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5 Paramedics Killed In Israeli Airstrike On a Civil Defense Center in Southern Lebanon

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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5 Paramedics Killed In Israeli Airstrike On a Civil Defense Center in Southern Lebanon

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

An Israeli airstrike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense center Wednesday in the town of Dardghaya in southern Lebanon, killing five members who were stationed there, civil defense spokesperson Elie Khairallah told The Associated Press.
The Lebanese Health Ministry also confirmed the news in a statement, saying Israel has “renewed its targeting of rescue and ambulance crews tonight, disregarding international laws, norms and humanitarian conventions.”
There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military.
Among the victims was Abdullah Al-Moussawi, head of the Tyre Regional Center in the Lebanese Civil Defense, Khairallah said.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said teams continued to search for survivors in the rubble.
Israel's defense minister warned on Wednesday that his country's retaliation for a recent Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” while the Israeli military pushed ahead with a large-scale operation in northern Gaza and a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants.
On the diplomatic front, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden held their first call in seven weeks, with a White House press secretary saying the call included discussions on Israel's deliberations over how it will respond to Iran's attack.
“It was direct, it was productive,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the 30-minute call.
The Israeli operation in northern Gaza left dozens of people dead and threatened to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said.
The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, comes as Israel expands a weeklong ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran following Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage.
“Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a speech to troops. “Whoever strikes us will be harmed and pay a price.”
Iran fired dozens of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 which the United States helped fend off. Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack that killed two people in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. The town’s acting mayor, Ofir Yehezkeli, said the two killed were a couple walking their dogs.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said Lebanon would meet the same fate as Gaza if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah.
Video verified by The Associated Press shows what appears to be a group of Israeli soldiers raising an Israeli flag in a village in southern Lebanon.
In the video, which appears to have been filmed in Maroun A-Ras, three soldiers are seen hoisting up a flag atop a pile of debris. A soldier off camera speaks in Hebrew and refers to the nearby Israeli village of Avivim. The date it was filmed wasn't immediately known.
The video follows other similar acts that took place throughout Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
An Israeli strike killed four people and wounded another 10 at a hotel sheltering displaced people in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyeh on Wednesday, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.
An Associated Press reporter in a nearby town heard two sonic booms from Israeli jets before the strike. Plumes of smoke rose from the building after the explosion.
In recent weeks Israel has waged a heavy air campaign across large parts of Lebanon, targeting what it says are Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. A series of strikes had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel in the past year.

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Arab World

Security Council Sanctions 4 RSF Commanders over Atrocities in Sudan’s El-Fasher

Security Council Sanctions 4 RSF Commanders over Atrocities in Sudan’s El-Fasher
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Security Council Sanctions 4 RSF Commanders over Atrocities in Sudan’s El-Fasher

Security Council Sanctions 4 RSF Commanders over Atrocities in Sudan’s El-Fasher

The UN Security Council has announced sanctions on four commanders from the Rapid Support Forces for atrocities committed in the October takeover of the Darfur city of El-Fasher.

The four are high-ranking members of the RSF, which a UN probe last week determined had committed acts of genocide in their 18-month siege and eventual capture of El-Fasher.

They are RSF deputy commanders Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo and Gedo Hamdan Ahmed, Brigadier General Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris and field commander Tijani Ibrahim.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by what the UN has called a "war of atrocities" between the RSF and Sudan's regular army, killing tens of thousands and creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

For a year and a half, the RSF besieged North Darfur state capital El-Fasher -- the region's last major city to evade their control -- before storming the city on October 26.

The campaign, which the UN fact-finding mission described as "three days of horror", was marked by summary executions, systematic sexual violence and mass detention -- primarily targeting the city's ethnic Zaghawa population.

Abdelrahim, brother of RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, appears in footage "giving direct orders to his fighters to not take captives but to kill everyone", according to the sanctions announcement.

He is already sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Idris, commonly referred to as Abu Lulu, became known as "the Butcher of El-Fasher" for graphic videos he himself posted of the takeover.

"Abu Lulu has filmed himself smiling and killing people while they begged for mercy, as well as videos where he makes ethnically targeted executions," AFP quoted the Security Council as saying.

He, Ahmed and Ibrahim were slapped with US sanctions last week over their roles in the "ethnic killings, torture, starvation and sexual violence" committed in El-Fasher.

Arab World

Aid Groups Petition Israel’s Top Court to Halt Ban on Gaza, West Bank Operations 

Palestinian Red Crescent workers load medical supplies to be transported to Gaza, at the launch of a joint logistical operation with the European Union and the Red Cross, in the West Bank city of Beitunia, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP)
Palestinian Red Crescent workers load medical supplies to be transported to Gaza, at the launch of a joint logistical operation with the European Union and the Red Cross, in the West Bank city of Beitunia, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP)
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Aid Groups Petition Israel’s Top Court to Halt Ban on Gaza, West Bank Operations 

Palestinian Red Crescent workers load medical supplies to be transported to Gaza, at the launch of a joint logistical operation with the European Union and the Red Cross, in the West Bank city of Beitunia, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP)
Palestinian Red Crescent workers load medical supplies to be transported to Gaza, at the launch of a joint logistical operation with the European Union and the Red Cross, in the West Bank city of Beitunia, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP)

Around 17 international humanitarian organizations have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to block an imminent order that would force 37 NGOs to cease operations in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, warning of catastrophic consequences for civilians.

Organizations, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE, were notified on December 30 that their Israeli registrations had expired and that they had 60 days to renew them by providing lists of their Palestinian staff.

If they fail to do so, they will have to cease operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, from March 1.

The petitioners said enforcement has already begun in practice, with supplies blocked and visas denied to foreign staff.

“We haven't been able to get international staff inside Gaza since the beginning of January. Israeli authorities denied any entry to Gaza, but also to the West Bank,” MSF head of mission in the Palestinian territories Filipe Ribeiro told AFP last week.

The petition, described as unprecedented in its scale, seeks an urgent interim injunction from Israel's top court to suspend the closures pending full judicial review.

The 17 petitioners, which include some of the NGOs hit by the ban, argued the Israeli measures are incompatible with an occupying power's obligations under international humanitarian law.

The NGOs said compliance would expose local employees to potential retaliation, undermine the principle of humanitarian neutrality and violate European data protection law.

“Turning humanitarian organizations into an information-gathering arm for a party to the conflict stands in total contradiction to the principle of neutrality,” the petition stated.

The petitioners said they have proposed practical alternatives to handing over staff lists to Israel, including “independent sanctions screening” and “donor-audited vetting systems.”

The organizations noted that they collectively support or implement more than half of all food assistance in Gaza, 60% of field hospital operations and all inpatient treatment for children suffering severe acute malnutrition.

Arab World

Baghdad Airport Closed Due to 'Technical Problem'

A passenger takes his belongings after inspection at the departure hall of Baghdad's International airport on March 14, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
A passenger takes his belongings after inspection at the departure hall of Baghdad's International airport on March 14, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
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Baghdad Airport Closed Due to 'Technical Problem'

A passenger takes his belongings after inspection at the departure hall of Baghdad's International airport on March 14, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
A passenger takes his belongings after inspection at the departure hall of Baghdad's International airport on March 14, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

Iraq's transport ministry said Wednesday a temporary shutdown of Baghdad International Airport was caused by an "emergency technical problem,” denying reports of any security threat.

The closure prompted speculation on social media, but officials stressed that the halt in operations was purely technical and repairs were already underway.

Ministry spokesman Maytham Alsafi said the fault required "immediate precautionary action,” adding that technical teams had begun assessments and repairs, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported.

He said the airport would reopen "within hours" once maintenance work and final checks were completed.

Alsafi rejected claims of domestic or foreign security risks behind the closure, calling the reports baseless and urging media outlets to verify information through official channels.