Israel

26 February 2024; MEMO: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that he will oppose any agreement that leads to freeing all Israeli captives held by Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza in exchange for ending the ongoing Israeli war against Palestinians in the besieged territory.

JERUSALEM, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel's complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.

As Israeli planes resumed bombing Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the Israeli leader's refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza "means there is no chance for the return of the (Israeli) captives."

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran said Saturday it had conducted a successful satellite launch into its highest orbit yet, the latest for a program the West fears improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles.

The announcement comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and just days after Iran and Pakistan engaged in tit-for-tat airstrikes in each others’ countries.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Relatives of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza protested Saturday outside the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing frustration over his government’s seeming lack of progress in getting the more than 100 captives released as the war in Gaza drags on.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Rifts are emerging among top Israeli officials over the handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza. A member of the country’s War Cabinet cast doubt over the strategy for releasing hostages, while the prime minister rejected the United States’ calls to scale back its offensive.

KIBBUTZ NIR OZ, Israel (AP) — Standing in the ruins of her home in the Nir Oz farming village on the Gaza border, Sharon Alony Cunio gazed at the distant skyline of Khan Younis, the Palestinian city where Hamas militants dragged her more than three months ago. Her husband, David, remains captive in Gaza.

He’s kilometers away but completely out of reach.

JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli woman was killed and at least 17 others injured in car-ramming and stabbing incidents in central Israel on Monday that the police said was "a serious terror attack."

Commander of the Central District of the Israeli Police Avi Bitton said that two Palestinian suspects had been arrested after the attack at the scene and were under investigation. He identified them as cousins from the Hebron area in the occupied West Bank.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Missile fire struck a ship Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, officials said.

Details remained scarce on the missile strike, though it marked the latest attack roiling global shipping amid Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Suspicion immediately fell on the Houthis.

JERUSALEM, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A guided missile launched from Lebanon killed a 76-year-old woman and her son in a village in northern Israel on Sunday, medical officials said, hours after the Israeli military said it killed four heavily armed militants trying to enter from Lebanon.

Fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement has surged in parallel with Israel's more than three-month-old Gaza war against Palestinian Hamas, another ally of Tehran.

TEL AVIV (AP) — The families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip kicked off a 24-hour rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night, calling on the government to bring their loved ones home after 100 days spent in Hamas captivity.

Thousands of people poured into “Hostages Ssquare” in Tel Aviv — a central plaza opposite Israel’s Defense Ministry that has served as a gathering point for the campaigners.

Hamas and other Gaza militants captured some 250 people during its deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, while killing some 1,200 other people, most of them civilians.