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Netanyahu Says Israel Preparing for Scenarios in Other Areas than Gaza

HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
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Netanyahu Says Israel Preparing for Scenarios in Other Areas than Gaza

HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa

Israel is keeping up its war in Gaza but is also preparing for scenarios in other areas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
"Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively," he said in comments released by his office following a visit to the Tel Nof air force base in southern Israel.
Israel has been bracing for possible Iranian retaliation for the killing of a senior general and six other Iranian officers in an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on April 1. Israel has not said it was responsible but Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for the attack.
Netanyahu made his comments as Israeli troops and warplanes started an operation in central Gaza overnight which the military said was aimed at destroying infrastructure of armed Palestinian groups.
Most Israeli troops have been pulled out of Gaza, in preparation for an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, but fighting has continued in various areas of the enclave.
Israeli military strikes killed 63 Palestinians and wounded 45 others in the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
At least 33,545 Palestinians have now been killed since the Israeli offensive began, the ministry said, with most of the 2.3 million population displaced and much of the enclave laid to waste.

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Arab World

Sudan Army Says Retakes Key Town Near Chad

A car with bullet holes on it in a square in Khartoum, Sudan, June 11, 2026. (Reuters)
A car with bullet holes on it in a square in Khartoum, Sudan, June 11, 2026. (Reuters)
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Sudan Army Says Retakes Key Town Near Chad

A car with bullet holes on it in a square in Khartoum, Sudan, June 11, 2026. (Reuters)
A car with bullet holes on it in a square in Khartoum, Sudan, June 11, 2026. (Reuters)

The Sudanese army said it had retaken Kulbus, a strategic town near the Chadian border, in what appeared to be its biggest battlefield gain in western Darfur since the fall of el-Fashir last year.

The Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, consolidated control over most of Darfur after capturing el-Fashir, the military's final stronghold in the region.

The military and its allied Joint Forces, a coalition of armed groups, meanwhile retained pockets of control along the Chadian border.

Kulbus lies on a vital corridor near the border, roughly halfway between the army-held border town of Al-Tina in North Darfur and El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, which remains under RSF control.

In a statement late Monday, the Joint Forces said their fighters had taken "full control" of the town in West Darfur after what they described as "decisive battles", claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on RSF units and seized vehicles and weapons.

The claims could not be independently verified and the RSF has not commented.

In a separate statement, a pro-army popular resistance group accused the RSF of using Kulbus as a staging ground for "thousands of fighters crossing the border" and as a key supply hub linked to El-Geneina.

Video footage circulated by local media appeared to show men wearing Sudanese army uniforms celebrating in front of a sign reading "West Darfur State -- Kulbus Locality".

Fighting has intensified in recent months along the frontier between North and West Darfur as the army seeks to secure a strategic corridor along the border with Chad, which it accuses of being aligned with the RSF.

Al-Tina, already at risk of famine according to the UN, has come under repeated RSF attacks this year.

In recent days, the UN, several governments and aid organizations have warned of a possible RSF offensive on El-Obeid, a key city in the neighboring Kordofan region, raising fears of a repeat of the assault that led to the fall of el-Fashir.

Now in its fourth year, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and created the world's largest hunger crisis.

Arab World

Countries Request Urgent UN Debate on Sudan's al-Obeid

Sudanese women make a wicker bowl at the al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the South Kordofan region, on June 29, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese women make a wicker bowl at the al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the South Kordofan region, on June 29, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Countries Request Urgent UN Debate on Sudan's al-Obeid

Sudanese women make a wicker bowl at the al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the South Kordofan region, on June 29, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese women make a wicker bowl at the al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the South Kordofan region, on June 29, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

The UN Human Rights Council has received a request for an urgent debate on the situation in Sudan's al-Obeid city, a spokesperson said on ⁠Tuesday.

"That will most ⁠likely take place on Friday," Pascal Sim, a spokesperson for the ⁠council, told a press briefing in Geneva.

The request was submitted by countries including Britain and Germany.

The UN has warned of "substantial" Rapid Support Forces troop movements around the city ahead of a possible ground assault, raising fears of a repeat of the atrocities seen in El-Fasher, the Darfur city which fell to the RSF last October in an attack the UN said bore "the hallmarks of genocide.”

After breaking a prolonged siege in February last year, the Sudanese army has struggled to stop the RSF from reimposing a blockade through repeated drone strikes targeting al-Obeid, its infrastructure and the main highway out.

Recent attacks have hit the main power station and fuel depots, plunged neighborhoods into darkness and shut down water pumps.

Arab World

Egypt Moves to Step Up Fuel Supply Ahead of Rise in Power Demand This Summer

Egyptian youths play football in an open area beside a mountain near Cairo, Egypt, June 29, 2026, as the country follows the FIFA World Cup. (Reuters)
Egyptian youths play football in an open area beside a mountain near Cairo, Egypt, June 29, 2026, as the country follows the FIFA World Cup. (Reuters)
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Egypt Moves to Step Up Fuel Supply Ahead of Rise in Power Demand This Summer

Egyptian youths play football in an open area beside a mountain near Cairo, Egypt, June 29, 2026, as the country follows the FIFA World Cup. (Reuters)
Egyptian youths play football in an open area beside a mountain near Cairo, Egypt, June 29, 2026, as the country follows the FIFA World Cup. (Reuters)

Egypt's ‌electricity and petroleum ministers met on Tuesday to coordinate fuel supply and grid management ahead of a summer in which power demand is expected to rise 8% over last year's record peak of 40,000 megawatts, according to a joint ministry statement.

Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat and ‌Petroleum Minister Karim ‌Badawi said the two ‌ministries ⁠were working as "one ⁠team" to secure fuel supplies for power stations and stabilize the national grid during peak hours.

Esmat said the electricity sector planned to add 2,200 MW of renewable ⁠energy capacity and 1,300 MW ‌of battery ‌storage to the grid this year, and ‌had already cut fuel consumption ‌per kilowatt to below 170 grams.

Badawi said that LNG regasification vessels were operating at high efficiency to supplement gas ‌production, while the Damietta LNG export terminal was being used ⁠to ⁠store LNG cargoes to be used when needed.

Egypt suffered severe rolling blackouts in 2023 and had to rely on foreign funding to stabilize its grid in 2024.

Egypt's gas production stood at 3,214 million cubic meters in April, while imports were 2,190 million cubic meters, according to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI).