GAZA CITY (Reuters) -Two women were killed and several people were injured following a strike which hit the Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, doctors at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City said on Thursday.
The strike damaged the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic Church inside the Palestinian enclave.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli Defense Forces said it was looking into the matter.
A French appeals court Thursday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, imprisoned for 40 years for the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats.
Abdallah, 74, is one of the longest-serving prisoners in France, where most convicts on life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.
He has been up for release for 25 years, but the United States -- a civil party to the case -- has consistently opposed him leaving prison.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -A massive fire in a hypermarket in al-Kut city in eastern Iraq has left at least 60 people dead and 11 others missing, the city's health authorities and two police sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames engulfing a five-storey building in al-Kut overnight as firefighters tried to contain the blaze.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos.
From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring.
So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes.
"There is no life without water, of course", he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages.
Filipino seafarer Cocoy was off-duty and resting in his cabin when the captain's voice boomed over the intercom of the cargo ship: "We are under attack".
The 38-year-old realised what sounded like a "knock" from inside the vessel was gunfire being exchanged by ship security and Huthi rebels swarming the ship in small boats.
The July 6 assault on the Greek-owned Magic Seas broke a months-long lull in attacks by Yemen's Huthi rebels on Red Sea shipping, which began after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
PARIS (Reuters) -A French court on Thursday ruled for the release from prison of Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, after serving almost 40 years in prison for attacks on American and Israeli diplomats in France, BFM TV reported.
The former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade (LARB) was sentenced to life in 1987 for his role in the 1982 murders in Paris of U.S. military attache Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov, and the attempted murder of U.S. Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
A fire tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families buried their loved ones.
Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator.
The blaze -- the latest in a country where safety regulations are frequently neglected -- broke out late on Wednesday and lasted into the early morning.
Syrian troops on Thursday pulled out of the Druze heartland of Sweida on the orders of the Islamist-led government, following days of deadly clashes that killed nearly 600 people, according to a war monitor.
The southern province has been gripped by deadly sectarian bloodshed since Sunday, with hundreds reportedly killed in clashes pitting Druze fighters against Sunni Bedouin tribes and the army and its allies.
The city of Sweida was desolate on Thursday, AFP correspondents on the ground reported, with shops looted, homes burnt and bodies in the streets.
DAMASCUS/CAIRO (Reuters) -Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Thursday that protecting Druze citizens and their rights is "our priority", as Israel vowed to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria.
In his first televised statement after powerful Israeli air strikes on Damascus on Wednesday, Sharaa addressed Druze citizens saying "we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party".
CAIRO (Reuters) -Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Thursday that protecting the Druze citizens and their rights is "our priority", as Israel vowed to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria.
In his first televised statement after the powerful Israeli airstrikes on Damascus on Wednesday, Sharaa addressed Druze citizens saying "we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party".
