JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians began a mass exodus from northern Gaza Friday after Israel’s military told some 1 million people to evacuate toward the southern part of the besieged territory, ahead of an expected ground invasion against the ruling Hamas militant group.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government leaders on Friday to reaffirm U.S. support and was seeing firsthand some of the weapons and security assistance that Washington rapidly delivered to Israel in the first week of its war with the militant Hamas group.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian authorities on Friday detained three lawyers representing imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny after searching their homes, his allies said, a step that comes amid increasing pressure on the Kremlin's critics. The move was an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny,” his ally Ivan Zhdanov said on social media.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated Friday across the Middle East in support of the Palestinians and against the intensifying Israeli bombardment of Gaza, underscoring the risk of a wider regional conflict as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion.

PARIS (AP) — A man armed with a knife killed a teacher at the high school in northern France he once attended and critically wounded another teacher and a security guard Friday, authorities said, an attack being investigated as potential terrorism amid soaring global tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military hit the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said Thursday its complete siege — which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine — would remain in place until the Hamas militants that rule the territory freed some 150 hostages taken during a grisly weekend incursion.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Qatar have reached an agreement that the Qataris will not act on any request from Tehran for the time being to access $6 billion in Iranian funds that were unblocked as part of a prisoner swap last month, a U.S. official said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House announced that the U.S. government will begin operating evacuation flights to help Americans leave Israel as Israel prepares to escalate retaliatory action against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The evacuation flights are expected to begin Friday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — More than 90% of the people killed by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Afghanistan last weekend were women and children, U.N. officials reported Thursday. Taliban officials said Saturday's earthquake killed more than 2,000 people of all ages and genders across Herat province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, where 1,294 people died, 1,688 were injured and every home was destroyed, according to U.N. figures.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians lined up outside bakeries and grocery stores in Gaza on Thursday after spending the night surrounded by the ruins of pulverized neighborhoods darkened by a near-total power outage. Israel launched new airstrikes and said it was preparing for a possible ground invasion.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is offering military help to Israel and promising to crack down on support for the militant Hamas group at home following the group's attack on Israel. Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday underlined Germany's historical responsibility for Israel's security. The Defense Ministry said it agreed to an Israeli request to use up to two of five Heron TP combat drones that are currently leased by the German military and were already in Israel for the training of German servicepeople.

KIBBUTZ BE'ERI, Israel (AP) — Trudging down a cul-de-sac turned to rubble, an Israeli army commander stopped in front of one scorched home, its front wall blown wide open. Look at what Hamas militants have done, he said, to this close-knit community that only days ago brimmed with life. “Children in the same room and someone came and killed them all. Fifteen girls and teenagers, they put (them) in the same room, threw in a hand grenade and it’s over,” Major Gen. Itai Veruv said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a leading opposition figure on Wednesday created a war-time Cabinet overseeing the fight to avenge a stunning weekend attack by Hamas militants. In the sealed-off Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas, the Israeli bombardment demolished neighborhoods and the only power plant ran out of fuel.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. citizens confirmed to have been killed in the violence unleashed by Hamas against Israel has risen to at least 22 with at least 17 unaccounted for, the State Department said Wednesday. That's an increase in the death toll from 14 the day before.

CHAHAK, Afghanistan (AP) — Another strong earthquake shook western Afghanistan on Wednesday morning after an earlier one killed more than 2,000 people and flattened whole villages in Herat province in what was one of the most destructive quakes in the country’s recent history. The magnitude 6.3 earthquake on Wednesday was about 17 miles outside Herat, the provincial capital, and 6 miles deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lidia dissipated Wednesday after hitting land as a Category 4 hurricane near the resort of Puerta Vallarta, where one person was killed by a falling tree and two others injured. The hurricane knocked over trees and blew roofs off houses with winds as high as 140 mph before moving inland.

ZINDA JAN, Afghanistan (AP) — Nurullah crossed the border into Iran to earn money for his family, like so many men from his village in western Afghanistan. On Sunday, he stood on the side of the road crying. The 55-year-old was heading home to bury his wife, three children and a grandchild killed a day before, when an earthquake left at least 2,000 people dead in Afghanistan’s Herat province.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians in the sealed-off Gaza Strip struggled to find any safe area Wednesday, as Israeli strikes demolished entire neighborhoods, hospitals ran low on supplies and the territory's only power plant ran out of fuel, deepening the misery of a war sparked by a stunning and deadly assault by Hamas militants. Airstrikes smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath mounds of debris.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Collapsed buildings, mangled infrastructure, streets turned into fields of rubble. Scenes of violence and destruction in the long-blockaded Gaza Strip have filled the world's airwaves throughout four wars and countless rounds of hostilities between Israel and Hamas militants. But this conflict, Palestinians say, is different.

ROME (AP) — Residents and visitors in Italy's capital can ride a city bus this month that recounts how a 12-year-old boy escaped Nazi deportation from Rome's Jewish neighborhood 80 years ago thanks to sympathetic tram drivers. The traveling exhibit is a highlight of events commemorating the 80th anniversary of when German soldiers rounded up some 1,200 members of the city's tiny Jewish community during the Nazi occupation in the latter years of World War II.

PARIS (AP) — The “Mona Lisa” has given up another secret. Using X-rays to peer into the chemical structure of a tiny speck of the celebrated work of art, scientists have gained new insight into the techniques that Leonardo da Vinci used to paint his groundbreaking portrait of the woman with the exquisitely enigmatic smile.

BRUSSELS (AP) — For the first time, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined a meeting of more than 50 defense leaders from around the world Wednesday to make a personal pitch for military aid, in the face of lagging political support in the U.S. and new pressure on allies to send weapons to bolster Israel’s war with Hamas.

KFAR AZA, Israel (AP) — On the road approaching this rural village, the bodies of militants lie scattered between the shells of burned-out cars. Walls and doors of what used to be neatly kept stucco homes are blasted wide open. As bags holding the bodies of slain residents await identification, the smell of death hangs thick in the hot afternoon air.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Lidia made landfall as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm Tuesday evening with winds of 140 mph near Mexico’s Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Lidia's eye appeared to have reached land near Las Penitas in the western state of Jalisco. The area is a sparsely populated peninsula. The storm was moving south of Puerto Vallarta, which could cushion the blow on the resort.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes hammered the Gaza Strip neighborhood by neighborhood on Tuesday, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety in the tiny, sealed-off territory as Israel vowed a retaliation for Hamas’ surprise weekend attack that would “reverberate ... for generations.”