Spotlight
Moscow has condemned what it said were "completely unacceptable" Israeli strikes on Syria, after a war monitor said the latest air assault had killed more than 40 people.
Russia is Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's key international backer and intervened on his behalf in a bloody civil war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given the go-ahead for a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire, a day after the world's top court ordered Israel to ensure aid reaches desperate civilians.
But despite a binding U.N. Security Council resolution earlier this week demanding an "immediate ceasefire," fighting raged on unabated in Gaza Friday, including around its few functioning hospitals.

A war monitor said Israeli air strikes Friday on Syria's Aleppo province killed at least 42 including 36 Syrian soldiers, the deadliest toll for the Syrian army since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war there broke out in 2011, targeting army positions as well as Iran-backed forces including Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Two people have been injured in an air strike on a residential building in a Damascus suburb, Syrian state media said, blaming the strike on Israel.
"The Israeli enemy launched an aerial attack from the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus," the Syrian state news agency SANA said, citing a military source.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Israel's top court for a new delay on compulsory military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews, an issue that has put his ruling coalition at risk.
Conscription of ultra-Orthodox men has long been a divisive issue in Israeli politics, precipitating a protracted crisis that saw five parliamentary elections in under four years.

The world's top court has ordered Israel to ensure more food and urgent humanitarian assistance reaches Gazans, warning famine is already setting in after nearly six months of war.
The International Court of Justice's order on Thursday comes after the United Nations has repeatedly said the besieged territory was on the brink of "man-made famine" and blamed Israel's restrictions on aid for causing "horrifying" levels of hunger and deprivation.

The French parliament's lower house on Thursday approved a resolution condemning as "bloody and murderous repression" the killing by Paris police of dozens of Algerians in a crackdown on a 1961 protest to support Algerian independence.
In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria.

An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel's war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.
One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has downplayed U.S. fears of a humanitarian catastrophe if Israel launches a planned ground invasion into Gaza’s southernmost city, saying civilians would be able to flee the fighting into other parts of the war-torn territory.
Speaking Wednesday to a bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation visiting Israel, Netanyahu said people sheltering in Rafah – now more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – will be able to move away from the fighting.

Hamas has released a rare recording of what it says is the shadowy head of its military wing calling on Muslims around the world to liberate Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Wednesday’s recording was a reminder of the difficulty Israel has faced in realizing its stated goal of destroying Hamas’ military capabilities.
