World
At least 30 dead in Gaza school airstrike, Israel says targeted militants
The Hamas-run government media office said 15 children and eight women were among those killed in the strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah. More than 100 people were wounded, the media office and the Gaza health ministry said.

At least 30 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, an attack that Israel said targeted militants who were using the compound, Reuters.
The Hamas-run government media office said 15 children and eight women were among those killed in the strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah. More than 100 people were wounded, the media office and the Gaza health ministry said.
Israel’s military said it had targeted militants operating there and that it had taken steps to reduce the risk to civilians.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, ambulances rushed the wounded in for treatment. Some people arrived on foot, their clothes stained with blood.
Reuters footage showed people returning to the site of the bombing to check on their belongings, and fires burning in the area. Walls were blasted and debris scattered in the schoolyard, where some cars were damaged.
Um Hasan Ali, a displaced woman living at the school, said it had only been a couple of months since she returned to Gaza from Egypt with her daughter who had been taken there for medical treatment. Now her daughter had been wounded in the strike and taken to hospital, she said.
Another woman, Ibtihal Ahmed, told Reuters she was sitting in a neighbour’s tent when she heard heavy bombing.
“I started running, my daughter was one place and I was at another, I saw people running towards the place that was struck. The people sheltering in Khadija school are all wounded people, they are innocent and this should not happen to them,” she said.
Israel says Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields by operating within densely populated areas, humanitarian zones, schools and hospitals, which Hamas denies.
“Hamas terrorists used the (school) compound as a hiding place to direct and plan numerous attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel. In parallel, the terrorists developed and stored large quantities of weapons inside the compound,” the military said in a statement.
CEASEFIRE TALKS
CIA Director William Burns was expected to meet this weekend in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas.
Israeli public broadcaster Kan said Israel’s response to the latest proposal was handed to Washington on Saturday ahead of the expected meeting – the latest effort to reach agreement after months in which Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for the stalemate.
More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.
Israel, which has lost 328 soldiers in Gaza combat, estimates that fighters account for about a third of the Palestinians killed since it launched its military offensive in response to a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel in October.
About 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies.
On Saturday, the military said it had instructed Palestinians to evacuate the southern neighborhoods of Khan Younis, where it was going to “forcefully operate” against militant groups, and move to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, read the report.
Israeli attacks in Khan Younis on Saturday killed 14 people, health officials said. The military said it had killed militants in the area and seized many weapons.
Earlier, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in al-Bureij, in central Gaza, and four others were killed in a strike on a house in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said.
U.N. and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the war and of failing to ensure civilians have safe places to go, which it denies.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, blamed the Israeli attacks on the support of the United States.
Violence in the West Bank had been increasing before the Gaza war began and it has escalated since then, with frequent Israeli raids and Palestinian street attacks.
On Saturday, an Israeli drone killed one person in the West Bank city of Nablus after Palestinian gunmen fired at an Israeli army post and injured a soldier, the military said.
A local milita30 dead in Gaza school airstrikent group claimed the attack and said the person who was killed in the Israeli drone strike was a member, read the report.
World
Small plane crashes into San Diego neighborhood, killing at least 2

At least two people were killed and eight others injured on Thursday when a small plane crashed in a San Diego neighborhood where military families lived, damaging houses and vehicles.
The crash occurred around 3:45 a.m. local time (1045 GMT) in a military housing complex in the Tierrasanta neighborhood, local officials said. The crash site is a little more than 2 miles east of Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, Reuters reported.
It was unclear how many people were onboard the plane when it crashed. Police said they believed no one on the ground was killed but could not immediately confirm that.
“We had a plane that had come through this neighborhood, taking out one home,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said at a news conference in front of a damaged home.
When fire crews arrived on scene, they found one home and multiple vehicles on fire, Eddy said.
The San Diego Police Department reported two people were confirmed dead and eight others were injured, as of 11 a.m. Thursday.
Only one person with minor injuries was transported to a hospital as of Thursday morning, Eddy said.
About 100 people were evacuated from homes in the neighborhood as of late Thursday morning.
The plane was identified as a Cessna 550 by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane, whose route originated in the Midwest, was bound for San Diego, Eddy said.
The tract where the crash occurred is managed by Liberty Military Housing, officials said.
“We are actively working with all military families affected, specifically within this region, because they may be out of their homes for a while,” said Captain Bob Heely, commanding officer of Naval Base San Diego.
Heely said he was working with Liberty Military Housing and the Red Cross to provide temporary housing to the affected families.
“As you can see, the damage behind us is incredibly significant, was life-threatening, and thank God nobody on the ground was killed,” Raul Campillo, a member of the San Diego City Council, said at a news conference near the crash site.
The crash will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
World
Two Israeli embassy staffers killed in Washington shooting, suspect held

Two Israeli embassy staff were killed in a shooting outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night, and a suspect is in custody, officials said.
A man and a woman were shot and killed in the area of 3rd and F streets in Northwest which is near the museum, an FBI field office and the U.S. attorney’s office. They were a young couple about to be engaged to be married, the Israeli ambassador said, Reuters reported.
Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said a single suspect who was seen pacing outside the museum before the event was in custody. The suspect, tentatively identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, chanted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine,” in custody, she said.
The suspect had no previous contact with police, she added.
President Donald Trump condemned the shooting. “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” he said in a message on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also condemned the incident.
Tal Naim Cohen, a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, said two of its staff members were shot “at close range” while attending a Jewish event at the museum.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X:
“We will bring this depraved perpetrator to justice.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said he and his team had been briefed on the shooting.
“While we’re working with (Metropolitan Police Department) to respond and learn more, in the immediate, please pray for the victims and their families,” he wrote on X.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the shooting “a depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.”
“Harming diplomats and the Jewish community is crossing a red line,” Danon said in a post on X. “We are confident that the US authorities will take strong action against those responsible for this criminal act.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro were at the scene of the shooting.
World
Trump calls his own foreign aid cuts at USAID ‘devastating’
Washington was funding 17% of the country’s HIV budget before the cuts. In the months since, testing and monitoring of HIV patients across South Africa has decreased, Reuters has reported.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its aid programs worldwide have been “devastating.”, Reuters reported.
Speaking beside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit, Trump was asked about his cutting most foreign aid by a reporter who said the decision had significant impacts in Africa.
“It’s devastating, and hopefully a lot of people are going to start spending a lot of money,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
“I’ve talked to other nations. We want them to chip in and spend money too, and we’ve spent a lot. And it’s a big – it’s a tremendous problem going on in many countries. A lot of problems going on. The United States always gets the request for money. Nobody else helps.”
The State Department, which manages USAID, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration has repeatedly defended the cuts, saying they were focused on wasted funds. The gutting of the agency, largely overseen by South Africa-born businessman Elon Musk, is the subject of several federal lawsuits, read the report.
The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.
The U.S. spent half a billion dollars on South African aid in 2023, mostly on healthcare, the most recent data shows. Most of that funding has been withdrawn, though it is unclear exactly how much.
The cuts have had an effect on the country’s response to the HIV epidemic. South Africa has the world’s highest burden of HIV, with about 8 million people – one in five adults – living with the virus, Reuters reported.
Washington was funding 17% of the country’s HIV budget before the cuts. In the months since, testing and monitoring of HIV patients across South Africa has decreased, Reuters has reported.
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