It is almost impossible to remember life in Israel before Hamas launched its brutal October 7 attacks a year ago, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others. There is little point, because that life is gone for good. And not just because more than 100 hostages are still captive. The same is true beyond Israel’s borders. Israel, its enemies and allies are all harbingers ...
It is “absolutely impossible” for Communist China to become Taiwan’s motherland because the island’s government is older, Taiwan’s president has said in a carefully timed speech that underscores the intense historical rivalry between the two. Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, has long faced Beijing’s wrath for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty and rejecting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s claims over ...
Israel’s military says it has encircled Jabalya, northern Gaza and launched a new ground operation, after seeing signs of Hamas rebuilding, despite nearly a year of fighting and strikes in the territory. Despite attention shifting to Lebanon after Israeli forces escalated their attacks on the Hezbollah militant group, Israel continues to operate across Gaza and is again focusing on an ...
Scorch marks and bullet holes scar the battered walls of the Haran family home in kibbutz Be’eri. Its tiled roof has caved in, windows smashed, littering the floors with sharp shards of terracotta and glass – the debris, still untouched, of a day of horror for Israel. “This house tells the story of Be’eri,” says Yarden Tzemach, a farmer and ...
Glance up while strolling through parts of downtown Hong Kong and, chances are, you’ll notice the glassy black lens of a surveillance camera trained on the city’s crowded streets. And that sight will become more common in the coming years, as the city’s police pursue an ambitious campaign to install thousands of cameras to elevate their surveillance capabilities. Though it ...
A 21-year-old Yazidi woman has been rescued from Gaza where she had been held captive by Hamas for years after being trafficked by ISIS. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday that Fawzia Amin Sido was freed this week in an operation coordinated between Israel, the United States and other international actors. She said that she was initially kidnapped by ISIS as ...
The fate of a possible successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is unclear following an Israeli airstrike on Beirut. Safieddine is a maternal cousin of Nasrallah – the two studied in Iran together in the early 1980s. Just like Nasrallah, Safieddine is a staunch critic of Israel and the West, with deep alliances with the Iranian leadership. Safieddine served as ...
Yair Pinhas grew up hiking in the hills around Kiryat Shmona, his hometown in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon. “We always thought that the October 7 (attack) would happen here, we always talked about it,” he said, rolling a cigarette outside a hotel on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, about 40 miles from Kiryat Shmona. Pinhas’ ...
Israel has pummeled Lebanon with an unprecedented airstrike campaign in less than three weeks, killing over 1,400 people, injuring nearly 7,500 others and displacing more than one million people from their homes, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The bombardment, which Israel says is targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the country, marks the world’s “most intense aerial campaign” outside of Gaza in ...
A Cambodian woman who worked as a maid in Malaysia has been deported to her homeland for comments she posted on social media criticizing Cambodian government leaders, in the latest example of a Southeast Asian government helping another arrest a dissident. A Cambodia prison official and an opposition activist group said Thursday that Nuon Toeun, 36, who had worked in ...