Live Updates: Iraq Asks Allies of Israel to Press Netanyahu to Stop War in Gaza

Releasing Russian hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a priority for Moscow during its contacts with the Palestinian movement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov on Wednesday held a meeting with relatives of a Russian national who remains hostage in the Gaza Strip.

Italy is working together with France and Germany on a proposal to expand the EU military presence in the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to safeguard commercial shipping, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday.

The US Treasury Department on Wednesday issued five general licenses authorizing certain transactions with Yemen's Houthis after Washington designated the group as a global terrorist organization.

General License 22 provides exceptions for transactions with the Houthis related to the provision of agricultural goods, medicine, medical devices, and software updates.

General License 23 authorizes transactions related to telecommunications mail and certain internet-based communications.

General Licenses 24 and 25 authorize transactions related to personal remittances, as well as refined petroleum products in Yemen.

General License 26 greenlights transactions with the Houthis related to port and airport operations.

Iraq is asking allies of Israel to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the war in Gaza, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told Sputnik.

The fallout of tensions between Iran and the United States can be felt in Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said on Wednesday.

The League of Arab States (LAS) condemns Iran's strikes on the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan Region, LAS Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Wednesday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prevented Palestine Red Crescent ambulances from evacuating the injured from the site of the vehicle that was bombed in the Palestinian city of Nablus, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Wednesday.

The IDF opened fire on the PRCS ambulance teams, the statement read.

Israel's southern kibbutz of Be'eri has announced that two hostages died while being in captivity of Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.

Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were abducted from Be'eri on October 7, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel and raided border areas, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 240 others.

The Be'eri authorities claimed the two men were "murdered" in captivity and called for their bodies to be repatriated, The Times of Israel reported.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group representing Shia militant groups, said on Tuesday that they had launched long-range cruise missiles at targets in central Israel in previous days.

A potential mass displacement of Palestinians could pose an existential threat to Jordan and would be a violation of the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said on Tuesday.

The United States expected retaliatory strikes by the Houthis after last week's military action in Yemen, White House Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, US forces destroyed four Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles in response to the January 15 attack. According to US officials, these Houthi missiles were prepared to launch from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and presented an imminent threat to both merchant and US Navy ships in the region.

Israel has decided to allow entrance of medicines and humanitarian aid to the most war-torn areas of the Gaza Strip in exchange for delivery of medicines to the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Pakistan strongly condemns Iran’s missile attack on its territory, and such incidents can have serious consequences, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Iranian media reported that the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles and drones at a base of a terrorist group in Pakistan.

Iraq has submitted a complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) about Iran's "aggression" after strikes on Iraqi Kurdistan, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has told a meeting with Pakistani Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos that there is a need to monitor the implementation of agreements between the two countries in fighting terrorism, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

The meeting took place on Tuesday, the ministry said on Telegram earlier in the day against the background of strikes in Pakistan, without specifying whether the officials discussed Iran's strike on Pakistan.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has hit a building in the vicinity of a group of journalists as they were trying to send information on the wounded after another Israeli strike, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Tuesday.

An Israeli warplane has bombed a house in the west of the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip as several journalists were nearby to make their reports. The journalists were standing next to ambulances that had arrived to evacuate those wounded by the ongoing Israeli bombing, the correspondent reported.

The correspondent reported that the bombing of Khan Yunis is still underway despite the IDF order to the residents of the enclave to evacuate from the north to the supposedly safer south. The continuous bombardment makes the city look like a war zone.

France will not carry out prevention strikes on Houthi positions to avoid escalation in the region, French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday.

However, the French navy will continue to participate in maintaining security in the Red Sea, the president added.