Israel-Hamas war: Some U.S. personnel evaluated for brain injury after Iraqi base attack

LONDON — Two British warships collided in a harbor in Bahrain, causing damage to the vessels but no injuries, the Royal Navy said.

The HMS Chiddingfold appeared to reverse into the HMS Bangor as it was at a dock, according to video posted on social media.

“Why this happened is still to be established,” said Rear Adm. Edward Ahlgren. “We train our people to the highest standards and rigorously enforce machinery safety standards, but unfortunately incidents of this nature can still happen.”

Ahlgren said an investigation is under way into what went wrong.

The two minehunters have been based in the Middle East to help protect merchant vessels.

The British military last week joined the U.S. in bombing more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, whose relentless attacks on cargo vessels and warships in the Red Sea have disrupted global shipping.

A number of U.S. personnel were evaluated for possible traumatic brain injury following a missile and rocket attack on a military base in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command said in a statement Saturday.

The attack was reported at 6:30 p.m. local time at Al-Assad Airbase, where some American personnel are based, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. The exact conditions of those affected were unavailable; at least one Iraqi service member was injured, Central Command said.

U.S. coalition and Iraqi partners were trying to verify reports of several minor injuries among U.S. personnel and one seriously injured Iraqi Security Force personnel, three defense officials said.

Iraqi military officials said the headquarters of the country's 29th Brigade, 7th Division were damaged in the attack.

Central Command blamed Iranian-backed militants for the attack that included multiple ballistic missiles and rockets. "Most of the missiles were intercepted by the base’s air defense systems while others impacted on the base," Central Command said.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed credit for the attack, saying the munitions were launched "in continuation of our approach to resist the American occupation forces in Iraq and the region, and in response to the Zionist entity’s massacres against our people in Gaza."

Protesters attempted to block a street in Tel Aviv this evening as they held signs demanding the release of the hostages taken by Hamas militants into the Gaza Strip during the Oct. 7 attack.

"I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over the entire area from the west of Jordan — and this is contrary to a Palestinian state," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X Saturday.

Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Eli Cohen and Chairman of the Religious Zionist Party Bezalel Yoel Smotrich issued their own statements, echoing Netanyahu's sentiments.

"The establishment of a Palestinian state is a reward for terrorism and a danger to the State of Israel." Cohen wrote Saturday on X. "This will encourage the murder of Jews and give support to Iran’s axis of evil. We will not give a hand to it!”

Hundreds of mourners gathered on the streets of the West Bank Saturday for the funeral of 17-year-old Palestinian American Tawfiq Ajaq, who was fatally shot and killed on Friday.

The circumstances surrounding Ajaq's death remain unclear, including who the shooter was. The Israeli police are investigating reports of a shooting involving an off-duty police officer, a civilian and an Israeli soldier.

"Born and raised in the U.S., he's been here for one year," Hafez Ajaq, Tawfiq's father, told NBC News. "He does not know anything. I'm teaching him what's life. I'm teaching him what's the land. What's the cost of the land. And here he is. He's playing for it, for freedom."

When asked about the shooting, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, "We're seriously concerned about it."

JERUSALEM — The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he opposes any form of Palestinian sovereignty in postwar Gaza. The statement issued on Saturday appeared to rebuff U.S. President Joe Biden’s suggestion that creative solutions could bridge wide gaps between him and the Israeli leader on Palestinian statehood.

A statement from the prime minister’s office said Netanyahu made clear Friday in his first conversation with Biden in nearly a month that his position on a postwar Gaza hasn’t changed. Netanyahu reiterated that Israel must retain security control over the territory after Hamas is destroyed — “a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty,” the statement said.

UNITED NATIONS — Women and children are the main victims in the Israel-Hamas war, with some 16,000 killed and an estimated two mothers losing their lives every hour since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, the United Nations agency promoting gender equality said Friday.

As a result of the more than 100-day conflict, U.N. Women added, at least 3,000 women may have become widows and heads of households and at least 10,000 children may have lost their fathers.

In a report released Friday, the agency pointed to gender inequality and the burden on women fleeing the fighting with children and being displaced again and again. Of the territory’s 2.3 million population, it said, 1.9 million are displaced and “close to one million are women and girls” seeking shelter and safety.

U.N. Women’s executive director, Sima Bahous, said this is “a cruel inversion” of fighting during the 15 years before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Previously, she said, 67% of all civilians killed in Gaza and the West Bank were men and less than 14% were women.

She echoed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ calls for a humanitarian cease-fire and the immediate release of all hostages taken captive in Israel on Oct. 7.

Nearly 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday. An additional 60,000 people have been wounded as of Friday.

The grim milestone comes a month after the Palestinian Health Ministry announced that 20,000 people had been killed in Gaza since the Hamas terror attack.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has warned of strikes in the vicinity of Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis using "airstrikes and artillery shelling" in a post on X.

"Intense gunfire" also targeted the hospital yesterday, the medical and humanitarian aid organization said in a separate post on X.

Every one of Gaza's 36 hospitals, which are also being used as temporary shelters for internally displaced refugees, has faced some level of damage during Israel's war in the strip so far.