A U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday that the United States disagrees with Amnesty International’s new report accusing Israel of carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip.

“We disagree with the conclusions of such a report,” spokesperson Vedant Patel said a day after the human rights group released the document. “We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.”

In the 296-page report released Wednesday—titled, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza—Amnesty International found through its research and legal analysis “sufficient basis to conclude that Israel committed, during the nine-month period under review, prohibited acts under Articles II (a), (b), and © of the Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.”

One of the commanders of rebel forces in Aleppo, known as Abu Abdo, gave a special interview with i24NEWS' Matthias Inbar on Wednesday, revealing that, despite differences, "we are fighting against a common enemy."

"We look at Israel and the US, with the arrival of President Donald Trump, and we have a lot of respect and sympathy for them, for their actions against Iran – the country that leads terrorism in the region and all over the world."

He said that his faction "looks forward to cooperate and eliminate this enemy and restoring stability."

The man who received the harshest federal sentence in connection with 2020 protests against police brutality has been in solitary confinement for more than 250 days. Last Friday, Malik Muhammad ended a nine-day hunger strike undertaken in protest of his solitary confinement at Oregon State Penitentiary.

At the height of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Muhammad, a disabled Army combat veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, had traveled from Indiana to protests in Kentucky and Oregon.

According to court documents, Muhammad participated in firearms training in Kentucky and later threw a Molotov cocktail at police in Oregon. In 2022, at 25 years old, he pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and received a 10-year prison sentence.

“We are talking about a conditions-of-confinement issue,” said Muhammad’s attorney, Lauren Regan, director of litigation and advocacy at the Civil Liberties Defense Center. The group advocates for civil liberties for political prisoners and took on Muhammad’s case last month. “Malik is designated 100 percent disabled as a combat veteran because of extreme PTSD. And the Department of Corrections knows that.”

Despite his conditions, Muhammad has been in solitary confinement for more than 250 days. His solitary confinement followed an incident where Regan said Muhammad asked to speak to a supervisor, and instead guards tased and beat him, then threw him in the hole.

Shell casings found at the scene where the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead by a masked gunman in front of a busy New York City hotel had the words

“deny,” “defend” , “depose”

written on them, a senior New York City law enforcement official briefed on the investigation confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.

In a shocking turn of events, South Koreans went to bed Monday night to the news that their unpopular president, Yoon Suk Yeol, had declared martial law over the country, only to awake on Tuesday to discover that the National Assembly—backed by crowds of citizens gathering in protest—had overruled Yoon and restored their hard-won democratic system.

By Wednesday, an uneasy calm had settled over Seoul. Yoon, who has been praised as a diplomatic wonder and staunch ally by President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appeared to be on his way out. All of Yoon's senior aides, including his chief of staff, have resigned their posts even though the president had accepted the parliamentary demands and lifted his martial law order. Opposition parties in South Korea led by the left-liberal Democratic Party (DP) are now seeking to impeach Yoon over his actions, with the first votes scheduled for Thursday.

Yet even as the coup unravelled in full public view, the close ties between the Pentagon and Yoon's military could present a dilemma for Biden and the next Trump administration. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea and a U.S. general holds operational control over the Korean Army and the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command during times of war. That has led to serious strains in the bilateral alliance over the years.

At least 20 Palestinians were killed when Israeli airstrikes hit the Al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’ area west of Khan Yunis city in south Gaza on 4 December.

The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) reported that Israeli aircraft targeted the tents of displaced Palestinians and food storage facilities. “The occupation knows very well that there are only civilians in the Mawasi area,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told Al Jazeera.

A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that the Tesla chief, Elon Musk, still is not entitled to receive a $56bn compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting to reinstate it.

The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the court of chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker.

Tesla has said in court filings that the judge should recognize a subsequent June vote by its shareholders in favor of the pay package for Musk, the company’s driving force who is responsible for many of its advances, and reinstate his compensation. Tesla and its shareholders argued that Musk had reached the milestones originally stipulated when the pay package was drawn up.

McCormick also ordered Tesla to pay the attorneys who brought the case $345m, well short of the billions they initially requested.

Lebanon's Hezbollah on Monday claimed an attack on an Israeli position, the first since a ceasefire came into effect on Wednesday, which Israel had violated at least 52 times. Hezbollah said in a statement it had launched two projectiles towards the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms.

The group described the response as "preliminary", stressing it does not intend to return to the all-out war with Israel, according to comments by a Hezbollah parliamentary source to The New Arab's Arabic language edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

"Hezbollah will not remain silent in the face of ongoing and blatant Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including today's attack on the Lebanese army," the source said.

"[The group] delayed responding to the violations to avoid acting hastily, allowing the relevant authorities to address the issue," the source added, saying it was confirmed that the nature of the breaches by Israel had all fallen "outside" the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

A French diplomatic source tells the Kan public broadcaster that Paris has warned both Israel and Hezbollah “against actions that endanger the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.”

According to the report, the warning comes after France privately accused Israel of failing to follow the correct procedure when striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the start of the ceasefire last week.

According to reports regarding the contents of the letter, Israel reserves the right to act at any time, should the terms of the agreement be broken in southern Lebanon. Beyond southern Lebanon, however, it is reportedly only permitted to act if the Lebanese Army is unable or unwilling to deal with the violations.

In all instances, however, Israel is reportedly required to notify the US wherever possible when it is required to take action in response to threats inside Lebanon.

In a statement, Civil Defence spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, said 75 of the victims were killed in Israeli air strikes on two homes in Beit Lahia, while the others were targeted in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza.

The spokesman said the Israeli army targets any movement by any person in northern Gaza, and even a person filling water or looking for food or wood is attacked.

Since 5 October, Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza to allegedly prevent the Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.

Since then, almost no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, has been allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there – currently estimated at 80,000 – on the verge of famine.

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, the Pentagon has gone all out with ceremonies across the United States, from an Air Force-sponsored intertribal powwow in Florida to a celebration of Native American aircraft nose art in Oregon.

The military has also been pumping out feel-good stories about Native American troops: one South Dakota National Guardsman from the Oglala Sioux tribe was allowed to grow out his hair, and an Air National Guardsmen from the District of Columbia who belongs to four different tribes reflected in his Lakota, Seneca, Navajo, and Comanche heritage.

“Acknowledging Native veterans and Native contributions is terrific. And there are a lot of proud Native veterans. But it’s one of those gestures that is nice in theory but is, perhaps, meant to whitewash how we understand Native American history and how Native Americans ended up in the place that we did,.

Another expert on the topic put it more bluntly. “The Army was, bottom line, an instrument of a settler colonial empire that was determined to convert Native lands into private property for mostly white settlers “That was its mission: to carry out a federal government policy that, in practice, often became a genocidal war.”

The Biden administration is withholding federal funding from a climate justice group that supports a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Climate Justice Alliance, a national coalition of more than 100 community environmental groups, was one of 11 grant-making organizations designated for Environmental Protection Agency funding under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The Climate Justice Alliance is the only group of the 11 grantees that has engaged publicly on issues related to Palestine — and the only one that hasn’t received its funding.

Lao authorities have banned the sale and consumption of a brand of whisky and vodka after the death of six tourists from a suspected mass methanol poisoning this month.

According to Smartraveller, the Australian government’s travel advice website, the drinks Tiger vodka and Tiger whisky have been prohibited by the Laos government due to “concerns about these products being a health risk”.