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Israel Bombs Gaza after US Criticizes High Civilian Toll

Palestinians inspect at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the central Gaza Strip, July 16, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Palestinians inspect at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the central Gaza Strip, July 16, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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Israel Bombs Gaza after US Criticizes High Civilian Toll

Palestinians inspect at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the central Gaza Strip, July 16, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Palestinians inspect at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the central Gaza Strip, July 16, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Israel renewed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip Tuesday, after the United States renewed its criticism of its ally over the high civilian casualty toll of the war.

Residents told AFP of Israeli warplanes striking central Gaza and artillery fire hitting the territory's south, while medics said they pulled multiple bodies from the rubble of the latest bombardment.

Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials that casualties among Palestinian civilians "still remain unacceptably high".

"We continue to see far too many civilians killed in this conflict," spokesman Matthew Miller said after Blinken meth Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.

Washington has been pushing for a truce between Israel and Hamas.

But Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday that the group was pulling out of indirect talks for a deal in protest at recent Israeli "massacres", including a massive strike on Sunday that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed at least 92 people.

Haniyeh said Hamas stood ready to return to the indirect talks once Israel "demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal".

After the latest deadly strikes, medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they recovered four bodies from a house outside the southern city of Khan Yunis and another from Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza.

The Israeli military said that over the previous 24 hours its air force struck "approximately 40 terror targets" in Gaza. They included "sniping posts, observation posts, Hamas military structures, terror infrastructure, and buildings rigged with explosives".

It said its troops were also continuing targeted raids in the far-southern city of Rafah and in the central Gaza Strip.

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Arab World

Families Evacuated as Algeria Wildfires Threaten Residential Areas

Every summer, northern Algeria is hit by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change. (Reuters file)
Every summer, northern Algeria is hit by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change. (Reuters file)
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Families Evacuated as Algeria Wildfires Threaten Residential Areas

Every summer, northern Algeria is hit by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change. (Reuters file)
Every summer, northern Algeria is hit by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change. (Reuters file)

Algerian civil protection authorities said Wednesday that they had evacuated several families in the country's northeastern province of Jijel as wildfires there threatened residential areas.

Videos circulating on social media showed panicked residents sheltering inside a building as thick smoke filled the air.

The civil protection said there were 37 active blazes nationwide, five of which were in Jijel.

The rescue body did not say how many people had been evacuated or displaced because of the fires.

Algeria has grappled with wildfires over the summer, with at least six people killed in several provinces last month, according to the authorities.

Every summer, northern Algeria is hit by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change.

Dozens of people have been killed in recent years, and thousands of hectares of forest and farmland destroyed, along with numerous homes.

Arab World

Türkiye Says Dissolution of Kurdish-Led SDF Crucial for Syrian Stability

Kurdish fighters from the Qamishli Brigade, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) participate in a military parade in Qamishli on August 21, 2026, during the funeral ceremony for three Kurdish fighters killed in previous battles in Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the north of Syria. (AFP)
Kurdish fighters from the Qamishli Brigade, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) participate in a military parade in Qamishli on August 21, 2026, during the funeral ceremony for three Kurdish fighters killed in previous battles in Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the north of Syria. (AFP)
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Türkiye Says Dissolution of Kurdish-Led SDF Crucial for Syrian Stability

Kurdish fighters from the Qamishli Brigade, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) participate in a military parade in Qamishli on August 21, 2026, during the funeral ceremony for three Kurdish fighters killed in previous battles in Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the north of Syria. (AFP)
Kurdish fighters from the Qamishli Brigade, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) participate in a military parade in Qamishli on August 21, 2026, during the funeral ceremony for three Kurdish fighters killed in previous battles in Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the north of Syria. (AFP)

Türkiye on Wednesday said the dissolution of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) marked a key step towards strengthening state authority and achieving lasting stability in Syria.

Türkiye has long regarded the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.

"At this point, the dissolution of the SDF is an important development in terms of strengthening state authority across the country and bringing different segments of society together on a common political ground," Burhanettin Duran, the Turkish presidency's communications director, wrote on X.

"It is of great importance for the establishment of lasting stability that the Syrian administration continues to pursue an inclusive approach," he added.

The comments came a day after SDF leader Mazloum Abdi announced the group's dissolution in a televised address from the presidential palace in Damascus.

Ankara has often said it consistently backs Syria's territorial integrity and opposes any form of separatism in the country.

"It is crucial to establish a regional order... which is free from the tutelage of terrorist organizations, and where borders and sovereign rights are respected and protected," Duran said.

Türkiye has also launched a peace process with the PKK, which announced last year that it was disbanding following a call from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Arab World

‘Point of No Return’ if Israel-Hamas Truce Fails, Warns US Envoy to Gaza Board

Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (AP)
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‘Point of No Return’ if Israel-Hamas Truce Fails, Warns US Envoy to Gaza Board

Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (AP)

The high representative for Gaza in US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace warned Wednesday of a "point of no return" if the Israel-Hamas ceasefire breaks down.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a tough re-election fight, earlier this month publicly rejected the latest part of a US plan aimed at ending the devastating Gaza war.

A resumption of fighting in Gaza would mean "no roadmap to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild. That would not be a setback. It would be a point of no return for everyone," Nickolay Mladenov told the United Nations Security Council.

A roadmap agreed by Hamas on July 30 said that the decommissioning of weapons would be supervised by the International Stabilization Force, the nascent unit that aims to deploy to Gaza if the situation calms. It is led by US Major General Jasper Jeffers.

Hamas had pledged to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, an arrangement that brought skepticism from Netanyahu but which Trump hailed as a breakthrough.

Mladenov said "the second risk (to the ceasefire) runs in the opposite direction. Hamas has committed to cease all military activities. That commitment is still to be met in full."

"Every weapon carried, every tunnel still worked on, and every convoy still obstructed sets the process back and hands an argument to those who want to resume war," he added.