9 Muslim youths brutally assaulted in custody in UP freed as police find no evidence

At least 56 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip after the regime's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the military would enter the war-battered territory "with full force".

Medical sources said at least 50 people have been killed in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza since dawn Wednesday.

The heavy airstrikes have also left more than 100 people injured, with several houses being targeted and collapsed on their residents.

Another four people were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

The ferocious aggression came after the release of Israeli-American Edan Alexander, who had been in Hamas captivity since October 2023, offered a brief pause in the war on Gaza on Monday.

But the strikes resumed amid fierce new criticism of Israel's tactics in the war.

"In the very coming days, we are going in with full force to complete the operation," Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement released on Tuesday.

"There will be no situation where we stop the war. A temporary ceasefire might happen, but we are going all the way," he added.

His remarks came after UN relief chief Tom Fletcher called on the UN Security Council to take action "to prevent genocide" in Gaza as he gave a scathing account of Israel's aggression in the territory. 

"Will you act -- decisively -- to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?" he said to UN ambassadors in New York.

Late Tuesday, the Israeli military urged civilians in several parts of northern Gaza to evacuate after it intercepted "two projectiles" fired from the territory. 

The armed wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for rocket fire into Israel, which has been rare in recent weeks. 

In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron said in critical remarks not typical of France that Netanyahu's actions in blocking aid to Gaza were "shameful".

Meanwhile, Russia, China and the UK have rejected Israel’s plans for distributing aid in Gaza, instead urging Tel Aviv to lift its two-month blockade on the territory.

Since the Israeli military broke a two-month ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in mid-March, the occupying entity has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid, including medicine, fuel, and food supplies into Gaza, drastically worsening the humanitarian crisis in the territory, where even clean water is critically scarce.

Dozens of people, mostly children, have died from starvation. Since the aid blockade began on March 2, at least 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition, according to the Ministry of Health.

“People are trapped in this cycle where a lack of diversified food, malnutrition and disease fuel each other,” WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Dr. Rik Peeperkorn said.

“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” he added.

According to a World Bank report, the current crisis in Gaza has now made nearly all of its population almost entirely dependent on humanitarian aid due to prolonged war and blockade.

Nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times, since the regime launched its genocidal war on the territory in October 2023.

Over 52,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

US President Donald Trump says he is willing to reach an agreement with Iran that allows Washington to “blow up” Tehran’s nuclear energy facilities.

“It’s that simple,” he said during an exchange with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, on Wednesday.

“I would much prefer a strong, verified deal where we actually blow them up…,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Deal’s outcome: Either ‘Nice aggression’ or ‘vicious aggression’

The 78-year-old former president added that there were only two possible outcomes, namely “blowing them up nicely or blow them up viciously.”

This is not the first time, Trump and other American officials have urged “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear energy program. The US president had last made the insistence during comments on the NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Observers said such statements underline the US administration's continued aggressive approach towards the Islamic Republic and its nuclear energy program.

The adversarial standing comes while Washington and Tehran have been engaging in indirect talks since March. The talks’ initiation marked drawn-out absence of such engagement between the two sides that had been caused by Washington’s illegal and unilateral withdrawal from a historic nuclear deal between Tehran and others in 2018.

Most recently, Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff said, “The president wants to see this solved diplomatically if possible, so we’re doing everything we can to get it going."

Trump’s remarks, though, diagonally contradict Witkoff’s statement about the president’s alleged interest in a diplomatic solution.

Trump also said potential American aggression against Iran’s nuclear sites had to result in “de-nuking them.”

The US and its allies have for long been trying to accuse the Islamic Republic of pursuing “nuclear weapons,” despite the country’s repeated avowal not to either pursue, develop, or stockpile such weaponry as per moral and religious imperatives.

Tehran’s peaceful nuclear policy has been verified unexceptionally by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has never found any indication of such pursuit, as it has put the country's nuclear activities under the most extensive investigative processes compared to any other member of the United Nations nuclear agency.

The Western narrative, though, has been used extensively to try to justify escalating sanctions, military threats, and covert operations targeting Iran and its nuclear infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic has invariably vowed to deal effectively with attempts on the part of the US, its allied states, or proxies at engaging in military adventurism against the country.

The assertion was last reiterated by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, who underscored on Monday that the country would unquestionably defend its sovereignty against any threat or use of force.

New Delhi: The government is briefing an all-party meeting on Thursday on the success of "Operation Sindoor" and its aftermath, as top government functionaries and opposition leaders met for a second time in a fortnight amid rising tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, J P Nadda and Nirmala Sitharaman represented the government, while Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge from the Congress, Sandip Bandyopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress and DMK's T R Baalu were among the leading opposition figures in the meeting.

Other opposition leaders included Ram Gopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Sanjay Singh of the AAP, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Sanjay Raut, NCP (SP)'s Supriya Sule, BJD's Sasmit Patra and CPI(M)'s John Brittas.

JD(U) leader Sanjay Jha, Union minister and LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan and AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi were also part of the meeting.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government wanted to brief all parties on "Operation Sindoor".

In retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack, Indian armed forces carried out missile strikes early Wednesday on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad stronghold of Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba's base Muridke.

The military strikes were carried out under 'Operation Sindoor' two weeks after the massacre of 26 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam.

The government had earlier called an all-party meeting on April 24 to brief leaders on the attack.