Browsing: Region
Kuwaiti Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said Friday that the fire that broke out at one of its power generation and water distillation plants was brought under control after it was attacked by Iran, affecting a large number of electricity generation units. In a statement, the ministry said that the attack prompted the activation of emergency plans to contain the impact and maintain grid stability. It added that Kuwait Fire Force teams brought the fire under control, while the ministry’s emergency and technical teams, in coordination with relevant authorities, began assessing the damage, securing the plant and restoring affected units to service as quickly as possible. Source link
FILE PHOTO: An Israeli military vehicle drives past destroyed buildings in Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, April 30, 2026. REUTERS/Shir…
An Israeli airstrike killed a man, his wife and their six-year-old daughter in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian health officials said as talks to advance the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal faltered. The strike on an apartment building in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza killed Omar Abu Qassem, his wife, Asma, and their daughter, Habeeba, medics said. Their three-year-old son, Sami, survived, but was injured, medics said. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a Hamas fighter. Friends and relatives arrived at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah where they paid farewell to the three white-shrouded bodies before burying them after performing special prayers. “The child is the lone survivor. How (to live) without a father, without a mother? What kind of cruelty is this that the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza, are enduring?” Abu Anas Shahin, a relative, said to Reuters.“Where is the mercy? Where is the humanity?” he said. More than 58,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents, according to UN figures as of November 2025. In Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike killed one person, medics said. The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to end the war took effect, according to health officials in the enclave. Hamas doesn’t usually disclose information about its fatalities. The truce halted major fighting, but has failed to stop near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by fighters in Gaza over the same period. The latest violence comes as Hamas leaders wrapped up another round of truce talks in Cairo on Tuesday. The discussions — mediated by Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar — were aimed at implementing the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. The talks included the disarmament of Hamas and the Israeli military’s withdrawal from the strip, according to sources close to the talks, who said there had been little progress amid deep distrust between the two sides. The second phase also includes allowing a US-backed Palestinian technocratic committee to assume power from Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, and the start of the reconstruction of Gaza, which has been devastated by the war. Five countries — Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania — have committed to providing troops to the US-backed International Stabilisation Force. However, none have yet been deployed as negotiations between Trump’s Board of Peace and Hamas have stalled for months. Speaking at an aid donor meeting in Brussels on Monday, Nickolay Mladenov said the October ceasefire was holding but “imperfectly” with violations continuing, adding that Hamas has yet to agree to what he called a “roadmap” for negotiations. Hamas official Basem Naim accused Mladenov of supporting Israel’s position in negotiations, and failing to hold the country accountable for violating the ceasefire and not upholding the terms of the first phase of the Trump plan. The plan called for Israel to withdraw its troops to a demarcated “yellow” line, but Israel has been slowly moving its troops forward and now effectively occupies more than 60% of the strip.Hamas has repeatedly said that it cannot advance to the second phase of the peace plan until the terms of the first phase are fulfilled. Source link
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said Thursday that “several children” were among 11 people killed in a fire that broke out during the night at an orphanage in Algiers. Tebboune, who is on a visit to Germany, offered his condolences after “learning the news of the death of several children… following a fire that broke out in a childcare facility”, according to the official APS news agency. Source link
Screenshot 2026-07-16 at 15-07-36 (19) وكالة الأنباء القطرية (@QatarNewsAgency) _ X The State of Kuwait strongly condemned Thursday the continued Iranian attacks against its territory, describing them as a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, as well as a serious breach of international law, the UN Charter and UN Security Council Resolution 2817 of 2026.In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said Kuwait holds Iran fully responsible for the continued attacks and their consequences, stressing that Tehran’s continued aggression against Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states further escalates tensions and undermines regional security and stability.The Ministry called on Iran to immediately cease its attacks, reaffirming that Kuwait will continue to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, citizens, residents and national interests, while reserving all its legitimate rights under international law. Related Story Source link
The death toll from the Israeli occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip has risen to 73,250, with 173,751 others injured, since October 7, 2023. Medical sources in Gaza reported that hospitals across the Strip received the bodies of four martyrs and 28 injured over the past 24 hours. The same sources said that the total number of martyrs since the ceasefire on October 11 has risen to 1,127, with 3,643 injured, while 800 bodies have been recovered.A number of victims remain trapped beneath the rubble and on the streets, as ambulance and rescue teams are still unable to reach them. Related Story Source link
Three Palestinians were martyred and several others were injured Thursday morning in Israeli shelling on Gaza City.According to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), citing medical sources, Israeli artillery shelling targeted the Zeitoun neighborhood in southeastern Gaza City, killing one Palestinian and injuring three others. The same sources said that two other people who were killed. A number of injured individuals were brought to Al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City after Israeli aircraft struck the area within Al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of the city.According to the latest reported figures, the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has risen to 73,246 people killed and 173,727 injured. Related Story Source link
Israel said it was ready to move forward with plans to withdraw troops from two areas of south Lebanon, as the two countries held a new round of talks in Rome yesterday. US-brokered negotiations were taking place in the Italian capital over a framework agreement sealed last month after five rounds of talks in Washington, with Lebanese negotiators hoping for progress on an Israeli withdrawal. The framework deal emerged after war broke out between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah on March 2 against the backdrop of the wider Middle East war.It calls for an end to the war in Lebanon, disarmament of the Lebanese movement, the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south and for Israeli forces to steadily withdraw from the country in two “pilot zones”.Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar yesterday said that his country was “ready to move forward implementing these two pilot zones”. “I hope and tend to believe that this round of discussions in Rome will promote it.” The Lebanese presidency had announced on Monday that its delegation to Rome had been instructed “to demand the immediate start of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the two pilot zones before any further discussion”. AFP journalists saw delegation vehicles entering the US embassy compound in the heart of Rome under tight security yesterday morning ahead of the talks, while the embassy declined to comment when asked.According to a Lebanese diplomatic source familiar with the content of the talks, “the Lebanese army is ready to gradually take control of the localities from which the Israeli army would withdraw”. But Hezbollah rejects the agreement outright despite Lebanese government pressure, lowering expectations of success in the negotiations.Orna Mizrahi of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv said Israel was “willing to withdraw gradually”, but on the condition that “that there will be no presence of Hezbollah in the areas that Israel is withdrawing from”. She added that Israel also seeks to ensure “that the Lebanese army will have the ability… to keep it as a neutralised zone and a neutralised place that Hezbollah cannot come in again.”A US military delegation began discussions with the Lebanese army in Beirut on Saturday on the process for Israeli withdrawal from one of these “pilot zones”.The framework agreement was concluded after a fragile ceasefire came into effect last month in the war between Hezbollah and Israel. The Israeli army has nonetheless continued limited strikes in the south and has been carrying out demolitions in villages it occupies, according to official Lebanese media.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a strike on the southern town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa yesterday.Israel’s strikes and ground invasion have killed more than 4,300 people since the war started in early March, according to Lebanese authorities.“The chances of a breakthrough in Rome are quite limited,” Karim Bitar, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, told AFP. “What we might see instead is a kind of opportunity to show that the process is still in place… that there are negotiations continuing despite the opposition and the obstacles that are beginning to emerge.” Tehran had demanded the ceasefire in Lebanon in order to conclude a deal with Washington on June 17. But the region has seen a renewed escalation in recent days, with the US carrying out a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran ahead of the planned reimposition yesterday of its naval blockade on Iranian ports with ongoing attacks. Iran wants to establish a link between negotiations over the regional war and Lebanon, “but we have the wish to disconnect it,” said Mizrahi. Tehran’s priorities remain the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear file, she added. “The Iranians are using Lebanon as an excuse. They will always use it as an excuse,” she said.Bitar, for his part, said that the risk of major fighting returning to Lebanon “is, of course, not negligible”. Source link
Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis appeared on the brink of renewed war after the fighters claimed their first large-scale strikes on the kingdom since 2022, analysts and a Gulf source said. The Houthis fired missiles at an airport in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Abha late Monday, after the Yemeni government hit Sanaa airport to divert a flight from Iran that had onboard a Houthi delegation returning from the late supreme leader’s funeral. The Houthis have blamed Riyadh for the attack. For some analysts, the exchange likely marked a new era of hostilities and the end of a four-year uneasy truce that ended attacks between Yemen’s government and the coalition that backs it, and the Houthis. Source link
A Palestinian man carries an injured woman as he walks past members of Israeli security forces near the site of a Palestinian house being demolished that…