PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants killed six Pakistani soldiers during a shootout in the northwest, the army said Saturday. It’s the latest unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan and is a base for armed groups including the Pakistani Taliban.
The troops died in an overnight operation in North Waziristan on Saturday, according to an army statement. The statement also said six militants were killed.
The army said a separate operation killed two militants in Swat, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. One of them was said to be involved in an attack on a convoy of foreign ambassadors in the area earlier this month.
Also Saturday, cellphone services remained suspended in Islamabad as it entered a second day of a lockdown aimed at thwarting rallies in support of ex-leader Imran Khan. He is in prison on multiple charges.
Shipping containers have blocked off the city’s entry and exit points, but videos from Khan’s political party showed his supporters piled into vehicles and attempting to head toward Islamabad.
The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gandapur, and others in the convoy worked throughout the night to remove shipping containers from the road, the party said.
Khan’s PTI party said it plans to hold a rally in Lahore.
People try to cross through a shipping container placed by authorities to block the way to prevent supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a rally in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Shipping containers set up by authorities block a road, preventing the supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a rally to demand his release in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Police officers stand guard next to shipping containers set up by authorities to block a road leading to important government buildings in an attempt to prevent supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a rally in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
People try to cross through shipping containers set up by authorities to prevent supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a rally to demand his release in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in north Lebanon has killed Hamas official Saeed Atallah Ali and his family, the militant group said Saturday. The early morning strike came a day after another Israeli airstrike cut off a main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, leaving two huge craters on either side of the road.
Israel began a ground incursion Tuesday into Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Here is the latest:
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 9, including 2 children
CAIRO — Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early Saturday have killed at least nine people, including two children.
One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
Another strike hit a house in the northern part of Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of wounded people, it said.
The Israeli military did not have any immediate comment on the strikes, but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the almost year-long war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
CAIRO — The Israeli military on Saturday warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian militants.
The warnings cover areas along a strategic corridor in central Gaza, which was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal earlier this summer. The military warned Palestinians in areas of Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, located along the Netzarim corridor, to evacuate to an along Gaza's shore called Muwasi, which the military has designated a humanitarian zone. It’s unclear how many Palestinians are currently living in the areas affected by the order, parts of which were evacuated previously.
Less than an hour after the evacuation order, Palestinians reported Israel’s artillery shelling as smoke bombing in the northern areas of Nuseirat camp. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to heavily destroyed areas of Gaza where they fought earlier battles against Hamas and other militants since the start of war one year ago.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced in the war, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps.
Others have remained in their homes despite being ordered to leave, saying nowhere in the isolated coastal territory feels safe.
BEIRUT — An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in north Lebanon has killed a Hamas official and his family, the militant group said Saturday.
Hamas said in a statement that the early Saturday strike on the Beddawi refugee camp struck the home of Saeed Atallah Ali, an official with Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades. Ali’s wife, Shaymaa Azzam, and their two daughters, Zeinab and Fatima — whom the statement described as children — were also killed in the attack.
Beddawi camp is near the northern city of Tripoli. It was the first such strike on the camp in recent weeks that saw intensified exchanges between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.
SEOUL, South Korea — A military plane evacuating 97 people from Lebanon arrived in South Korea on Saturday.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the group on the plane includes South Korean nationals and their family members. There are about 30 South Koreans left in Lebanon besides diplomats and embassy workers who are staying.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed officials Wednesday to send military aircraft to conflict areas in the Middle East as he called a meeting to discuss the impact of the intensified fighting in the region. There are about 480 South Korean nationals living in Israel and 110 in Iran.
Kashmiri Shiite Muslims shout pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians and against the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at Mirgund north village of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
South Korean nationals and their family members arrive after being evacuated from Lebanon with a South Korea's military aircraft at the Seoul airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (Korea Pool/Yonhap via AP)
Draped in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad flags, mourners take the last look at the bodies of 18 Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike during their funeral in Tulkarem, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Kashmiri Shiite Muslims shout pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians and against the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at Mirgund north village of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
