Middle East & North Africa

AMMAN, Oct 19 (NNN-PETRA) – Jordan decided to call off the four-way summit here, supposed to take place, yesterday.

The summit was planned to bring together King Abdullah II of Jordan, U.S. President Joe Biden, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.

Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, said yesterday that, the cancellation of the summit was due to the ongoing Israeli assault against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border on Thursday that they will soon see the Palestinian enclave "from inside", suggesting an expected ground invasion with the aim of annihilating Hamas could be nearing.

Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas gunmen who killed 1,400 Israelis, as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak followed U.S. President Joe Biden with a visit to demonstrate Western support for the war against Hamas militants.

TEHRAN, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A top Iranian military official has urged regional countries to stop the United States from transferring arms and equipment to Israel from its bases in the Middle East, the official news agency IRNA reported on Thursday.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Baqeri made the remarks in a phone call with Qatar's Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, the IRNA reported, without disclosing the exact date of the phone call.

GAZA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A senior female member of Hamas was killed on Thursday by an Israeli airstrike targeting her house in Gaza, Palestinian security sources said.

Hamas said in a press statement that Jameela Shanti, the only female member of the movement's political bureau, the highest-ranking body of the group, was killed during the intense Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources said 41 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Khan Younis, and the central area of the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes on Thursday, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge, and the country’s defense minister told ground troops to “be ready” to invade, though he didn’t say when.

Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for generators, as authorities worked out logistics for a delivery of aid from Egypt. Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by the light of mobile phones, and others used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

ADDIS ABABA, Oct 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat accused Israel of a “war crime” following the deadly strike on a hospital in the Gaza strip on Tuesday.

   “There are no words to fully express our condemnation of Israel’s bombing of a #Gaza hospital today, killing hundreds of people,” Faki said on X, formerly Twitter, calling for the international community to act.

   The health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said Israeli air strikes on the hospital compound sheltering displaced people had killed at least 200 people.

ANKARA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Turkish protesters clashed with police overnight in angry demonstrations following a blast that killed large numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital, and further rallies were expected on Wednesday.

Palestinian officials said the blast at Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital was caused by an Israeli air strike. Israel blamed the blast on a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, which denied responsibility.

President Tayyip Erdogan called the blast "the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values".

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.

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.

GAZA, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 50 Palestinians were killed last night after Israeli airstrikes on various locations in the coastal enclave, the Hamas-run health ministry said Wednesday.

In a brief statement sent to Xinhua, the ministry said that the latest assault happened in the cities of Deir al-Balah, Rafah, and Khan Younis in the southern parts of the coastal enclave, as well as in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.