World News

In a majority vote Monday, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian-led resolution that called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war but which did not specifically condemn the Hamas terror group for its brutal October 7 surprise attack on Israeli civilians, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. The attack, which triggered the current war, left 1,300 Israeli civilian men, women, and children dead and around 200 kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

Belgian authorities say police shot the Islamist gunman who killed at least two Swedish nationals in Brussels late Monday. The public prosecutor’s office no longer excludes “a possible link with the conflict in Gaza,” referencing Israel’s declared war against Hamas militants.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians faced an uncertain future Wednesday in wartorn Gaza after Jordan’s king Jordan told them they weren’t welcome in Jordan or Egypt.

The Biden administration is assuring congressional Democrats that Iran will not be able to access a $6 billion account in Qatar.

A gunman shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Greatest”) shot at bystanders and killed at least two people in Brussels late Monday, sources said.

Poland’s political opposition declared victory on Sunday in what they viewed as the nation’s most crucial election since 1989, when a new democracy was born after decades of communist rule.

Iran said Friday the United States “can not renege” on an agreement to transfer $6 billion in frozen funds through mediator Qatar following Hamas’s catastrophic assault on Israeli communities.

Pope Francis appealed to Azerbaijan on Sunday to protect houses of worship in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while Russia urged new peace talks between neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Armenian Christian refugees are reluctant to return to an area they called home for generations.

Journalists on Saturday mourned a Reuters news agency journalist killed in a clash between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and most of the Western world.

Thousands gathered in London to demand a “free Palestine” and protest against Israeli retaliatory strikes in response to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. 

France’s famed landmarks, the Louvre Museum and the Versailles Palace in Paris, were evacuated due to bomb threats on Saturday as France was put on high-security alert a day after a teacher was stabbed to death in the city of Arras in an Islamic terror attack.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán banned a pro-Palestinian “Stand with Gaza” protest in Budapest on Friday, saying Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism.

A 20-year-old man armed with a knife killed a French teacher and seriously injured two other people in what President Emmanuel Macron called “barbaric Islamic terrorism.”

Jewish schools in the Dutch city of Amsterdam will close on Friday, Jewish children’s organization Cheider said amid mounting tensions in the Netherlands over Israel’s declared war “against Hamas terrorists.”

Facing bipartisan criticism at home, the Biden administration has reportedly put a new hold of some $6 billion in Iranian funds held in a Qatari bank account in the wake of the attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israel that has killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners.

NATO will hold a major nuclear exercise next week, the alliance’s chief said Thursday, in an announcement that came after Russia warned it would pull out of a global nuclear test ban agreement.

A founding member and leader of the Hamas Palestinian terror group from 2004 to 2017, Khaled Meshaal has called on Muslims around the world to hold anti-Israeli demonstrations and for Arab nations to take up arms against Israel as part of a global day of jihad on Friday, October 13, 2023, the New York Post reports.

Christians in the Dutch fishing town of Urk prayed for Israel late Wednesday after dozens of Israeli flags were torn from homes, destroyed, and set on fire near one of the many local churches here.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday told Iran to “be careful” in the wake of a major terrorist incursion by Hamas into Israeli territory.

The European Union late Monday reversed an earlier announcement by an EU commissioner that the bloc was “immediately” suspending development aid for Palestinian authorities and instead said it would urgently review such assistance in the wake of the attacks on Israel by Hamas to make sure no money was misused.