Ran Gvili, a young Israeli police officer, was on medical leave when Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Instead of staying home, the 24-year-old grabbed his gun and raced toward the area of the attack in southern Israel, where he fought until his last bullet.

Nicknamed the "Defender of Alumim" by his family and the kibbutz of that name, Gvili was killed in combat near the community and his body taken to Gaza by Hamas militants.

A US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier has deployed to Middle Eastern waters, the United States said Monday, as Tehran warned it was ready to hit back at any American attack launched in response to a crackdown on anti-government protests.

A US-based rights group said on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 6,000 people in the wave of protests suppressed by Iran's security forces, but emphasised the actual toll could be several times higher.

An appeal trial opened in Paris on Monday for four men convicted over the 2020 jihadist beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, a killing that horrified France.

Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin after showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

His attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was killed in a shootout with police.

BERLIN, Jan 26 (Reuters) - German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has called on U.S. President Donald Trump to apologise for remarks suggesting that America's NATO allies in Afghanistan avoided frontline service, joining a chorus of criticism from European politicians and army veterans.

Trump caused deep offence among U.S. allies when he told Fox Business Network last week that the U.S. had "never needed" the transatlantic alliance and accused allies of staying "a little off the front lines" in Afghanistan.

A US-based rights group said Monday it had confirmed the deaths of 5,848 people in a wave of protests in Iran suppressed by security forces, warning that it was still investigating thousands more potential fatalities.

The protests started in late December sparked by economic grievances but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street rallies for several days from January 8.

Rights groups have accused authorities of an unprecedented crackdown by shooting directly at the protesters, and the demonstrations have, for now, petered out.

MOSCOW, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that the issue of territory remained

fundamental to Russia when it came to getting a deal to end the fighting in Ukraine, the state TASS news agency reported after trilateral weekend talks in Abu Dhabi.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will take all of Ukraine's Donbas region - of which Moscow's forces currently control 90% - by force unless Kyiv gives it up in a peace deal.

BEIJING, Jan 26 (Reuters) - China's vice president and foreign minister held talks with the secretary-general of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Monday, according to a ministry statement and the official news agency, Xinhua.

The talks in the Chinese capital of Beijing come amid heightened Middle East tension after an Iranian official said the country would treat any attack "as an all-out war against us".

MANILA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The Philippine foreign ministry said on Monday it had made "firm representations" to China's embassy and its ambassador in Manila over what it described as an "escalation of public exchanges" between them and Philippine officials over disputes in the South China Sea.

Israel said Monday it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as part of its "limited reopening" once it has recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.

Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory.

Jan 25 (Reuters) - Israel will reopen Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt for the passage of people only after an operation to locate the body of the last remaining Israeli hostage in the enclave is completed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said late on Sunday.

(Reporting by Hatem Maher, editing by Deepa Babington)