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Israel renews Gaza camp strikes as UN warns of 'war crimes'

Israel hit Gaza's largest refugee camp with renewed air strikes Wednesday, prompting UN rights officials to warn that targeting densely populated residential areas "could amount to war crimes."

Bombs struck the Jabalia camp for a second time in two days, pulverising buildings and, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, killing dozens of people.

AFP witnessed extensive damage at the scene, with people frantically clawing through rubble to extract bloodied casualties.

Scores of injured are being evacuated

Yemen's Huthi rebels vow more attacks on Israel

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels on Tuesday pledged more attacks against Israel if its war on Hamas in Gaza continues, saying it had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces... confirm they will continue to carry out qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops," said a Huthi military statement aired on the rebels' Al-Masirah TV.

Thousands of Yemenis attended weekly Muslim prayers in the rebel-held capital Sanaa on Friday, many waving Palestinian flags in solidarity with Gaza

Oil exec and climate champion? The man steering COP28

The Emirati oil boss preparing to take the helm of UN climate talks said he is stunned to hear that environmentalists suspect him of duplicity on climate change.

Sultan Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirates climate envoy, minister of industry and advanced technology and CEO of the state-owned oil firm ADNOC, will lead the COP28 talks starting in Dubai in November.

It comes as the world faces increasingly stark warnings about the urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels to have a hope of keeping climate targets in view.

Sultan Al Jaber has said the phase-down of fossil fuels is 'inevitable'

Israel aims shock-value online campaign at Europe

Israel is running a hard-hitting online campaign targeting mostly Europeans with shocking images and testimonies from the attacks carried out by Islamist militant group Hamas on October 7.

Dozens of clips of burnt bodies, bereaved families, fast-cuts of screams and sirens, rescue workers and pathologists are featured on the Israeli foreign ministry's official social media channels and in paid advertising campaigns.

The digital campaign aims to keep fresh in the minds of the foreign public how Hamas fighters crossed from Gaza into Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed some 1,400 people and seized more than 230 hostages

Oman revives CO2-busting mangroves as climate threat lurks

In a muddy wetland in Oman's capital, environmental scientist Zakiya al-Afifi measures the bark of a mangrove tree, estimating its capacity to absorb the carbon dioxide that is slowly heating the planet.

Standing in the leafy reserve, shielded from the fierce sun, she says the Al-Qurm forest's 80 protected hectares (197 acres) of mangroves could lock away thousands of tons of CO2.

"Mangroves are the richest carbon sink in the world," says Afifi, wearing boots and a white lab coat as she leads a group of university students around the swamp.

Israa al-Maskari, a student in environmental science, inspects mangroves in a nursery at Oman's Al-Qurm nature reserve

Flags and murals as N.Irish pick sides in Israel-Hamas war

Northern Ireland may be thousands of miles from the Middle East but signs of the current heightened conflict can be seen on the streets of the British province.

Palestinian and Israeli flags flutter in pro-Irish and pro-UK neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland, tapping into its own history of conflict and division that still affects everyday life despite a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence.

Former IRA hunger striker Pat Sheehan says the Irish have affinity with the Palestinians

Attacks on US forces risk conflict with Iran

Repeated attacks on American troops in the Middle East risk drawing the United States into a conflict with Iran even as Washington strives to prevent fighting between Israel and Hamas from spiraling into a regional war.

The United States has blamed the spike in rocket and drone attacks -- at least 14 in Iraq and nine in Syria since October 17 -- on Iran-backed forces, and carried out strikes last week in Syria on sites the Pentagon said were linked to Tehran.

US forces in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on December 15, 2022

Israel envoy wears yellow star at UN, drawing Yad Vashem criticism

Israel's United Nations ambassador displayed a yellow star on his chest Monday as he addressed the Security Council, provocatively pledging to wear the badge until members of the body condemn Hamas "atrocities".

His wearing of the badge, which has come to symbolise the oppression of Jews since its imposition in Nazi-occupied Europe, was swiftly criticised by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, which urged him to wear the Israeli flag instead.

Israel's UN ambassador Gilan Erdan wore a yellow star -- a symbol Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis -- during a meeting of the UN Security Council to protest UN silence on Hamas 'atrocities'

The grim accounting system of a Gaza hospital

A pathologist checks a body in the morgue of the Gaza Strip's Nasser hospital, takes a photo and notes their name and the place where bombs killed the victim.

The doctor is adding another name to a long list of "martyrs" in the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel.

"Between midnight and noon, 17 martyrs, and five others who died of natural causes, came in," Dr Nahed Abu Taaema, director of the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the south of the Palestinian territory, tells AFP.

Palestinians wait outside the Nasser hospital to claim the bodies of relatives

Israel's war on Hamas puts London's Jewish community on edge

London's Jewish community has been on edge since Hamas's attack on Israel earlier this month, with security increased at synagogues, schools and other buildings.

"People feel vulnerable and people feel frightened, and right now the recorded incidents of anti-Semitism are a record," said Raymond Simonson, chief executive of the JW3 arts, culture and entertainment venue in the north of the UK capital.

"There's never been this many incidents... in the UK as there have been in the last 20 days," he told AFP.

Around a huge table were more than 200 empty seats with the name, age and nationality of the captives