LONDON: Following a seemingly successful pause in hostilities, questions are mounting over the fate of Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza and what hopes they have of returning home if, and when, news breaks of a permanent cessation of hostilities.

In the more than 50 days of constant shelling, Israel’s military has turned much of northern Gaza into a moonscape with entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

WASHINGTON: A US Navy warship sailing near the Bab El-Mandeb Strait shot down a drone launched from Yemen, a US official said Wednesday, in the latest in a string of threats from the Iranian-backed Houthis.
The official said according to initial reports, USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, deemed the drone — an Iranian-made KAS-04 — to be a threat and shot it down over water in the southern Red Sea as the ship was moving toward the strait. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a military operation not yet made public.

WASHINGTON: The near-daily attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria have stopped since a truce between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
American forces in the two countries have been targeted with rockets and drones more than 70 times since mid-October — a surge in violence the United States has blamed on Iran-backed forces.
“There have been no attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since November 23, since the operational pause began,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told journalists.

BEIRUT: A Hamas senior official invited US billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday to visit the Palestinian Gaza strip to see the extent of destruction caused by the Israeli bombardment.
“We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Hamas’ senior official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut.

BEIRUT: A senior Hezbollah politician said on Tuesday he hoped a truce would continue and his Iran-backed group had started paying compensation to people who had suffered losses during weeks of Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.
Following the start of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in their worst hostilities since 2006, with Hezbollah attacking Israeli positions at the border and Israel launching air and artillery strikes.