WASHINGTON (AP) — Within hours of the horrific Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the U.S. began moving warships and aircraft to the region to be ready to provide Israel with whatever it needed to respond. On Tuesday, more ships and forces were heading toward Israel, and other troops in the U.S. were preparing to deploy if called on.

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz strongly condemned a firebomb assault on a synagogue in Berlin on Wednesday, saying, “We will never accept when attacks are carried out against Jewish institutions.”

Assailants threw two Molotov cocktails early Wednesday at the synagogue in the center of the German capital, police said, as antisemitic incidents in the country have been rising following the violent escalation in the Middle East.

(AP) --- A fatal stabbing in Illinois, a gun pointed at protesters in Pennsylvania, vandalism at synagogues and harassment of staff at a Palestinian restaurant all are raising fears that the war between Israel and Hamas is sparking violence in the United States.

The tensions follow a familiar pattern of crimes against Jewish and Muslim communities rising when conflict erupts in the Middle East and Americans have been killed or taken hostage.

MOSCOW, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday denounced the strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip a "monstrous" war crime, for which the United States bears responsibility.

"The monstrous strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip is undoubtedly a war crime," Medvedev wrote on his social media channel.

PARIS (AP) — The Palace of Versailles was evacuated for security reasons on Wednesday for the third time since the weekend, the former royal chateau said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was among a spate of evacuations in the past five days around France, including three airports that were also forced to close for security checks.

The Chateau of Versailles apologized to visitors on X for being forced to clear out visitors from the sumptuous 17th-century palace “for security reasons.”

DUBAI/LONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - OPEC is not planning to hold an extraordinary meeting or take any immediate action after Iran's foreign minister called on members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to impose an oil embargo and other sanctions on Israel, four sources from the producer group told Reuters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Wednesday called on OIC members to impose an oil embargo and other sanctions on Israel and expel all Israeli ambassadors.

DEIR al-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Even the “safe zones” of Gaza aren’t safe for Palestinians.

Intense Israeli strikes Tuesday destroyed homes, hit a U.N. school sheltering the displaced and killed dozens of people in south and central Gaza.

“The situation is very, very difficult with artillery shelling and aerial bombardment on homes and defenseless people,” said Abu Hashem Abu al-Hussein, who initially welcomed displaced families into his home in Khan Younis, but then fled to a U.N. school, where he hoped to find safety himself.

MOSCOW, Oct 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia and the United Arab Emirates called Tuesday for an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting following the deadly strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip that left at least 200 dead.
 
“Russia and the United Arab Emirates have called for an urgent public meeting of the United Nations Security Council in the morning of October 18 over the strike on a Gaza hospital,” the Russian ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanski, said on Telegram.
 

DENVER (AP) — The remains of at least 189 people have been removed from a Colorado funeral home, up from an initial estimate of about 115 when the decaying and improperly stored bodies were discovered two weeks ago, officials said Tuesday.

LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has begun charging a $1 fee to new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, in a test designed to cut down on the spam and fake accounts flourishing on the site formerly known as Twitter.

The company said late Tuesday that it has started trying out the annual subscription method for new and unverified accounts. The program, dubbed Not a Bot, won’t apply to existing users.

It’s not clear why it only applies to New Zealand and the Philippines or why those countries were chosen.

JERUSALEM, Oct 18 (Reuters) - One Israeli cabinet minister was barred from a hospital visitors' entrance. Another's bodyguards were drenched with coffee thrown by a bereaved man. A third had "traitor" and "imbecile" shouted at her as she came to comfort families evacuated during the horror.

The shock Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas gunmen has rallied Israelis to one another. But there is little love shown for a government being widely accused of dropping the country's guard and engulfing it in a Gaza war that is rattling the region.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Doctors in Gaza City faced with dwindling medical supplies performed surgery on hospital floors, often without anesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a nearby hospital amid Israeli bombings and a blockade of the territory.

The Hamas militant group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants. At least 500 people were killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.