A century-old territorial dispute deepened by the discovery of oil is boiling over between neighbors Guyana and Venezuela. Steeped in patriotism, the Venezuelan government is seizing on the fight to boost support ahead of a presidential election among a population fed up with a decade-long crisis that has pushed many into poverty.
Israel said Friday that the military was rounding up Palestinian men in northern Gaza for interrogation, searching for Hamas militants, while desperate Palestinians in the south crowded into an ever-shrinking area, and the U.N. warned that its aid operation is “in tatters.”
Pickup trucks and tourniquets bound for Ukraine’s battlefield are stuck in a mileslong line at the border with Poland. Components to build drones to fight off Russian forces are facing weeks of delays.
HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) — After seven weeks held hostage in the tunnels of Gaza, they are finally free to laugh and chat and play. But some of the children who have come back from captivity are still reluctant to raise their voices above a whisper.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — As the Israel-Hamas war entered its third month Friday, the Israeli army said that over the past day its forces had struck about 450 targets in the Gaza Strip. Israel also dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza with a biblical warning to Hamas leaders that it would take “a life for a life, an eye for an eye.” A day after troops rounded up hundreds of Palestinians for questioning about suspected ties to Hamas, an Israeli government spokesman suggested that practice would continue.
BAGHDAD (AP) — A rocket attack on the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad caused minor damage but no casualties Friday morning, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The attack is the first on the embassy located in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Iraq's capital to be confirmed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. The Green Zone houses Iraqi government buildings and embassies on the west bank of the Tigris River.
MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win. Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia — including one on the Kremlin itself — and corroded its aura of invincibility.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Accounts given to The Associated Press, along with first assessments by an Israeli rights group, show that sexual assault was part of an atrocities-filled rampage by Hamas and other Gaza militants who killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages that day.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin began a trip Wednesday to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hoping to shore up support in the Mideast from two major oil producers allied to the U.S. as his war on Ukraine grinds on. Putin landed in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms now hosting the United Nations' COP28 climate talks.
BATU PALANO, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers searching the hazardous slopes of Indonesia's Mount Marapi volcano found the last body of climbers who were caught by a surprise weekend eruption, raising the number of confirmed dead to 23, officials said Wednesday. About 75 climbers started their way up the nearly 9,480-foot mountain in Agam district of West Sumatra province on Saturday and became stranded.