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Israeli hostage families divided on how to secure release

The families of hostages grabbed by Hamas gunmen on October 7 noisily agree they want the captives home but are split on how best to achieve it.

"There is no unity among the families," said Dani Miran, whose 47-year-old son, Omri, was taken at gunpoint from the Nahal Oz kibbutz in Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel.

"There are people on the left, on the right, religious people, secular and Bedouins. We have to find common ground," added the father.

Hundreds gather each day now for rallies pressing Israel's government to make a deal to bring home hostages taken during the October 7 Hamas attacks

Drone warfare: what threat do Yemen's Huthis pose to Israel?

Yemen's Huthi rebels, who claimed a deadly strike far from their borders inside Israel early Friday, have built up a significant drone arsenal.

Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in Gaza on October 7, the Iran-backed Huthis have carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks against shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in what they say is an act of solidarity with the Palestinians.

After repeatedly threatening to expand their operations, the rebels claimed a drone attack Friday on Tel Aviv that, according to Israeli authorities, left one person dead.

A demonstrator carries a mock drone during a rally in the Huthi-run Yemeni capital Sanaa on February 23, 2024

Drone hits Tel Aviv with the roar of a fighter jet: witnesses

It was 3:00 am and Jonathan Karten had just arrived with friends at his apartment from a party when they heard what sounded like a fighter jet swooping in over the sea towards Tel Aviv.

The jet turned out to be a drone that crashed into an apartment block nearby Friday, killing one man and injuring a number of others.

Yemen's Huthi rebels have claimed the attack, that stunned Israel as it battles the Gaza war.

The blast from the drone strike smashed windows all along Shalom Aleichem Street where the drone fell.

Israeli police inspect the site of a blast in Tel Aviv after Yemen's Iran-backed Huthis claimed a drone attack

Israel threatens reprisals for deadly Yemen rebel drone strike

Israel threatened reprisals Friday after a drone claimed by Yemen's Huthi rebels penetrated its vaunted air defences and killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment building near a US embassy annexe.

The attack drew condemnation from UN chief Antonio Guterres and an appeal for "maximum restraint" to avoid "further escalation in the region".

The pre-dawn strike came hours before Israel suffered another blow, a ruling by the UN's top court that its occupation of the Palestinian territories was "illegal" and needed to end as soon as possible.

An Israeli policeman collects glass shrapnel from the window of a building that was damaged in an explosion in Tel Aviv

Flights resume after global IT crash wreaks havoc

Planes were gradually taking off again Saturday after global airlines, banks and media were thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.

Passenger crowds had swelled at airports on Friday as dozens of flights were cancelled after an update to a programme operating on Microsoft Windows crashed systems worldwide.

By Saturday, officials said the situation had returned virtually to normal in airports across Germany and France, as Paris prepared to welcome millions for the Olympic Games starting on Friday.

Passengers crowded into airports to wait for news as dozens of flights were cancelled

Yemen's Huthis claim Tel Aviv drone attack

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed a drone attack on Tel Aviv on Friday that left one person dead, saying it marked a "new phase" in its operations against Israel.

The rebels fired a "new drone called 'Yafa', which is capable of bypassing the enemy's interception systems," their spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on social media.

It struck "one of the important targets in the occupied Jaffa region, what is now called Israeli Tel Aviv," he said, adding "the operation has achieved its goals successfully".

Israel's military said a "very big" drone was used in the attack that was claimed by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels

Yemen rebels claim deadly strike deep inside Israel

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they fired a drone that caused an explosion in Tel Aviv early Friday that left one person dead, injured four and set off a new shock for Israel more than nine months into its war in Gaza.

The Israeli military said an initial investigation showed the blast was caused by "the falling of an aerial target" that did not set off alarms. It said air patrols had been stepped up.

Windows are shattered after what Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed as a drone strike on the Israeli commercial hub of Tel Aviv

Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory 'illegal': UN top court

The UN's top court, in a sweeping opinion on Friday, said that Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory was "illegal" and needed to end as soon as possible.

The advisory opinion by The Hague-based International Court of Justice was immediately slammed as a "decision of lies" by Israel, but welcomed by the Palestinian presidency, which called it "historic".

A demonstrator waves the Palestinian flag in front of the Peace Palace ahead of the ICJ verdict

Poliovirus detected in Gaza sewage: Gaza, Israel health ministries

The poliovirus has been found in sewage samples from war-torn Gaza, the health ministries in the Hamas-run territory and Israel said Thursday.

The Gaza ministry said thousands of people living in crowded displaced persons' camps were now at risk of contracting the highly infectious disease that can cause deformities and paralysis.

UN agencies have been campaigning for four decades to eradicate polio, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, but there has been a resurgence in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan and some isolated cases in Nigeria.

Girls walk with water containers past destroyed buildings and open sewage in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 8, 2024

AFP photographer Said Khatib wins Spain prize for Gaza photo

Said Khatib, a Palestinian photojournalist working for AFP, was awarded Spain's prestigious Mingote Prize on Thursday at a ceremony attended by King Felipe VI for a Gaza photograph taken in October 2023.

He was presented with the award by ABC newspaper, which runs Spain's vaunted journalism prize, for a picture of two children looking through the window of a car driving past rubble in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

King of Spain Felipe VI (L) and Queen of Spain Letizia present Spain's prestigious Mingote Prize to AFP Palestinian photographer from the Gaza Strip Said Khatib (C), a Palestinian photojournalist from the Gaza Strip