United News of Bangladesh

The Israeli military said Sunday it has carried out a ground raid into Syria, seizing a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced its troops operated in Syrian territory. Syria did not immediately confirm the announcement. Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria multiple times over the past year, targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iran, the close ally of both Hezbollah and Syria. But it has not previously made public any ground forays into Syria. The Israeli military said the seizure was part of a special operation “that took place in recent months,” though it did not say exactly when it occurred. The disclosure of the raid comes as Israel has waged an escalated campaign of bombardment in Lebanon for the past six weeks, as well as a ground invasion along the countries' shared border, vowing to cripple Hezbollah, On Saturday, an Israeli military official said naval forces carried out a raid in a northern Lebanese town, seizing a man they called a senior Hezbollah operative. Still wrecked from past Israeli raids, hospitals in northern Gaza come under attack again The army in its statement Sunday did not specify where in Syria the raid took place or when. It identified the man it seized as Ali Soleiman al-Assi, saying he lives in the southern Syrian region of Saida. It said the man had been under military surveillance for many months and was involved in Iranian initiatives targeting areas of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria. Body camera footage of the raid released by the army showed soldiers seizing a man in a white tank top inside a building. The man was brought to Israel for interrogation, the military said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border with Lebanon on Sunday, saying his focus was trying to keep Hezbollah from rearming itself through the “oxygen lifeline” of Iranian weapons transferred to Lebanon via Syria. Israel says its campaign in Lebanon aims to push Hezbollah away from the border and put an end to more than a year of fire by the group into northern Israel. Israel's strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 2,500 people over the past year. In Israel, 69 people have been killed by Hezbollah projectiles. Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued their campaign in Gaza. In the southern part of the territory, an Israeli strike hit a group of people gathered outside in an eastern district of Khan Younis, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four children and a woman, the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services said. The city’s Nasser Hospital, which received most of the bodies, confirmed the figures. Palestinian officials said an Israeli drone strike on Saturday hit a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated for polio, wounding six people including four children. The Israeli military denied responsibility. US says Iranian-American held in Iran as tensions high following Israeli attack on country Dr. Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation left the facility. The World Health Organization and the U.N. children’s agency, known as UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike. “The reports of this attack are even more disturbing as the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health points where parents can get their children vaccinated,” said Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF. “Today’s attack occurred while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances given that the pause would be respected from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the (Israeli military) did not strike in the area at the specified time.” It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters are also operating in the north, battling Israeli forces. Northern Gaza has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands. A scaled-down campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began Saturday in parts of northern Gaza. It had been postponed from Oct. 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombings and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of assurances for humanitarian pauses, a U.N. statement said. Attack on central Israel injures 11 as Iran's leader promises a punishing response The administration of the first dose was carried out in September across the Gaza Strip, including areas of northern Gaza that are now completely sealed off. Health officials said the campaign’s first round, and the administration of the second dose across central and southern Gaza, were successful. At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of north Gaza toward Gaza City in the past few weeks, but around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in northern towns, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, which are inaccessible, according to the U.N. The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of the oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints.” They say 90% of children in every community must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease. The campaign was launched after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization said the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms. The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.  

The results on Election Day will come down to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270.It will be a game of hopscotch to keep up with key times in each of the states, which stretch across four different time zones. Harris and Trump focus on Sunbelt states during final weekend push for votes A look at the Election Day timeline across the seven, with all listings in Eastern Standard Time: Arizona Polls open at 8 a.m. in Arizona, which Joe Biden carried in 2020 by 0.3%. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Polls will close at 9 p.m.Arizona does not release votes until all precincts have reported or one hour after all polls are closed, whichever is first.In 2020, The Associated Press first reported Arizona results at 10:02 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, Election Day, and declared Biden the winner at 2:51 a.m. ET on Nov. 4. Georgia Polls open at 7 a.m. in Georgia, which played a key role in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat in a White House race to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, defeating Trump by less than one-quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes.Since then, Trump’s efforts to overturn those results have been at the heart of a criminal case in Fulton County. It is on hold while his legal team pursues a pretrial appeal to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case and the indictment tossed. The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear those arguments after the election.Georgia's polls close at 7 p.m.In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia results at 7:20 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the state's winner at 7:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 19, more than two weeks after Election Day. Michigan Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Michigan, one of the “blue wall” states that went narrowly for Trump in 2016 after almost 30 years of voting for Democratic candidates. Biden won it back four years later. His margin was about 154,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million votes.Michigan covers two time zones, but polls in most of the state close at 8 p.m. ET, with the rest at 9 p.m. ET.In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 5:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 4. Trump is using election lies to lay the groundwork for challenging 2024 results if he loses Nevada Polls open at 10 a.m. ET in Nevada, the smallest electoral vote prize of the battlegrounds. But it has one of the best track records as a presidential bellwether. The candidate who won Nevada has gone on to win the White House in 27 of the past 30 presidential elections.Polls close at 10 p.m. ET. The state doesn’t release results until the last person in line has voted, so there’s usually been a wait between poll close and the first results.In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada results at 11:41 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 12:13 p.m. ET on Nov. 7. North Carolina Polls open at 6:30 a.m. ET in North Carolina, which has been carried by Democrats only two times in presidential elections since 1968. But the state has stayed competitive for both major parties. Trump’s 2020 victory in North Carolina, by about 1 percentage point, was his smallest winning margin in any state.Polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET.In 2020, the AP first reported results at 7:42 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Trump the winner at 3:49 p.m. ET on Nov. 13. Pennsylvania Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Pennsylvania, another “blue wall" state. Biden’s 2020 margin in Pennsylvania was about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes. This year, it's the spot where Harris and Trump met for the first time at their sole debate in September in Philadelphia.Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in a state with more electoral votes, 19, than any of the battlegrounds.In 2020, the AP first reported results at 8:09 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 11:25 a.m. ET on Nov. 7. Biden suggests Trump supporters are 'garbage' after comic's insult of Puerto Rico Wisconsin Polls open at 8 a.m. ET in Wisconsin, the third “blue wall” state in this group. Wisconsin is no stranger to close elections; the margin of victory in the state was less than 1 percentage point in 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000.Polls close at 9 p.m. ET. In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin results at 9:07 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 2:16 p.m. ET on Nov. 4. US Eastern Standard Time (ET) = Bangladesh Standard Time (BdST) minus 11, i.e. eleven hours behind.

The United States flew a long-range bomber in a trilateral drill with South Korea and Japan on Sunday in response to North Korea’s recent test-firing of a new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the U.S. mainland, South Korea’s military said. North Korea on Thursday tested the newly developed Hwasong-19 ICBM, which flew higher and stayed in the air longer than any other missile it has fired. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called it “an appropriate military action” to cope with external security threats posed by its rivals. On Sunday, the U.S. flew the B-1B bomber to train with South Korean and Japanese fighter jets near the Korean Peninsula, demonstrating the three countries’ firm resolve and readiness to respond to North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The trilateral aerial training was the second by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan this year, the statement said. The U.S. often responds to major North Korean missile tests with temporary deployments of some of its powerful military assets such as long-range bombers, aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines to and near the Korean Peninsula. North Korea typically responds angrily to such U.S. actions, calling them part of a U.S.-led plot to invade the North and performing additional weapons tests. The U.S. has flown the B-1B bomber over or near the Korean Peninsula four times this year, according to South Korea’s military. A B-1B is capable of carrying a large conventional weapons payload. Thursday's Hwasong-19 test, North Korea's first ICBM test-firing in almost a year, showed progress in North Korea’s missile program. But many experts say North Korea still has some technological issues to master to acquire functioning ICBMs that can deliver nuclear strikes on the U.S. mainland. The experts say the Hwasong-19 shown in North Korea’s state media photos and videos looked too big to be useful in a war. The ICBM test was seen as an effort to grab American attention ahead of the U.S. presidential election this week and respond to international condemnation of North Korea's reported dispatch of thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, observers say.

They were built to be places of healing. But once again, three hospitals in northern Gaza are encircled by Israeli troops and under fire. Bombardment is pounding around them as Israel wages a new offensive against Hamas fighters that it says have regrouped nearby. As staff scramble to treat waves of wounded, they remain haunted by a war that has seen hospitals targeted with an intensity and overtness rarely seen in modern warfare. All three were besieged and raided by Israeli troops some 10 months ago. The Kamal Adwan, al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals still have not recovered from the damage, yet are the only hospitals even partially operational in the area. Medical facilities often come under fire in wars, but combatants usually depict such incidents as accidental or exceptional, since hospitals enjoy special protection under international law. In its yearlong campaign in Gaza, Israel has stood out by carrying out an open campaign on hospitals, besieging and raiding at least 10 of them across the Gaza Strip, some several times, as well as hitting multiple others in strikes. Attack on central Israel injures 11 as Iran's leader promises a punishing response It has said this is a military necessity in its aim to destroy Hamas after the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. It claims Hamas uses hospitals as “command and control bases” to plan attacks, to shelter fighters and to hide hostages. It argues that nullifies the protections for hospitals. “If we intend to take down the military infrastructure in the north, we have to take down the philosophy of (using) the hospitals,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said of Hamas during an interview with The Associated Press in January after the first round of hospital raids. Most prominently, Israel twice raided Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical facility in the strip, producing a video animation depicting it as a major Hamas base, though the evidence it presented remains disputed. But the focus on Shifa has overshadowed raids on other facilities. The AP spent months gathering accounts of the raids on al-Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan Hospitals, interviewing more than three dozen patients, witnesses and medical and humanitarian workers as well as Israeli officials. It found that Israel has presented little or even no evidence of a significant Hamas presence in those cases. The AP presented a dossier listing the incidents reported by those it interviewed to the Israeli military spokesman’s office. The office said it could not comment on specific events. Al-Awda Hospital: ‘A death sentence’The Israeli military has never made any claims of a Hamas presence at al-Awda. When asked what intelligence led troops to besiege and raid the hospital last year, the military spokesman’s office did not reply. In recent weeks, the hospital has been paralyzed once again, with Israeli troops fighting in nearby Jabalia refugee camp and no food, water or medical supplies entering areas of northern Gaza. Its director Mohammed Salha said last month that the facility was surrounded by troops and was unable to evacuate six critical patients. Staff were down to eating one meal a day, usually just a flat bread or a bit of rice, he said. As war-wounded poured in, exhausted surgeons were struggling to treat them. No vascular surgeons or neurosurgeons remain north of Gaza City, so the doctors often resort to amputating shrapnel-shattered limbs to save lives. “We are reliving the nightmares of November and December of last year, but worse,” Salha said. “We have fewer supplies, fewer doctors and less hope that anything will be done to stop this.” The military, which did not respond to a specific request for comment on al-Awda hospital, says it takes all possible precautions to prevent civilian casualties. Last year, fighting was raging around al-Awda when, on Nov. 21, a shell exploded in the facility's operating room. Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, two other doctors and a patient’s uncle died almost instantly, according to international charity Doctors Without Borders, which said it had informed the Israeli military of its coordinates. Dr. Mohammed Obeid, Abu Nujaila’s colleague, recalled dodging shellfire inside the hospital complex. Israeli sniper fire killed a nurse and two janitors and wounded a surgeon, hospital officials said. By Dec. 5, al-Awda was surrounded. For 18 days, coming or going became “a death sentence,” Obeid said. Survivors and hospital administrators recounted at least four occasions when Israeli drones or snipers killed or badly wounded Palestinians trying to enter. Two women about to give birth were shot and bled to death in the street, staff said. Salha, the administrator, watched gunfire kill his cousin, Souma, and her 6-year-old son as she brought the boy for treatment of wounds. Shaza al-Shuraim said labor pains left her no choice but to walk an hour to al-Awda to give birth. She, her mother-in-law and 16-year-old brother-in-law raised flags made of white blouses. “Civilians!” her mother-in-law, Khatam Sharir, kept shouting. Just outside the gate, a burst of gunfire answered, killing Sharir. On Dec. 23, troops stormed the hospital, ordering men ages 15 to 65 to strip and undergo interrogation in the yard. Mazen Khalidi, whose infected right leg had been amputated, said nurses pleaded with soldiers to let him rest rather than join the blindfolded and handcuffed men outside. They refused, and he hobbled downstairs, his stump bleeding. “The humiliation scared me more than death,” Khalidi said. The hospital’s director, Ahmed Muhanna, was seized by Israeli troops; his whereabouts remain unknown. One of Gaza’s leading doctors, orthopedist Adnan al-Bursh, was also detained during the raid and died in Israeli custody in May. In the wreckage from the November shelling, staff found a message that Abu Nujaila had written on a whiteboard in the previous weeks. “Whoever stays until the end will tell the story,” it read in English. “We did what we could. Remember us.” Indonesian Hospital: ‘Patients dying before your eyes’Several blocks away, on Oct. 18, artillery hit the upper floors of Indonesian Hospital, staff said. People fled for their lives. They'd already been surrounded by Israeli troops, leaving doctors and patients inside without enough food, water and supplies. “The bombing around us has increased. They’ve paralyzed us," said Edi Wahyudi, an Indonesian volunteer. Two patients died because of a power outage and lack of supplies, said Muhannad Hadi, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Palestinian territories. Tamer al-Kurd, a nurse at the hospital, said around 44 patients and only two doctors remain. He said he was so dehydrated he was starting to hallucinate. “People come to me to save them. … I can’t do that by myself, with two doctors,” he said in a voice message, his voice weak. “I’m tired.” On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had facilitated the evacuation of 29 patients from Indonesian and al-Awda hospitals. The Indonesian is Northern Gaza’s largest hospital. Today its top floors are charred, its walls pockmarked by shrapnel, its gates strewn with piled-up rubble — all the legacy of Israel's siege in the autumn of 2023. Before the assault, the Israeli army claimed an underground command-and-control center lay beneath the hospital. It released blurry satellite images of what it said was a tunnel entrance in the yard and a rocket launchpad nearby, outside the hospital compound. The Indonesia-based group that funds the hospital denied any Hamas presence. “If there’s a tunnel, we would know. We know this building because we built it brick by brick, layer by layer. It’s ridiculous,” Arief Rachman, a hospital manager from the Indonesia-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, told the AP last month. After besieging and raiding the hospital, the military did not mention or show evidence of the underground facility or tunnels it had earlier claimed. When asked if any tunnels were found, the military spokesman's office did not reply. It released images of two vehicles found in the compound — a pickup truck with military vests and a bloodstained car belonging to an abducted Israeli, suggesting he had been brought to the hospital on Oct. 7. Hamas has said it brought wounded hostages to hospitals for treatment. During the siege, Israeli shelling crept closer and closer until, on Nov. 20, it hit the Indonesian’s second floor, killing 12 people and wounding dozens, according to staff. Israel said troops responded to “enemy fire” from the hospital but denied using shells. Gunfire over the next days hit walls and whizzed through intensive care. Explosions sparked fires outside the hospital courtyard where some 1,000 displaced Palestinians sheltered, according to staff. The Israeli military denied targeting the hospital, although it acknowledged nearby bombardment may have damaged it. For three weeks, wounded poured in — up to 500 a day to a facility with capacity for 200. Supplies hadn’t entered in weeks. Bloodstained linens piled up. Doctors, some working 24-hour shifts, ate a few dates a day. The discovery of moldy flour on Nov. 23 was almost thrilling. Without medicines or ventilators, there was little doctors could do. Wounds became infected. Doctors said they performed dozens of amputations on infected limbs. Medics estimated a fifth of incoming patients died. At least 60 corpses lay in the courtyard. Others were buried beneath a nearby playground. “To see patients dying before your eyes because you don’t have the ability to help them, you have to ask yourself: ‘Where is humanity?’” asked Dergham Abu Ibrahim, a volunteer. Kamal Adwan: ‘This makes no sense’Kamal Adwan Hospital, once a linchpin of northern Gaza’s health system, was burning on Thursday of last week. Israeli shells crashed into the third floor, igniting a fire that destroyed medical supplies, according to the World Health Organization, which had delivered the equipment just days before. The artillery hit water tanks and damaged the dialysis unit, badly burning four medics who tried to extinguish the blaze, said the hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiya. In videos pleading for help over the past weeks, Abu Safiya had fought to maintain his composure as Israeli forces surrounded the hospital. But last weekend, there were tears in his eyes. “Everything we have built, they have burned,” he said, his voice cracking. “They burned our hearts. They killed my son.” On Oct. 25, Israeli troops stormed the hospital after what an Israeli military official described as an intense fight with militants nearby. During the battle, Israeli fire targeted the hospital’s oxygen tanks because they “can be booby traps,” the official said. Israeli forces withdrew after three days, during which Palestinian health officials said nearly all of Kamal Adwan's medical workers were detained, an Israeli drone killed at least one doctor and two children in intensive care died when generators stopped working. Days later, a drone struck Abu Safiya’s son in nearby Jabalia. The 21-year-old had been wounded by Israeli snipers during the first military raid on Kamal Adwan last December. Now he is buried in the yard of the hospital, where just Abu Safiya and one other doctor remain to treat the dozens of wounded pouring in each day from new strikes in Jabalia. The Israeli military said troops detained 100 people, some who were “posing as medical staff.” Soldiers stripped the men to check for weapons, the military said, before those deemed militants were sent to detention camps. The military claimed that the hospital was "fully operational, with all departments continuing to treat patients.” It released footage of several guns and an RPG launcher with several rounds it said it found inside the hospital. Kamal Adwan staff say more than 30 medical personnel remain detained, including the head of nursing, who is employed by MedGlobal, an American organization that sends medical teams to disaster regions, and Dr. Mohammed Obeid, the surgeon employed by Doctors without Borders who previously worked at al-Awda Hospital and had moved to Kamal Adwan. The turmoil echoed Israel’s nine-day siege of Kamal Adwan last December. On Dec. 12, soldiers entered and allowed police dogs to attack staff, patients and others, multiple witnesses said. Ahmed Atbail, a 36-year-old who had sought refuge at the hospital, said he saw a dog bite off one man’s finger. Witnesses said the troops ordered boys and men, ranging from their mid-teens to 60, to line up outside crouched in the cold, blindfolded and nearly naked for hours of interrogation. “Every time someone lifted their heads, they were beaten,” said Mohammed al-Masri, a lawyer who was detained. The military later published footage of men exiting the hospital. Al-Masri identified himself in the footage. He said soldiers staged the images, ordering men to lay down rifles belonging to the hospital guards as if they were militants surrendering. Israel said all photos released are authentic and that it apprehended dozens of suspected militants. As they released some of the men after interrogation, soldiers fired on them as they tried to reenter the hospital, wounding five, three detainees said. Ahmed Abu Hajjaj recalled hearing bursts of gunfire as he made his way back in the dark. “I thought, this makes no sense — who would they be shooting at?” Witnesses also said a bulldozer lumbered into the hospital compound, plowing into buildings. Abu Safiya, Abu Hajjaj and al-Masri described being held by soldiers inside the hospital as they heard people screaming outside. After the soldiers withdrew, the men saw the bulldozer had crushed tents that previously sheltered some 2,500 people. Most of the displaced had evacuated, but Abu Safiya said he found bodies of four people crushed, with splints from recent treatment in the hospital still on their limbs. Asked about the incident, the Israeli military spokesman’s office said: “Lies were spread on social media” about troops’ activities at the hospital. It said bodies were discovered that had been buried previously, unrelated to the military’s activities. Later, the military said Hamas used the hospital as a command center but produced no evidence. It said soldiers uncovered weapons, but it showed footage only of a single pistol. The hospital’s director, Dr. Ahmed al-Kahlout, remains in Israeli custody. The military released footage of him under interrogation saying he was a Hamas agent and that militants were based in the hospital. His colleagues said he spoke under duress. The falloutHagari, the military spokesperson, said hospitals “provide a life of their own ... to the (Hamas) war system.” He said hospitals were linked to tunnels allowing fighters movement. “And when you take it, they have no way to move. Not from the south to the north.” Despite often suggesting hospitals are linked to Hamas' underground networks, the military has shown only one tunnel shaft from all the hospitals it raided — one leading to Shifa's grounds. In a report last month, a U.N. investigation commission determined that “Israel has implemented a concerted policy to destroy the health-care system of Gaza.” It described Israeli actions at hospitals as “collective punishment against the Palestinians in Gaza.” Some patients now fear hospitals, refusing to go to them or leaving before treatment is complete. “They are places of death,” Ahmed al-Qamar, a 35-year-old economist in Jabalia refugee camp, said of his fear of taking his children to the hospital. “You can feel it.” Zaher Sahloul, the president of MedGlobal who has also worked in Gaza during the war, said the sense of safety that should surround hospitals has been destroyed. “This war has become a scar in the minds of every doctor and nurse.”

An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster is believed to be detained by Iran for months now, authorities said Sunday, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the country. The imprisonment of Reza Valizadeh, acknowledged to The Associated Press by the U.S. State Department, came as Iran marked the 45th anniversary of the American Embassy takeover and hostage crisis on Sunday. It also followed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatening both Israel and the U.S. the day before with "a crushing response” as long-range B-52 bombers reached the Middle East in an attempt to deter Tehran. Valizadeh had worked for Radio Farda, an outlet under Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that's overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. In February, he wrote on the social platform X that his family members had been detained in an effort to see him return to Iran. Attack on central Israel injures 11 as Iran's leader promises a punishing response In August, Valizadeh apparently posted two messages suggesting he had returned to Iran despite Radio Farda being viewed by Iran's theocracy as a hostile outlet. “I arrived in Tehran on March 6, 2024. Before that, I had unfinished negotiations with the (Revolutionary Guard's) intelligence department,” the message read in part. “Eventually I came back to my country after 13 years without any security guarantee, even a verbal one.” Valizadeh added the name of a man who he claimed belonged to Iran's Intelligence Ministry. The AP could not verify if the person worked for the ministry. Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Valizadeh had been detained. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, which monitors cases in Iran, said that he had been detained on arrival to the country earlier this year, but later released. He was then rearrested and sent to Evin prison, where he now faces a case in Iran's Revolutionary Court, which routinely holds closed-door hearings in which defendants face secret evidence, the agency reported. Valizadeh had faced arrest in 2007 as well, it said. The State Department told the AP that it was “aware of reports that this dual U.S.-Iranian citizen has been arrested in Iran" when asked about Valizadeh. Iran's supreme leader threatens Israel and US with 'a crushing response' over Israeli attack “We are working with our Swiss partners who serve as the protecting power for the United States in Iran to gather more information about this case,” the State Department said. “Iran routinely imprisons U.S. citizens and other countries’ citizens unjustly for political purposes. This practice is cruel and contrary to international law.” Iran has not acknowledged detaining Valizadeh. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Voice of America, another U.S. government-funded media outlet overseen by the Agency for Global Media, first reported the State Department was acknowledging Valizadeh's detention in Iran. Since the 1979 U.S. Embassy crisis, which saw dozens of hostages released after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations with the world. In September 2023, five Americans detained for years in Iran were freed in exchange for five Iranians in U.S. custody and for $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released by South Korea. Valizadeh is the first American known to be detained by Iran in the time since.  

An attack on a central Israeli town early Saturday injured 11 people as Iran's supreme leader vowed a punishing response to Israel's attack last week and Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza and Lebanon. The predawn strike on Tira was one of several barrages fired from Lebanon. Many of the projectiles were intercepted by Israeli air defenses as air raid sirens rang out in parts of the country throughout the day, while others landed in unpopulated areas. The Magen David Adom emergency service said 11 people were hurt by shrapnel and glass shards in a direct strike on a building in Tira, a predominantly Israeli Arab town. Footage showed significant damage to the roof and top floor of the three-story building and cars below. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said Saturday that it had used missiles and explosive drones to target military and intelligence facilities in northern and central Israel. It claimed responsibility for firing missiles toward the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 base in Glilot, on the edge of Tel Aviv, and for firing rockets toward military facilities in Zvulun. Hezbollah also said it had targeted central Israel's Palmachim Air Base with explosive drones, saying they “scored precise hits on targets." Israel's military did not confirm whether any of the three Hezbollah targets had been hit and said it had no comment on the group's claims. Hezbollah said the Saturday dawn missile attack directed at Glilot was in retaliation for the “massacres” that are being committed by Israel. Tira, is about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Glilot. Tamar Abdel Hai, a resident of Tira, said that the attack was frightening. “I call upon all the leaders in the Arab world and the leaders in Israel and to everyone who can help to end this war. It’s enough,” he said. Hezbollah also said that its fighters fired salvos of rockets into northern Israeli towns including Dalton, Yesud HaMa’ala and Bar Yohai. Israeli media showed images of damage reportedly caused by a drone that hit a factory north of Nahariya. The army said several drones crossed from Lebanon into Israel, one was intercepted but “fallen targets were identified in the area.” Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Saturday afternoon killed one person and wounded 15 others, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Israeli planes resumed strikes on the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight Friday, following a four-day lull in the capital. In a separate incident, a Lebanese ship captain was seized by armed men who landed on the coast of Batroun, north of Beirut, Lebanese authorities said. The Israeli military later confirmed it had captured the man, which it described as a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon. It did not name the detainee and said he was being investigated on Israeli territory. Iran threatens more attacks The early Saturday attacks may be only a precursor to a more severe strike against Israel. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with a punishing response over attacks on Iran and its allies following Israel's Oct. 26 airstrikes that targeted Iran's military bases and other locations. “The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a video released by Iranian state media. A further attack by Iran, which has already launched two direct attacks against Israel this year, could push the wider Middle East closer to a broader conflict. Israel is already battling the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The fight against Hezbollah has weakened the group but has also taken a heavy toll on southern Lebanon and other parts of the country. On Friday, Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, according to a Health Ministry update early Friday. United Nations agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people. Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year. Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 42 people in 24 hours In recent weeks, Israel has also stepped up its offensive against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, raising concerns about humanitarian conditions for civilians still there. A series of Israeli strikes on Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least 42 people, more than half of them women and children, in 24 hours, Dr. Marwan Abu Naser, director of Al-Awda Hospital that received the casualties, told The Associated Press. A further 150 were wounded, he said. Later on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a street in the nearby Bureij refugee camp killed at least six people, medical officials said. The dead were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah and counted by AP journalists there. Separately, the Israeli military said that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Gaza. Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News TV reported Saturday that Hamas has rejected a partial cease-fire deal in Gaza fearing that Israel will resume its operations in the enclave even after hostages are released. The TV channel has close ties to the Egyptian intelligence service and Egypt has been a key mediator throughout the yearlong conflict. Hours later, senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq criticized the temporary cease-fire proposal describing it as “just a smoke screen.” Hamas has continually called for a complete end to the conflict and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a condition for any cease-fire deal with Israel. Meanwhile, The World Health Organization began a scaled-down polio vaccination campaign on Saturday, giving second doses to at-risk children only in Gaza City after providing first doses in multiple parts of northern Gaza, which has seen intense Israeli bombardment. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza. Health officials inside Hamas-run Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead in the enclave are women and children.

Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, an Israeli military official said Saturday, as the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel showed few signs of easing. Earlier on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a Lebanese sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast near the northern town of Batroun on Friday. “The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated,” the military official said, without providing the name of the person in detention. The operation marks the first time Israel has announced it deployed troops deep into northern Lebanon to take a senior Hezbollah operative captive since the conflict between the two sides escalated in late September. Since then, Israeli forces began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and intensified its airstrikes across the country, including southern Beirut and the eastern Bekaa valley, killing most of Hezbollah's senior commanders. Hezbollah issued a statement describing what happened as a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area.” The statement did not give details or confirm whether a Hezbollah member was captured by Israel. Two Lebanese military officials confirmed to The Associated Press that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen. Neither gave the man’s identity or said whether he was thought to have links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. They did not confirm whether the armed men were an Israeli force. Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the operation took place at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah. The officials said an investigation is looking into whether the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him. Both the military and judicial officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were unauthorized to share details about the incident or the ongoing investigation. Soon after Israel went public about the operation, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Lebanon’s foreign minister to file a complaint against Israel at the U.N. Security Council. Israel has carried out in the past commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials. Recounting the event, Lebanese residents from the apartment building where the man was seized said the armed group introduced themselves as state security. “We were terrified. They were breaking into the apartment next to ours,” Hussein Delbani told The Associated Press near where the man was captured. “I thought a state agency was doing a security operation,” said Delbani, who was displaced from south Lebanon a month ago when the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted. He said he saw from his balcony people down on the coast and they screamed again for him to go inside. Hamie told Al-Jadeed the man was a captain of civilian ships. He graduated in 2022 and in late September joined the Batroun's Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses. Hamie said that the man lived some 300 meters (980 feet) from the institute. Hamie's remarks came shortly after two Lebanese journalists posted a video on social media showing what appeared to be about 20 armed men taking away a man from in front a house, his face covered with his shirt. Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the landing force in the operation. The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, has a maritime force that monitors the coast. "Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk,” Ardiel said. Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

  Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump zeroed in on the Sun Belt on Saturday as they embarked on one last weekend quest to sway every undecided voter in the battleground states. They pitched rival agendas on the economy — and more — that each insisted is what Americans want. “We have overcome every attack, every abuse and even two assassination attempts,” Trump said at a rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. “And now it all comes down to this.” Later, Trump headed to Virginia, which isn't considered a battleground state, but offered a similar message, telling supporters that there is no way he can lose and is on the cusp of “the greatest political victory in the history of our country.” Trump predicted he would win not just the Electoral College count, but a majority of votes cast across the country, which he failed to do in two previous tries. “We’re going to win the popular vote,” Trump told the crowd. “I think we have a really good chance to win the popular vote.” Harris, meanwhile, has been urging her supporters to vote early so she can be elected and provide the “new generation of leadership” that she argues she represents. “I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States of America,” she said during remarks in a rally at the Atlanta Civic Center parking lot. She had to pause a few times to allow medics to attend to people who had fainted after spending hours in the heat. “It's hot out here, Atlanta,” the vice president said. It was unclear whether Harris herself had voted early. Campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said Saturday that Harris plans to vote by mail, but he could not say whether she had returned her ballot to her home state of California. Trump confirmed Saturday that he'll vote in person on Tuesday in Florida, despite saying previously he'd vote early. “Anybody here already voted?” she asked the Atlanta crowd, which cheered loudly in response. “Oh wow. Oh my goodness. Thank you, thank you." It was part of a final, frenzied push by Harris, Trump, their running mates and their high-profile stand-ins to encourage people to vote early or in person on Tuesday, Election Day. Harris’ campaign hoped for a “high-impact” moment with a two-minute spot to air Sunday during NFL games on CBS and FOX, including the Green Bay Packers against the Detroit Lions, two swing state teams. It shows Harris interacting with people during the campaign and talking directly to viewers. “Now I’m asking for your vote because as president I will get up every day and fight for the American people,” she says at the end. Harris Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon projected confidence Saturday on a conference call with reporters as both sides embarked on that final sprint to get out the vote. “If you can hear the joy in my voice it is because we are in GOTV weekend,” she said. Trump, meanwhile, spoke wistfully, as he has at some of his recent rallies, about how after nearly a decade of campaigning, his final race is nearing its end. “We’re going to meet again many times I hope," the former president said in the first of two North Carolina rallies. "This has been the thrill of a lifetime for me and for you.” At the second rally, in Greensboro, he said he'll do two more days of rallies “and then we shut it down, never to happen again.” He said he'll then have “a different form of rally — a rally for our country.” Planes carrying Harris and Trump met on the tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the vice president ended her campaign day. She was joined there by actress Kerry Washington and rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who played a newer song “The People’s House” that he said he wrote shortly after the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. “We still have work to do,” Harris told her Atlanta rally, adding, “Make no mistake, we will win.” She also called her campaign and supporters “the promise of America." President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race this summer when it became clear he could not win, was doing his part for the Democrats by making what could be his final 2024 campaign stop. Biden, who turns 82 this month, struck a nostalgic tone as he tried to help get out the vote for Harris and running mate Tim Walz during an event at the carpenters' local in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And, as he's done frequently lately, Biden also went off script to offer some especially blunt statements. After slamming Trump and his supporters on policy issues, the president added, “I know some of you guys are tempted to think he’s this macho guy … but, I’m serious, these are the kind of guys you’d like to smack in the ass." Walz joined actress Eva Longoria at a get-out-the-vote event in Las Vegas before the Minnesota governor's events in Flagstaff and Tucson, Arizona. GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance was also in Arizona and Nevada. First lady Jill Biden was campaigning in Georgia and Hillary Clinton was appearing for Harris in Tampa, Florida. Walz visited a few homes in the Las Vegas suburbs. He and Democratic Rep. Dina Titus spoke with a couple who were excited to see both politicians — and were hopeful. “We're gonna win,” Walz said. “These last days matter and it will be on the margins.” Elsewhere, other voters sounded notes of cautious optimism about the election outcome. Marzella and Darrell Pittman said they canceled weekend plans after learning that Harris would be in Atlanta and drove four hours from Alabama to attend. Marzella thinks Harris will win, but Darrell is nervous because many of the young Black men in his life support Trump and are hesitant to vote for a woman for president. “It’s tight, and the other side, they got a lot of our people believing in that side, just like we believe in Kamala,” he said. Until the election, “we have nothing but voting on our mind and we’re talking to everybody,” Marzella Pittman said. Trump supporters were equally passionate about their candidate. “Mr. Trump came in a garbage truck. I came in a garbage bag,” said Elmer Baber, who lives in Gastonia, North Carolina and attended Trump's rally. It was a reference to Trump riding in a garbage truck after Biden said Trump's supporters were “garbage." Biden later said he was talking about rhetoric from a speaker at Trump's recent event at Madison Square Garden.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged its allies to stop “watching” and take steps before North Koreans troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield. Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a preemptive Ukrainian strike on camps where the North Korean troops are being trained, and said Kyiv knows their location. But he said Ukraine can’t do it without permission from allies to use Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia. “But instead … America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well,” Zelenskyy said in a post late Friday on the Telegram messaging app. The Biden administration said Thursday that some 8,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia’s Kursk region near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to help the Kremlin fight against Ukrainian troops in the coming days. On Saturday, Ukraine's military intelligence said that more than 7,000 North Koreans equipped with Russian gear and weapons had been transported to areas near Ukraine. The agency, known by its acronym GUR, said that North Korean troops were being trained at five locations in Russia's Far East. It did not specify its source of information. Western leaders have described the North Korean troop deployment as a significant escalation that could also jolt relations in the Indo-Pacific region, and open the door to technology transfers from Moscow to Pyongyang that could advance the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program. North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with her Russian counterpart in Moscow in Friday. Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly said they need permission to use Western weapons to strike arms depots, airfields and military bases far from the border to motivate Russia to seek peace. In response, U.S. defense officials have argued that the missiles are limited in number, and that Ukraine is already using its own long-range drones to hit targets farther into Russia. Moscow has also consistently signaled that it would view any such strikes as a major escalation. President Vladimir Putin warned on Sept. 12 that Russia would be “at war” with the U.S. and NATO states if they approve them.  

India officially protested on Saturday the Canadian government’s allegation that the country’s powerful home minister Amit Shah had ordered the targeting of Sikh activists inside Canada, calling it “absurd and baseless.” Relations between the two countries soured after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year there were credible allegations the Indian government had links to the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India has vehemently rejected the accusation. New Delhi — long anxious about Sikh separatist groups — has increasingly accused the Canadian government of giving free rein to separatists from a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan, in India. The diplomatic row led to the expulsion of each other’s top diplomats last month. Iran's supreme leader threatens Israel and US with 'a crushing response' over Israeli attack “The Government of India protests in the strongest terms to the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India,” Randhir Jaiswal, spokesman of India’s foreign ministry told reporters Saturday. Jaiswal also said a Canadian diplomat in New Delhi was summoned on Friday and handed out a letter to formally protest the allegation. “Such irresponsible actions will have serious consequences for bilateral ties,” he warned. Canada’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told Parliament members of the national security committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed Shah’s name to The Washington Post, which first reported the allegations. Morrison did not explain how Canada knew of Shah’s alleged involvement. Canadian authorities have repeatedly said they shared evidence with India whose officials deny being provided with any proof. New Delhi calls the allegations ridiculous. Nijjar was a local leader of the Khalistan movement, banned in India. India designated him a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death was seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest in India. He lived in Canada, where about 2% of the population is Sikh, for nearly three decades. Expelled Indian high commissioner denies involvement in murder of Sikh leader in Canada Shah, who is 60 years old, is responsible for India’s internal security, as the country's home minister. He is widely considered the second most powerful politician in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Shah has also been a close aide of Modi for decades. Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges in mid-October against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City. Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada. New Delhi at the time expressed concern and said India takes the allegations seriously.