Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Biden threatens change in US policy if Netanyahu fails to protect Gaza civilians

President Joe Biden threatened on Thursday to condition support for Israel's offensive in Gaza on it taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians, seeking for the first time to leverage U.S. aid to influence Israeli military behavior. Biden's warning, relayed in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, followed a deadly Israeli attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers that spurred new calls from Biden's fellow Democrats to place conditions on U.S. aid to Israel. Israel said the attack was a mistake.

Helicopter rescues Taiwan miners, stranded hotel guests confirmed safe

A helicopter plucked to safety on Thursday six people stranded in a mining area after Taiwan's worst earthquake in 25 years, and rescue workers reached 400 people cut off in a hotel in a mountainous national park by air, and confirmed all were safe. Hundreds of aftershocks struck Taiwan's eastern region, driving scores to seek shelter outdoors, as the death toll from Wednesday's 7.2-magnitude quake rose to 10, with the tally of injured at 1,099, authorities said.

Hometown mourners commemorate Polish aid worker killed in Gaza

As dusk set over the southeastern Polish city of Przemysl on Thursday, mourners gathered to hold a vigil for the Polish aid worker who was killed by the Israeli army in Gaza this week. Przemysl-native Damian Sobol, 35, was in Gaza with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity to provide aid to Palestinans when he was killed in an Israeli airstrike along with six other WCK workers on Monday.

NATO allies aim to send more air defence aid to Ukraine but make no concrete pledges

NATO alliance members agreed on Thursday to scour their arsenals for more air defence systems to protect Ukraine from Russian ballistic missile attacks, as the alliance marked a 75th anniversary overshadowed by the war on its borders. "Allies understand the urgency," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met NATO counterparts and appealed for new additional air defence systems, especially U.S.-made Patriot missiles.

'It's on Israel' to protect us in Gaza, say aid groups

International aid groups said on Thursday there is nothing more they can do to protect staff in the Gaza Strip and that it is up to Israel to avoid killing them as the United Nations appealed for direct humanitarian coordination with the Israeli military. Global outrage at the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people escalated after an Israeli airstrike on Monday killed seven people working for U.S.-based food charity World Central Kitchen.

Netanyahu says Israel acting against Iran, will defend itself

Israel braced on Thursday for the possibility of a retaliatory attack after its suspected killing of Iranian generals in Damascus this week, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would harm "whoever harms us or plans to harm us." His comments came after Israel's armed forces - stretched by nearly six months of war in the Gaza Strip and on the Lebanese front - announced they were suspending leave for all combat units, a day after they said they were mobilising more troops for air defence units.

US looking at report that Israel used AI to identify bombing targets in Gaza

The United States was looking into a media report that the Israeli military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on Thursday. Kirby, in the CNN interview, said the U.S. had not verified the content of the media report published in +972 Magazine and Local Call on Wednesday. It cited Israeli intelligence officials involved in the reported program known as "Lavender."

Slavery tribunal? Africa, Caribbean unite on reparations

Support is building among Africa and Caribbean nations for the creation of an international tribunal on atrocities dating to the transatlantic trade of enslaved people, with the United States backing a U.N. panel at the heart of the effort. A tribunal, modelled on other ad-hoc courts such as the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War Two, was proposed last year. It has now gained traction within a broader slavery reparations movement, Reuters reporting based on interviews with a dozen people reveals.

Ecuador declares Mexico ambassador persona non grata, orders her to leave

Ecuador's government declared Mexico's ambassador to the country unwelcome on Thursday due to what it cited as "unfortunate" comments from the Mexican president about the South American country's elections last year. Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke should leave the country "soon," Ecuador's foreign ministry told Reuters, after describing her as "persona non grata" in a statement.

Iran embassy strike shows Israel's growing reach as Mideast boils

Hounded by months of deadly Israeli attacks in Syria, Iranian military commanders thought it safe to convene a top-level meeting inside Iran's embassy compound in Damascus, believing it protected by international norms shielding diplomatic missions, according to a dozen Iranian, Syrian and regional officials. They were wrong.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)