Middle East & North Africa

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a grueling Middle East diplomatic tour on Monday in Turkey after only limited success in efforts to forge a regional consensus on how best to ease civilian suffering in Gaza as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike Monday over being blocked together with other inmates from getting medical care and to protest the country’s mandatory headscarves for women, a campaign advocating for the activist said.

The decision by Mohammadi, 51, increases pressure on Iran’s theocracy over her incarceration, a month after being awarded the Nobel for her years of activism despite a decadeslong campaign by the government targeting her.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and pounded it with intense airstrikes overnight into Monday, setting the stage for an expected push into the dense confines of Gaza City and an even bloodier phase of the month-old war.

Already, the Palestinian death toll passed 10,000, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Some 1,400 Israelis have died, mostly civilians killed in the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas that started the war.

TEHRAN, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has deplored the U.S. and Western supplies of arms and equipment to Israel, whose bombardments have killed nearly 9,500 people in the Gaza Strip.

He made the remarks in a phone call with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Saturday night, during which the two sides discussed the situation in Gaza and ways to end the conflict and lift the siege on the coastal enclave, according to a statement published on the website of the Iranian president's office on Sunday.

AMMAN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that reaching an immediate ceasefire in Gaza would enable the Hamas movement to regroup its forces, Jordan's state-run Petra News Agency reported.

He made the remarks during a joint press conference in Jordan's capital Amman with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, following a meeting with foreign ministers of some Arab countries as well as a PLO official on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

BEIRUT (AP) — Four civilians, three of them children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon Sunday evening, a local civil defense official and Lebanese state-run media said.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that one Israeli was also killed Sunday in a strike launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. He did not specify whether the person was a civilian or a soldier.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza fell under its third total communications outage since the start of the war on Sunday night, with Palestinian communications company Paltel saying all of its communication and internet services were down. Internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported a “new collapse in connectivity” across the besieged enclave.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought his diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as part of an intensifying Biden administration drive to reduce the suffering of Gaza’s civilians under Israeli bombardment and to start to sketch out a post-conflict scenario for the territory.

ANKARA, November 4. /TASS/: Turkey’s ambassador has been recalled from Israel for consultations, the Turkish Foreign Ministry told reporters.

"In the wake of the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in the Gaza Strip caused by Israel’s incessant attacks on civilians and also by Israel’s rejection of appeals for a ceasefire and the unimpeded access of humanitarian aid, it has been decided to recall our Ambassador to Tel Aviv, Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, to Ankara for consultations," the ministry said.

GAZA, Nov 4 (NNN-WAFA) – At least six Palestinians were killed yesterday, after an Israeli warplane attacked ambulances, in front of the main gate of the Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in Gaza, according to the health ministry.

In a press statement, the ministry said that, “the Israeli aircraft bombed ambulances that were heading to the Rafah crossing, to send the wounded to Egypt for treatment.”