Middle East, Israel | featured news

President Barack Obama urged Israel on Wednesday to help ease restrictions on humanitarian aid and civilian goods for Gaza after a deadly flotilla raid, saying the situation in the blockaded coastal strip was unsustainable.

Israel is easing its Gaza embargo to allow snack food and beverages into the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian officials said Wednesday, following an international outcry over Israel's raid on an aid flotilla.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit a strident tone on a variety of topics during a press conference on the sidelines of an Asian security summit in Istanbul on Tuesday.

Israeli forces have killed four Palestinian divers that Israel says were heavily armed and preparing to carry out a terrorist attack. The Israel Defense Forces says its navy spotted several men in diving suits off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, a representative of Tehran's supreme leader said on Sunday.

One of the nine people killed in the Israeli raid was an American citizen of Turkish descent, according to a Turkish official.

As some world leaders came out against an Israeli raid on a flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, so did protesters in various cities around the world.

The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China on Wednesday voiced support for making the Middle East a nuclear-arms-free zone, which would mean Israel would have to scrap any atomic bombs it has.

An Israeli court imprisons a man for 10 years for tricking women into sexual acts by claiming his semen was holy and had healing powers.

A dovish Israeli expert who predicted Israel's settlement campaign would perpetuate its control of the occupied West Bank said pursuing a two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "waste of time."