In Israel, Blinken says Hamas must accept cease-fire deal, offers "cautious optimism" to hostage families
CBSN
Tel Aviv — Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in Israel Wednesday morning for his seventh visit to the country since Hamas militants staged their bloody Oct. 7 terror attack on the Jewish state, instantly sparking the war in the group's Gaza Strip stronghold.
Blinken said as he arrived that the Biden administration was "determined" to see Hamas and Israel agree to a cease-fire in the conflict, which health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory say has killed more than 34,000 people, most of them women and children.
Desperate for more American support, Israelis rallied outside Blinken's Tel Aviv hotel, some of them holding signs voicing hope that U.S. pressure will help bring home the remaining 133 hostages still thought to be held in Gaza, including five U.S. nationals still thought to be alive.
At least two people were killed and dozens were injured after a car plowed into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, on Friday. Authorities said it appeared to be a deliberate attack.
Swedish police said Friday a man had been shot dead in a parking garage in the city of Norrkoping, with media identifying the victim as the rapper Gaboro, who reportedly had links to criminal gangs.
Seven inmates were killed in a prison riot in southern Mexico, when inmates resisting transfers to other jails fought police with guns and knives, authorities said late Thursday.
A 7-year-old girl was killed and at least five other students and a teacher were wounded in a knife attack at a school in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, on Friday, police said. The local hospital said the wounded teacher had suffered life-threatening injuries, Reuters reported.
Southern Gaza Strip — In a rare moment of access to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, CBS News visited a critical aid distribution center on Wednesday just inside the Gaza Strip, near the Karem Shalom border crossing from Israel. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza after more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war remains dire.
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Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies over the Ukraine-orchestrated killing of a senior general in Moscow. Lt. General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military's chemical and biological weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday, the boldest assassination claimed by Kyiv since the start of the conflict.
Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan killed a combined total of 50 people and injured 76, a government spokesman said Thursday.
A judge in France on Thursday found the former husband of Gisèle Pelicot, who admitted to drugging and raping her repeatedly over the course of almost a decade and inviting dozens of other men to assault her as well, guilty of aggravated rape. He was given the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Moscow — Former Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, famous for his tattoos of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday announced that he plans to leave Russia. The Ukrainian-Russian dancer was one of the most prominent stars who backed Russia's unilateral 2014 annexation of Crimea and its military assault on Ukraine. He was rewarded with prestigious state posts.
Moscow — Russia's security service said Wednesday that it has detained a suspect in the killing of a senior general in Moscow.