A senior US military official is joining international efforts in Beirut to implement the recently brokered Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, which came into effect on November 26. Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) Major General Jasper Jeffers arrived on Wednesday, according to the US Central Command (CENTCOM). He will co-chair the oversight mission alongside President Joe Biden’s envoy, Amos Hochstein,…
Russian forces have captured the villages of Makarivka and Hryhorivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday. Makarivka is located to the south of Velyka Novosilka while Hryhorivka, which Moscow calls by its previous name of Leninskoye, is situated to the west of the town of Selydove, captured by Russia last month….
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he has spoken with US President-elect Donald Trump three times in the past few days aimed at tightening the strong alliance between Israel and the United States. “These were good and very important conversations,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We see eye to eye on the Iranian…
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday he was confident in the diplomatic efforts of the new Trump administration to help end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Erdogan spoke while returning from a summit in Budapest a day after Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the US election. “If we see a US…
At least 31 people were killed during Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian medics said, with nearly half of the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says aims to prevent Hamas regrouping. Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic…
Egypt has proposed an initial two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, Egypt’s president said on Sunday as Israeli military strikes killed 45 Palestinians across the enclave. Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the announcement as efforts to defuse the devastating, more than year-long war resumed in Qatar with…
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir welcomed Saturday’s strikes against military targets in Iran, but said a “historic obligation” remained to remove the threat posed by Tehran. In the early hours of Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck several military and missiles manufacturing facilities of across Iran. “The attack on Iran is important as an opening blow…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is coming up with various ways to respond should the United States and its NATO allies allow Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia, according to remarks published on Sunday. “(The Russian defense ministry) is thinking about how to respond to the possible long-range strikes…
Iran’s military said Saturday that only radar systems were damaged in pre-dawn Israeli strikes on Tehran and other provinces and said it was prioritizing a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. “Thanks to the timely performance of the country’s air defenses, the attacks caused limited damage and a few radar systems were damaged,” the armed forces general staff…
Two dozen world leaders are gathering in Russia on Tuesday for the opening of a summit of the BRICS group, an alliance of emerging economies that the Kremlin hopes will challenge Western “hegemony.” The summit is the biggest such meeting in Russia since it ordered troops into Ukraine and comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin…
The United States is “concerned” by reports of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia in Ukraine, a White House spokesperson said on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week accused North Korea of transferring personnel to Russia’s armed forces, saying his intelligence agencies had briefed him on “the actual involvement of North Korea in the war” in…
Forty nations that contribute to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers. “Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India. Other…
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it clashed twice with Israeli troops who attempted to infiltrate near a Lebanese border village on Sunday and claimed several other attacks overnight. Hezbollah fighters detonated explosive devices at Israeli soldiers and “clashed with them as they attempted to infiltrate” twice near the Lebanese village of Ramia, the group said, reporting…
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will this week meet with leaders in Bahrain and Jordan as part of Western diplomatic efforts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East. Lammy will arrive in the region on Wednesday to “reaffirm the importance of working with regional partners to press the case for restraint and will demand Iran…
Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, two sources said. The meeting is one of several attempts in recent days to mend fences with Muslim and…
