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Gaza Rescuers Say Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 40

Members of the Palestinian Civil Defense remove debris as they search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Members of the Palestinian Civil Defense remove debris as they search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
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Gaza Rescuers Say Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 40

Members of the Palestinian Civil Defense remove debris as they search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Members of the Palestinian Civil Defense remove debris as they search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes on Monday killed at least 40 people across the Palestinian territory, which has been under an Israeli aid blockade for more than 50 days.  

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18. A ceasefire agreement that had largely halted the fighting for two months before that collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, whose 2023 attack triggered the war.  

Civil defense official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP that 40 people had been killed since dawn on Monday.  

They included eight people who were killed in an Israeli strike on the Abu Mahadi family home in Jabalia, in the north of the territory.

"They were sleeping in their homes, feeling safe, when missiles hit... this scene makes the body shiver," said Abdul Majeed Abu Mahadi, 67, who added that his brother was killed in the attack.  

"If a person looked at this scene, they would have seen children, women and elderly men cut into pieces, it makes the heart ache, but what can we do?"  

The civil defense agency reported that another 10 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Ghamari family home in the Al-Sudaniya area northwest of Gaza City.

A strike on the Al-Agha family home killed eight others in an area of Khan Younis in the south, it added.  

Fourteen others were killed in four separate strikes across the territory, the civil defense said, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Shafii camp, west of Khan Younis.  

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.  

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that at least 2,222 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,314.  

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.  

Fighters also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel says its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

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Arab World

Civilians Pay a Heavy Price as War in Lebanon Drives Death, Displacement, UN Says

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
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Civilians Pay a Heavy Price as War in Lebanon Drives Death, Displacement, UN Says

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)

Civilians are paying a heavy price as the war in Lebanon continues to expand, driving death, injuries and displacement the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"Displacement is increasing incredibly quickly. Right ‌now, hundreds of ‌thousands of people ‌left ⁠their homes. Many ⁠leaving with very little, just the clothes they were wearing," said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator Imran Riza.

Lebanon was sucked ⁠into the war in ‌the ‌Middle East on March 2 when ‌Hezbollah opened fire at ‌Israel, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel has responded ‌with an offensive that has killed more ⁠than ⁠800 people in Lebanon and forced more than 800,000 from their homes.

Almost a fifth of people living in Lebanon are now registered as displaced, according to Lebanese government figures, with displacement set to increase, the UN said.

Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in Lebanon raise concerns under international law, the human ‌rights ‌office said ‌on ⁠Tuesday said.

"Israeli air ⁠strikes have destroyed entire residential buildings in dense ⁠urban environments with ‌multiple ‌members of the ‌same family, ‌including women and children often killed together," ‌UN human rights office spokesperson ⁠Thameen Al-Kheetan ⁠told reporters in Geneva.

"Such attacks raise concerns under international humanitarian law," he added.

Arab World

Lebanese Army Says One Soldier Killed, Four Wounded in Israeli Strike

17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
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Lebanese Army Says One Soldier Killed, Four Wounded in Israeli Strike

17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)

One Lebanese soldier was killed and four were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Tuesday, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. 

The soldiers were struck while travelling by car and motorcycle and were taken to ‌hospital, the army ‌said in a post on ‌X, ⁠adding in a ⁠subsequent statement that one of the wounded had died of his injuries. 

The Israeli military said it was aware of reports that Lebanese soldiers were wounded in a strike in southern Lebanon and that the incident was ⁠under review. 

It said that it operates ‌against Hezbollah and ‌not against the Lebanese Armed Forces. 

The strike comes ‌amid intensifying Israeli attacks across Lebanon, which have ‌killed more than 880 people and displaced more than 1 million, according to Lebanese authorities. 

The Lebanese army has also reported casualties in recent days, ‌including an incident earlier this month in which three soldiers were among ⁠those ⁠killed in Israeli strikes, according to the army. 

Israel's military, which has occupied five positions in southern Lebanon since a November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, sent additional forces into the country after the group fired a salvo of rockets on March 2, dragging Lebanon into the expanding US-Israeli war with Iran. 

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned Lebanon that it could face territorial losses unless Hezbollah was disarmed. 

Arab World

Iraq in Talks with Iran to Safeguard Oil Tanker Traffic Through Hormuz

Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
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Iraq in Talks with Iran to Safeguard Oil Tanker Traffic Through Hormuz

Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)

Iraq's oil minister said Baghdad is talking to Iran about allowing some of the country's oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the state news agency reported on Tuesday, as Iraq seeks to ease disruptions to crude exports following recent attacks on tankers in its own waters.

Iraq is also working to restore a disused pipeline that would allow oil to be pumped directly ‌to Türkiye's ‌Ceyhan port without passing through the ‌Kurdistan ⁠region, Oil Minister ⁠Hayan Abdel-Ghani said in a video statement released on Monday.

Iraq will complete an inspection of a 100-km (62-mile) section of the pipeline within a week to enable direct exports from Kirkuk, he added.

The reopening of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which has been shut for ⁠more than a decade, would offer ‌an alternative export route ‌at a time when shipping through the strategic Strait ‌of Hormuz is severely disrupted by the conflict ‌in the Middle East.

Exports via the 960-km pipeline, which once handled about 0.5% of global supply, were halted in 2014 after repeated attacks by ISIS militants.

The ‌oil ministry has said exports via the route could initially reach around 250,000 ⁠barrels ⁠per day, rising to about 450,000 bpd of crude from fields in the Kurdistan region is included.

Baghdad has sought to use the Kurdistan pipeline as a temporary route for crude flows but said the Kurdistan Regional Government had set arbitrary conditions for its use, warning it may take legal action if exports are blocked.

Kurdish authorities have rejected the accusations, saying they are not obstructing exports and that Baghdad has failed to address security and economic challenges facing the region’s oil sector.