World
Biden to visit Israel as Gaza war sparks humanitarian crisis
U.S. President Joe Biden will make a high-stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday as it prepares to escalate an offensive against Hamas militants that has set off a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and raised fears of a broader conflict with Iran.
Biden’s visit will mark a significant show of U.S. support for its top Middle East ally after Hamas gunmen killed 1,300 people during a rampage through southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7, the deadliest single day in Israel’s 75-year history, Reuters reported.
Israel has responded by tightening its blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, including by restricting the entry of fuel, and bombarding the area with air strikes that have killed thousands of Palestinians and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv early on Tuesday by saying that Biden would visit Israel.
“The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs,” Blinken told reporters.
Biden would meet with Netanyahu, reaffirm Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security, and receive a comprehensive brief on its war aims and strategy, Blinken said.
“(The) president will hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas,” Blinken added.
Blinken also said he and Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He did not provide details.
After visiting Israel, Biden would travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby said.
Gaza authorities say more than 2,800 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, around a quarter of them children, and more than 10,000 wounded are in hospitals desperately short of supplies.
Israeli officials say that in addition to the casualties Hamas inflicted, the Iran-backed group took some 199 hostages into Gaza, Reuters reported.
Khaled Meshaal, a top Hamas leader, said on Monday the group “has what it needs” to free all Palestinians in Israel’s jails, indicating it may try to use the kidnapped Israelis as bargaining chips.
Soon after Meshaal’s remarks, the group’s armed wing separately said the non-Israelis it had taken captive were “guests” who would be released “when circumstances allow”.
Hamas released a video on Monday in which a French-Israeli woman captive was shown having her injured arm treated by an unidentified medical worker. She identified herself as 21-year-old Mia Schem and asked to be returned to her family as quickly as possible.
The Israeli military said it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets overnight, including Hamas’ headquarters and a bank used by the group. It said a Hamas military operative was killed in the strikes.
Biden’s trip is a rare and risky choice, showing American backing for Netanyahu as the U.S. tries to avert a broader regional war involving Iran, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Syria. It comes as Israel is preparing a ground offensive in Gaza expected to intensify the enclave’s humanitarian crisis.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told state TV that Israel would not be allowed to act in Gaza without consequences, warning of “preemptive action” by the “resistance front” in the coming hours.
Iran refers to regional countries and forces opposed to Israel and the United States as a resistance front.
“All options are open and we cannot be indifferent to the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza,” Amirabdollahian said. “The resistance front is capable of waging a long-term war with the enemy.”
Japan, the current president of the Group of 7 developed nations, said it was in the final stages of arranging a call with Iran, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said, as she announced $10 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran was not involved in the Hamas attack on Israel, but hailed what he called Israel’s “irreparable” military and intelligence defeat.
In the biggest sign yet that the war could spread to a new front, Israel ordered the evacuation on Monday of 28 villages in a 2-km-deep zone near the Lebanese border.
Netanyahu said Israelis should prepare for a long battle.
“And I have a message for Iran and Hezbollah, don’t test us in the north. Don’t make the same mistake you once made. Because today the price you will pay will be much heavier,” he told the Israeli parliament on Monday.
Diplomatic efforts have concentrated on getting aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the sole route that is not controlled by Israel. Cairo said the Rafah crossing was not officially closed but was inoperable due to Israeli strikes on the Gaza side.
On the military front, the U.S. has deployed two aircraft carriers and their supporting ships to the eastern Mediterranean since the attacks on Israel. The ships were meant as a deterrent to ensure the conflict did not spread, U.S. officials said.
The top U.S. general overseeing American forces in the Middle East, Central Command chief Army General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, made an unannounced trip to Israel on Tuesday, saying he hoped to ensure its military has what it needs.
As Israel masses troops on Gaza’s border, it has told more than a million people in the northern half of the enclave to flee to the southern half for their safety, even though Hamas has told them to stay put, Reuters reported.
While tens of thousands have fled south, the United Nations says there is no way to move so many people without causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
The United Nations says a million Gazans have already been driven from their homes. Power is out, sanitary water is scarce and fuel for hospital emergency generators is running low.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Netanyahu on Monday that Moscow wanted to help prevent a humanitarian disaster. A Russian-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have called for a humanitarian ceasefire failed to get the minimum nine votes needed in the 15-member body on Monday.
World
Lebanon says Israeli strikes in south of the country kill at least 11
Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that the attacks would be “met with what they deserve”.
At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, some of the deadliest in the weeks since the country agreed to a U.S.-mediated peace framework with neighbouring Israel, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure overnight in what it describes as a security zone in southern Lebanon in response to actions against its soldiers there.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that the attacks would be “met with what they deserve”.
The framework leaves Israeli troops inside occupied southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army takes control, terms the group has rejected as surrender.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said seven people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the southern village of Ansar, while four others were killed in a strike on the village of Deir El Zahrani.
The seven people killed in Ansar included three children and two women, NNA said, adding that a total of 19 people were wounded in the attacks.
At least 4,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest round of hostilities since March 2.
NNA also reported other airstrikes across southern Lebanon, including on a strategic area north of the Litani River known as Ali al-Taher hill. One, targeting a valley next to Ansar, was the deepest strike into Lebanon in two months.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement on X, accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and attacking Israeli soldiers leading to three injuries, read the report.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) responded by striking the Hezbollah terror headquarters which ordered the attack,” the statement said. “Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that military compound.”
The Israeli military said in a statement it killed Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force unit and others when it struck “a central headquarters of the Radwan Force unit,” in Ansar.
“At the time of the strike, Hassan’s family was also present with him inside the military headquarters and, according to the claim, was harmed in the strike,” the statement added, emphasising that the family was not the target of the strike.
“The martyrs of the Israeli raid on the village of Ansar are not ‘military infrastructure’ and the women and children killed in it are not military targets,” Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a post on X.
Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, who is a Hezbollah ally, called in a statement for national unity and for the sponsors of the peace talks and ceasefire agreements to assume responsibility for stopping the war before it was too late.
Israel’s military seized a swathe of southern Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah earlier this year, triggered after the group fired at Israel two days into the Iran war. Israel has said it will keep its forces there to protect the north of the country from further attacks.
During a visit to southern Lebanon on Thursday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from areas under its control until Hezbollah was disarmed. A U.S. State Department official said a permanent Israeli military presence there was not consistent with commitments set out in the deal, Reuters reported.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in a statement on X, said the attacks were a “clear message” aimed at the negotiations and U.S. efforts towards implementing the framework agreement.
Doron Spielman, international spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, told Reuters Saturday’s strikes would “tighten up” negotiations.
“I think it should make the negotiations more serious and more real, because it highlights the whole reason we got into these negotiations in the first place,” he added.
World
At least 38 dead after Indonesia’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake, officials say
At least 38 people died after an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 and dozens of aftershocks struck off eastern Indonesia on Saturday, officials said, as rescue workers rushed to reach areas closest to the epicentre.
Tsunami waves of less than 1 metre (3 feet) were recorded in several areas of the Southeast Asian nation after the early morning tremor. The tsunami warning was lifted about three hours after the quake, Reuters reported.
“As of 15:00 (0800 GMT), the recorded figures are 38 fatalities, two people seriously injured, 11 with minor injuries,” Suharyanto, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB, told a televised press conference. He added that approximately 2,000 people had fled to safer ground.
Earlier, rescuers in the port town of Maumere found 20 dead, six injured and two trapped under the rubble, said Fathur Rahman, head of the city’s rescue agency. Maumere is the main town in Sikka Regency on Flores Island in the east of Indonesia’s vast archipelago.
Suharyanto said residents remain trapped in several buildings in earthquake-affected areas and there are reports of landslides blocking several roads.
TEAMS HAVE YET TO REACH REGION CLOSEST TO EPICENTRE
Teams have yet to reach Nagekeo, the region closest to the epicentre, and communications signals there had been affected, Fathur told Reuters. Attempts to reach Nagekeo by car were blocked by landslides, while another team was attempting to go by ferry, he said.
About 2,000 residents in Nagekeo evacuated, and damage was reported to a number of houses, warehouses and government facilities, the BNPB said. Authorities also reported traffic congestion and power outages affecting parts of the regency, it said.
The governor of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena, told a press conference at least five people died from collapsing rubble as they slept.
Parts of a building collapsed into dust and rubble as people screamed and ran in the street, a video on Facebook, verified by Reuters as being at a port in Maumere, showed.
“The quake was massive, the shock was so strong, we were resting at home with family,” said Nona, a 51-year-old resident of Talibura, a village in East Nusa Tenggara. “There were 13 of us inside the house and we all ran to save ourselves.”
Strong shaking was felt across East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and parts of South Sulawesi, and residents in several areas reported shaking lasting about one minute, the BNPB said in a statement.
“Most of the people felt the shock and scattered out of their homes,” it said.
A hospital in the district of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara Province was moving patients outside, Kompas TV footage showed, and Kompas.com reported at least one landslide.
Indonesian geophysics agency BMKG recorded the first quake at 4.58 a.m. (2158 GMT) at a depth of 15 km (9 miles), followed by several aftershocks.
In 1992 the same area was hit by a magnitude-7.5 quake, causing extensive destruction at that time, the agency said.
Australia’s tsunami warning centre said the undersea earthquake would pose “no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, islands or territories”.
Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet, creating a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
World
Five killed in Michigan shooting; suspect found dead after manhunt
Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.
A man suspected of shooting and killing five people in northern Michigan on Friday was found dead after a manhunt, Michigan State Police said in a statement on social media.
One victim remained hospitalized in critical condition, the police said.
Troopers were dispatched around 11:40 a.m. local time (6:40 p.m. Israel time) to a home in Missaukee County, Michigan, after a report of a shooting. Officers found three people dead and a fourth person wounded, the state police said.
The suspect, identified by police as 39-year-old Chad Hickman, fled the scene before troopers arrived, prompting a manhunt. During the search for the suspect, investigators discovered another deceased victim at a second residence.
Troopers later located Hickman’s vehicle near a wooded area close to Whitlock Lake, where they found Hickman and another person dead, police said.
“This situation is heartbreaking for the community and challenging for the investigators involved,” said Lieutenant Ashley Miller, cited in the police statement.
Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.
-
Latest News3 days agoHesabPay unveils new visa card and digital payment app in Kabul
-
International Sports3 days agoAFC Champions League Elite draw nears as Al-Nassr seeded above Al-Hilal
-
Sport4 days agoAfghanistan to host India for three-match T20I series in Delhi
-
Latest News3 days agoAfghan envoy invites Fazlur Rehman to embassy event marking IEA’s return to power
-
Sport4 days agoAfghanistan face Ireland with series win in sight
-
World4 days agoUS military operations killed 153 civilians in 2025, Pentagon assessment shows
-
Sport4 days agoKabul Premier League: Abasin Defenders thrash Band-e Amir Stars by 163 runs
-
Regional3 days agoIran says no progress on reviving interim peace deal with US
