Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Reuters videographer killed in southern Lebanon

A Reuters news videographer has been killed while working in southern Lebanon, Reuters said in a statement on Friday. "We are deeply saddened to learn that our videographer, Issam Abdallah, has been killed," the statement said.

Palestinians face Israeli deadline to leave northern Gaza

More than 1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza faced an Israeli deadline on Saturday to flee south, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had only just begun to retaliate for last week's Hamas rampage across southern Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden said consultations were under way with regional governments on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as trapped Palestinians faced shortages of power, food and water amid Israeli bombing.

US gathers information on reports of journalists killed, injured in Lebanon

The U.S. State Department on Friday said U.S. officials were working to gather information on reports of journalists killed and injured in Lebanon, as a spokesperson responded to a request for comment on Reuters news videographer Issam Abdallah, who was killed in southern Lebanon. "Today and every day, we stand with journalists around the world who do critical work that we all rely on every single day, sometimes in dangerous conditions," a spokesperson said.

Egyptian opposition candidate ends campaign for presidential poll

The most prominent potential challenger to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in elections scheduled for December announced on Friday he would not be standing after he was unable to secure the required number of public endorsements.

The campaign of Ahmed el-Tantawy, a leftist former member of parliament, said officials and pro-government thugs had prevented many people from registering their support for his candidacy while security forces had arrested dozens of his supporters and blocked him from holding campaign events.

Voting begins in Australia in landmark Indigenous Voice referendum

Australians began voting on Saturday in a historic referendum, the first in almost a quarter of a century, to decide whether to recognise its First Peoples in the constitution, as requested by the country's Indigenous leaders six years ago. Australians will simply write "Yes" or "No" on the ballot paper, after a question asking whether they agree to alter the 122-year-old constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, and create an Indigenous body, called the Voice to Parliament, that can provide advice to the government on Indigenous issues.

France raises alert level to highest after teacher killed in Islamist attack

A 20-year-old man fatally stabbed a teacher and gravely wounded two other people in an attack at a school in the northern France city of Arras on Friday that President Emmanuel Macron condemned as "barbaric Islamic terrorism." Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said France was now on its highest state of alert and that the Arras attack bore a link to events in the Middle East, where Israel is conducting a military offensive to root out Hamas fighters after their deadly rampage.

Hamas' cash-to-crypto global finance maze in Israel's sights

Palestinian militant group Hamas uses a global financing network to funnel support from charities and friendly nations, passing cash through Gaza tunnels or using cryptocurrencies to bypass international sanctions, according to experts and officials. However, Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, will face even more obstacles accessing funds after the rampage by the group's gunmen that killed hundreds of Israelis, mainly civilians. Israel has responded with the heaviest bombardment of Gaza in 75 years of conflict.

How Hamas secretly built a 'mini-army' to fight Israel

Israeli forces poised to invade Gaza on a mission to wipe out Hamas will confront an ever-more capable opponent trained for years by a clandestine support network that stretches far beyond the tiny enclave to Iran and allied Arab groups. Hamas' deadly attack on southern Israel six days ago - unprecedented for the group in its planning and scale - was a devastating demonstration of the military expertise it has gained since seizing control of Gaza in 2007.

Arab states say Palestinians must stay on their land as war escalates

Calls for a humanitarian corridor or an escape route for Palestinians from Gaza as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has escalated have drawn a blunt reaction from Arab neighbours. Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land.

Russian deputy foreign minister meets Israeli envoy to discuss Israel-Palestinian conflict

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin met Israeli ambassador to Moscow Alexander Ben Zvi on Friday and discussed the current situation around the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Russian foreign ministry said. "In this regard, the current activities of the UN Security Council and its possible actions and moves were substantively reviewed, focusing on the urgent need to ensure the protection of civilians in both Israel and Palestine, to prevent catastrophic humanitarian consequences and the spread of the crisis to other countries in the region," the ministry said.

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