Singapore has ordered the Israel Embassy to take down an “insensitive and inappropriate” social media post that could undermine security in the city-state, in the latest test of traditionally warm ties between the two nations. In a Facebook post on Sunday, the embassy compared mentions of Israel and a Palestinian state in the Koran, adding … Read more
You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest free, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox every weekday. In a testy exchange earlier this month, a senior U.S. official warned Israeli counterparts of the reputational “damage” as a … Read more
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group. “While there are those in … Read more
TEL AVIV — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli leaders confronted each other on Friday about the future of the war in Gaza, as the top U.S. diplomat urged Israel not to invade a city packed with civilians, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly declared that “we’ll do it by ourselves.” The tense … Read more
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to make a quick stop in Israel on Friday, according to the State Department, as the Biden administration pushes Israeli leaders to take a pinpoint approach to battling Hamas in the packed city of Rafah in southern Gaza to avoid what it warns could be humanitarian catastrophe. Tensions … Read more
JERUSALEM — Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to the hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel can’t achieve its goal of “total victory” against Hamas without … Read more
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Israel this week as part of his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israelis’ war with Hamas began in October, as relations between the two countries have soured dramatically in recent weeks. The visit comes amid a flurry of … Read more
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Explosions and shootings shook the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital and surrounding neighborhoods as Israeli forces stormed through the facility for a second day Tuesday. The military said it had killed 50 Hamas militants in the hospital, but it could not be independently confirmed that the dead were combatants. The raid was … Read more
By Nidal al-Mughrabi CAIRO (Reuters) – Marwan Issa, the elusive Hamas commander said by the U.S. to have been killed by Israel, had survived previous assassination attempts to spend years masterminding incursions into Israel including the Oct. 7 assault that triggered the Gaza war. “Brother Issa is the walking nightmare of the enemy,” one Hamas … Read more
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces launched another raid on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital early Monday, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there and had fired on them from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people have been sheltering. The U.N. food agency, meanwhile, said “famine is imminent” in northern … Read more