INSIDE THE GAZA STRIP (AP) — An Israeli tank rolls across a sandy moonscape, surrounded by rubble. Damaged buildings are visible in every direction. Toppled trees lie along the Mediterranean shoreline. The Israeli military escorted international journalists into the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, giving them a glimpse of the aftermath of 12 days of heavy fighting in the area.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. carried out an airstrike on a weapons warehouse in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in the region for the past several weeks, the Pentagon said. In Wednesday's strike, two U.S. F-15 fighter jets dropped multiple bombs on a weapons storage facility near Maysulun in Deir el-Zour that was known to be used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians living in the heart of Gaza’s largest city said Wednesday they could see and hear Israeli ground forces closing in from multiple directions, accelerating the exodus of thousands of civilians as food and water become scarce and urban fighting between Israel and Hamas heats up.

TOKYO (AP) — Top diplomats from the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies announced a unified stance on the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday after intensive meetings in Tokyo, condemning Hamas, supporting Israel’s right to self-defense and calling for “humanitarian pauses” to speed aid to desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Tuesday that its ground forces were battling Hamas fighters deep inside Gaza’s largest city, signaling a major new stage in the month-old conflict, and its leaders foresee controlling the enclave's security after the war.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel will take “overall security responsibility” in Gaza indefinitely after its war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, the clearest indication yet that Israel plans to maintain control over the coastal enclave one month into a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and leveled whole swaths of the territory.

TOKYO (AP) — Fresh from a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shifted his intense diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war to Asia on Tuesday with an appeal for the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies to forge consensus on how to deal with the crisis.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and pounded it with intense airstrikes overnight into Monday, setting the stage for an expected push into the dense confines of Gaza City and an even bloodier phase of the month-old war.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Aid trickled in to villages Monday in Nepal’s northwest mountains flattened by a strong earthquake over the weekend as villagers searched through the rubble of their collapsed homes to salvage what was left of their belongings. The magnitude 5.6 temblor struck just minutes before midnight Friday, killing 157 people, injuring scores and leaving thousands homeless.

The Russian military said a Ukrainian missile strike on a shipyard in annexed Crimea had damaged a Russian ship. The Russian Defense Ministry said late Saturday that Ukrainian forces fired 15 cruise missiles at the Zaliv shipyard in Kerch, a city in the east of the Crimean Peninsula. Air defenses shot down 13 missiles but others hit the shipyard and damaged a vessel, a statement from the ministry said.

PARIS (AP) — The photo of the white-haired woman in a golf cart, wrapped in a purple blanket and flanked by a gunman, was among the first to emerge of the hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. But Yaffa Adar’s granddaughter is afraid that the world’s memory of that harrowing day – and the impetus to free some 240 people held by Hamas – is fading. So Adva Adar and her brother, like many other relatives of the hostages, have left Israel for what they hope will be a friendly reception in cities around the world.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Villagers in the mountains of northwest Nepal cremated the bodies of some who perished in an earthquake that shook the area Friday night. The strong temblor killed 157 people and left thousands homeless.

An Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Sunday evening killed four civilians, including a woman and three children, raising the likelihood of a dangerous new escalation in the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border.

The average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of Arabic bread made from flour the United Nations had stockpiled in the region, yet the main refrain now being heard in the street is “Water, water,” the Gaza director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday.

Israeli military strikes killed multiple civilians Saturday at a U.N. shelter and hospital in the main combat zone in the Gaza Strip as the assault intensified on the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers, amid growing international uproar over the soaring death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis.

Helicopters and ground troops rushed to help people hurt in a strong earthquake that shook districts in northwestern Nepal just before midnight Friday, killing at least 128 people and injuring dozens more, officials said Saturday.

MADRID (AP) — A wildfire abetted by storm winds in eastern Spain has burned some 4,900 acres of land and forced the evacuation of 850 people from four towns, officials said Friday. Some 200 firefighters and army emergency unit soldiers were deployed to try to extinguish the day-old blaze near the eastern town of Montitxelvo. The regional government of Valencia said it hoped five water-carrying planes and helicopters would be deployed in the operation.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that more needs to be done to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza or else there will be “no partners for peace” as he urged Israel to ensure greater humanitarian aid to the besieged territory. Israel, meanwhile, warned that it was on high alert for attacks on its border with Lebanon as fears grew that the conflict could widen.

MILAN (AP) — Record-breaking rain produced floods in a vast swath of Italy's Tuscany region as Storm Ciarán pushed into the country overnight trapping residents in their homes, inundating hospitals and overturning cars. At least five people were killed, bringing the storm’s death toll in western Europe to 12 on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Thursday imposed a new round of sanctions on 130 firms and people from Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates in an effort to choke off Russia's access to tools and equipment that support its invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control target third-party firms and people alleged to assist Moscow in procuring equipment needed on the battlefield, including suppliers and shippers.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops advanced toward Gaza City on Thursday, as U.S. and Arab mediators intensified efforts to ease Israel's siege of the Hamas-ruled enclave and called for at least a brief halt to the hostilities in order to aid civilians. U.S. President Joe Biden suggested a humanitarian “pause” the day before, as an apparent agreement among the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of wounded to leave Gaza for the first time. Dozens more left on Thursday.

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Arab nations that have normalized or are considering improving relations with Israel are coming under growing public pressure to cut those ties because of Israel's war with Hamas. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Rabat and other Moroccan cities in support of the Palestinians. In Bahrain — a country that almost never allows protest — police stood by as hundreds of people marched last month, waving flags and gathering in front of the Israeli Embassy in Manama.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian shelling killed an 81-year-old woman in the yard of her home and a 60-year-old man in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region Thursday, local authorities said. The deaths were the latest civilian casualties in Moscow’s recent ramped-up bombardment of the front-line area. Kherson is a strategic military region located on the Dnieper River near the mouth of the Black Sea.

HEFEI, China (AP) — Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people gathered Thursday near a state funeral home in Beijing as China's former second-ranking leader, Li Keqiang, was put to rest, while a steady stream of mourners showed their respects at the ex-premier's childhood home in central China. Li, who was China’s top economic official for a decade, died last Friday of a heart attack at age 68.

PARIS (AP) — Winds up to 108 mph slammed France's Atlantic coast overnight as Storm Ciaran lashed countries around western Europe, uprooting trees, blowing out windows and leaving 1.2 million French households without electricity Thursday. Strong winds and rain also battered southern England and the Channel Islands, where gusts of more than 100 mph were reported.