday denounced an "open war" by Israel.

"With this aggression... the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank," a statement said.

Israel's military later said a strike in the Syria-Lebanon border area killed a "significant" Islamic Jihad operations officer. A Syrian war monitor reported four dead.

Hamas late Tuesday reiterated a call for Palestinians in the West Bank to "rise up" following widely condemned comments by a far-right Israeli minister.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a settler and proponent of West Bank annexation, said he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

In Gaza, Palestinians were on the move following Israeli evacuation orders.

One of the latest targeted the area around Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Deir El Balah, from which "nearly 650 patients have fled", Doctors Without Borders said.

The charity said it "opened a field hospital and started receiving patients amid a severe lack of supplies and resources".

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 40,534 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

PORT SUDAN, Sudan — At least 30 people were killed in northeast Sudan after a dam collapsed due to flooding, the United Nations' humanitarian office has said.

The war-torn country has experienced an intense rainy season since last month, with intermittent torrential flooding mainly in the country's north and east.

"Thirty fatalities have been confirmed" following the Sunday collapse of the Arbaat Dam in Sudan's Red Sea state, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cited a government delegation as saying Monday.

"However, the number of casualties could be much higher," it said, adding that "scores of people are reportedly missing or displaced".

The Arbaat Dam lies about 38 kilometres (24 miles) northwest of Port Sudan, the de facto seat of government after authorities were driven out of the capital Khartoum due to fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

"Up to 50,000 people living in areas to the west of the Dam have been severely affected," OCHA said.

"About 70 villages around Arbaat Dam have reportedly been affected by the flash flooding of which 20 villages have been destroyed," it added.

Sudan's health ministry on Monday said 132 people had died as a result of flooding and heavy rains in 10 states this year, with the heaviest flooding reported in the Northern and River Nile states.

Sudan has been gripped by fighting that broke out in April 2023 between the army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities and violations, including impeding the delivery of much-needed aid in the ravaged country, parts of which have been gripped by famine.

The impoverished country's infrastructure -- already fragile before the war -- has been decimated, with both sides accused of targeting civilian facilities and active fighting preventing repairs and maintenance.

At least 20 people were killed when Sudanese paramilitaries fired artillery at a camp for displaced people in the country's Darfur region, a local committee said.

"The information we have received so far on casualties among residents of Abu Shouk displacement camp is at least 20 killed and 32 wounded," the local resistance committee in El-Fasher said.

El-Fasher has been surrounded by the paramilitary RSF in a bid since May to capture the last major Darfur city out of its control.

The local committee, in a statement posted online late Monday, blamed the deaths on the "deliberate shelling by the (RSF) militias on the camp's market and square".

It did not specify when the attack occurred.

The El-Fasher committee is part of a grassroots network that used to organise pro-democracy protests and have coordinated front-line aid since the war between the army and the RSF began last year.

Intense fighting has pushed the Zamzam camp near El-Fasher into famine, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification review.

Barely any aid has reached Zamzam or the surrounding area, and assistance has only trickled into the entire Darfur region since the army-aligned government reopened the Adre crossing with Chad this month.

The United Nations said Tuesday a total of 38 trucks had crossed, carrying some 1,250 tons of aid targeting 119,000 people across the vast Darfur region, where over five million people are internally displaced.

Zamzam alone, some 400 kilometres away from the border, is home to around half a million people currently under threat of starvation.

The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 and has since killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.

It has precipitated one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with several areas facing famine according to the United Nations.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories  - The Israeli military said it rescued an Israeli hostage in Gaza on Tuesday, more than 10 months after he was seized during the October 7 attacks that sparked a devastating war.

Kaid Farhan Alkadi, a 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin, was abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the military said in a statement.

"Alkadi was rescued... in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip," the statement said, adding that he was in a stable condition and being transferred to a hospital for a medical check-up.

Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "working tirelessly to bring all our hostages back", in a video issued shortly after he spoke with Alkadi.

The United States struck a cautious note of optimism on Monday regarding efforts to clinch a Gaza ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages.

Their fate is central to ongoing truce talks in Cairo, with relatives and supporters piling pressure on the Israeli government in weekly protests demanding their return home.

In Washington, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters "there continues to be progress" and that the talks would continue and involve "working groups" for several days.

A key sticking point in the talks has been Israel's insistence on keeping control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, to stop Hamas from rearming, something the militant group has refused to countenance.

Cairo, which has been mediating the talks alongside Qatar and the United States, insisted on Monday that "it will not accept any Israeli presence" along the corridor, Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera news reported, citing a high-level source.

Humanitarian fears

The more than 10 months of Israeli war against Gaza have so far seen only one truce that lasted for a week starting November 24.

During that period 105 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The United Nations warned of the worsening humanitarian situation in the territory, where the Israeli army ordered a new evacuation and carried out more deadly strikes.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said such orders "severely" hampered its "ability to deliver essential support and services".

In the latest violence, Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 11 Gazans, including three children from the same family, were killed in Israeli strikes on two refugee camps in central Gaza and Khan Yunis in the south.

"We woke up to the sound of the explosion and shrapnel flying at us," said Mohammed Yussef, who witnessed one of the strikes in Al-Maghazi refugee camp.

"We came here and found dead and mutilated children and women. They have nothing to do with the resistance. People are dying in vain and there is no safe area in Gaza. Where do we go?"

TEHRAN — Iran on Monday praised the drone and missile assault by Lebanon's Hezbollah group on Israel, saying its arch-foe had lost the ability to prevent such attacks amid heightened regional tensions.

Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday said the group, which is backed by Tehran, had launched a large-scale attack on Israel, targeting "the Glilot base — the main Israeli military intelligence base".

Israel's military said the installation was not hit.

"The Zionist regime may be able to hide, distort or censor some facts regarding Lebanese Hezbollah operations, but it knows very well that the existing facts will not change," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani posted on X.

"The Israeli terrorist army has lost its effective offensive and deterrent power and now must defend itself against strategic strikes."

Kanani noted that the Hizbollah attack "extended deep into the occupied territories", and said the "strategic balance has undergone fundamental changes" to the detriment of Israel.

He also criticised the United States for its "comprehensive" support for Israel, which had failed to "predict the time and place" of Hezbollah's actions.

Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Sunday compared the attack to the "defeat" of Israeli forces in the 2006 war with Hizbollah.

"Today's defeat of the regime was on a par with the defeat in the 2006 operation, and they cannot hide this defeat," he posted on X.

Israel on Sunday launched air strikes into Lebanon, saying it had destroyed "thousands" of Hezbollah rocket launchers and thwarted a major attack.

In a televised address, Nasrallah said his group had carried out a two-phased attack, first launching "340 Katyusha rockets" at 11 military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights.

Hizbollah fighters have traded near daily cross-border fire with Israel since their Palestinian ally Hamas's October 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.

Fears grew of a wider regional conflagration after the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

Iran and its allies Hamas and Hizbollah have accused Israel of being behind both killings and vowed to seek revenge.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X late Sunday that Tehran's reaction to Haniyeh's death would be "definitive, and will be measured & well calculated".

"We do not fear escalation, yet do not seek it -- unlike Israel," he added.

Israel has not said it was behind Haniyeh's killing, but has confirmed it carried out the strike on Shukr.

Hizbollah said its attack on Sunday was an "initial response" to Shukr's killing, but Nasrallah appeared to suggest in his address that the group's retaliation had concluded.

WASHINGTON — The United States warned Saturday of a potential environmental disaster in the Red Sea after Houthi rebels struck an oil tanker off the Yemeni coast.

The Greek-flagged Sounion was struck on Wednesday off the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, with the Iran-backed Houthis claiming to have hit the vessel with drones and missiles.

On Friday, the UKMTO maritime agency said three fires had been spotted on the ship, while a video released by the Houthis on social media allegedly showed three explosions on the ship.

The 274 metre long vessel had departed from Iraq and was destined for a port near Athens, carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil.

"The Houthis' continued attacks threaten to spill a million barrels of oil into the Red Sea, an amount four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster," US State Department Matthew Miller said on Saturday in a statement.

The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 released 257,000 barrels along the coast of Alaska.

"While the crew has been evacuated, the Houthis appear determined to sink the ship and its cargo into the sea," Miller said.

The Sounian's crew of 23 Filipinos and two Russians were rescued by a ship with the European Union's Aspides mission.

The naval mission also warned the unmanned vessel represented "a navigational and environmental hazard".

The Houthi rebels launched their campaign against international shipping in November, saying it is in support of Gaza amid the Hamas-Israel war.

In March, the Belize-flagged, Lebanese-operated Rubymar became the first ship targeted by the Houthis to sink during the conflict.

The Rubymar sank in the Red Sea with 21,000 metric tonnes of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertiliser on board.

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Tutor also sank in June after being struck by the Houthis.

Multiple sailors have also been killed or wounded in the attacks, which have severely disrupted global shipping.

“Through these attacks, the Houthis have made clear they are willing to destroy the fishing industry and regional ecosystems that Yemenis and other communities in the region rely on for their livelihoods,” Miller said Saturday.

“We call on the Houthis to cease these actions immediately and urge other nations to step forward to help avert this environmental disaster,” he added.

BEIRUT — Israel launched air strikes into Lebanon on Sunday, saying that it had thwarted a large-scale Hizbollah attack, while the Lebanese group said it had carried out its own raids to avenge a top commander's killing.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had destroyed "thousands" of Hizbollah rocket launchers "aimed towards northern Israel and some were aimed towards central Israel", far from the border.

Hizbollah, the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese armed group countered that Israel was making "empty claims" of having thwarted a larger attack, and said its own operation for Sunday "was completed and accomplished".

The group has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces throughout the Gaza war, in a campaign Hezbollah says is in support of Palestinian ally Hamas.

But fears of a wider regional conflagration soared after attacks in late July blamed on Israel killed Iran-aligned militant leaders, including Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr, prompting vows of revenge.

Hizbollah said its fighters "began an air attack with a large number of drones" sent across the border, followed with "more than 320" Katyusha rockets targeting "enemy positions".

The Lebanese movement said its attack was an "initial response" to Shukr's killing, adding that it had "ended with total success", although the extent of the damage on the Israeli side was not immediately clear.

An Israeli military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said the strikes from Hizbollah were “part of a larger attack that was planned and we were able to thwart a big part of it this morning”.

The government declared a 48-hour state of emergency, but 7:00 am (4:00 GMT) flights had resumed at Israel’s main international airport after a brief suspension, the aviation authority said.

In Lebanon, the Beirut airport did not close but some airlines, including Royal Jordanian and Etihad Airways, cancelled flights.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a media briefing that the Israeli strikes were meant “to remove the threats aimed at the citizens of Israel”.

Lebanon’s health ministry reported at least three dead in Israeli strikes in the country’s south. No casualties were immediately reported in Israel.

US support

The United States, Israel’s top arms provider, said it’s military was “postured” to support its ally.

The Israel-Hamas war, triggered by Hamas’ October 7 attack, had already drawn in Iran-backed groups like Hizbollah.

The fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah has killed hundreds, mostly in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands of residents in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet and vowed “to do everything to... return the residents of the north safely to their homes” after more than 10 months of violence.

Attacks — largely in the Israel-Lebanon border area, but also some deeper into Lebanon — since October have killed some 605 people on the Lebanese side, mostly Hizbollah fighters, but including at least 131 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 23 soldiers and 26 civilians, including in the Golan Heights.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant’s office said he had briefed his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on the situation.

Austin “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s defence against any attacks by Iran and its regional partners and proxies,” a Pentagon spokesman said.

Gaza talks

The deaths last month of Shukr in Beirut and — hours later — of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran ratcheted up concerns that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip could spiral into a broader regional conflict.

In recent weeks, US and Arab diplomats have sought to head off a broader response to the killings, as mediators were making their latest push towards a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

A round of talks was due to be held Sunday in Cairo. An official from Netanyahu’s office told AFP that a decision would be taken later in the day about whether or not Israeli spy chiefs would attend.

On the ground in the besieged Palestinian territory, an AFP correspondent reported air strikes and artillery shelling on Gaza City, while witnesses said they saw battles in the area of Deir Al Balah, further south.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,334 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not break down civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Palestinian fighters have also seized 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.