Drone Strikes on Sudan Markets Kill 33

Smoke billows over buildings in Khartoum on May 1, 2023 as deadly clashes between rival generals' forces have entered their third week.(Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows over buildings in Khartoum on May 1, 2023 as deadly clashes between rival generals' forces have entered their third week.(Photo by AFP)
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Drone Strikes on Sudan Markets Kill 33

Smoke billows over buildings in Khartoum on May 1, 2023 as deadly clashes between rival generals' forces have entered their third week.(Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows over buildings in Khartoum on May 1, 2023 as deadly clashes between rival generals' forces have entered their third week.(Photo by AFP)

A drone attack hit two markets in RSF-controlled towns in southwest Sudan, killing 33 people, a medical source told AFP on Sunday.

The strikes targeted the markets of Abu Zabad and Wad Banda in West Kordofan state -- part of the resource-rich Kordofan region that is currently the fiercest battlefield in the nearly three-year war between Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces.

A doctor at Abu Zabad hospital, one of the few medical facilities still serving the area, said two drones struck the markets on Saturday, injuring 59 people.

Speaking via a Starlink connection and requesting anonymity, the doctor said 30 of the wounded remain receiving treatment. The two towns lie roughly 15 kilometres (9 miles) apart.

A resident of Abu Zabad town, Hamad Abdullah, said he helped bury 20 people on Saturday following what he described as an army drone strike on the town's market.

"Four of them were my relatives who worked in the market," he told AFP.

A military source rejected the accusations, telling AFP that the "armed forces do not bombard civilian areas".

"This is a lie with no basis. We only target rebels, their equipment and their weapons depots," the source said, requesting anonymity because they are not authorised to brief the media.

Since war broke out in April 2023, both sides have been accused of war crimes including targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 11 million and fuelled what the United Nations describes as the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.



France's Justice Minister to Visit Algeria amid Diplomatic Thaw

File photo: Algerian and French flags flutter ahead of the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Algiers, Algeria August 25, 2022. (Reuters)
File photo: Algerian and French flags flutter ahead of the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Algiers, Algeria August 25, 2022. (Reuters)
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France's Justice Minister to Visit Algeria amid Diplomatic Thaw

File photo: Algerian and French flags flutter ahead of the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Algiers, Algeria August 25, 2022. (Reuters)
File photo: Algerian and French flags flutter ahead of the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Algiers, Algeria August 25, 2022. (Reuters)

France's justice minister will head to Algeria next week to discuss improving cooperation and the fate of a detained French journalist, his office said Saturday, as ties warm following a diplomatic spat.

"The purpose of this trip is to work on opening a new chapter in judicial cooperation," Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin's office said of the trip planned for Monday.

But jailed reporter Christophe Gleizes would also be a "major topic," it said.

Gleizes, 37, was arrested in May 2024 while reporting on a football club in Algeria's Kabylia region and sentenced to seven years in jail in June last year for "glorifying terrorism".

Relations between France and its former colony became rocky after Paris in 2024 officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front.

But France and Algeria agreed in February to restart security cooperation as Interior Minister Laurent Nunez visited Algiers, marking the first sign of a thaw in diplomatic ties.

After deputy defense minister Alice Rufo met President Abdelmadjid Tebboune last week, France's ambassador to the North African country returned to his post after being recalled about a year ago at the height of the dispute.

Gleizes, the journalist, on Monday received his first visit from a diplomat since his detention.

His mother has said she hopes for "very positive developments on Christophe's return to France" by the end of the month, after he dropped an appeal with Algeria's top court, hoping for a presidential pardon.


Israel Strikes South Lebanon Day after Ceasefire Extension

TOPSHOT - A photograph taken from the southern area of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the area of Ras Al-Ain on May 12, 2026. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP)
TOPSHOT - A photograph taken from the southern area of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the area of Ras Al-Ain on May 12, 2026. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP)
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Israel Strikes South Lebanon Day after Ceasefire Extension

TOPSHOT - A photograph taken from the southern area of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the area of Ras Al-Ain on May 12, 2026. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP)
TOPSHOT - A photograph taken from the southern area of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the area of Ras Al-Ain on May 12, 2026. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP)

Israel launched new airstrikes against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Saturday, a day after the two countries agreed to extend a truce following talks in Washington. 

The Israeli military said its forces have “begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure sites in several areas in southern Lebanon,"  

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported strikes on at least five villages in the south, preceded by an exodus of residents towards the southern city of Sidon and the capital Beirut. 

The Israeli military had earlier warned residents of nine villages in the Sidon and Nabatieh regions to evacuate ahead of the strikes, AFP said. 

It comes after envoys from Israel and Lebanon held negotiations in Washington following the first direct talks in decades last month between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations. 

Iran-backed Hezbollah opposes the negotiations and has continued to claim attacks on northern Israel and against the Israeli military in southern Lebanon, part of which it has occupied, since the ceasefire took effect on April 17. 

But Lebanon's negotiating delegation in Washington on Friday welcomed the 45-day extension of the truce with Israel. 

"The extension of the ceasefire and the establishment of a US-facilitated security track provide critical breathing space for our citizens, reinforce state institutions, and advance a political pathway toward lasting stability," it said in a statement shared by the Lebanese presidency. 

Israeli attacks since the start of the war have killed more than 2,900 people in Lebanon, including more than 400 since the truce took effect, according to Lebanese authorities. 

The military has also reported the deaths of 19 soldiers in southern Lebanon since fighting with Hezbollah erupted. 

Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. 


Palestinian Ministry Says Israeli Forces Kill Man in West Bank Camp

 A member of the Israeli security forces aims his weapon while patrolling during a military raid in the Qalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 11, 2026. (AFP)
A member of the Israeli security forces aims his weapon while patrolling during a military raid in the Qalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 11, 2026. (AFP)
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Palestinian Ministry Says Israeli Forces Kill Man in West Bank Camp

 A member of the Israeli security forces aims his weapon while patrolling during a military raid in the Qalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 11, 2026. (AFP)
A member of the Israeli security forces aims his weapon while patrolling during a military raid in the Qalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 11, 2026. (AFP)

Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces killed a man on Saturday on the outskirts of the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank.

The health ministry in Ramallah identified the victim as 34-year-old Nour al-Din Kamal Hassan Fayyad, saying he was "killed by occupation forces' fire in the Jenin camp".

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams in Jenin received a man "with no signs of breathing or pulse from inside Jenin camp after he sustained a live bullet wound to the thigh".

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel launched a major military operation in mid-January in multiple northern Palestinian refugee camps, where the army says it is seeking to root out armed groups.

The operation, dubbed "Iron Wall", has targeted Jenin and Tulkarem camps and displaced nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.

The Israeli military has sealed off Jenin camp, allowing displaced residents only limited access to check on their homes and belongings.

Refugee camps were created in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring Arab countries after the first Arab-Israeli war for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel at the time of its creation in 1948.

Since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, near-daily violence has also rocked the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,072 Palestinians since then, including many gunmen, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data.

Official Israeli figures show at least 46 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.