Gaza, Military | featured news

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.

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.

An Israeli commission concluded on Sunday that Israel had acted in accordance with international law when its military intercepted a flotilla off Gaza last May.

Israeli forces have killed four Palestinian divers that Israel says were heavily armed and preparing to carry out a terrorist attack. The Israel Defense Forces says its navy spotted several men in diving suits off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, a representative of Tehran's supreme leader said on Sunday.