GAZA STRIP: No wounded Palestinians or dual nationals were evacuated Wednesday from the Gaza Strip to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, a Palestinian official said.

The crossing point remained closed due to Israel’s refusal to approve the list of wounded who were to be evacuated, a Hamas official told AFP.

The war started over a month ago when Hamas militants crossed into Israel and killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages, according to Israeli officials,

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t elaborate when he said this week that Israel would maintain indefinite “overall security responsibility” in Gaza once it removes Hamas from power in response to a deadly Oct. 7 cross-border raid by the Islamic militant group.

WASHINGTON: US warplanes carried out a strike on an Iran-linked site in eastern Syria on Wednesday in response to attacks against American personnel, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
It is the second time in roughly two weeks that the United States has targeted a location in Syria it said was linked to Iran, which supports an array of groups that Washington blames for a spike in attacks on its forces in the Middle East.

JERUSALEM: “I believed in peace with Gaza, but I was mistaken,” said Avida Bachar, a resident of kibbutz Beeri near the Gaza Strip, speaking from his hospital bed.
Bachar lost his wife and son in the bloody October 7 attack by Hamas, the single deadliest event in Israel since the country’s creation in 1948.
“We must destroy the enemy because if we don’t we have no possible future,” Bachar, who is in his fifties, told AFP.

ISTANBUL: Turkiye teetered on the edge of political crisis Wednesday as one top court filed a criminal complaint against members of another over its order to release a jailed opposition politician.
The Supreme Court of Appeals said it was filing criminal charges against members of the Constitutional Court who ruled that Can Atalay be released.
The 47-year-old lawyer was one of seven defendants sentenced last year to 18 years in prison as part of a highly controversial trial that also saw the award-winning philanthropist Osman Kavala jailed for life.