Yahoo

Israeli warplanes hit positions belonging to the Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas movement early on Monday in response to rocket fire into Israel, the army said in a statement, as it announced a cut in fuel supplies to the besieged strip. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied the group's involvement, Maan news agency reported, saying that Palestinian factions in the enclave were not responsible for any rocket fire. Earlier, the Israeli military said three rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel overnight. "Three launches were identified from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory," it said in a statement. "Two of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defence system." "In response, a short

UAE public and private sector employees will get a holiday for the Hijri New Year (Islamic New Year), the Federal Authority for Human Resources (FAHR) and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) has announced. But whether that means a three-day weekend for most will depend on a moon sighting later this week. A tweet from the MOHRE said: “The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation announces the 1st of Muharram 1441, an official holiday on the occasion of #Hijri_New_Year. This will be a paid holiday for all government entities, establishments, and private companies in the #UAE.” Muharram 1, 1441 falls on Saturday (August 31) or Sunday (September 1), leading many to anticipate

ORANGE, Texas: Harley Morgan was still wearing his dark suit and Rhiannon Boudreaux her wedding dress when the Texas “childhood sweethearts” were killed in a crash with a truck minutes after they were married. Nineteen-year-old Morgan and 20-year-old Boudreaux were pronounced dead Friday at the scene by the same justice of the peace who had just married them. “I'm talking five minutes. You may kiss the bride,” said Orange Police Cpt. Keith Longlois. “The family was right behind them. They were all going out to go to wherever they were going to have their reception,” he said. Longlois said they were “childhood sweethearts” who decided to be married by a popular Orange County Justice of the Peace

BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump appeared to brush aside French efforts to mediate with Iran on Sunday, saying that while he was happy for President Emmanuel Macron to reach out to Tehran to defuse tensions he would carry on with his own initiatives. European leaders have struggled to tamp down the brewing confrontation between Iran and the United States since Trump pulled his country out of Iran's internationally-brokered 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy. Macron, who has pushed mediation efforts in recent weeks to avoid a further deterioration in the region, had told LCI television that the G7 had agreed on joint action on Iran. The French

Iran tested a new missile on Friday, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami said on Saturday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. “Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defense and strategic systems and these are non-stop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power,” Salami said.

LONDON: A Syrian student in the UK who failed her English GCSE exams has gone viral with a poem she wrote about her homeland. Ftoun Abou Kerech wrote “The Doves of Damascus” shortly after arriving in the UK aged 14, in which she writes about the sadness she felt about leaving Syria and what made it special to her. Her teacher, Kate Clanchy - who is also an award-winning poet herself - posted it on Twitter and it was quickly picked up and praised by social media users. Clanchy, speaking to the UK's The Times newspaper, said she posted the poem in frustration that the current GCSE system did not recognize “literary talent and imaginative use of language.” She said: “The new GCSE is the last straw

BEIRUT, DAMASCUS: Israel airstrikes near the Syrian capital overnight killed two fighters of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and one Iranian combatant, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on Sunday. “The Israeli raids targeting Iranian and Hezbollah posts ... in the southeast of Damascus killed at least three people - two from Hezbollah and a third who was Iranian,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. Israel said on Sunday an airstrike against an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Syria that it accused of planning “killer drone attacks” showed Tehran that its forces were vulnerable anywhere. A senior Revolutionary Guards commander denied that Iranian targets