Middle East

Tens of thousands of people on Saturday held protests across the occupied Palestinian territories, demanding the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and calling for early elections.

Iraqi social media star Ghufran Sawadi, better known as Umm Fahad, was shot dead outside her home in the capital Baghdad, a police source told CNN.

The UN human rights office has voiced concern about the detention of hundreds of students during demonstrations in support of Palestine at several US universities.

The Israeli army has destroyed 70% of water wells in the northern Gaza Strip amid its ongoing onslaught against the besieged enclave.

Israel will not carry out further probes into mass graves found at Gaza hospitals, as it has already investigated the matter and found no wrongdoing by its troops, Spokesman for the Israeli army Nadav Shoshani has told Politico. Hundreds of Palestinians' bodies have been discovered from the graves.

The Yemen-based Houthi group announced on Saturday that they had launched missile attacks, hitting a British oil tanker in the Red Sea and shooting down a U.S. drone in northern Yemen.

Aid groups working in the Gaza Strip were hit by Israeli strikes even after coordinating with the Israeli army, an investigation by the New York Times (NYT) has revealed.

Palestinian group Hamas has announced it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on the Gaza Strip, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.

The vast amount of rubble including unexploded ordnance left by Israel's devastating war in the besieged Gaza Strip could take about 14 years to remove, a United Nations official has stated.

ABC News reported that the United States decided that three Israeli army units accused of committing "gross human rights violations" in the West Bank prior to 7 October will remain eligible for US military aid "because of steps Israel says is taking to address the problem".

An increasing number of Americans have little to no trust in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of world affairs, a new poll revealed.

Iranian Defense Minister General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani had blamed the catastrophic situation in West Asia and the rising tensions there on the destabilizing moves of the US and its support for the Zionist regime. 

As universities across the US continue to see pro-Palestinian protests, data show that only about 7% of younger Americans strongly favor the US providing military aid to Israel in its war against Hamas, while 29% strongly oppose it.

Palestinians have uncovered nearly 400 bodies in three mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the civil defense agency announced on Thursday.

Haaretz newspaper reports that the Israeli government has admitted defeat in its efforts to keep international funding away from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

An independent American task force has informed the administration of President Joe Biden there is “compelling and credible evidence” that Israel’s use of American weapons violates a US national security memorandum demanding US arms be used in accordance with humanitarian law.

A total of 51% of Americans disapprove of the decision by the US House of Representatives to support President Joe Biden's $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, while only 39% think otherwise, the Daily Express US has reported, citing a poll conducted by the Washington-based Democracy Institute.

The executive director of Amnesty International in the US has stated their research reveals that Israeli soldiers are committing war crimes against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip "using US-made munitions".

The majority of those displaced in the Gaza Strip– about 1.7 million people – have been forced to flee “multiple times”, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has reported.

The Lebanese group Hezbollah says it has launched drone attacks on Israeli bases north of the city of Acre in retaliation for the killing of one of its fighters, marking the deepest attack into Israeli-occupied territories since the Gaza war began.

North Korean officials are making a rare visit to Iran, the state-run KCNA news agency has reported. The last time officials from Pyongyang made a publicly announced trip to Tehran was in 2019.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned half of Gaza’s population – estimated to be some 2.3 million people – are starving as Israel keeps pounding the encircled enclave.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has drawn attention to the “recent escalation of violence in multiple areas” of the occupied West Bank, with hundreds of Palestinians having been killed.

United Nations leaders have demanded a “clear, transparent and credible” investigation after mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of men and women were discovered on the grounds of two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip that were previously under assault by the Israeli military.

Abu Obaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ military wing Al Qassam Brigades, has urged continued attacks on the Zionist regime in his first video message in nearly 2 months, marking 200 days of the Israel war on Gaza.