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By Charlotte Greenfield

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, said on Tuesday he and church leaders had returned from a visit to Gaza with “broken hearts”, calling the spiralling humanitarian crisis there “morally unacceptable”.

Pizzaballa and Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, on Friday visited the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City, where an Israeli strike last week killed three people and injured several more…

A severe heatwave sweeping Iran has disrupted water and electricity supplies in much of the country, with reservoir levels falling to their lowest in a century, state media said Tuesday.

Extreme temperatures, which began on Friday, are expected to ease gradually by Thursday, according to meteorological authorities cited by state television.

Government offices in at least 15 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including the capital Tehran, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water…

By Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is under pressure to take a firmer stance towards Israel, with members of his own coalition calling for Berlin to join a statement by dozens of Western nations condemning the “inhumane killing” of Palestinians.

Merz, who leads Germany’s centre-right CDU, has been increasingly critical of Israel. But Germany was notably absent from the joint statement issued on Monday by the EU and 28 Western countries including…

ANKARA — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday said Ankara would deem any attempt to divide Syria a national security threat and would intervene, marking the strongest threat against the Pentagon-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces since the fall of the Syrian regime in December.

“We are warning: No group should take steps aimed at dividing” Syria, Fidan said at a press conference in Ankara, issuing a thinly veiled threat to the SDF.

The remarks came in response to a…