Middle East

At least 90 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that the Israeli military said was targeting two top Hamas military leaders -- the most senior of whom has evaded assassination multiple times.

“The situation is really quite volatile,” Capt. Alessandro Crepy, with the Italian contingent of the peacekeeping group UNIFIL, says of the fighting between forces in Israel and Lebanon.

Israeli forces struck a humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip, targeting the chief of the armed wing of Hamas. Dozens of people were reported killed.

The United States Justice Department says it has foiled at least four assassination plots sponsored by foreign governments on U.S. soil. One of the targets of those assassination attempts is Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and activist who Iran allegedly tried to have killed in New York. We hear how knowing she is at such risk has turned Alinejad's life upside down.

Israeli and Hamas negotiators are meeting in Qatar to discuss a potential ceasefire in the 10-month old Gaza war. Hamas says it doesn’t have all the hostages and some were seized by families.

The Israeli hostages taken during the October 7th attacks and held in Gaza are a major sticking point in cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. A spokesperson for Hamas tells NPR not all those hostages are being held by his organization, some are being held by families in Gaza.

And in Israel, what Gaza will look like after major combat operations end is the subject of fierce debate, with military and political leaders so far failing to agree.

For more coverage of all sides of this conflict, go to npr.org/mideastupdates

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