DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran will stand strongly against the United States wanting to make Tehran 'obedient', the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in comments carried by state media on Sunday.
"Those who threaten us to have direct negotiations with the U.S. only see appearances in my opinion ... the issue is unsolvable", Khamenei said.
(Reporting by Elwely Elwelly)
(Reuters) -The World Health Organization said a staff member was released on Sunday more than four weeks after being detained in Gaza by Israeli forces.
"Extremely relieved that our colleague, detained since 21 July in Gaza, was released this morning," agency Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X. He reiterated a call for protection of all WHO staff and personnel, and health and humanitarian workers.
In July, the United Nations agency said the Israeli military had attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Lili Bayer
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli planes and tanks pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City overnight Saturday to Sunday, destroying buildings and homes, residents said, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.
Witnesses reported the sound of explosions non-stop overnight in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia, while tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighbourhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern town of Jabalia.
(Reuters) -Thousands of Australians joined pro-Palestinian rallies on Sunday, organisers said, amid strained relations between Israel and Australia following the centre-left government's decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
Irish rap group Kneecap repeated their criticism of Israel's war in Gaza during a performance outside Paris on Sunday, despite objections from French Jewish groups and government officials.
The concert, which began shortly before 6.30 pm (1630 GMT) in front of several thousand people in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud, went ahead despite complaints from the Belfast trio's critics.
"Free, free Palestine!," the group shouted at the start of their show, rallying an enthusiastic crowd where keffiyehs and Irish jerseys were visible, before insisting they were not against Israel.
Desperate Palestinians clutching pots and plastic buckets scrambled for rice at a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Saturday, a day after the United Nations declared a famine in the war-battered territory.
AFP footage from Gaza's largest city, which Israel plans to seize as part of an expanded military offensive, showed women and young children among the chaotic jostle of dozens clamouring and shouting for food.
(Reuters) -Syria's first parliamentary election under its new Islamist administration, scheduled for September, will not include the southern province of Sweida and two other provinces because of security concerns, the electoral commission said on Saturday.
Hundreds of people were reported killed in July in clashes in Sweida province pitting Druze fighters against Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces.
Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said were mass killings of Druze by government forces.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan has written to U.S. President Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, and urged her to contact Israel's prime minister and raise the plight of children in Gaza, authorities in Ankara said on Saturday.
Emine Erdogan wrote that she had been inspired by the letter Melania Trump sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month about children in Ukraine and Russia.
By David Milliken
LONDON (Reuters) -Former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage set out plans on Saturday for "mass deportations" of migrants who have crossed the English Channel on small boats if his Reform UK party forms Britain's next government.
In an interview with Saturday's edition of The Times newspaper, Farage said he would withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights and sign deals with Afghanistan, Eritrea and other top countries of origin to repatriate illegal migrants.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp, part of a caretaker government, quit his cabinet post on Friday ahead of schedule over the government's position on Israel's war in Gaza, he told reporters.
He said the government did not support additional measures against Israel over Gaza and plans for the occupied West Bank.
"I have felt pushback in the cabinet for additional measures," he said, adding he would formally tender his resignation.
