Israel and Hamas war rages despite U.N. cease-fire demand, as U.N. envoy accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza
CBSN
Despite a United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, the situation in Gaza is so desperate that some teenagers in the decimated Palestinian territory say they hope to be killed swiftly to escape the "nightmare" around them, a spokesman for the U.N. children's agency said Tuesday.
The grim assessment came as the U.N.'s top envoy for human rights in the Palestinian territories said there were "reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel's commission of genocide is met."
Spokesperson James Elder, for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, told journalists in a video message from Rafah, in southern Gaza, that agency staff held a meeting the previous day with adolescents in the city during which several youths said they were "so desperate for this nightmare to end that they hoped to be killed."
Two Japanese navy helicopters carrying eight crew members crashed in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo during a nighttime training flight after possibly colliding with each other, the country's defense minister said Sunday. One crew member who had been recovered from the waters was later pronounced dead, while rescuers searched for seven others who were still missing.
Tokyo — In North Korea, the release of Taylor Swift's new double album was completely eclipsed by the surprise drop of another brand-new song, complete with an elaborately produced music video. There were no tortured poets in sight for the release of "Friendly Father," an energetic pop-style piece of state propaganda praising North Korea's dictatorial leader Kim Jong Un.
Berlin — German authorities say they have arrested two people suspected of spying for Russia. The suspects, identified as German-Russian nationals, are accused of scouting targets for potential attacks, including U.S. military facilities in Germany, the Federal Public Prosecutor General for Karlsruhe said in a statement released Thursday.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Heavy rains lashed the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, flooding portions of major highways, leaving vehicles abandoned on roadways across Dubai and grinding traffic at the city-state's huge international airport briefly to a complete halt. Meanwhile, the death toll from separate heavy flooding in neighboring Oman rose to 18, with others still missing as the sultanate prepared for the storm.