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Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. The Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing the Jerusalem Governorate, reported that 648 settlers entered the mosque compound and performed Talmudic and provocative rituals in its courtyards while under the protection of occupation forces.The Al-Aqsa Mosque has faced increasing incursions by settlers since the start of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, a development viewed as a serious escalation and a violation of the sanctity of the mosque.

Survivors fleeing the Sudanese city of El-Fasher told AFP on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, with tens of thousands still trapped following the city's fall. Germany's top diplomat Johann Wadephul described on Saturday the situation in Sudan as "apocalyptic" while fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing, five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher. At war with the regular army since April 2023, the RSF pushed the military out of its last stronghold in the vast Darfur region after a grinding 18-month siege. Since the takeover, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off. "I don't know if my son Mohamed is dead or alive. They took all the boys," Zahra, a mother of six who fled El-Fasher to the nearby town of Tawila, told AFP in a satellite phone interview. Before reaching the nearby RSF-controlled town of Garni, she said RSF fighters stopped them and took her sons, aged 16 and 20. "I begged them to let them go," she said, but the fighters only released her 16-year-old son. Another survivor, Adam, said two of his sons, aged 17 and 21, were killed in front of him. "They told them they had been fighting (for the army), and then they beat me on my back with a stick," he told AFP. In Garni, RSF fighters saw the blood of Adam's sons on his clothes and accused him of being a fighter. After hours of investigations, they let him go. The survivors' full names have been withheld for their safety. The UN says more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday but tens of thousands remain trapped. Around 260,000 people were in the city before the RSF's final assault. "Large numbers of people remain in grave danger and are being prevented by the Rapid Support Forces and its allies from reaching safer areas," Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. The group said that only 5,000 people had managed to make their way to Tawila, about 70 kilometres to the west. The numbers of people arriving in Tawila "don't add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting", MSF's head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite said. Several eyewitnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians, along with soldiers from the military and the army-allied Joint Forces, had attempted to flee on Sunday, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and their allies. Survivors reported that people were separated based on their gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom. Darfur is home to a number of non-Arab ethnic groups, who make up a majority of the region's population, in contrast to Sudan's dominant Sudanese Arabs. Hayat, a mother of five who fled the city, previously told AFP that "young men travelling with us were stopped" along the way by paramilitaries and "we don't know what happened to them". The UN said on Friday the death toll from the RSF's assault on the city may be in the hundreds, while army allies accused the paramilitary group of killing over 2,000 civilians. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab suggested on Friday that mass killings were likely continuing in and around El-Fasher. The lab, which uses satellite imagery and open-source information to document human rights abuses during wars, said fresh images from Friday showed "no large-scale movement" of civilians fleeing the city, giving them reason to believe much of the population may be "dead, captured, or in hiding". The lab identified at least 31 clusters of objects consistent with human bodies between Sunday and Friday, across neighbourhoods, university grounds and military sites. "Indicators that mass killing is continuing are clearly visible," the lab said. At a conference in Bahrain on Saturday, Wadephul said Sudan was "absolutely an apocalyptic situation, the greatest humanitarian crisis of the world". The RSF said on Thursday that it had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, but UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher questioned the group's commitment to investigating atrocities. Both the RSF -- descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago -- and the army have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict. The US has previously determined that the has RSF committed genocide in Darfur. Meanwhile, the army has drawn on support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. El-Fasher's capture gives the RSF full control over all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis, with the army controlling the north, east and centre. UN officials have warned that the violence is now spreading to the neighbouring Kordofan region, with reports emerging of "large-scale atrocities perpetrated" by the RSF. The wider conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.

Israeli colonists on Thursday stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem under heavy protection from Israeli occupation police.According to the Palestinian news agency (WAFA), eyewitnesses reported that dozens of colonists entered the mosque compound in groups, conducted provocative tours, and performed Talmudic rituals while being guarded by Israeli forces.Extremist colonist groups had earlier called for incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday and Thursday.The holy site has witnessed a rise in such incursions since the start of the ongoing war, widely described as a campaign of genocide, marking a serious escalation and a violation of its sanctity.

The National Committee for International Humanitarian Law at the Ministry of Justice and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reviewed ways to enhance cooperation and joint coordination in the field of military training and the implementation of programs directed toward the armed forces. This came during a meeting that brought together the National Committee for International Humanitarian Law and a delegation from the ICRC, led by the Head of the ICRC delegation in Qatar, Basma Tabaja, along with Representative of the Armed Forces to the ICRC, Ahmed Moharram, and the Legal Advisor at the ICRC Mission in Damascus Bassel Almajd Representing the National Committee for International Humanitarian Law were members of the Committee and representatives of the Ministry of Defense Brigadier General Abdullah Ibrahim Al Fadala, Rapporteur of the Committee Khalid Mohammed Al Khamis Al Obaidli, and Assistant Rapporteur Alaa Ismail Al Musleh. The meeting comes as part of the Committee's ongoing commitment to promoting the principles of international humanitarian law and building national capacities in the military field, in a way that contributes to strengthening respect for humanitarian rules during armed conflicts.

More than a year of siege in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher has forced some civilians to turn to animal skins for food as the country's war grinds on.El-Fasher is the last major holdout in the vast western Darfur region against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023.With the RSF's nearly 18-month siege cutting off humanitarian aid to the city -- home to 400,000 trapped civilians -- El-Fasher has run out of almost everything."After not eating for three days, three of my neighbours and I roasted cowhide," said Salah Abdallah, 47."Even then, it was difficult to get firewood to light a fire."Soup kitchens, until recently run by volunteers, have closed for lack of supplies.A civilian group documenting the civil war's abuses, the El-Fasher resistance committee, posted a video on social media on Wednesday showing rolls of animal skin sizzling on a small wood fire."The people of El-Facher are now eating cowhide to survive because there isn't even any animal fodder left," the committee wrote.Livestock feed, once used as a meal of last resort, has become scarce and exorbitantly priced.On X, a user who shared the video said they were "old skins" used to stave off hunger.Since August the RSF has stepped up its artillery and drone bombardments in an attempt to take the strategic city.In recent weeks the paramilitaries have seized control of several sectors of El-Fasher, and are wearing down the army's last strongholds bit by bit.After fleeing his Awlad Al-Rif neighbourhood in El-Fasher, which fell to the RSF in recent weeks, Salah Adam found refuge in a reception centre in the city's Daraja Oula quarter."My family left the city three months ago. I stayed behind to keep an eye on our home," the 28-year-old university student explained."In the first two days after the soup kitchens shut down, I shared one bowl of corn porridge without salt with another family," he said, adding that he had not eaten since Wednesday."I will leave the city, no matter the danger."According to satellite images analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, the RSF have dug nearly 68 kilometres of earthwork embankments around the city. A corridor just three to four kilometres wide is the only exit.The war in Sudan was triggered by a power struggle between two former allies: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army commander and de facto ruler of Sudan since a 2021 coup, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the RSF.The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and pushed nearly 25 million into acute hunger.According to the United Nations, more than one million people have fled El-Fasher since the war began, accounting for 10 percent of all internally displaced people in the country.Among them is Ibrahim Osman, who now lives in Tawila, around 70 kilometres west of the city."I had decided not to leave it at all, despite the never-ending bombardment, but the fear of dying of hunger pushed me to leave," the 36-year-old said.The population of the city, once the region's largest, has decreased by about 62 percent, the UN's migration agency said.If El-Fasher falls to the RSF, the paramilitaries will have control of the entire Darfur region, where they have sought to establish a rival administration.The army holds the country's north, centre and east, while the RSF holds sway in the west and parts of the south.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) affirmed that the UN's decision to reduce its peacekeeping forces by a quarter in 11 operations worldwide in the coming months due to budget shortfalls will impact the force's activities in southern Lebanon. In her remarks to Qatar News Agency (QNA), UNIFIL Spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said: "We are still studying what the peacekeeping budget shortfalls will mean for UNIFIL, but we know we will have to make some difficult decisions. We are finalizing our plans, but we know this will directly impact our activities and require adjustments." "Nonetheless, we will do everything possible to mitigate the effects and will work closely with Lebanese authorities and our troop-contributing countries to implement any changes in the least disruptive way possible," she added. Concluding her remarks to QNA, she affirmed the commitment to continuing to implement the core tasks stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and to continuing coordination with the Lebanese authorities and contributing countries to limit the repercussions of the resolution on the mission's work. The United Nations is preparing to reduce the number of peacekeeping forces worldwide by 25 percent over the coming months, or between 13,000 and 14,000 soldiers and police, due to funding shortfalls following the US halving of its contribution. The reduction includes missions in countries including the Congo, Lebanon, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

Israeli occupation forces carried out an incursion today into the Quneitra countryside in southern Syria, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). SANA reported that a unit of Israeli forces, consisting of five military vehicles, entered the vicinity of the town of Saida al-Hanout in the Quneitra countryside before withdrawing shortly afterward. The agency added that Israeli occupation forces conducted another incursion yesterday into the town of Tal al-Ahmar al-Sharqi, also in the Quneitra countryside, using four military vehicles accompanied by two tanks and a number of soldiers. The forces carried out a field deployment lasting about an hour before withdrawing toward Tal al-Ahmar al-Gharbi. The Israeli occupation continues to violate Syrian sovereignty in contravention of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, United Nations resolutions, and international law. Syria has condemned these repeated aggressions and called on the international community to take a firm stance to halt them.

Three Palestinians were killed Saturday, including one elderly man who was shot by Israeli forces east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to medical sources. The sources confirmed that the elderly resident of Al Qarara succumbed to gunfire targeting civilian gatherings. Another Palestinian died from injuries sustained near an aid checkpoint southwest of Khan Younis, while medical teams recovered the body of a man who had gone missing following an Israeli airstrike on Al Qarara the previous day. Civil defense crews also retrieved the bodies of more than ten victims from the Al Mughraqa area and the Turkish hospital zone in central Gaza's Netzarim region. Local reports indicated several injuries after Israeli artillery targeted civilians on Al Ajarma Street in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. Meanwhile, thousands of displaced Palestinians continued returning from the south to the north of the Strip for a second consecutive day, following the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that took effect Friday afternoon. QNA's correspondent observed heavy foot and vehicle traffic along Salah Al Din Street and the coastal Al Rashid Road, as families made their way back to inspect their homes, many of which were damaged or destroyed during the recent ground offensive in Gaza City. The correspondent further reported that the scale of devastation became clear as residents reached their neighborhoods, only to find entire blocks flattened. Residential buildings, infrastructure, and key landmarks were obliterated, especially in Gaza City, which bore the brunt of the incursion. The ceasefire agreement, brokered in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, came into effect Friday afternoon, ending a wide-scale Israeli assault on Gaza that began on October 7, 2023. The offensive resulted in over 67,000 deaths, approximately 170,000 injuries, mostly among women and children, and a famine that claimed the lives of 460 people, including 154 children.

Two Palestinians were injured on Tuesday by live bullets fired by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, in the West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that its medical crews treated two people injured by live bullets fired by Israeli occupation forces. The PRCS explained that its crews provided first aid to the injured at the scene before transferring them to the hospital for further treatment. Palestinian sources reported that the occupation forces targeted the Palestinian citizens with live bullets near the separation wall in the town.

The death toll from the relentless offensive the Israeli occupation forces have been launching on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, has soared to 65,344, with 166,795 reported wounded. Additionally, hospitals in the Gaza enclave have received 61 fatalities and 220 injuries in the past 24 hours, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported in a statement on Monday. The statement noted that several victims are still lingering under the rubble and in the roads, as medics and civil defense rescuers have hitherto been unable to reach them. The Israeli all-out aggression against the Gaza Strip, which has been embattled since Oct. 7, 2023, has caused major decimation in critical infrastructure, while Gazans are grappling with aggravated starvation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia lacks the strength to conduct large-scale operations on the front, in light of the heavy losses its forces have suffered after more than three and a half years of war." Russia prepared offensive operations along four main axes this year: Sumy, Novopavlivka, Pokrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia," Zelenskyy said on X."The Sumy operation has already failed and Russia suffered heavy losses, especially in manpower, and has redeployed forces to other fronts. The Ukrainian Armed Forces inflicted even greater losses on them there," he added.

The Russian forces succeeded in taking out 1,150 Ukrainian troops and shooting down 230 drones of the Ukrainian air defense systems, the Russian Defense Ministry reported in a statement on Tuesday. The statement added that the Russian troops optimized their military posture and took control of critical sites along numerous axes, targeting Ukrainian Armed Forces formations engaged across 140 locations along the frontlines. These operations resulted in the neutralization of 1,150 Ukrainian troops, along with the destruction of several armored combat vehicles, artillery systems, ammunition storage sites, and electronic warfare nodes, the statement continued. Russia and Ukraine have been trading, since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, near-daily reports on advances or the repelling of mutual attacks, without the ability to verify the accuracy of each side's data.