One of America’s prized Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries fired an interceptor in combat for the first time Thursday. The system, forward-deployed in Israel, was employed against an incoming medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) fired by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen,

An advanced U.S. military anti-missile system was used in Israel to try to intercept a projectile for the first time since President Joe Biden placed the system in Israel in October, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The Israeli military said early on Friday that its air defence systems intercepted a missile fired from Yemen before it could reach Israeli territory. Warning sirens were triggered in several central Israeli areas due to the potential for falling debris,

Palestinians pray over the bodies of the victims of an Israeli strike on a home late Saturday before the funeral outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. At least eight people were killed according to the hospital which received the bodies. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

At least 59 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, 50 of them in a strike on a building in the most northern part of the strip near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.

Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, have also been detained, Gaza health officials said on Saturday. The hospital director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was among the first to report that about 50 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday.