KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, advancing in tanks and other armored vehicles on the territory’s main city and freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants. The Israeli prime minister rejected calls for a cease-fire as airstrikes landed near hospitals where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering beside the wounded. The military said a soldier captured during Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 incursion was rescued in Gaza -- the first rescu

World News Oct. 31, 2023

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip -- Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza on Sunday in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products. The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

World News Oct. 30, 2023

Israeli troops and tanks launched a brief ground raid into northern Gaza overnight into Thursday, the military said, striking several militant targets in order to “prepare the battlefield" ahead of a widely expected ground invasion after more than two weeks of devastating air raids. The raid came after the UN warned it is on the verge of running out of fuel in the Gaza Strip, forcing it to sharply curtail relief efforts in the territory, which has also been under a complete siege sinc

World News Oct. 26, 2023

Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza early Monday, including in areas where Palestinian civilians have been told to seek refuge, after another small aid shipment was allowed into the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Israel is widely expected to launch a ground offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, and Israel says it has stepped up airstrikes in order to reduce the risk to troo

World News Oct. 23, 2023

A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants. At least 500 people were killed, the ministry said. As rage spread through the region because of the hospital carnage, and with US President Joe Biden heading to the Mideast in hopes of stopping the war fr

World News Oct. 18, 2023

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised greater access to China’s market for international firms and new financing exceeding $100 billion for other developing economies as he opened a forum Wednesday on his signature Belt and Road infrastructure policy. The initiative has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened China’s relations with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast. But the massive loans that funded the projects have burdened poorer co

World News Oct. 18, 2023

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Desperate Palestinians scrambled for escape from northern Gaza on Saturday or huddled by the thousands at a hospital in the target zone in hopes it would be spared, as Israel intensified warnings of an imminent offensive by air, ground and sea following Hamas militants’ deadly rampage in Israel a week ago. While workers at an Israeli military base continued efforts through the Jewish Sabbath to identify the more than 1,300 people killed in the Oct. 7 assau

World News Oct. 15, 2023

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre Museum in Paris and Versailles Palace evacuated visitors and staff Saturday after receiving bomb threats, police said. The French government started deploying 7,000 troops to increase security around the country after a fatal school stabbing by a suspected Islamic extremist. The evacuations of two of the world's most-visited tourist sites come amid heightened vigilance around France following Friday's school attack, and global tensions linked to the war be

World News Oct. 15, 2023

KHIAM, Lebanon — A Reuters videographer killed in Israeli shelling of southern Lebanon was laid to rest in his hometown Saturday in a funeral procession attended by hundreds of people. Draped in a Lebanese flag, Issam Abdallah’s body was carried on a stretcher through the streets of the southern town of Khiam, from his family’s home to the local cemetery. Dozens of journalists and Lebanese lawmakers attended the funeral. Abdallah was killed Friday evening near the village of

World News Oct. 15, 2023

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Joe Biden on Saturday spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the leaders to allow humanitarian aid to the region and affirmed his support for efforts to protect civilians. The weekend calls in Washington came ahead of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's announcement that the US was moving up a second carrier strike group in support of Israel. Secretary of State Antony Blinken intensified diplom

World News Oct. 15, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined with a top political rival Wednesday to create a wartime Cabinet to oversee the fight to avenge the gruesome weekend attack by Hamas militants. In the sealed-off Gaza Strip, Palestinian suffering mounted as Israeli bombardment demolished neighborhoods and the only power plant ran out of fuel. Netanyahu vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” he said in a televised address. T

World News Oct. 12, 2023

Palestinians in the sealed-off Gaza Strip scrambled to find safety Wednesday, as Israeli strikes demolished entire neighborhoods, hospitals ran low on supplies, and a power blackout was expected within hours, further deepening the misery of a war sparked by a deadly mass incursion of Hamas militants . Airstrikes smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath mounds of debris. The bombardment raged on even though militants are holding a

World News Oct. 11, 2023

JERUSALEM — Israel increased airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and sealed it off from food, fuel and other supplies Monday in retaliation for a bloody incursion by Hamas militants, as the war's death toll rose to nearly 1,600 on both sides. Hamas also escalated the conflict, pledging to kill captured Israelis if attacks targeted civilians without warnings. In the war's third day, Israel was still finding bodies from Hamas' stunning weekend attack into southern Israeli towns. Resc

Foreign Affairs Oct. 10, 2023

You could say Joe Cristalli tweeted his role as an executive producer and co-showrunner on the new “ Frasier ” sitcom into existence. About 10 years ago as a fledgling TV writer and “Frasier” super fan, Cristalli started a Twitter account with “random jokes" about the show and character made famous by Kelsey Grammer in the sitcoms “Cheers” and “Frasier.” “It was stupid and nobody cared about it. I think I had maybe 3,000 followers

Television Oct. 10, 2023

ISLAMABAD — Death toll from strong earthquakes that shook western Afghanistan rises to 2,000, said a Taliban spokesman Sunday, in one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in two decades. A powerful magnitude-6.3 earthquake followed by strong aftershocks killed dozens of people in western Afghanistan on Saturday, the country's national disaster authority said. Abdul Wahid Rayan, spokesman of the Ministry of Information and Culture, said the death toll from the earthquak

World News Oct. 8, 2023