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Oil prices gained slightly during early trade on Monday, boosted by concerns conflict in the Middle East may impact supply in the key producing region and expectations the U.S. interest rate cut last week will support demand. Brent crude futures for November were up 20 cents, or 0.3% at $74.69 a barrel at 0045 GMT. U.S. crude futures for November were up 22 cents, or 0.3%, at $71.22.

Gold prices hovered near record highs on Monday, as traders embraced the momentum generated by the U.S. Federal Reserve's bold interest rate cut and signs that further reductions were on the horizon.

Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on October 7, 2023, Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The air and ground operation has killed more than 41,431 people, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. Ahead of the war's first anniversary, AFP looks back at key moments.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at Lotte New York Palace Hotel in New York on Sunday (local time). The Prime Minister expressed «deep concern» at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and reaffirmed India's continued support to the Palestinian people. «PM @narendramodimet H.E. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine, on the sidelines of UNGA today. PM expressed deep concern at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and reaffirmed India's continued support to the people of Palestine,» MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated in a post on X.

Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets early Sunday across northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. A Hezbollah leader declared an «open-ended battle of reckoning» was underway as both sides appeared to be spiraling closer toward all-out war. The overnight rocket barrage was in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon that have killed dozens, including a veteran Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented attack targeting the group's communications devices. Air raid sirens across northern Israel sent hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters. One rocket struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a city near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars on fire. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said four people were wounded by shrapnel in the barrage.

Hezbollah in Lebanon were certainly an espionage and technological coup. Few people on the spot or reading about them from far away could fail to be amazed. But the explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday were also very likely war crimes — terrorist attacks by a state that has consistently condemned terrorist attacks on its own citizens. Yes, the devices most probably were being used by Hezbollah operatives for military purposes. This might make them a legitimate target in the continuous cross-border battles between Israel and Hezbollah. But the attacks, which killed at least 37 people and wounded thousands of others, came when the operatives were not operating; they had not been mobilized and they were not militarily engaged. Rather, they were at home with their families, sitting in cafes, shopping in food markets — among civilians who were randomly killed and injured. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attacks but is widely believed to be behind them. If those allegations are true, it is important for friends of Israel to say: This was not right.

The rocket barrage overnight sent thousands of people scrambling into shelters. The Israeli military said rockets had been fired «toward civilian areas,» pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets. The barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 37 people, including one of Hezbollah's top leaders as well as women and children. The militant group was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of personal devices to explode just days earlier.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. TEL AVIV : With escalating attacks on Hezbollah’s rank and file, commanders and infrastructure, Israel is pressing its military and intelligence advantage to give the Lebanese group an implied ultimatum: make a deal to pull back from Israel’s northern border, or go to war. Israel is rotating its attention to its border with Lebanon as the Gaza Strip battlefield becomes static, launching an aggressive series of attacks that have devastated Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Qatari Al Jazeera TV said on Sunday morning that Israeli forces stormed its bureau in the West Bank's Ramallah city with a military order to close it for 45 days. The Qatar-based channel aired live footage of the Israeli troops storming the channel's office and handing over a military closure order to one of the Al Jazeera TV staff before the broadcast was disrupted. In a statement, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate condemned the Israeli move, saying «this arbitrary military decision is considered a new violation against journalistic and media works, which has been exposing the occupation's crimes against the Palestinian people.»

Israeli strike on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed at least 22 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli army said it targeted a Hamas command center in what used to be a school. Another 30 were wounded in the strike on the school in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, the ministry said in a statement. Most of the casualties were women and children, it said. It wasn't immediately clear which hospital the dead and injured were taken to. Video taken by The Associated Press showed dozens of people including children digging through the rubble of the building — its ceilings caved in, walls knocked out and a mess of wires and metal rods visible. Outside, others gathered around shrouded bodies. Some covered their faces as they wept for relatives killed in the strike.

Lebanon this week showed that the Israeli government planned to spread the war to the region, Turkey's President Recip Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday, calling on Western countries to take "deterrent steps" against Tel Aviv's actions. Erdogan told a press conference that Israel's war in Gaza will top the agenda of his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. «In order for our region not to be dragged into a great disaster, the pressure on Israel must be increased even more,» Erdogan told a press conference in Istanbul.

Former US President Donald Trump asserted in a recent speech that the Jewish people in America have a huge part to play in the US Presidential Elections. Forward reported that Donald Trump is going to blame the Jews if he ends up losing the US Presidential Elections. Following that speech, former US President Donald Trump elaborated about his claims which he is making in recent days that if Donald Trump is not going to end up victorious in the November elections then bad days are looming over Israel.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. BEIRUT—Israel’s airstrike on a building in southern Beirut didn’t just kill a top Hezbollah commander—it took out an entire class of senior leaders of the militant group’s most elite fighting force, as the two foes lurch closer to all-out war. Hezbollah on Saturday raised the death toll among its fighters from Friday’s airstrike to 16, including top military commander Ibrahim Aqil and many of the senior commanders of the elite Radwan force.

Palestinians said an Israeli strike killed at least 22 people in a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City on Saturday, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hamas command centre. The Gaza health ministry said most of those killed were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said 13 children, including a three-month-old baby, and six women were among the dead. The military said it hit a Hamas command centre embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating an accusation that Hamas uses civilian facilities for military purposes — a charge which Hamas denies.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The puzzle of how thousands of pagers were sabotaged in an Israeli attack on Hezbollah this past week has sparked investigations into the supply chain behind them, leading investigators to a labyrinth of shadowy companies and individuals spanning Asia and Eastern Europe. The search for who was behind the manufacturing, sale and distribution of the pagers has pointed to some companies that were created in recent years, with little to no paper trail of their activities and run by mysterious business people with a vague online footprint and little experience in the telecommunications industry.

IDF) announced the death of Ibrahim Aqil, the alleged head of Hezbollah's Operations Unit, in a targeted strike in Beirut. The operation also killed members of Hezbollah's Operations Staff and commanders from the Radwan Unit. The IDF reported that Aqil and the other commanders were planning a major attack called the "Conquer the Galilee" plan, aiming to infiltrate Israeli communities and target civilians. «I can now confirm that Ibrahim Aqil was eliminated together with other senior terrorists in Hezbollah's Radwan forces. Ibrahim Aqil had the blood of many innocent people on his hands. Israelis, Americans, French, Lebanese and more,» stated IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Hezbollah official Ibrahim Aqil was killed in a targeted strike in the Jamous area south of Beirut on Friday, as confirmed by both Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Aqil was a member of the group’s military council and led Hezbollah’s Operations Unit for two decades. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, stated, “Ibrahim Aqil had the blood of many innocent people on his hands — Israelis, Americans, French, Lebanese and more.” He added that Aqil and other members killed in the strike were in the process of planning additional attacks on Israel.

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday, had a $7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a U.S. Marines barracks. Two security sources in Lebanon confirmed the veteran fighter was killed in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs during a meeting of the elite Radwan unit of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group. Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, was the second member of Hezbollah's top military body, the Jihad Council, to be killed in two months after an Israeli strike in the same area targeted Fuad Shukr in July.

Israel hit a Beirut suburb with an airstrike Friday, not long after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets following a vow by the militant group's leader Hassan Nasrallah to retaliate against Israel for a mass bombing attack, the Israeli military and the militant group said. The Israeli military said it had carried out a «targeted strike» in Beirut. It offered no further immediate details, but explosions could be heard coming from the city's southern suburbs. Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV reported that a drone fired several missiles on the heavily-populated area known as Dahiyeh. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media, confirmed to The Associated Press that an airstrike struck the area, without giving further details.

Hezbollah launched a significant barrage of 140 rockets into northern Israel on Friday, following a declaration from the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who vowed to retaliate for recent Israeli bombing attacks. The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed that the rockets were fired in three waves during the afternoon, targeting various locations along the conflict-ridden border with Lebanon.