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Israeli aircraft have struck Hamas government buildings in Gaza, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh after the city suffered overnight air strikes.
This comes after Israel’s cabinet gave the go ahead to call up 75,000 reservists for a possible ground invasion in response to Palestinian militants firing towards the country.
Clashes erupted again between the army and M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the restive region where fighting has been flaring all week, the two sides said.
“Early this morning they attacked,” said Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Hamuli, an army spokesman. “We’re in the middle of fighting at the moment.”
A spokesman for the rebels, Colonel Vianney Kazarama, confirmed that fighting broke out early in the morning, adding that the army “attacked us with helicopters and tanks.”
Malian Tuareg MNLA rebels launched an offensive to retake the strategic region of Gao in northern Mali on Friday, waging battle against the Islamist rebels who seized the region in a bloody battle against the MNLA in June.
New fighting Friday and a crackdown on women for not wearing veils by Islamist militants in the Malian city of Timbuktu marred peace moves by two of the groups controlling the desert north who said they were ready for peace talks with Bamako.
A Tuareg warlord said his National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) had launched an “offensive” to retake the key north-central region of Gao from Islamist rebels.
Palestinian terrorists barraged Israel with more than 200 rockets on Thursday, killing three people as Israel pressed a punishing campaign of airstrikes on militant targets across the Gaza Strip.
Three rockets targeted the densely populated Tel Aviv area, setting off air-raid sirens in brazen attacks that threatened to trigger an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.
Late in the day, Israel signaled a ground operation may be imminent as forces moved toward the border area with Gaza. At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armoured personnel carriers, and a number of buses carrying soldiers arrived.
Israeli warplanes struck dozens of militant sites in Gaza early on Thursday, the second day of Israel’s deadly offensive against Hamas and other militant groups, and rockets fired from the enclave reached far into Israel, killing three civilians when one struck an apartment block in a small southern town.
These were the first casualties on the Israeli side since Israel launched its campaign, the most ferocious assault on Gaza in four years in response to persistent Palestinian rocket fire.
The Israeli army on Wednesday killed Hamas deputy military chief, Ahmed Al-Jaabari. An Israeli aircraft launched a missile towards his car in the center of Gaza.
Following the assassination, the Israeli army announced the start of an operation against armed groups in Gaza. The bombing came after several missiles were fired at southern Israel, probably from the Palestinian territory or from the Sinai.
Shin Bet, the Israeli security services, confirmed that they had carried out the attack, saying Jaabari was eliminated because of “his ten years ofterrorist activity.”
Seven soldiers from Burma’s military are believed to have been killed on Monday following clashes with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in two separate places in northern Kachin state, according to KIA sources.
The first of the lethal clashes took place Monday morning, east of Kamaing in the jade rich Hpakant district located in the west of the war torn state. Three government soldiers were killed and several more injured during the short battle that saw KIA’s Battalion 6 troops face off against the army.