US forces carried out fresh strikes on Yemen Tuesday, an American official said, as the Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed a missile attack on a Greek-owned cargo ship in the Red Sea.
A string of Huthi attacks and retaliatory US and British strikes have heightened fears of the Israel-Hamas war flaring across the region and disrupted trade in one of the world's key maritime commercial routes.
Human Rights Watch called on Lebanon Tuesday to release a son of Libya's former dictator Moamer Kadhafi, saying he had been held on "spurious charges" for eight years.
Lebanon in 2015 arrested and accused Hannibal Kadhafi, known for living the high life, of withholding information about the disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric imam Mussa Sadr in 1978.
But HRW said he was only two years old at the time the cleric disappeared, and accused Lebanon of subjecting him to an "apparent arbitrary detention on spurious charges".
Yotam Haim was gunned down in Gaza by Israeli soldiers who failed to realise he had escaped from his Hamas captors -- yet his mother refuses to criticise the army.
Iris Haim, 57, feels the same way now as she did a month ago, when she sent an extraordinary message to the army unit involved in her son's killing.
"I have no anger, I understand the difficult situation you were in, I love and admire you," she wrote just after the killing in a message that went viral after a soldier posted it on social media.
Israel pummelled Gaza on Tuesday but reached a deal with Hamas to deliver medicines to hostages and desperately needed aid to civilians in the war-torn Palestinian territory following Qatari and French mediation.
The war raging since October 7 has devastated the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory, which is suffering a severe humanitarian crisis, and inflamed tensions across the Middle East.
Fears of a regional escalation have spiked, with Iran and its proxies stepping up attacks across the region in solidarity with Hamas.
Israel has said its operations against Hamas in southern Gaza will soon enter a less intensive phase, after the militant group's health ministry reported the death toll in the territory had surpassed 24,000.
More than 100 days into the war, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under intense international pressure to end the fighting as civilian deaths soar and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang told the world's political and business elites in Davos on Tuesday that "discriminatory" trade barriers were a threat to the global economy, but the United States defended its restrictions on microchips as a national security measure.
Li's remarks came as the World Economic Forum's 54th annual conference is preoccupied with a slew of global risks, including wars in Ukraine and Gaza, climate change and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.
Iraq recalled its ambassador from Iran on Tuesday, condemning as a "clear act of aggression" deadly missile strikes by its ally on its autonomous Kurdish region.
Iraq challenged Iran's claim that the strikes targeted Israel's intelligence services in response to recent Israeli assassinations of Iranian and pro-Iranian commanders.
It said it would lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council over the Iranian "attack on its sovereignty".
South Korea launched their campaign for a first Asian Cup since 1960 with a 3-1 win over Bahrain while fellow former champions Iraq beat Indonesia by the same scoreline Monday.
In the last game of the day, Jordan thrashed Malaysia 4-0 with Mahmoud Al-Mardi and Mousa Al-Tamari both scoring twice.
Paris Saint-Germain's Lee Kang-in upstaged Son Heung-min with two goals for Jurgen Klinsmann's South Korea, who are among the favourites for the title in Qatar.
In a makeshift tent of cloth and plastic, Ismail Nabhan huddled by a fire with his children and grandchildren as his family, displaced by the war in Gaza, struggled to stay warm.
"Two days ago there were strong winds, we tried all night to fasten the nylon. We're living in a desert and the sea is in front of us -- the cold has multiplied," said the 60-year-old, who has fled his home in central Gaza.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Monday that his government believed that all planned targets had been destroyed in last week's US-led strikes against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
The British leader also told lawmakers that there were no reports of civilian casualties from the joint strikes, which occurred overnight between Thursday and Friday.
"I can tell the House (of Commons) today that our initial assessment is that all 13 planned targets were destroyed," Sunak said during an address to parliament, describing the strikes as "successful".
