Israeli | Pakistan

Fourteen-year-old Fadel al-Naji used to be a keen footballer but is now largely confined to his home in Gaza City since both legs were severed in an Israeli drone attack in September. He sits sullenly on a couch with one hollow pant leg dangling and the other tucked into his waist beside his 11-year-old brother who lost an eye in the same strike. Fadel Al-Naji, 14, who lost both legs after being injured in an Israeli strike, sits at his home in Gaza City on April 10, 2026. — Reuters “He has become withdrawn and isolated,” said his mother Najwa al-Naji, showing old videos of him doing kick-ups on her phone. “It is as if he is dying slowly, and I wish that they would fit him with prosthetic limbs.” But those are in scarce supply for Gaza’s nearly 5,000 war amputees — a quarter of whom are children like al-Naji — because of Israeli restrictions on materials like plaster of Paris, seven aid and medical sources told Reuters. Israel cites security concerns as the reason for restrictions. Palestinian amputee Omar Ab...

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Sunday stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem under heavy police protection. Citing the Jerusalem Governorate, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the incursion came amid an ongoing escalation of violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in East Jerusalem, as well as continued restrictions on worshippers’ access to the mosque. Such incursions by Ben-Gvir are typically carried out without prior public announcement. Israeli ministers are only permitted to enter the Al Aqsa compound with advance approval from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The minister has continued these provocations despite repeated Arab, Islamic, and international condemnations. Al Aqsa Mosque is the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times. Sunday’s raid comes after Israeli forces turned parts of East Jerusalem, including...

Wrapped in bloodied bandages, Aline Saeed, seven, barely survived the Israeli strike on her home in south Lebanon last week. She was there to bury her father as hopes of a truce spread across the region, but a new strike killed her infant sister and other relatives. The strike on the Saeed family home in the village of Srifa took place on Wednesday, the first day of a two-week US-Iran ceasefire that many in Lebanon hoped would apply to their country, too. Instead, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 across Lebanon and left the Saeed family with four more relatives to bury. “They said it was a ceasefire. Like all these people, we went up to the village. We went to the casket to read the prayers and walk home … suddenly we felt like a storm was landing right on us,” said Nasser Saeed, Aline’s 64-year-old grandfather, who also survived. Relatives mourn over the bodies of four members of the Saeed family, Taleen (1.5 years old), Qassem (26), Khalil (60) and Fatima (39), killed in an Israeli strike in the village...

• Ceasefire talks loom as Lebanese death toll in war nears 1,900 • Air raid sirens wail across northern Israel amid fresh rocket barrage • UN warns of looming food crisis as conflict sends prices soaring BEIRUT: An Israeli stri­ke on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh killed at least 13 State Security personnel on Friday, a source from the government agency said, as fierce cross-border fighting raged despite plans for ceasefire talks between the two countries. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “enemy warplanes laun­ched a series of heavy strikes” on Nabatiyeh. One of the strikes hit the State Security office in the vicinity of the government complex. An AFP photographer at the site saw extensive damage and a fire still burning hours later. The attack comes as the Lebanese government prepares for negotiations with Israel next week to end a war that has killed nearly 1,900 people in Lebanon since it began in early March. Lebanon’s presidency said on Friday that a meeting would be held with Isra...

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held a phone call with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, in which he sought Pakistan’s support for bringing an immediate end to Israeli attacks on his country, according to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The statement said that during the call, PM Shehbaz strongly condemned Israel’s ongoing aggression against Lebanon and expressed condolences over the loss of thousands of precious lives in these hostilities. “The prime minister said that Pakistan was engaged in sincere efforts for regional peace and it was in this spirit that the peace talks between Iran and the US were being convened,” it said. “While thanking PM Shehbaz for his peace efforts, the prime minister of Lebanon sought Pakistan’s support for bringing an immediate end to the attacks targeting Lebanon and its people,” the statement said, adding that both leaders agreed to remain in contact. PM Shehbaz also posted on X about the phone call, saying, “Grateful to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam who expressed...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Tuesday strongly condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque (Al-Haram Al-Sharif) by Israeli occupation forces.

Pakistan on Tuesday strongly condemned the storming of Al Aqsa Mosque by Israeli occupation forces, the Foreign Office (FO) said. The reaction comes a day after far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed East Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. The report quoted the Islamic Waqf Department in Jerusalem as saying that the minister toured the mosque’s courtyards, entering through the Mughrabi Gate and proceeding to the Chain Gate before returning via the same route, amidst a heavy deployment of occupation police. “He has stormed the mosque approximately 14 times since assuming his position in 2023, as part of an escalating policy towards the mosque,” the report said. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the FO said, “Pakistan condemns in the strongest possible terms the storming of Al Aqsa Mosque by Israeli occupation forces.” It noted that the “reprehensible act constitutes a direct assault on the sanctity and historical character of the holy s...

• UN official says Israeli forces destroy 17 surveillance cameras linked agency’s office in Naqura • Indonesia receives bodies of three peacekeepers slain by Israel BEIRUT: Israel’s military renewed its strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday, severely damaging buildings and a major hospital, as international tensions escalated over the safety of United Nations peacekeepers caught in the crossfire. As Indonesia received the bodies of three of its UN peacekeepers killed while deployed in Lebanon, a UN security official told AFP that Israeli forces destroyed 17 surveillance cameras linked to the UNIFIL main headquarters in Naqura. The bodies of the three Indonesian men arrived in Jakarta on Saturday. Their flag-draped coffins were carried into an airport hall on the shoulders of uniformed comrades for a ceremony attended by President Prabowo Subianto. Family members wept over the coffins, each fronted by a photograph of the dead soldier in a gold frame. The fatalities occurred in two separate ...

UN experts have called for an international investigation into the killing of three Lebanese journalists in an Israeli strike, saying Israel had not provided “credible evidence” of their supposed links to armed groups. The three journalists, including Al Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, were killed on March 28 in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. “We denounce strongly what has now become a standard, dangerous practice of Israel to target and kill journalists and then claim, without providing any credible evidence, that they were involved with armed groups,” the experts said in a statement. The Israeli army claimed that Shoeib was a member of the Radwan force, an elite unit of Hezbollah, operating “under the guise of a journalist”. According to the experts, Israel’s only “evidence” for its claims was a photoshopped image of the journalist. Israel also confirmed it killed journalist Fatima Ftouni of Al Mayadeen and her brother, cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, alleging he was “an additional terrorist in Hezbollah...

Palestinian shops and public institutions were closed across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in protest of an Israeli law passed earlier this week permitting the execution of Palestinians convicted of deadly terror attacks. In the Palestinian territory’s main cities of Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus, most stores were closed with their shutters down at midday, AFP journalists reported. Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah party had called for a general strike the previous day. In Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority north of Jerusalem, entire shopping centres were closed as well as the city’s main market. People gathered to march against the law backed by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. “It’s a crazy law to be passed, it’s insane,” said Mohammed Gussein, a 24-year-old student at Al-Quds University, which like all Palestinian universities, was on strike. “It’s completely out of touch with humanity, and completely racist,” he told AFP. Riman, a 53-year-o...

An international media association on Saturday condemned what it described as a “violent assault” by Israeli soldiers who detained a CNN crew in the occupied West Bank this week. A CNN team was reporting on the aftermath of an assault by Israeli settlers and the establishment of an illegal outpost near the Palestinian village of Tayasir on Thursday when Israeli soldiers detained it, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) said. “The soldiers aggressively targeted the crew and Palestinian civilians present, pointing their rifles at them,” the FPA said, even after the journalists identified themselves. “The soldiers repeatedly tried to infringe the CNN crew’s right to film, ordering the crew to stop filming and threatening to confiscate the camera. “Later, an IDF (Israeli Defence Force) soldier approached CNN’s photojournalist from behind, placed him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground, and damaged his camera,” said the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and Palestinian territorie...

An Israeli strike killed three journalists on Saturday in south Lebanon, with authorities denouncing the attack as a “war crime”. Lebanese television news channel Al Manar said its reporter Ali Shoaib and reporter Fatima Ftouni, from Lebanese pan-Arab broadcaster Al Mayadeen, were killed when their vehicle was hit. Lebanon’s information minister, Paul Morcis, later said Ftouni’s brother, Mohammed, a cameraman, had also been killed. Al Mayadeen said that the Israeli airstrike “directly struck a vehicle clearly marked as a press car in which she and fellow journalists were travelling”. It added that Shoaib and Ftouni’s brother were also in the vehicle. “According to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent Jamal Ghourabi, Israel targeted Fatima’s vehicle with four precision missiles. After that, when ambulances arrived on the scene, paramedics were then targeted, leading to the martyrdom of one paramedic, reflecting an obvious attempt to assassinate press crews and even paramedics attempting to reach them,” the report said....

Israel should extend its border with Lebanon up to the Litani River deep inside the country’s south, Israel’s finance minister said ​on Monday as Israeli troops bombed bridges and destroyed homes in the area in an escalating military assault. The comments by Finance Minister ‌Bezalel Smotrich were the most explicit yet by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory in a fight that Israel claims targets Hezbollah. Lebanon was pulled into the regional war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel. Since then, Israel has ordered all residents to leave the area south of the Litani River as it pummels the area with air strikes, ​terming it a Hezbollah stronghold. Lebanese authorities say the Israeli air and ground assault has killed more than 1,000 people, and more than a ​million have been driven from their homes, with Israel having ordered residents to flee swathes of the country. ‘The new Israeli border must be the Litani’ Smotrich told an Israeli radio programme that the military campaig...

• IDF ordered to destroy all bridges over Litani River • Key Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre damaged in strikes • Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemns attacks, calling them a ‘prelude to a ground invasion’ BEIRUT: The Israeli military on Sunday announced it was expanding its ground campaign in Lebanon, warning of a lengthy operation, after Beirut condemned what it called Israel’s flagrant violations of Lebanese sovereignty. Israel struck a main bridge linking Lebanon’s south to the rest of the country on Sunday after ordering its military to destroy all crossings over the Litani River and to step up the demolition of homes near the southern border. The destruction of bridges and homes marks a significant escalation in Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon. International law generally prohibits militaries from attacking civilian infrastructure, and the United Nations human rights chief has criticised Israel’s actions in Lebanon, particularly its use of widespread evacuation orders that have displaced more than a ...

Forced by yet another Israeli bombardment on Lebanon to flee his home for the second time in just two years, and mourning lost relatives and friends, Hassan Kiki said he feels much older than 16. “War has aged us… We have lived through what no one else has,” the tall teen from south Lebanon told AFP in Beirut. “I miss my school, my friends… I lost two cousins and two friends in a massacre in Shehabiyeh,” he added, referring to a deadly Israeli strike in his town that killed at least seven people on March 11. Kiki is among more than a million people Lebanese authorities have registered as displaced since the country was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2. On that day, Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel to avenge the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel, which never stopped bombing Lebanon despite a 2024 truce that sought to end the last fighting with Hezbollah, responded with widespread strikes, ground operations along the border, and an evacuation warning for swa...

A video posted on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s X account is being seen as his response to the rumours of his death, which were earlier debunked by his office. The video was posted on Sunday evening, in which Netanyahu is seen getting himself a coffee and being asked about the rumours, Israeli news website Jerusalem Post reported. The post also had a caption stating: “They say I am what?” During the conversation taking place in what appears to be Hebrew, Jerusalem Post quoted Netanyahu as saying: “I love … coffee, I love my nation.” The report further elaborated that he also used the Hebrew slang word “met” during the conversation, which, according to Jerusalem Post, means “love” and is also the Hebrew word for “dead”. To simplify, his remarks could be translated to: “I am dead … for coffee.” According to Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu also asked the person filming him whether they wanted to count his fingers, seemingly mocking people speculating that a recent video of his was AI-generated and that h...

A SITE in the Haret Hreik, a neighbourhood in southern Beirut which was struck by Israel.—AFP • Death toll for paramedics this month rises to 31 after clinic bombing • France offers to host negotiations in Paris; urges Israel to halt its offensive • First direct talks since conflict expected in coming days, Haaretz reports BEIRUT: An overnight Israeli strike on a healthcare centre in Borj Qalaouiya killed at least 12 Lebanese medical personnel, Lebanon’s state news agency said on Saturday, as diplomatic efforts intensified amid reports Israel and Lebanon may hold their first direct talks to de-escalate the war. The health ministry said the death toll was preliminary, with rescue operations underway to search for those still missing under the rubble and the Israeli attack killed doctors, paramedics, and nurses working at the facility. This strike brings the total number of paramedics killed in Lebanon since the start of hostilities to 31, a grim statistic highlighted by the ministry as it accused Israel of rep...

Pakistan on Tuesday called upon the international community to take “urgent” action against Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, the Foreign Office (FO) said. Lebanon was dragged into the US-Israeli war on Iran this month when Lebanese group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel, which responded with heavy bombardment across the country. A total of 486 people have been killed in the war so far and 1,313 injured, of which 259 are children, according to the World Health Organisation. In a statement, the FO condemned “Israel’s continued military aggression against Lebanon,” which it said has resulted in the “death of hundreds of civilians and the displacement of nearly half a million people”. FO maintained that Israeli actions were in “contravention of international law” and were “undermining the efforts of the government of Lebanon to ensure peace and stability in the country”. It held that Israel’s recent actions “have the potential to further exacerbate the ongoing security and humanitarian cri...

Members of the Lebanese Civil Defence extinguish a fire in a building after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.—Reuters • Lebanese parliament postpones legislative elections for two years • Lebanese president says Hezbollah risks state collapse, suggests full truce, direct talks BEIRUT: The Israeli onslaught in Leb­anon has displaced nearly 700,000 people, with reports of children among the casualties, as the conflict with the Leba­nese resistance group Hezbollah enters its second week, a UN agency said on Monday. “Mass displacement across Leb­­a­non has forced nearly 700,000 people including around 200,000 children from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” UNICEF Reg­ional Direc­tor Edouard Beigbeder said. “Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters.” Lebanon, a country of 6 million, has turned its largest sport...

GWADAR: A fisherman from Gwadar was killed after the debris of an Israeli projectile intercepted by Iranian air defence systems hit his boat in Iranian waters, officials said on Sunday. Gwadar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Naqibullah Kakar confirmed the incident to Dawn that took place on Saturday, saying that the deceased was identified as Muhammad Tayyab, a resident of Gannz, a small coastal town in Balochistan’s Gwadar district. District Police Officer Attaur Rehman also confirmed the incident and told Dawn that Tayyab “went into Iranian waters for Iranian oil”. DC Kakar believes an attempt was made to attack fishing boats in a coastal area of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, but the projectile was intercepted and destroyed by the Iranian air defence system. “A portion of the debris from that drone or missile hit Tayyab’s fishing boat, resulting in his death,” he added. The officials said Tayyab’s body was taken to his native town, Gannz, via the sea, and he was later buried. Iran, a neighbour of Pakistan, h...