The outcome will likely depend in large part on Trump, who is set to discuss Gaza's future on Tuesday in Washington with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel
A group of 50 sick and wounded Palestinian children began crossing to Egypt for treatment through Gaza's Rafah crossing on Saturday, in the first opening of the border since Israel captured it nearly nine months ago. The reopening of the Rafah crossing represents a significant breakthrough that bolsters the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to earlier this month. Israel agreed to reopen the crossing after Hamas released the last living female hostages in Gaza. Egyptian television showed an Palestinian Red Cross ambulance pulling up to the crossing gate, and several children were brought out on stretchers and transferred to ambulances on the Egyptian side.
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah celebrated the arrival of buses carrying dozens of prisoners released as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. Israel said it released a total of 200 prisoners after Hamas freed four young, female Israeli soldiers. The prisoners include 120 who were serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis. Around 70 were released into Egypt. Hamas militants handed over four captive female Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross in Gaza City on Saturday after parading them in front of a crowd. Israel followed with the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners or detainees as part of the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The four Israeli soldiers smiled broadly as they waved and gave the thumbs-up from a stage in Gaza City's Palestine Square, militants on either side of them and a crowd of thousands watching before they were led off to waiting Red Cross vehicles. They were likely acting under duress, with previously
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Thursday that Beijing welcomes the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal and hopes it can be "effectively implemented so a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza can be achieved". China will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza and make "positive efforts" for post-war reconstruction, he added. "We also sincerely hope that the relevant parties will take the Gaza ceasefire as an opportunity to promote the easing of local tensions. China is willing to work with the international community to make unremitting efforts to promote peace and stability in the Middle East," Guo said.
During months of on-off talks to achieve a truce in the devastating 15-month-old war both sides have previously said they were close to a ceasefire only to hit last-minute obstacles
An Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 19, Palestinian medical officials said Wednesday. Kamal Adwan Hospital said it received the bodies after the overnight strike in the town of Beit Lahiya. Hospital records show that a family of eight were among those killed, including four children, their parents and two grandparents. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has waged a renewed offensive against Hamas militants in northern Gaza since early October. Another strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, according to al-Awda Hospital. Records show the dead included two children, their parents and three relatives. The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people, including children and older adults. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third o
Palestinian medical officials said Monday that Israeli strikes in the central Gaza Strip overnight killed at least six people, including one woman. The strikes came as ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad fled to Moscow on Sunday and received asylum from his longtime ally, according to Russian media, hours after rebels seized control of Damascus. The UN Security Council plans to hold emergency closed consultations on Syria later Monday at Russia's request. Among the dead in the overnight Israeli strikes were Raed Ghabaien, who was released from Israeli detention in 2014, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. He was killed along with his wife when an Israeli strike hit their tent in the central town of Zuweida, the hospital records showed. Two other people were killed in a strike that hit their house late Sunday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp. Another two were killed in a strike in the Wadi Gaza area early Monday. An Associated Press journa
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees say it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into Gaza because the route on the Gaza side has become too dangerous. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza, said Sunday said the route is vulnerable to looting. Armed men robbed a large convoy last month, and he said armed gangs stole another shipment on Saturday.
Palestinian officials say an Israeli drone strike on a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated for polio wounded six people, including four children. The Israeli military denied responsibility. The alleged strike occurred Saturday in northern Gaza, which has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands. It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials. Dr. Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation left the facility. The World He
Companies in Singapore, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Germany reported the biggest falls in vacancies, with firms citing low business confidence as a key factor
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip early Monday killed at least four people and sent flames sweeping through a packed tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics. The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding out among civilians, without providing evidence. In recent months it has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded people from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter nearby that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents. Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was give
Israeli strikes killed at least 51 people in southern Gaza overnight, including women and children, as the military launched ground operations in the hard-hit city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical officials said Wednesday. Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas' October 7 attack ignited the war there, and even as attention has shifted to Lebanon and Iran. Israel has launched ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Tehran fired ballistic missiles on Israel late Tuesday. Separately, Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the Lebanese border town of Odaisseh, forcing them to retreat. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or independent confirmation of the fighting, which would mark the first ground combat since Israeli troops crossed the border this week. Israeli media reported infantry and tank units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of ..
Israeli fire killed 22 people in a strike on a school in the north of the enclave, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday. The strike on the school in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City injured another 30, the statement said. Earlier Saturday, the Israeli army said it struck a Hamas command and control centre, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as a school.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. Thursday's announcement comes during new efforts to broker a cease-fire to the conflict, now in its 11th month. The count does not distinguish between civilians and militants. It reflects the magnitude of Israel's offensive in Gaza, one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. The war began October 7 after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and dragging roughly 250 hostages to Gaza. International mediators were set to hold a new round of talks Thursday aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and securing the release of scores of hostages, with a potential deal seen as the best hope of heading off an even larger regional conflict. The United States, Qatar and Egypt were to meet with an Israeli delegation in Qatar as the Palestinian death toll from the 10-month-old war nears 40,000, according to local health authorities. Hama
Protesters against the Gaza war staged a sit-in at a congressional office building Tuesday ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress, with Capitol Police making multiple arrests. Netanyahu arrived in Washington Monday for a several-day visit that includes meetings with President Joe Biden and a Wednesday speech before a joint session of Congress. Dozens of protesters rallied outside his hotel Monday evening, and on Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of demonstrators took over the rotunda of the Cannon Building, which houses offices of House of Representatives members. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, protesters wearing identical red T-shirts that read Not In Our Name took over the Rotunda of the Cannon Building, chanting Let Gaza Live! After about a half-hour of clapping and chanting, officers from the U.S. Capitol Police issued several warnings, then began arresting protesters binding their hands with zip ties and leading them away one by one. I am the
The Israeli government has budgeted millions of dollars to protect small, unauthorized Jewish farms in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, underwriting tiny outposts meant to grow into full-fledged settlements, according to an anti-settlement monitoring group. Documents uncovered by Peace Now illustrate how Israel's pro-settler government has quietly poured money into the unauthorized outposts, which are separate from its more than 100 officially recognized settlements. Some of those outposts have been linked to settler violence against Palestinians and are sanctioned by the US. Palestinians and the international community say all settlements are illegal or illegitimate and undermine hopes for a two-state solution. The Ministry of Settlements and National Mission, which is headed by a far-right settler leader, confirmed it budgeted 75 million Shekels (USD 20.5 million) last year for security equipment for young settlements the term it uses for unauthorized Jewish farms and outposts in
The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of part of an area in the Gaza Strip it has designated a humanitarian zone. The military said it is planning to begin an operation against Hamas militants who have embedded themselves in the area and used it to launch rockets toward Israel. The area includes the eastern part of the Muwasi humanitarian zone, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israeli's punishing air and ground campaign. Earlier this month, Israel said it estimates at least 1.8 million Palestinians are now in the humanitarian zone it declared covering a stretch of about 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) along the Mediterranean. Much of that area is now blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, U.N. and humanitarian groups say. Families live in the midst of mountains of trash and streams contaminated by sewage. The announcemen
At least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight into Saturday, according to Palestinians health officials, as cease-fire talks in Cairo appear to make progress. Among the dead in Nuseirat Refugee Camp and Bureij Refugee Camp were three children and one woman, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital. The 13 corpses were counted by AP journalists at the hospital. The latest casualties follow a rare moment of hope in war ravaged Gaza, after a medical teams recovered a live baby from a heavily pregnant Palestinian mother killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat late Thursday evening. Heavily pregnant Ola al-Kurd, 25, was killed along with six others in the blast, but was quickly rushed by emergency workers to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of saving the unborn child. Hours later, doctors told The Associated Press that a baby boy had .
The US, United Nations and Arab states have urged Israel to reopen it to enable more supplies of food, fuel and medicine to get to Palestinian civilians in Gaza
Netanyahu's visit to Rafah was announced hours after Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site