Israel Hamas conflict

Abbas Nilforoushan, a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force foreign operations arm, was killed on September 27 alongside Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Lebanon's Hezbollah, in an Israeli strike on south Beirut.

Israel conducted strikes on Wednesday targeting Hezbollah's main bastion and a city in southern Lebanon where it holds sway, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire.

The premier's pledge on Monday came a day after a drone attack by the Iran-backed Lebanese group on an Israeli base killed four soldiers, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were wounded.

Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israeli forces had asked UNIFIL several times to leave, saying that the peacekeepers' presence had "the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields".

Israel expanded its military operations in Lebanon last month after Hezbollah opened a front in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, following the deadliest attack in its history on October 7, 2023.

Greg Abbott has asked Texans to honor the seven Americans still held in captivity.

With troops fighting what Israel says is a war for its very existence, people gathered at vigils at massacre sites and rallies calling for the return of hostages still in Gaza a year on from their abduction.

The hostages all had ties to Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community many Argentinian Jews called home, among them, a one-year-old boy who spent his first birthday in captivity.

The strike, which Israel has not commented on, comes after 310,000 people, mostly Syrians, have in recent days fled the war pitting Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon for relative safety in neighbouring Syria.

UK armed forces "played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation" after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, the British government said Wednesday.

Data showed that there were about 80 flights, which were diverted from their original destinations due to the missile attack on Israel.

Turkey's Sunni President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been unsparing in denouncing Israel since the start of its devastating assault on Gaza last year following a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Since Hamas's deadly attack inside Israel nearly a year ago, UN-linked courts, councils, agencies and staff have unleashed a barrage of condemnation and criticism of Israel's devastating retaliatory operation in Gaza.

Maintaining peace and international security is one of the UN's central missions, but its record has been badly tarnished as bloodshed intensifies in conflicts across the world, including in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan.

After nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, exchanges over the weekend reached their most intense since the outbreak of war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip last October 7.

Ehud Yaari stated that Israel has an opportunity to devastate Hezbollah due to the organization's weakened state following a deadly pager attack on Tuesday

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded around 2,800 others.

Footage from Lebanese hospitals show the grisly chaos following simultaneous explosions of Hezbollah pagers across Beirut on Tuesday.

The announcement came with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken due back in the region this week to try to revive stalled ceasefire talks for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The strike on Wednesday flattened part of the UN-run facility where Gazans had sought shelter, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.

US President Joe Biden said he thought the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was an "accident", but both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin called it "unprovoked and unjustified".

Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an Israeli strike on a humanitarian zone in the south of the Palestinian territory killed 40 people and wounded 60 others, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.

The blame trading comes as Netanyahu faces pressure to seal a deal that would free remaining hostages, after Israeli authorities announced on Sunday the deaths of six whose bodies were recovered from a Gaza tunnel.

The call by Israel's largest union to paralyze the economy follows a night of massive demonstrations, with tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets in an outpouring of grief and fury over six hostages killed in the Gaza Strip.

Politicians expressed collective outrage over the deaths of the six hostages of Hamas, after they were discovered by Israeli forces.

Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas has come under increasing scrutiny as the civilian death toll rises, but international powers including the United States have failed so far to help negotiate a ceasefire.

The operation was launched as violence raged on in the other main Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by war since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks.

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza conflict sparked by Islamist group Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

The Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, has drawn in Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East, repeatedly heightening fears of a broader regional conflagration.

Unrelenting air strikes by Israel more than 10 months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions of aid entering the besieged territory and hot summer temperatures all threaten the viability of a life-saving inoculation drive.