Israel | DD News

September 16, 2024 4:50 PM

Iran orders ‘direct attack’ on Israel in retaliation for Haniyeh killing: Report

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, New York Times reported, citing three Iranian officials, briefed on the order, including two members of the Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning, shortly after Iran announced that Haniyeh had been killed. Iran and Hamas have accused Isra...

October 6, 2025 2:50 PM

Tough-talking Haniyeh was seen as the more moderate face of Hamas

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed in Iran, was the tough-talking face of the Palestinian group's international diplomacy as war raged back in Gaza, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike. But despite the rhetoric, he was seen by many diplomats as a moderate compared to the more hardline members of the Iran-backed group inside Gaza. Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh moved between Turkey and Qatar's capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the b...

July 31, 2024 3:33 PM

Polio cases ‘very likely’ in Gaza population, WHO says

It is very likely that polio has infected people in the Gaza Strip, in what would be a setback for global efforts to eradicate the disease, a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday. Gaza's health ministry declared a polio epidemic across the Palestinian enclave late on Monday after samples of the virus were found in sewage. It has not announced any human cases. According to the WHO, polio is now endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but more than 30 countries are still list...

July 31, 2024 12:16 PM

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran, Hamas says

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the early hours of the morning in Iran, the Palestinian militant group said on Wednesday, drawing fears of wider escalation in a region shaken by Israel's war in Gaza and a worsening conflict in Lebanon. Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, hours after he attended a swearing in ceremony for the country's new president, and said it was investigating. There was no immediate comment from Israel. The Israeli military said it ...

July 30, 2024 9:13 PM

Israeli forces quit east Khan Younis, Palestinians recover dozens of bodies

Thousands of Palestinians returned to their homes in the ruins of Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis on Tuesday, after Israeli forces ended a week-long incursion there which they said aimed to prevent Islamist armed group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinian rescue workers and civilians collected dead bodies from the streets of the abandoned battle zone, bringing corpses wrapped in rugs to morgues in cars and donkey carts. The Hamas-run Gaza media office said Israel's eight-day-long raid in e...

July 30, 2024 2:42 PM

Don’t bomb Beirut: U.S. leads push to rein in Israel’s response

The United States is leading a diplomatic dash to deter Israel from striking Lebanon's capital Beirut or major civil infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights, five people with knowledge of the drive said. Washington is racing to avert a full-blown war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah after the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 youths at the weekend, according to the five people who include Lebanese and Iranian offici...

July 30, 2024 11:16 AM

US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians rose by about 70% in the U.S. in the first half of 2024 amid heightened Islamophobia due to Israel's war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said on Tuesday. Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the eruption in October of the Israel-Gaza war which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis. In the first six mont...

September 16, 2024 5:05 PM

Israeli officials say they seek to avoid all-out war in Lebanon retaliation

Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the Middle East into all-out war, two Israeli officials said on Monday, as Lebanon braced for retaliation after a rocket strike that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Two other Israeli officials said Israel was preparing for the possibility of a few days of fighting following Saturday's rocket strike at a sports field in a Druze town that it blamed on the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah. Hezbollah has den...

July 29, 2024 11:09 AM

Israel cabinet authorizes government to respond to Hezbollah rocket strike

Israel's security cabinet on Sunday authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to decide on the "manner and timing" of a response to a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 teenagers and children, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams on Saturday, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Palestinian militant group Hamas'...

July 28, 2024 5:55 PM

Is the Hezbollah-Israel conflict about to spiral?

A deadly rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has added to concerns that Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah could be sucked into a full-scale war - something they have both previously indicated they want to avoid but for which they have also said they are ready. Israel said on Sunday it would strike hard at Hezbollah after accusing the group of killing 12 children and teenagers in a rocket attack on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbolla...