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The claimed acquisition by Yemen’s Houthi rebels of hypersonic missiles capable of penetrating Israeli air defences threatens to further heighten Middle East tensions, as Saudi Arabia calls for more than “pinprick bombings” to constrain the supply of weapons to the group.

Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemen government opposing the Houthis, believes Iran has been arming the group, including with the weapons used in the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Those attacks have led to a halving of the traffic on the Red Sea route, pushing up the costs of maritime transport and damaging the Egyptian economy through disruption to the Suez canal.

A long-range ballistic missile fired from Yemen has hit central Israel, sparking fire, according to the Israeli military.

The missile triggered air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel, including the Ben Gurion international airport, sending residents running for shelter. There were no reports of casualties or damage, and the airport authority said normal operations resumed shortly after.

Houthis’ Saba news agency said the Israeli defence system could not shoot down the Yemeni missile, which caused a fire. “A Yemeni missile reached Israel after ’20 missiles failed to intercept’ it,” Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi media official, posted on X.

The world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, has removed a series of sensational articles relating to the Gaza war after claims that the material was fabricated by a “freelance journalist” who had also misrepresented his résumé.

In recent months, there have been suggestions in the Israeli media that stories have been placed in European newspapers, including one in the German tabloid Bild, that are based on fake or misrepresented intelligence, planted as part of an effort to support prime minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.

At a 4 September press conference for foreign media, Netanyahu suggested that if the Gaza border area with Egypt known as the Philadelphi Corridor – a sticking point in negotiations between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire-for-hostages-deal – was not under Israeli military control, then Sinwar could use it to escape, perhaps taking hostages with him.

The following day, an article by Perry in the JC had turned that into reality. The piece claimed that intelligence existed showing that Sinwar planned to escape to Iran with the hostages, derived from the interrogation of a senior Hamas figure and a document found late in August.

One of the articles claimed the discovery of a document from Gaza, allegedly detailing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s plans to escape with Israeli hostages taken during the 7 October attack, using the Philadelphi Corridor as a route to Iran.

However, the Israeli army stated that it had no knowledge of such a document and several Israeli outlets began to question Perry's identity and professional background.

The left-leaning +972 Magazine questioned his claims of having served as a commando during Operation Entebbe and being a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years, as there appear to be no records confirming these assertions.

Given the similarity between Perry's claims and statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some have speculated that this could be part of a broader disinformation campaign.

“There is no other country in the world that has a monthly meeting on the (Security) Council’s agenda going back decades,” the US envoy said, describing the “unfair amount of focus on Israel in the UN” as “problematic”.

Asked about recognising the Palestinian State, Thomas-Greenfield gave an evasive response as she claimed that “a state has certain responsibilities for its people, and I do not believe the Palestinians, as they exist right now, have all of the elements to give it statehood.

She also bluntly responded to a question about the arrest warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Karim Khan, and said: “We have been clear that we have a problem with the Court’s ruling.”

“Well, let me be clear: We will not arrest him,” she stressed.

Israeli occupation forces have conducted a large-scale arrest campaign since Wednesday, with at least 40 Palestinians detained across the occupied West Bank by yesterday morning. Among those arrested were a patient receiving treatment in a hospital and several former prisoners.

The arrests were primarily concentrated in the Hebron and Tubas governorates, with others reported across the majority of the West Bank, according to a joint statement from the Palestinian Prisoners Club and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Organisations dedicated to prisoners’ rights have been unable to verify the full extent of the arrests due to the ongoing military operations by occupation forces in the Tulkarm and Tubas governorates, including their respective refugee camps.

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October 2023, and amid the ongoing genocide and comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

A campaign is under way to drive the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, out of existence, its commissioner general has said, days after 18 people were killed when Israeli jets bombed an Unrwa school in Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview that the Israeli government was seeking to close down the agency, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.

“This deliberate attempt to eliminate Unrwa and prevent it from operating would have devastating consequences for the multilateral system, the UN and the cause of a Palestinian transition to self-determination,” Lazzarini said.

He said: “There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate and dismantle the agency and the reason behind that has nothing to do with neutrality issues, but there is a political purpose behind it. Ultimately there is a desire to strip the Palestinians of refugee status and beyond that to undermine the future Palestinian aspiration for self-determination. That is why Unrwa has become such a target.

Dozens of kilograms of cocaine have been found in banana deliveries to four of a French supermarket chain’s stores, with police unsure who the intended recipient was.

Staff at Grand Frais branches in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France were astonished to find between 40kg (88lb) and 50kg of drugs hidden under pallets of bananas and were anxious to reassure customers that the cocaine had not come into contact with the fruit.

Now detectives are attempting to solve the mystery of how the drugs, believed to have originated in Colombia, came to be in the pallets and – more importantly – for whom they were destined.

China is to raise the retirement age for the first time since 1978, as the world’s second-largest economy faces up to a sharply ageing population that will leave it short of workers.

The country will gradually extend the retirement age for all men from 60 to 63, for women in white-collar jobs from 55 to 58, and for women in blue-collar work from 50 to 55, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.

The measures were approved by the standing committee of China’s rubber-stamp parliament on Friday. They will take effect in January and be phased in over 15 years in line with the principle of “small-step adjustments”, Xinhua said.

The U.S. military has announced the sale of billions of dollars of missiles, bombs, and other weapons to Israel in the past year, as the campaign on Gaza grinds on. Now, the Department of Defense is also building aircraft facilities in Israel to accommodate American-made refueling tanker planes, according to newly issued public contracting documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The project includes new construction and upgrades of existing buildings, including one or more hangars, warehouses, and storage facilities, at an Israeli military base in the south of Israel, according to Army Corps of Engineers documents.