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BEIRUT (AP) — The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces in Gaza this week leaves the Palestinian militant group considering new leadership for the second time in less than three months. Will Hamas now turn away from its hard-line wing or will it double down, and what will it mean for the group's future and for the revival of cease-fire and hostage exchange negotiations between Hamas and Israel? Sinwar replaced Hamas' previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after Haniyeh was killed in July in a blast in Iran that was widely blamed o...
JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reiterated its stance that hostages the militant group took from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The group's staunch position pushed back against a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin a day earlier that his country's military will keep fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearmin...
BEIRUT (AP) — Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander Tuesday as part of a two-day bombing campaign that has left more than 560 people dead and prompted thousands in southern Lebanon to seek refuge from the widening conflict. With the two sides on the brink of all-out war, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel on Tuesday, targeting an explosives factory and sending families into bomb shelters. Families that fled southern Lebanon flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as i...
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — A top Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group is losing faith in the United States' ability to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza ahead of a new round of talks scheduled for this week amid mounting pressure to bring an end to the 10-month-old war with Israel. Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that Hamas will only participate if the talks focus on implementing a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and endorsed internationally. The U.S. referred to it as an Israeli proposal a...
BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah's leader warned Thursday that the conflict with Israel has entered a "new phase," as he addressed mourners at the funeral of a commander from the group who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut. Meanwhile in Tehran, Iran's supreme leader prayed over the body of Hamas' political leader, who was killed in a presumed Israeli assassination. The back-to-back killings have increased fears of an escalation into a wider war, leaving the region waiting to see how Iran and ally Hezbollah will respond. Iran has v...
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon's Hezbollah has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that could help it target more critical positions deeper inside Israel in case of an all-out war, the militant group's leader warned on Wednesday. Hassan Nasrallah's comments came as the monthslong cross-border conflict simmering between Hezbollah and Israel appears to be reaching a boiling point and a day after a top U.S. envoy met Lebanese officials in his latest attempt to ease tensions. "We now have new weapons. But I won't say what they are," he said in a t...
BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas said Tuesday that it gave mediators its reply to the U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, seeking some "amendments" on the deal. It appeared the reply was short of an outright acceptance that the United States has been pushing for but kept negotiations alive over an elusive halt to the eight-month war. The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt — who have been key mediators alongside the United States — confirmed that they had received Hamas' response and said mediators were studying it. "We're in receipt of this re...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that the U.S. military will set up a temporary port off Gaza, senior administration officials said, acting amid an international push to create a sea route for food and other aid as U.N. and U.S. officials warn of famine among Palestinian civilians trapped by the Israel-Hamas war. The announcement signals further deepening U.S. involvement in the war and the escalating tensions and fighting in the region. It also shows the Biden administration resorting to an unusual workaround to g...
BEIRUT (AP) — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told The Associated Press on Wednesday there is no safe haven in besieged Gaza for civilians — not even in U.N. shelters and so-called "safe zones" designated by Israel. Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, said in an interview with the AP that since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, more than 80 U.N. facilities in the Gaza Strip have been hit. During the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 incursion into southern Isr...
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi Christians have struggled since the Nineveh plains, their historic homeland of rolling hills dotted with wheat and barley fields, were wrested back from Islamic State extremists six years ago. Although the threat from IS has receded, some towns are still mostly rubble. There are few inhabited homes or basic services, including water. Many Christians have given up and left for Europe, Australia or the United States. Others are trying to follow. Now the shrinking religious minority that was also violently targeted by a...
