US’ Blinken to visit Jordan, Israel on Middle East crisis tour

LONDON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to Jordan, whose relations with Israel have sharply deteriorated over the Gaza war, on a new crisis trip, the State Department said Wednesday.
The top US diplomat will visit Jordan after previously announced talks on Friday in Israel, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, where he is expected to meet with leaders of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for an update on their military objectives.


Houthis under mounting international scrutiny over death of aid worker in detention

AL-MUKALLA: The UK and EU joined 25 international organizations in urging the Houthis in Yemen to investigate the death of a humanitarian worker in their custody. 

The UK Embassy in Yemen expressed condolences on Tuesday to the family of Save the Children worker Hisham Al-Hakimi, who died inside a Houthi detention facility last week, and appealed for details on how he died to be released.



Bodies line Gaza hospital wall and surgeons operate in corridors

GAZA: Dozens of bodies lay shrouded in white, lined up against the side of Gaza Strip’s Indonesian Hospital on Tuesday from what health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave said was an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp.
The hospital had already been struggling under an influx of patients badly wounded by Israeli bombing, with medics setting up an operating room in a corridor because the main surgical theaters were full, they said.


Can Syria sit out the shadow war between Israel and Iran as Gaza bombardment intensifies?

LONDON: Syrians are growing increasingly concerned that repeated Israeli airstrikes and incursions could drag the country into the intensifying Israel-Hamas war, extending Syria’s decade-long existence as a proxy battleground.

In the three weeks since Hamas’ deadly assault on sites across the Israeli border of the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched attacks against Syria’s civilian airports in Aleppo and Damascus, including a simultaneous strike on Oct. 12.



Gaza now a ‘graveyard’ for thousands of children: UN

JERUSALEM/GENEVA: The Gaza Strip has become a graveyard for thousands of children, the UN said on Tuesday, as it feared the prospect of more dying of dehydration.

Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping at least 240 others, according to Israeli officials.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said the strikes have killed more than 8,500 people, mainly civilians.