More than 50 UK-based broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the Israeli and Egyptian embassies calling for "free and unfettered access" to Gaza for foreign media, British media reported Wednesday.
The letter, from 55 correspondents and presenters from the main broadcasting outlets based in the UK, appealed for better protection for journalists already reporting in the territory.
The mayors of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were set to win new terms as preliminary results from Israel's delayed municipal elections trickled in on Wednesday.
The early results also showed that ultra-Orthodox parties won nearly half the vote in Jerusalem city council contests, primarily due to low turnout among other blocs.
Israel was originally scheduled to hold mayoral and municipal council elections on October 31, but postponed them after the war in Gaza erupted earlier that month.
Thousands of visitors in Israel have been flocking weekly to the site of the Supernova music festival, to pay their respects to the 364 people killed there by Hamas in the October 7 attacks.
Visitors disembark from a constant flow of buses and cars on the edge of fields and forests in the south of Israel, just a few kilometres (miles) away from the Gaza Strip.
Nearly five months ago, some 3,000 festival-goers were at this spot preparing to enjoy a two-day techno party under the desert sky.
Children have died of malnutrition in a Gaza hospital, the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry said Wednesday as its overall toll for Palestinians killed in the almost five-month war neared 30,000.
As mediators insisted a truce deal between Israel and Hamas could be just days away, UN agencies sounded the alarm about the dire humanitarian conditions and warned of a looming famine in Gaza's north.
A coalition of civil society groups on Wednesday accused the Emirati hosts of a World Trade Organization meeting of "heavy-handed restrictions", saying some of its members have been detained at the talks.
Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS), representing more than a dozen civil society groups, said it has complained to the WTO following a series of incidents at the body's 13th ministerial conference in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.
Iran's supreme leader urged voters to come out in droves on Friday and show the foes of the Islamic republic a "strong and fervent" election process for parliament and the key Assembly of Experts.
"The enemies of Iran want to see if the people are present" on polling day for the 290-seat legislature and the 88-member Assembly, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday.
If citizens fail to cast their ballots in large numbers, the 84-year-old supreme leader warned in an address to first-time voters, Iran's enemies "will threaten your security in one way or another".
Operatives from Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are working inside Yemen to support Huthi insurgents' attacks on international shipping, a US official said Tuesday.
Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, told a Senate subcommittee that Iran's clerical state was "equipping and facilitating" the Huthi attacks, which have triggered retaliatory US and British strikes on Yemen.
"Credible public reports suggest a significant number of Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives are supporting Huthi attacks from inside Yemen," Lenderking said.
Famine is "imminent" in northern Gaza, where no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid since January 23, the World Food Programme warned Tuesday, as Israel wages war on Palestinian militant group Hamas.
With a dire humanitarian emergency unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the main UN aid agency there struggling to cope, other bodies have called for help in reaching the thousands of Palestinians in desperate need.
Attempts to organise an Israel-Hamas ceasefire to allow the release of hostages held in Gaza dominated the first day of a state visit to France by Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
Qatar has played a key mediation role since the Gaza war erupted in October and international diplomatic efforts have intensified in recent days to halt hostilities for the Ramadan Muslim holiday.
The emir and President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed during their talks the need to "very quickly" achieve a ceasefire, the French presidential office said.
Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel took a dangerous turn this week with Israeli strikes deep into Lebanese territory, further stoking fears of all-out war between the arch-foes.
Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since war erupted between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group on October 7.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric on both sides, neither seems to want a war that could set the whole region ablaze. AFP looks at the situation on the ground, the risks and possible solutions.
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