A French human rights group on Thursday filed a legal complaint against Airbnb and Booking.com, accusing them of promoting "occupation tourism" by listing accommodation in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.
In the case submitted in Paris, the Ligue des droits de l'Homme (LDH) alleges that the platforms were complicit in the aggravated concealment of war crimes.
(Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday, on the eve of talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, that momentum in the Middle East peace process would help end his country's more than 3-1/2-year-old war with Russia.
"We have a meeting planned with President Trump tomorrow and we are counting on the impulse to curb terror and war which worked in the Middle East to help end Russia's war against Ukraine," Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
"The language of strength and justice is sure to work with respect to Russia as well."
By Ahmed Elimam
DUBAI (Reuters) -Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday that their Chief of Staff Muhammad Abd Al-Karim al-Ghamari, one of the most senior military officials of the Iran-backed group, was killed "while fulfilling his duties".
Without directly blaming Israel for his killing, Houthis said that the conflict with Israel had not ended. Israel will "receive its deterrent punishment for the crimes it has committed".
MOSCOW (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak in the coming days to prepare a new summit between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a Kremlin aide said on Thursday.
The official, Yuri Ushakov, said the timing of the summit would depend on how the preparatory work progressed.
Ushakov made the remarks during a briefing for reporters on a phone call between Putin and Trump, their eighth this year, which he said had taken place at Moscow's initiative.
By John Irish and Michelle Nichols
PARIS/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -France and Britain, in coordination with the United States, are working to finalise a U.N. Security Council resolution in the coming days that would lay the foundation for a future international force in Gaza, France said on Thursday.
With a shaky U.S.-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holding, planning has begun for an international force to stabilize security in the Palestinian enclave, two senior U.S. advisers said on Wednesday.
Abdul Rahim surveys the rubble that was his home in Kabul, where he lived with six family members.
A gaping hole in the living room reveals only charred belongings and debris, while blackened teddy bears and makeup lie in what once was a bedroom.
The explosion at his home was one of four that hit the Afghan capital within a week, as unusually intense violence broke out with Pakistan -- then suddenly halted under a temporary truce.
The World Health Organization has warned that infectious diseases are "spiralling out of control" in the Gaza Strip, with only 13 of the Palestinian territory's 36 hospitals even partially functioning.
"Whether meningitis... diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we're talking about a mammoth amount of work," Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the United Nations' health body, told AFP in Cairo.
Two years after he survived Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel which killed 64 fellow residents of the Kfar Aza kibbutz, Avidor Schwartzman hopes his community can finally begin to overcome its pain.
"We can start the healing process," Schwartzman told AFP, even if "we know that there are a lot of people who will not come back".
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos stormed over the barrier separating Gaza and Israel, around two kilometres (just over a mile) away from Schwartzman's kibbutz.
As a fragile ceasefire holds, displaced Palestinian residents of Gaza City have returned to their homes only to find rubble, with many of them forced to camp out in makeshift shelters.
In the northwest of the city, empty streets are lined with piles of concrete that once were apartment buildings before the Israel-Hamas war, with some structures completely collapsed.
Hossam Majed discovered his home reduced to rubble. Amid the ruins, the 31-year-old salvaged a few belongings, including some furniture and -- crucially given the shortages -- a large water tank.
Ikram Aioua has seen her 12-year-old son rushed to the hospital three times in the past weeks for gas poisoning.
Like thousands who have turned out to protest in her southern Tunisian city of Gabes, Aioua is demanding the closure of a nearby chemical factory, blaming it for a range of serious health issues.
"I was in the classroom when I felt my throat burning and my head getting heavy, then I fainted," said Ahmed, Aioua's son.
The factory "is deadly poison", his 40-year-old mother cried. "It must be dismantled."
