Benoit Faucon

A planned release of 50 hostages held in Gaza along with 150 Palestinian prisoners and a pause in fighting was delayed hours before it was set to begin on Thursday. Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

The Palestinian Authority faces critics for problems in the West Bank amid war with Israel

Militant group returned in force with drones, homegrown missiles and fortified tunnels; ‘armed to the teeth’

In a rare move, Israeli authorities asked residents of Sderot, a city of 30,000 near the Gaza Strip, to evacuate by Monday, according to the city’s Facebook page. The request came as the Israeli army is gearing up for a land invasion in Gaza. Photo: Jonathan Alpeyrie/Bloomberg News

As the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its second week, the Israeli Defense Forces prepare for a ground invasion of Gaza.

Most Wagner businesses in Africa center on natural resources like gold, diamonds and timber. But in 2022 the Russian paramilitary group started a brewery in the Central African Republic as a way to compete with the French for influence on the continent. Photo illustration: Annie Zhao

The Wagner Group began as a small clandestine force but has grown in recent years into a global war cartel run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, plundering gold and diamonds while advancing the Kremlin’s strategic interests and becoming the face of the Russian assault in Ukraine. Photo illustration: Xingpei Shen

It is the first such attack targeting a key Iran ally since earthquakes devastated swaths of the country earlier this month.

The group is considering an output reduction of 1 million barrels a day, its biggest cut since the pandemic began, as the economic slowdown hurts demand.

As President Biden prepares to go to Saudi Arabia, OPEC members say the cartel and its allies have fallen far behind on their oil-production targets and are in their weakest position in recent years to help tame high crude prices.