Mourners carry the body of the Palestinian Hassan Ahmed Jamil Moussa,19, who, according to health authorities, was killed during an Israeli raid last night, during his funeral in the Askar camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appears on screens as he addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., on September 25, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Palestinians mourn at a hospital after an Israeli strike killed three policemen, according to the Hamas-run interior ministry, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, February 16, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Hamas said an Israeli strike on Sunday (February 16, 2025) killed three police officers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a day after Israel and militants carried out a hostage-prisoner swap.

The Hamas-run interior ministry initially reported that two officers were killed and a third was critically wounded in a strike while they were deployed in the Al-Shouka area, east of Rafah, to secure aid.

The third officer later succumbed to his wounds, the ministry said in an updated statement.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its air force struck “several armed individuals moving toward troops in the southern Gaza Strip”.

A fragile ceasefire that came into effect on January 19 between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has largely brought a pause to more than 15 months of fighting in the coastal Palestinian territory.

Since then, Israel has conducted at least one other air strike in Gaza. On February 2, it said one of its aircraft fired towards a “suspicious vehicle” in central Gaza.

The ceasefire was more recently put to test when Hamas said it would not release Israeli hostages on Saturday (February 16, 2025), accusing Israel of violating terms of the agreement, particularly on the topic of aid entry.

In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Israel would resume “intense fighting” in Gaza unless Hamas returns the hostages by noon on Saturday, February 16, 2025.

Following intense mediation by Qatar and Egypt the latest hostage-prisoner swap was carried out on Saturday, February 16, 2025.

People stand next to the rubble of a school, housing displaced Palestinians, which was destroyed in an Israeli strike in Gaza City on January 13, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 18 people overnight, including six women and four children, health officials said Tuesday, as Israel and Hamas appeared to be narrowing in on a ceasefire deal to end the 15-month war and release dozens of hostages.

Officials have expressed mounting optimism that they can conclude an agreement in the coming days after more than a year of talks that have repeatedly stalled.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels meanwhile fired a missile at central Israel, setting off sirens and sending people fleeing to shelters without causing any casualties. Police said several homes were damaged outside Jerusalem and released a photo of a missile casing that had crashed into a roof.

Two strikes in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah killed two women and their four children, who ranged in age from 1 month to 9 years old. One of the women was pregnant and the baby did not survive, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

Another 12 people were killed in two strikes on the southern city of Khan Younis, according to the European Hospital.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians in shelters and tent camps for the displaced.

Israel and Hamas have come under renewed pressure to halt the conflict in the lead-up to the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, whose Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently joined U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators in the Gulf country’s capital, Doha.

The phased deal would be based on a framework laid out by President Joe Biden in May and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

In the first phase, Hamas would release dozens of the most vulnerable hostages seized in the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners as Israeli forces pull back from population centers. At least some Palestinians would be allowed to return to their homes and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid.

In the second phase, Hamas says it would release the remaining hostages in exchange for a large number of prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until Hamas’ military and governing capabilities have been destroyed and it no longer poses a threat. The gap between the two sides would be negotiated during the first phase.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted another 250. Some 100 hostages are still being held inside Gaza. The Israeli military believes that at least a third and up to half of them are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The offensive has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, with hundreds of thousands packed into tent camps along the coast where hunger is widespread.

The war has rippled across the region, igniting over a year of fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants that ended with a tense ceasefire in November. Israel has also traded direct fire with Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.

The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile launched from Yemen early Tuesday and that “the missile was likely intercepted.” It said an earlier missile fired from Yemen was also intercepted.

The Houthis, who captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north in 2014, have launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Israel and have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis say they are fighting in solidarity with the Palestinians, but the vast majority of the targeted ships have no connection to the conflict.

Israeli forces have launched limited ground incursions in Lebanon, the United States said Monday, as militant group Hezbollah said it targeted “enemy soldiers” at the countries’ border.

A Lebanese security official said Israel had conducted at least six strikes on south Beirut, after Israel’s army ordered residents in the Hezbollah stronghold to evacuate.

Despite international calls for de-escalation, Israel earlier vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah and sealed part of the border after killing the Iran-backed group’s leader.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned the battle was not over even after the massive strike on Beirut that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, dealing the group a seismic blow.

Biden ceasefire call

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists Israeli officials “have informed us that they are currently conducting… limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”.

Hezbollah fighters were “ready if Israel decides to enter by land”, the group’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in a first televised address since Nasrallah’s death.

Lebanon’s national army, dwarfed by Hezbollah’s military power, was “repositioning” troops farther from the border, a military official told AFP.

World leaders have urged de-escalation, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying: “We do not want any sort of ground invasion.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main weapons supplier, earlier on Monday indicated he opposed an Israeli ground operation.

“We should have a ceasefire now,” he said.

Hezbollah ‘targets’ troops

Earlier this month, Israel launched a wave of deadly air strikes aimed at Hezbollah across Lebanon, the latest of which killed 95 people on Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

On Monday evening, the Israeli army called on people in three districts of southern Beirut to evacuate.

“You are located near interests and facilities belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah group,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate the buildings immediately and stay away from them.”

AFP correspondents in the capital heard explosions and saw a flash around ground level.

Hezbollah said in a statement it “targeted” Israeli troops carrying out “movements” in orchards near the Lebanese border, with a source close to the group saying the soldiers were “right on the border”.

Earlier, in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, Gallant said that “we will use all the means that may be required… from the air, from the sea, and on land”.

He said the killing of Nasrallah was “an important step, but it is not the final one”.

Everyone is afraid

Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which triggered Israel’s devastating assault on the Gaza Strip.

The border clashes rapidly escalated this month.

On Monday, the Israeli army declared an area of the border strip a “closed military zone”.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have killed hundreds of people over the past week and forced up to a million to flee their homes, according to Lebanese officials.

Hezbollah and other groups launched rockets, drones and some missiles at Israel over the same period, causing some injuries but no deaths.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups, of plunging “our region deeper… into war”.

“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu warned.

Iran has said Nasrallah’s killing would bring about Israel’s “destruction”, though the foreign ministry said Monday that Tehran would not deploy any fighters to confront Israel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for a ceasefire based on a recent U.S.-French proposal, urging “an end to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon”.

Earlier on Monday, an Israeli strike hit a building in central Beirut, with an armed Palestinian group saying it had killed three of its members.

The strike, the first in the city centre in years, sparked panic.

Central Beirut resident Kahier Bannout, 42, said it was “supposed to be a safe area — not a war zone”.

“Everyone is afraid.”

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said more than 1,000 people have been killed since September 17.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said “well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon”, while more than 100,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.

Little time

France on Monday evening said it was deploying a naval ship to Lebanon as a “precaution” in case it decided to evacuate French citizens.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, the first high-level diplomat to visit Beirut since the Israeli strikes intensified, said “there is still hope” for a ceasefire, “but there is little time”.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said diplomacy was the best path forward for the region.

Washington “will continue to work… to advance a diplomatic resolution” for the Israel-Lebanon border, and for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal, he said.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt tried for months to broker such a deal, which Netanyahu’s domestic critics accused him of obstructing.

In Gaza, AFP journalists said the number of Israeli air strikes has dropped significantly in recent days.

A UN Satellite Centre assessment issued Monday said “two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage” in nearly a year of war.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

A Palestinian man feeds a bird inside a tent at a camp which was recently attacked in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on July 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An Israeli parliament vote to oppose a Palestinian state as an “existential threat”, just days ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, brought Palestinian and international criticism on July 18.

The 120-member Knesset late on Wednesday passed by 68 votes to nine a resolution that said a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel would “perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region”.

The resolution is symbolic but lays down a marker before Mr. Netanyahu’s Washington trip as well as an opinion to be issued by the International Court of Justice over the legality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

“The Knesset firmly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state (on land) west of Jordan,” said the resolution, referring to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the war unleashed by the October 7 Hamas attacks.

“The creation of a Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel would constitute an existential danger for the state of Israel and its citizens, would perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region.”

It predicted that Hamas would take over the state and turn it into “a radical Islamic terrorist base” seeking to destroy Israel.

The resolution said “promoting” a Palestinian state was “a reward for terrorism and would only encourage Hamas and its supporters” after the October 7 attacks.

The Palestinian Authority said there would be “neither peace nor security for anyone without the establishment of a Palestinian state”. It accused Israel’s ruling coalition of “plunging the region into an abyss”.

The French foreign ministry expressed “consternation” at the resolution that it said was “in contradiction with resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council”.

The Knesset voted by an even larger majority in February against countries unilaterally backing a Palestinian state. Spain, Ireland, Norway and Armenia have since said they recognised a Palestinian state.

The latest Knesset resolution was proposed by a right-wing deputy in opposition to Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition of conservative and far-right parties. However, coalition deputies and some centrist lawmakers voted in favour.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan destroys with a machine a piece of paper with the title of the United Nations Charter as he addresses delegates during the United Nations General Assembly before voting on a draft resolution that would recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full U.N. member, in New York City, U.S. May 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan shredded the UN charter at the United Nations General Assembly before it passed a resolution for backing a full membership of Palestine on May 10.

The UNGA backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.” The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council last month.

“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving,’” said U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour. He accused the Assembly of shredding the U.N. Charter – as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.

“Shame on you,” Mr. Erdan said.

“This day will go down in infamy. I want the entire world to remember this moment, this immoral act…today I want to hold up a mirror for you, so you can see what exactly you are inflicting upon the UN Charter with this destructive vote. You are shredding the UN Charter with your own hands,” he said.

He also alleged that the resolution opens up the UN for “modern day Nazis” referring to Hamas.

“Today, you are also about to grant privileges and write to the future terror state of Hamas. You have opened up the United Nations for modern day Nazis, to the Hitler of our times…So here it is. I present to you the future outcome of today’s vote…the soon-to-be President, Yahya Sinwar, President tyrant of the State of Hamas, sponsored by the UN, and he owes his deepest gratitude to you, the General Assembly,” the Israeli envoy added while holding up an image of Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza.

“At the end of my speech, I tore the ‘UN Charter’ to pieces, to illustrate what the assembly is doing in its support for the entry of Palestinian terrorism into the UN,” Mr. Erdan later posted on X.

The ambassador said that, if the measure was approved, he expected the U.S. to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions, in accordance with American law.

PM Narendra Modi has spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia.

After his telephonic conversation with Mr. Sisi, PM Modi said that “we share concerns regarding terrorism, violence and loss of civilian lives”.

In a post on X, PM Modi said on Sunday, “Yesterday, spoke with President @AlsisiOfficial. Exchanged views on the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in West Asia.” “We share concerns regarding terrorism, violence and loss of civilian lives. We agree on the need for early restoration of peace and stability and facilitating humanitarian assistance,” he said.

A statement issued by the Egyptian side said President El-Sisi received a phone call from Prime Minister Modi and the two leaders exchanged views on the latest developments in the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

They also discussed the gravity of the continuation of the current escalation, given its formidable impact on the lives of civilians and the threat it poses to the security of the entire region, the statement said.

Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency, Counselor Ahmed Fahmy, said President El-Sisi confirmed that Egypt is pursuing its endeavours to coordinate regional and international efforts to push towards reaching a ceasefire.

The President warned of the grievous humanitarian and security repercussions of a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, the statement said.

He underscored the critical need for unified international action to find a prompt solution at the diplomatic level, which stipulates reinforcing an immediate humanitarian truce that protects the lives of civilians and allows the instantaneous, sustainable and unfettered delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, in accordance with the resolution of the U.N. General Assembly in this regard, which was adopted on October 27, it said.

President El-Sisi and Prime Minister Modi expressed relief at the outstanding level of the two countries’ bilateral relations and strategic partnership, the statement said.

They stressed their determination to continue to lead the two countries’ institutions to further strengthen joint cooperation between Egypt and India, the statement issued by the Egyptian side said.

Israeli ground forces operated within the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli ground forces operated within the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing, the military said in a statement on what Israel’s Army Radio described as the biggest incursion of the current war.

Video of the overnight action issued by the military showed armoured vehicles proceeding through a sandy border zone. A bulldozer is seen levelling part of a raised bank, tanks fire shells, and explosions are seen near or amid a row of damaged buildings.

The military statement posted online said the incursion was carried out “in preparation for the next stages of combat”, a possible reference to the large-scale invasion that Israeli leaders have threatened as part of the war to destroy Hamas.

Israel-Hamas war, Day 20 LIVE updates

“The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory,” the military statement added.

Israel began localised ground incursions on Sunday as the war, triggered by an October 7 cross-border rampage by Hamas gunmen, entered its third week. Israel’s Army Radio described Thursday’s incursion as the biggest yet.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas in Gaza.

India sent nearly 6.5 tonnes of medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief material for the people of Palestine.
| Photo Credit: X: Arindam Bagchi/@MEAIndia

India on Sunday became the latest country to rush help to the civilian population of Gaza Strip which is facing blockade and Israeli military operation. The relief material will be delivered to El Arish airbase of Egypt which is located close to Gaza border. 

“An IAF C-17 flight carrying nearly 6.5 tonnes of medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief material for the people of Palestine departs for El-Arish airport in Egypt. The material includes essential life-saving medicines, surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarpaulins, sanitary utilities, water purification tablets among other necessary items,” said official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. 

Israel-Hamas war, Day 16 LIVE updates

Ambassador of Palestine Adnan Abu Alhaija has expressed his appreciation to the gesture and said the blockade of the last fortnight had stopped entry of essential items such as oxygen into the Gaza Strip. “People of Palestine will truly appreciate the Indian assistance as they are in need of urgent help after nearly 15 days of Israeli blockade which stopped electricity, food, medicine and oxygen. India is sending us help even without us asking. This is a great initiative,” said Ambassador Al Haija.

Several countries such as Egypt, Turkey and the U.S. have started sending help to Gaza through the border crossing of Gaza, and Indian goods are expected to reach Gaza through the same route. India has reiterated its support for the two-state solution to end the Israel- Palestine conflict since it flared up on October 7.