The World Health Organization said it led missions to barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza at the weekend, describing growing desperation and starving people stripping an aid truck of supplies.

On a countryside road in battle-ravaged Sudan, the hum of a passing vehicle turns villagers’ blood cold, fearing the arrival of paramilitaries plundering their way south in their war against the army.

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message yesterday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today” and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

At a funeral in Gaza today a line of Palestinians touched white shrouds containing the bodies of at least 70 people who Palestinian health officials said were killed by an Israeli airstrike targeting Maghazi in the centre of the besieged strip

Iran denied on Monday a US claim that a drone launched from Iran had struck a chemical tanker in the Indian ocean

Palestinians said they felt "no joy" this Christmas as Israel bombed the besieged Palestinian territory on Monday, with no end in sight to the war that Hamas says has claimed more than 20,000 lives

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 70 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike that late Sunday hit a number of houses in a refugee camp

Israel yesterday pushed with its military campaign in Gaza, as the focus of the deadly campaign shifted to southern Gaza where most displaced Palestinians are trapped.

The United Nations has called for the urgent rescue of 185 people, mainly women and children, on a distressed boat last heard to be near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Tunisians trickled into polling stations yesterday in the first local elections for a second chamber of parliament under a constitution pushed through last year by President Kais Saied.

Sri Lanka’s police yesterday announced the arrests of nearly 15,000 people during a week-long military-backed anti-narcotics drive, a crackdown denounced by rights activists.

At least 13 people were killed and 38 injured in eastern Indonesia in an explosion at a Chinese-funded nickel-processing plant yesterday, the owner of the industrial park that hosts the facility said.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said yesterday that over the previous 24 hours it had detected eight Chinese fighter jets crossing over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, as well as one Chinese balloon.

Russian bombardment killed four people and injured nine over 24 hours in the frontline southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the region’s governor said yesterday.

The Iranian navy has taken delivery of cruise missiles with a range of 1,000 km (621 miles) as well as reconnaissance helicopters, state media reported yesterday, as the US accused Iran of a drone attack on a chemical tanker in the Indian ocean.

Large parts of Australia yesterday sweated through heatwave conditions as authorities warned of a high bushfire risk in many parts of the country’s vast Western Australia state.

When Bakr al-Naji realises the meals he prepares each day for a charity in the Gaza Strip won’t be sufficient to fill the stomachs of the children, his heart sinks.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday that at least 20,424 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel

Tel Aviv AFP Dec 24, 2023.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Gaza war was exacting a “very heavy price” as the toll of soldiers killed in fighting with Hamas mounted..“This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza,” he said a

At least 13 people were killed and 38 injured in eastern Indonesia on Sunday in an explosion at a Chinese-funded nickel-processing plant, the owner of the industrial park that hosts the facility said