January 18, 2024

*) Gaza's internet outage enters sixth day, longest since war began A telecommunications blackout in besieged Gaza has entered its sixth day. This is the longest continuous outage since Israel began its attacks on the Palestinian enclave. Palestinian telecoms provider Jawwal blamed Israel's "heavy bombardment" of the territory for a previous blackout. Humanitarian leaders have said communications blackouts impeded deliveries of aid, as Israeli attacks have killed at least 24,448 Palestinians and wounded 61,504 so far. *) US fires wave of missiles on Yemen The US military has fired another wave of ship- and submarine-launch missile strikes against Houthi-run sites, US officials have said. This is the fourth time in days the US directly targeted the group in Yemen as violence ignited in the wake of Israel's war on Gaza continues to spill over in the Middle East. The strikes come after a one-way attack drone was launched from a Houthi-run area in Yemen and struck a US-owned and -operated vessel in the Gulf of Aden. *) Pakistan strikes 'seven locations' of BLA terror group inside Iran Pakistan has launched air strikes inside Iran against terror group Balochistan Liberation Army. Pakistan foreign ministry stated that the country had employed high precision to target militants inside Iran. It comes after Iran carried out strikes against what Tehran said were "terrorist targets" in Pakistan — an attack that Islamabad blamed Iran for killing two children and wounding three girls. *) UK lawmakers approve controversial bill to send refugees to Rwanda UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has won a crunch parliamentary vote on his contentious plan to send refugees and migrants to Rwanda. Right-wing Conservatives had threatened to kill the bill but they ultimately backed down, and the government won comfortably by 320 votes to 276. The bill is the British leader's answer to a UK Supreme Court ruling late last year that deporting refugees and migrants to Rwanda is illegal under international law. And finally… *) Hundreds of flights cancelled in Germany amid heavy snowfall Heavy snowfalls and freezing rain across Germany have led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains. At Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest, more than 500 flights were cancelled, while in Munich over 250 arrivals and departures were cancelled. Freezing rain across western and southern Germany also led to countless crashes on icy roads and the weather service warned of an extreme risk of black ice.