South Africa says more than 50 countries have expressed support for its case at the United Nations' top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza.

Others, including the United States, have strongly rejected South Africa's allegation that Israel is violating the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Many more have remained silent.

A spate of attacks by Yemeni rebels on Red Sea shipping has disrupted the vital trade route, but experts say stopping them appears difficult at best -- and risky at worst.

Dozens of drone and missile attacks have been launched on ships by the Huthis, part of the Iran-backed "axis of resistance" reinvigorated by Israel's war on Hamas.

Israel will defend itself in the United Nations' highest court starting Thursday against allegations that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice to consider Israel's actions in light of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Barely two weeks after he was released from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela flew to Zambia to meet with African leaders who had supported his fight against South Africa's apartheid system of forced racial segregation.

One figure stood out among the men in dark suits eagerly waiting to greet Mandela on the airport tarmac: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wearing his black and white checkered keffiyeh headdress, had traveled to see the newly freed Mandela.

Asher Kaufman, University of Notre Dame

The killing of a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Jan. 8, 2024, has raised concern that the conflict between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a regional war.

The elite Hezbollah commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike Monday in southern Lebanon fought for the group for decades and took part in some of its biggest battles.

Wissam al-Tawil, a 48-year-old commander in Hezbollah's secretive Radwan Force deployed along the border with Israel, was killed when the strike hit his SUV in his hometown of Khirbet Silem. The strike was about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, beyond the villages and towns that have witnessed the two sides exchange fire over the past three months.

Missiles, rockets and drones struck targets around the Middle East this week as the United States, Israel and others clashed with Iran-allied militant groups — with attacks hitting in vital Red Sea shipping lanes, along Israeli-Lebanon borders emptied by fleeing residents and around the region's crowded capitals and U.S. military installations.

Together, Israel and its U.S. allies were facing two realities they knew all too well going into the war in Gaza: The Gaza-based Hamas militant group is far from alone as it battles for its survival. And by launching an all-out campaign to eliminate Hamas as a fighting force, Israeli and American leaders also are confronting simultaneous attacks from a strengthening defensive alliance of other armed militant groups linked with Hamas and Iran.

Saleh al-Arouri, the senior Hamas official killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Lebanon, played a key role in building up the Palestinian group's military capabilities and its links with regional allies.

Arouri, 57, was one of the founders of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in the early 1990s.

South Africa has launched a case at the United Nations' top court alleging that Israel's military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

The filing and Israel's decision to defend itself at the International Court of Justice set up a high-stakes showdown before a panel of judges in the Great Hall of Justice.

Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group's military wing, had been in Israel's sights for years before he was killed in a drone strike in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before Hamas carried out its deadly surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the ongoing brutal war in Gaza.