The European Union's top diplomat has said that the United States is showing "fatigue" in its Middle East diplomacy and called for greater EU efforts toward a Palestinian state.
On a visit to California, the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell again strongly criticized Israel's war campaign, saying Gazans were "dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions" and that it was a "man-made disaster."
On Israel's 76th Independence Day, victory feels far away for many agonising over the fate of dozens of hostages still held in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
"On one side we're still here, my daughters are still here, my family's still here, and Israel is still here," said Lishay Lavi Miran, from the Nir Oz kibbutz community, less than a kilometre (0.62 miles) from the Gaza border.
Israeli police said they have opened an investigation after right-wing activists stopped and ransacked at least seven Gaza-bound humanitarian aid trucks, in a statement received Tuesday.
In an attack that was condemned by Washington, a crowd including young men and teenagers attacked the convoy from Jordan on Monday near the Tarqumya crossing with the occupied West Bank.
The attackers hurled the food cargo bound for besieged Gaza -- including bags of cereal, rice, flour, packets of biscuits and freeze-dried soup -- to the ground and trampled it.
Israeli troops fought Hamas militants in multiple battles across the Gaza Strip Tuesday that forced new waves of Palestinian mass displacement, on a sombre Independence Day for Israel.
Clashes have rocked the densely crowded far southern city of Rafah but also flared again in northern and central Gaza months after troops and tanks first entered those areas.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel on Tuesday said that while Washington backed military pressure on Hamas, it was not the only way to "fully defeat" the militants.
Beirut repatriated several hundred Syrians on Tuesday in coordination with Damascus as pressure mounts in cash-strapped Lebanon for the hundreds of thousands of refugees to go home.
Vans and small trucks were waiting in the Arsal area near the border early in the morning to ferry home the returnees, an AFP photographer reported.
The vehicles were piled high with mattresses and other belongings and some were even accompanied by livestock.
Israel's military operation in Rafah has set truce negotiations with Hamas "backward", mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks have reached "almost a stalemate".
"Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn't move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate," Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum.
"Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward."
Inside his Abu Dhabi gastro pub, Chad McGehee inspects shiny steel tanks fermenting a special brew: the first beer made in the conservative Arab Gulf, where alcohol has long been taboo.
The 42-year-old American is one of the founders of Craft pub in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the only licensed microbrewery in a region that is generally as dry as its desert climate.
Celebrities who have remained silent on the crisis in Gaza are feeling the wrath of angry fans wielding the "digital guillotine" to block them on social media and streaming platforms.
Taylor Swift, Drake and many more have become targets of the "Block Out 2024" movement, which began on TikTok in response to the perceived disconnect between the glamorous Met Gala and the grim realities of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The United States does not believe that genocide is occurring in Gaza but Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, President Joe Biden's top national security official said Monday.
As ceasefire talks stall and Israel continued striking the southern city of Rafah, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan insisted that the responsibility for peace lay with militant group Hamas.
The Kuwaiti emir's move to dissolve parliament and assume some of its powers has crippled the most active democratic institution in the monarchical Gulf.
Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah's order, effectively halting political life, will be in place "for a period not exceeding four years", official media said on Friday.
The 83-year-old has taken aim at the constant stand-offs between the elected parliament and the royal-appointed government since he came to the throne in December.
- What's behind the emir's order? -
