Middle East, Gaza | featured news

An Obama aide says the U.S. and Israel both want an end to the rocket fire that's coming from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israel continued its aerial assault on targets in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip early Saturday, launching 200 airstrikes aimed at smuggling tunnels under the enclave's border with Egypt and what the Israeli military said were four Hamas buildings, including the group's headquarters, a police station and a commander's house. Witnesses reported that the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were destroyed.

Palestinian militants for the first time targeted the holy city of Jerusalem on Friday with rocket fire as Israel and the Islamist group Hamas inched closer to all-out war.

The head of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has been killed during Israeli air and naval strikes in the Gaza Strip. Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari and another Hamas official died when the car they were in was hit in Gaza City. It follows a wave of rocket attacks against Israel from the territory.

Israel faced the prospect of stepped-up military action on two fronts Monday as rockets fired from Gaza hit southern communities for the third straight day, and the army said it shelled a Syrian artillery battery after a stray shell landed near one of its posts in the Golan Heights.

First head of state to visit the Palestinian territory since Islamist Hamas militants seized control there 5 years ago.

Israel says its blockade is intended to stem arms smuggling, but activists say the embargo is a collective punishment of civilians.

Israeli warplanes responded to rocket fire from Gaza on Monday by launching airstrikes, in a flare-up that began Sunday when Israel fired missiles against two suspected members of jihadist groups.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected a request by the Palestinian Authority to recognise the court's jurisdiction.

Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and said Friday it is cutting military ties with the country over its refusal to apologize for last year's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine people.