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Netanyahu vows 'complete victory' as more bombs hit Gaza

Israel kept up its bombing of Gaza on Saturday as its war on Hamas approached its fourth month, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to achieve "complete victory" over the Palestinian militants.

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

Victims of the bombardment were brought to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.

A relative  at the European hospital in Khan Yunis mourns over the body of a 12-year-old boy killed along with his immediate family during Israeli bombardment

Israel hostage relatives relive trauma at site of rave attack

Yarden Gonen admits she still finds the absence of her sister Romi "unbearable", three months after the 23-year-old was taken hostage during an attack by Hamas at a music festival in southern Israel.

On Friday, Yarden came to Reim, an open-air site in the Negev desert that hosted the Tribe of Nova festival on October 7, along with other families desperate for a resolution to the hostage crisis.

She said she had "mixed feelings" to be at the site of her sister's disappearance, but that quickly gave way to devastation when trance music began playing in tribute to the victims.

A memorial has been set up at the open-air site that hosted the Tribe of Nova festival in the Negev Desert for 364 people killed on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel

Blinken says he wants to avoid escalation on Middle East tour

Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken said Saturday that he wants to make sure the conflict in the Middle East "doesn't spread", as he held meetings in Turkey and Greece.

Blinken, on a new tour of the Middle East, met Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Crete on Saturday, a few hours after a long meeting in Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon, and we want to do everything possible to make sure we see no escalation," he told journalists in Crete after the meeting.

Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, left, greeted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken upon his arrival in Crete

Gaza has 'simply become uninhabitable': UN humanitarian chief

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths on Friday said Gaza had become "uninhabitable" after relentless bombing by Israeli forces in retaliation for the Hamas militant group's attack in October.

"Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair," Griffiths said in a statement.

"Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence -- while the world watches on.

"The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than two million people."

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths says it's "long past time" for the conflict in Gaza to end

Huthis hold mass rally for Gaza in Yemen capital

Thousands rallied in support of Gaza in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa on Friday, chanting anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans.

The Huthis have launched more than 20 attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea in recent weeks, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the face of Israel's war on Hamas.

Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, the Iran-backed rebels have organised weekly protests in Sanaa but Friday's demonstration was the "largest" so far, spokesman Mohammad Abdel Salam said.

Demonstrators hold placards and wave a giant Palestinian flag during a march in solidarity with the people of Gaza in the Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa on January 5, 2024

Fear of Hezbollah haunts displaced Israelis along Lebanon border

Chen Amit refuses to return to his abandoned kibbutz near Israel's tense northern border with Lebanon, for fear that Hezbollah militants will breach the frontier and take hostages.

Violence has surged in the north nearly three months since war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7, with the Israeli army regularly exchanging cross-border fire with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed, Lebanese ally of the Palestinian militant group.

Kibbutz Dafna has lain almost empty since it was evacuated in October

Hezbollah chief warns response to Aruri killing 'inevitable'

The head of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group warned Israel Friday that it will respond swiftly "on the battlefield" to the killing of Hamas's deputy leader in its south Beirut stronghold.

"The response is inevitably coming. We cannot remain silent on a violation of this magnitude because it means the whole of Lebanon would be exposed," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

"The decision is now in the hands of the battlefield," he said in his second speech since the killing of Saleh al-Aruri on Tuesday.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said a response to the killing blamed on Israel of Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri in the group's Beirut southern suburb stronghold is "inevitable"

Maersk says to avoid Red Sea for foreseeable future

Shipping giant Maersk said Friday that it would divert all vessels around Africa instead of using the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the "foreseeable future" after Yemeni rebels attacked its merchant ships.

The Danish company cited the highly volatile situation and noted that the security risk remains high.

"We have therefore decided that all Maersk vessels due to transit the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden will be diverted south around the Cape of Good Hope for the foreseeable future," it said in a statement.

Maersk ships have been attacked in the Red Sea

Iran lays to rest victims of IS twin bombings

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi joined mourners in the southern city of Kerman on Friday for the funerals of 89 people killed in twin blasts claimed by the Islamic State group, state media reported.

Suicide bombers struck crowds gathered near the tomb of storied Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani to mark the fourth anniversary of his killing in Baghdad in a targeted US drone strike.

The attack killed 89 people, who included many women and children as well as at least a dozen Afghans, state television said.

Mourners gather outside a Tehran mosque for the funeral of 89 people killed in twin blasts in the southern city of Kerman claimed by the jihadist Islamic State group

India navy rescues Arabian Sea crew after hijack attempt

India's navy said Friday it had rescued 21 crew members from a vessel in the Arabian Sea after a hijacking distress call, the latest attack on commercial shipping in the region.

Last month the force deployed several warships into the sea to "maintain a deterrent presence" after a string of recent shipping attacks, including a drone strike near India's coast which the United States has blamed on Iran.

Indian warship INS Chennai seen in March 2022 off the coast of Goa