Middle East & North Africa

TEL AVIV (AP) — The families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip kicked off a 24-hour rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night, calling on the government to bring their loved ones home after 100 days spent in Hamas captivity.

Thousands of people poured into “Hostages Ssquare” in Tel Aviv — a central plaza opposite Israel’s Defense Ministry that has served as a gathering point for the campaigners.

Hamas and other Gaza militants captured some 250 people during its deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, while killing some 1,200 other people, most of them civilians.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Now 100 days old, the latest Israel-Hamas war is by far the longest, bloodiest, and most destructive conflict between the bitter enemies.

JERUSALEM, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Israel accused Hamas on Saturday of planning to attack its embassy in Sweden as part of an expansion by the Palestinian Islamist militant group into Europe, where authorities announced the arrests of several suspects last month.

In a statement following up on the arrests announced by Danish, German and Swedish authorities, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency named an alleged Hamas network member in Sweden, without specifying whether he was also in custody.

CAIRO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Houthi militants mistakenly targeted a tanker carrying Russian oil in a missile attack on Friday off Yemen, British maritime security firm Ambrey said.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organisation said it had received a report of a missile being fired 90 nautical miles southeast of Yemen's port city of Aden.

"The master reported a missile landing in the water 400-500 metres away, and being followed by three small craft," the UKMTO advisory note said, adding that there were no injuries or damage.

DUBAI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Yemenis gathered in several cities on Friday to hear their leaders condemn U.S. and British strikes on their country in response to attacks by Houthi militants on Red Sea shipping.

The U.S. and Britain carried out dozens of air strikes on Houthi military targets overnight, widening a wave of regional conflict unleashed by Israel's war in Gaza.

"Your strikes on Yemen are terrorism," said Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, referring to the United States. "The United States is the Devil."

ISTANBUL, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Turkish security forces have "neutralized" 45 "terrorists" in retaliatory airstrikes over their killing of several Turkish soldiers on Friday, the Turkish presidency said on Saturday.

Of the "terrorists," 36 were killed in the forces' cross-border operations in northern Iraq, and nine were killed in northern Syria, the presidency said on the social media platform X.

DAMASCUS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Four people were killed on Saturday as their car slid off a bridge into a heavy rainfall-induced water stream in the northwestern Syrian province of Tartus, the local Sham FM radio reported.

Numerous villages in the province experienced heavy downpours and suffered the subsequent widespread flooding, said the report, citing Provincial Governor Hassan Hassan.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 30 Palestinians, including young children, were killed in two Israeli airstrikes overnight into Saturday in the Gaza Strip, officials said, as concerns continued to grow over a lack of fuel and supplies for overburdened hospitals.

Video provided by Gaza’s Civil Defense department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a home in Gaza City by flashlight early Saturday morning after it was hit by an Israeli attack.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria on Saturday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said, coming a day after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.

Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels vowed fierce retaliation Friday for American and British strikes against them, further raising the prospect of a wider conflict in a region already beset by Israel’s war in Gaza.

The bombardment — launched in response to a recent campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the vital Red Sea — killed at least five people and wounded six, the Houthis said.