At least 45 killed as Israeli forces intensify assault on Gaza City

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Iran decided at the last minute Thursday to withdraw a resolution prohibiting attacks on nuclear facilities that it had put forward along with China, Russia and other countries for a vote before an annual gathering of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's member nations.

Western diplomats said the US has been heavily lobbying behind the scenes to prevent the resolution from being adopted. The US has raised the possibility of reducing funding to the International Atomic Energy Agency if the resolution was adopted and if the body moved to curtail Israel’s rights within the agency, the diplomats said.

The resolution withdrawal comes as US allies have started the clock on reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran over it’s nuclear program.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom have launched the process over what they deemed noncompliance with a 2015 agreement aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The UN Security Council will vote on whether to reimpose sanctions on Friday.

(Associated Press)

Hamas has condemned the US's decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling it "blatant complicity and full partnership in the crime of genocide".

Telecoms workers have restored internet and phone services in northern Gaza more than 24 hours after Israeli attacks plunged the area into a communications blackout, the Palestinian Telecommunications Company (Paltel) said Thursday.

Germany will reach a decision on whether to back European Union sanctions against Israel before a European Union meeting in Copenhagen in October, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on a visit to Madrid on Thursday.

The European Commission on Wednesday proposed suspending a trade arrangement affecting about 5.8 billion euros of Israeli exports due to the Gaza war, although the measure does not currently have enough support among EU nations to pass.

"We will reach a final opinion of the German government on these questions, which now need to be answered at the European level, in the coming days," Merz said, speaking alongside Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

"We will discuss these issues again next week at the federal cabinet level. I assume that we will then have a position at the informal council meeting on 1 October in Copenhagen that will also be supported by the entire German government."

Merz said Israel's actions in Gaza were not proportional to its stated goals, but said Germany did not share the view that the actions amounted to genocide.

His comments underscore how Germany has become increasingly willing to criticise Israel but is still reluctant to take punitive measures against a country for which its government feels a special responsibility.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that Israeli is destroying its reputation around the world and reiterated his condemnation of its devastating offensive in Gaza.

"This type of operation in Gaza is totally counterproductive" and "a failure", Macron said in English in an interview with Israeli television's Channel 12.

"You are completely destroying the image and the credibility of Israel, not just in the region, but in public opinion everywhere."

France and Britain are among several Western countries that have pledged to formally recognise a Palestinian state this month at the United Nations General Assembly.

"Recognition of a Palestinian state is the best way to isolate Hamas," he said.

"Recognising a Palestinian state is just deciding to say: 'The legitimate perspective of Palestinian people and what they suffer today has nothing to do with Hamas.'"

(AFP and TNA staff)

At least 45 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Wednesday, including 37 in Gaza City, medical sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic.

The United States on Thursday again wielded its veto and thwarted a UN Security Council call for a ceasefire in Gaza, shielding its ally Israel from meaningful diplomatic pressure.

"The United States rejects this unacceptable resolution. It is beyond time that Hamas release every single hostage now and surrender immediately. The United States will continue to work with its partners to bring an end to this horrific conflict," a US envoy to the UN, Morgan Ortagus, said ahead of Washington's veto.

(AFP)

Israel carried out air strikes on five towns in southern Lebanon on Thursday shortly after telling people to flee, Lebanese state media and the Israeli military said.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported a strike on Mais al-Jabal, a border town ravaged by the war last year between Israel and Hezbollah, where the health ministry said one person was injured.

Strikes also hit the towns of Debbin, Burj Qalawiya, Al-Shahabiya and Kfar Tibnit, the roads out of which were full of people fleeing ahead of the attacks, NNA said.

Israel has kept up its strikes on southern Lebanon despite a truce signed in November that ended more than a year of hostilities and two months of open war with Hezbollah.

(AFP)

The UN Security Council will vote Friday on whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, the Council's rotating presidency said, after Britain, France and Germany triggered the vote.

The three European countries, signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action intended to stop Tehran obtaining nuclear weapons, allege that Iran has broken its promises under that 2015 treaty.

Diplomatic sources expect that the resolution will not have the nine positive votes needed to uphold the status quo - in which sanctions remain lifted - and as such the punishment will be reimposed.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he expected international sanctions against Iran to be reinstated by the end of the month, in an excerpt from an Israeli television interview broadcast Thursday.

In a letter to the UN in mid-August, the "European Three" slammed Iran as having breached several JCPOA commitments, including building up a uranium stock to more than 40 times the level permitted under the deal.

The Italian Adriatic port of Ravenna on Thursday refused entry to two trucks said to be carrying arms to Israel, as protests mount among Italian dockworkers and other labour groups against the offensive in Gaza.

The centre-left mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, told reporters the port authority had accepted the request from him and the regional government to deny access to the lorries carrying explosives en route to the Israeli port of Haifa.

"The Italian state says it has blocked the sale of arms to Israel but it is unacceptable that, thank to bureaucratic loopholes, they can pass through Italy from other countries," Barattoni said in a statement.

Similar action to block arms shipments to Israel has been taken by dockworkers in other European countries such as France, Sweden and Greece.

(Reuters)

The Israeli army on Thursday urged the government to halt the entry of humanitarian aid for Gaza from Jordan following a shooting attack at the border crossing through which aid passes.

"The Chief of the General Staff, LTG (Lieutenant General) Eyal Zamir... advised the political echelon to halt the entry of humanitarian aid that arrives from Jordan until the completion of the incident's inquiry and the implementation of revised screening procedures for Jordanian drivers," the military said in a statement.

The shooter was a Jordanian truck driver who was transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, according to Israel's foreign ministry and military.

(AFP)

The United Nations special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, unexpectedly resigned on Thursday after almost seven years as the organisation's representative to the war-torn country.

"I wish to let the council know that I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down after more than six-and-a-half years serving as United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, and he has graciously accepted my request," Pedersen told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria.

(AFP)

European powers will likely reimpose international sanctions on Iran by the end of the month after their latest round of talks with Tehran aimed at preventing them were deemed not serious, France's President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

Britain, France and Germany, the so-called E3, launched a 30-day process at the end of August to reimpose UN sanctions. They set conditions for Tehran to meet during September to convince them to delay the "snapback mechanism".

The offer by the E3 to put off the snapback for up to six months to enable serious negotiations is conditional on Iran restoring access for U.N. nuclear inspectors - who would also seek to account for Iran's large stock of enriched uranium - and engaging in talks with the U.S.

When asked in an interview on Israel's Channel 12 whether the snapback was a done deal, Macron said:

"Yes. I think so because the latest news from the Iranians is not serious."

(Reuters)

The Israeli military said four of its personnel, including an officer and three soldiers, were killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.

These were the first deaths announced since the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza City earlier this month.

Israel said an assailant who killed two Israelis at the main border crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan on Thursday was Jordanian, calling it a result of "incitement".

"Today, a Jordanian who was supposed to drive a humanitarian aid truck to Gaza, murdered two Israelis at the Allenby border crossing," the foreign ministry posted on X.

"This is yet another result of the vile incitement in Jordan. This is the result of the echoing of Hamas' campaign of lies. This must stop."

Jordan condemned the attack and said it had opened an investigation, considering the attack to be a violation of law and a threat to Jordan's humanitarian role in Gaza, according to the state news agency.

A drone launched from Yemen fell in the southern Israeli city of Eilat's hotel area, but no injuries have been reported, Israeli media said Thursday evening.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched missiles and drones at Israel since late 2023 in solidarity with Gaza. Israel has also conducted huge airstrikes targeting the militant group's sites and civilian infrastructure in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

A drone hit a building in the southern Israeli coastal city of Eilat Thursday evening. It was not immediately clear where the projectile came from.

Videos were shared online supposedly showing the drone landing in the city with black smoke rising from the area of impact.

Eyewitnesses report a drone impact in Eilat. https://t.co/aURJJoma23 pic.twitter.com/5SHLNWpP5N

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 18, 2025

The United States and Israel have sent complaint letters to top U.N. officials contesting the impartiality of their staff over the Gaza war, documents showed, as hundreds of U.N. staff protested outside its European headquarters on Thursday.

U.N. staff carried placards saying "Peace for Gaza" and "Not a Target". They laid over 370 white roses next to a memorial plaque in Geneva to represent each U.N. aid worker killed in the nearly two-year war.

"Today, the U.N. staff are coming together to say that enough is enough, to say that we cannot kill our colleagues in Gaza with such impunity and to say stop to all these murders," Nathalie Meynet, president of the U.N. refugee agency staff council, told Reuters at the protest.

The letters highlight the rising tensions between the U.N. and its top funder, the U.S., which has already disengaged from the U.N. Human Rights Council over what Washington says is its "anti-Israel stance."

Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Daniel Meron wrote ahead of the event to the Director-General of the United Nations' Geneva office Tatiana Valovaya denouncing the event.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called for "maximum" pressure on Israel to stop its attacks on Lebanon after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for several buildings in the country's south before striking them.

"Lebanon calls on the international community, and particularly the countries that sponsored the ceasefire agreement, to exert maximum pressure on Israel to immediately halt its attacks," Salam said amidst a cabinet meeting.

France and the United States are the main guarantors behind a November ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said it was conducting strikes on Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon on Thursday, shortly after it urged residents of several villages in the region to evacuate.

"The IDF (Israeli military) began conducting strikes on Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon," it said in a statement.

The Israeli military will attack Hezbollah military infrastructure in southern Lebanon "in response to its attempts to rebuild its activities in the area," Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Thursday.

The army issued evacuation orders for three border villages, including Mays al-Jabal, Kfar Tabnit and Dibbin, sharing images of the areas to be targeted.

"You are located in buildings used by the terrorist Hezbollah. For your own safety, you are obliged to evacuate these buildings and adjacent buildings immediately and move away from them at least 500 meters away," Avichay Adraee wrote on X. "Staying in buildings puts you at risk."

#عاجل 🔴 انذار عاجل إلى سكان جنوب لبنان
🔸سيهاجم جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب بنى تحتية عسكرية تابعة لحزب الله الإرهابي في انحاء جنوب لبنان وذلك في مواجهة محاولاته المحظورة لاعادة اعمار أنشطته في المنطقة
🔸نوجّه تحذيرًا عاجلًا إلى سكان المباني المحددة بالأحمر في الخرائط… pic.twitter.com/uqB401MnDa

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) September 18, 2025

Qatar has met with the president of the International Criminal Court as it seeks legal action against Israel over its unprecedented strike on its territory last week, an official said on Thursday.

The emirate's chief negotiator, Mohammed al-Khulaifi, met in The Hague on Wednesday with the president of the ICC, Judge Tomoko Akane, as it pursues "every available legal and diplomatic avenue to ensure accountability for those responsible for Israel's attack on Qatar", the Qatari official told AFP.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, the official called Israel's attack "unlawful", adding it "constitutes grave violations of international humanitarian law".

Qatar, as an observer state at the ICC, cannot itself refer cases to the court. But after emergency talks in Doha, the Arab and Islamic blocs called on their members Monday to take "all possible legal and effective measures to prevent Israel from continuing its actions".

Italy is open to considering European Union trade sanctions against Israel as long as they don't affect the civilian population, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.

Addressing the Italian Senate, Tajani also said Rome was in favour of sanctions against Israeli ministers who have "unacceptable" positions on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Extremist Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have already been barred from several European countries for their extremist views regarding the Palestinians.

They both support full annexation of the West Bank - occupied by Israel since 1967 - and the ethnic cleansing of the war-torn Gaza Strip, home to around 2.3 million Palestinians.

Two Israelis who were shot in a border crossing attack have been pronounced dead, according to Hebrew-language media.

Security forces are continuing to search the area for additional suspects, The Times of Israel reported.

Some reports suggest the suspected gunman entered from Jordan inside an aid truck bound for the Gaza Strip. Channel 12 said the man, allegedly involved in humanitarian aid transfers, held an Israeli permit.

After opening fire on two Israelis, the assailant was reportedly shot and killed by Israeli forces.

A shooting attack wounded two men at a border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan Thursday, Israeli medics said.

"Two men, approximately 20 and 60 years old, were critically injured and are unconscious following the attack at the Allenby crossing," the Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement.

 Israeli media reported that two alleged assailants were killed.

Turkey is monitoring "attempts to disrupt the balance in Cyprus" and will act to safeguard security in the north of the island, a Turkish official said on Thursday after Cypriot reports that the government there had procured an air defence system from Israel.

A Turkish defence ministry official, speaking to reporters on Thursday on condition of anonymity, said ongoing armament efforts by Cyprus and "activities that undermine peace and stability on the island could have dangerous consequences".

"Any attempt to disrupt the balance on the island is being closely monitored and all necessary measures are being taken for the security and peace of the TRNC," he added, using the acronym for the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

The Israeli military has received a report of a shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan, and details of the incident were under investigation, the military said on Thursday.

At a moment of growing international alarm about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, more U.S. adults view Israel's military action in the Palestinian territory as excessive than at the beginning of the war, according to a new poll.

About half of Americans say the military response from Israel in the Gaza Strip has "gone too far," according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

That's up from November 2023, when 40% said Israel's military action had gone too far. That AP-NORC poll was conducted shortly after Hamas' 7 October attack.

But at the same time, Americans overall, particularly Republicans, are less likely to say that negotiating a ceasefire should be a high priority for the U.S. government than they were just a few months ago when the U.S. was holding ceasefire talks with Hamas.

The United Arab Emirates could downgrade diplomatic ties with Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government annexes part or all of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to three sources briefed on the Gulf Arab state's deliberations.

Abu Dhabi warned Netanyahu's right-wing coalition this month that any annexation of the West Bank would be a "red line" for the Gulf state but did not say what measures could follow.

The UAE, which established ties with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, was considering withdrawing its ambassador in any response, the sources told Reuters.

The sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Dhabi was not considering completely severing ties, although tensions have mounted during the almost two-year-old Gaza War.

The Holy See is not ready to declare Israel's campaign in Gaza genocide, Pope Leo XIV said in an interview given in July but published Thursday.

"The word genocide is being thrown around more and more," the pope said in an interview with US journalist Elise Ann Allen for the book "Pope Leo XIV: Global Citizen, Missionary of the 21st Century".

"Officially, the Holy See does not believe that we can make any declaration at this time about that.

"There's a very technical definition about what genocide might be, but more and more people are raising the issue."

UN investigators on Tuesday accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza in a bid to "destroy the Palestinians", accusing Israel's prime minister and other top officials of incitement.

At least 2,513 people have been killed and more than 18,400 injured as they sought aid in the besieged Gaza Strip, the territory's health ministry said Thursday.

Many of these Palestinians have been shot by US and Israeli soldiers at US-run aid sites, which have been slammed by the UN and rights groups as being "death traps."

An Israeli military van transporting arrested ultra-Orthodox Jewish draft evaders was attacked overnight by protesters from the community, the army said.

Israel is facing growing pressure to end military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews, as the army strains under a prolonged war in Gaza and reservists bear an increasing burden.

"Several draft evaders were arrested today, tried in disciplinary proceedings and sent to military detention," the military said in a statement late on Wednesday.

A military radio journalist, noting the deserters were ultra-Orthodox, posted images on X showing the van halted on a road by dozens of protesters from the community, some sitting in front of the vehicle.

"While en route to the prison... several demonstrators threw stones and sprayed tear gas at the vehicle," the military said, adding one of the detainees escaped.

Syria will strike several security and military agreements with Israel by the end of the year, a foreign ministry official told AFP on Thursday.

"There is progress in the talks with Israel," said the official who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media, adding that several agreements are expected to be signed "by the end of the year".

"Primarily, these would be security and military agreements," they said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani will be heading to Washington to meet with US officials, a ministry source has told AFP.

A judge in the southern US state of Louisiana has ordered prominent pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Algeria or Syria after failing to disclose information on his green card application, according to court documents filed Wednesday

"It is hereby further ordered that Respondent be Removed from the United States to Algeria, or in the alternative to Syria," Judge Jamee Comans wrote in a court filing.

The order dated September 12 by the immigration judge asserted the lack of full disclosure on Khalil's green card application "was not an oversight by an uninformed, uneducated applicant...rather, this Court finds that Respondent willfully misrepresented material fact(s)."

Khalil, in a statement to the American Civil Liberties Union, said in response to the order: "It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech."

"Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colours once again."

Spain will probe "human rights violations in Gaza" to assist the International Criminal Court, which has sought arrest warrants for Israeli officials over alleged war crimes, the attorney general said Thursday.

A statement said the attorney general had "issued a decree to create a working team tasked with investigating violations of international human rights law in Gaza" to "gather evidence and make it available to the competent body, thereby fulfilling Spain's obligations regarding international cooperation and human rights".

The World Health Organization chief warned Thursday that Israel's ground offensive in northern Gaza had left already overwhelmed hospitals on the "brink of collapse" and demanded an "end to these inhumane conditions".

"The military incursion and evacuation orders in northern Gaza are driving new waves of displacement, forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, warning that "hospitals, already overwhelmed, are on the brink of collapse as escalating violence blocks access and prevents WHO from delivering lifesaving supplies".