Israel

JERUSALEM, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Monday evening that Israel was behind the assassination of an elite Hezbollah commander, Wissam Hassan Tawil, in Lebanon, reported Israeli media.

"Regarding the elimination in southern Lebanon, we took responsibility for it," Katz said, cited by Israel's Ynet news website. The minister said the killing was part of the ongoing conflicts on the Israel-Lebanon border.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday called on Israel to take greater steps to protect civilians, allow more aid into Gaza and work with moderate Palestinian leaders, saying regional countries would only invest in the reconstruction of Gaza if there is a “pathway to a Palestinian state.”

JERUSALEM. (AP) —In the last week alone, an Israeli airstrike has killed a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, Hezbollah struck a sensitive Israeli base with rockets and Israel killed a senior Hamas militant with an airstrike in Beirut.

Each strike and counterstrike increases the risk of the catastrophic war in Gaza spilling across the region.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A man driving a car with Israeli license plates was fatally shot at a busy intersection in the West Bank on Sunday, hours after a violent confrontation elsewhere in the Israeli-occupied territory left seven Palestinians and a member of Israel’s paramilitary border police dead.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military signaled that it has wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza, saying it has completed dismantling Hamas’ military infrastructure there, as the war against the militant group entered its fourth month Sunday.

The military did not address troop deployments in northern Gaza going forward. Its spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said late Saturday that forces would “continue to deepen the achievement” there, strengthen defenses along the Israel-Gaza border fence and focus on the central and southern parts of the territory.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — In the wake of Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s days in office seemed numbered.

Despite his reputation as the ultimate political survivor, the devastation of the attack and the security failures that allowed it to happen on his watch appeared to be too much for him to overcome.

JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Only 15% of Israelis want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay in office after the war on Hamas in Gaza ends, though many more still support his strategy of crushing the militants in the Palestinian enclave, according to a poll published on Tuesday.

Netanyahu promised to crush Hamas after its Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 abducted to Gaza. Israeli forces have laid much of Gaza to waste in their nearly three-month retalitory offensive.

JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to contest South Africa's genocide accusations over the war with Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli government spokesman said on Tuesday.

South Africa asked the ICJ on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its crackdown against Hamas.

TEL AVIV, December 31. /TASS/: In the past 7 days, the Israeli forces eliminated over 100 armed Palestinian radicals in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during the government meeting.

"We completely support our troops. They do a great job fighting this difficult war. In the past week, they eliminated 100 terrorists. It happens every day. Dozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day, sometimes even more. We see this morale, we will destroy Hamas, bring our hostages back and we will win this war," the Prime Minister said.

JERUSALEM, Dec 31 (Reuters) - One of the senior figures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition called on Sunday for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for Israelis who could "make the desert bloom".