Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Israel will seek a "security envelope" with special zones and arrangements that will prevent Hamas from being positioned on its border after the war in Gaza is over, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

On Friday, Reuters reported that Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the coastal enclave after the war ends.

RAMALLAH, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Palestinian human rights groups refused to meet the International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan on Saturday, accusing him of favouring Israeli accusations of rights abuses over longstanding Palestinian charges.

Khan has been visiting Israel and the occupied West Bank following a request by a group representing families of victims of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen, but he was also due to meet Palestinian officials in Ramallah.

DUBAI/CAIRO/LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, Egyptian and regional sources said.

According to three regional sources, Israel related its plans to its neighbours Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020.

GAZA, Dec 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said too many innocent Palestinians had been killed in Gaza as Israeli war planes and artillery bombarded the enclave on Saturday following the collapse of a truce with Hamas militants.

Residents feared the barrages presaged an Israeli ground operation in the south of the Palestinian territory that would pen them into a shrinking area and possibly try to push them across into Egypt.

GAZA, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army is trying to expand its ground incursion in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip amid intense battles with Hamas militants in the area on Saturday, a Palestinian security source said.

"The clashes, which featured heavy gunfire and intermittent explosions, were monitored in more than one location on the eastern border of the city of Khan Younis," said the source who wished to remain anonymous.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel pounded targets in the crowded southern half of the Gaza Strip on Saturday and ordered more neighborhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll even as the United States and others urged it to do more to protect Gaza civilians a day after a truce collapsed.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Fifty oil companies representing nearly half of global production have pledged to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring in their operations by 2030, the president of this year’s United Nations climate talks said Saturday, a move that environmental groups called a “smokescreen.”

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard stated through its website that two of its forces stationed in Syria were killed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday.

The report on the Guard’s news portal identified the two members as Mohammad Ali Ataei Shourcheh and Panah Taghizadeh, and said they were carrying out an advisory mission in Syria. It did not elaborate on their rank, or the area where they were killed.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States committed Saturday to the idea of phasing out coal power plants, joining 56 other nations in kicking the coal habit that’s a huge factor in global warming.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to the Mideast this week pressing for agreements to extend the Gaza cease-fire, step up the release of hostages held by Hamas and limit Palestinian civilian casualties if fighting with Israel resumed. He left Friday with his goals largely unfulfilled.

Blinken wrapped up his third Middle East tour since the Israel-Hamas war started in October with decidedly mixed results. He watched as the seven-day cease-fire agreement collapsed under new Hamas attacks and Israeli airstrikes.