Middle East & North Africa

CAIRO, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least six people were wounded in a blast related to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict early Friday in Taba, an Egyptian Red Sea resort town near the Israeli border, local media reported.

"The rocket targeted an ambulance facility and residential building of administrative workers of the Taba hospital," Egypt's Al Qahera News TV said, quoting sources as saying that the blast was related to Israel-Hamas conflict.

TV footage showed damage in the building.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military on Friday said its ground forces were “expanding their activity” in the Gaza Strip, as the army moved closer to a full-on ground invasion of the besieged territory.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army’s spokesman, said aerial attacks had been targeting Hamas tunnels and other targets.

“In addition to the attacks that we carried out in recent days, ground forces are expanding their activity this evening,” he said. “The IDF is acting with great force ... to achieve the objectives of the war.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — Just three weeks into the deadliest war between Israel and Hamas, it already is clear that the bloodshed has flipped long-standing assumptions in Israel and the region upside down.

Israel’s military and intelligence services were exposed as incompetent and ill-prepared. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades of attempts to sideline the Palestinians and U.S. efforts to manage the conflict, rather than solve it, badly backfired.

Tehran, IRNA- The Iranian Army's Ground Force has begun a massive military exercise in the central region of the country with the objective of assessing combat capabilities of various military units and testing new weaponry.

The drills started in the Nasrabad region of Isfahan on Friday with the presence of senior military commanders, including Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh.

Tehran, IRNA - Several coastal areas of the besieged Gaza Strip witnessed fierce overnight clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli occupying forces, who infiltrated the Gaza border.

Coastal areas of Rafah and Khan Yunis, along with the eastern regions of Khan Yunis, Al-Bureij camp, and Beit Hanoun, were scenes of fierce clashes on Thursday night, with special Israeli army units facing resistance as they attempted to infiltrate Gaza through the sea, Palestinian sources reported.

25 October 2023; MEMO: Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Wednesday that he had cancelled a plan to visit Israel in light of the ongoing Gaza conflict, Anadolu Agency reports.

At the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said that before 7 October, when the conflict erupted, he had planned to visit Israel but then cancelled his plans.

26 October 2023; MEMO: Israeli Minister Benny Gantz has reportedly told residents of settlements near Gaza that it is possible they might not be able to return to their homes for a year, Israel’s Channel 12 reported yesterday.

26 October 2023; MEMO: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that he recently asked Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to “tone down Al Jazeera‘s rhetoric about the war in Gaza,” US news website Axios reported, citing an anonymous source.

26 October 2023; MEMO: Former Pentagon Advisor, Douglas MacGregor, stated that an American Special Force, accompanied by an Israeli Special Force, were tragically decimated when they attempted to investigate the location of the Israeli hostages in Gaza and were subsequently fired upon.

26 October 2023; MEMO: Saudi Aramco and Enowa, Neom’s energy and water subsidiary, have signed a joint development agreement to construct and establish a synthetic electro-fuel (e-fuel) demonstration plant, Middle East Business Intelligence reports.

According to the report, the plant will be in Enowa’s Hydrogen Innovation and Development Centre (HIDC).