South Korean president indicted on insurrection charges after martial law declaration
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(SEOUL) — South Korean prosecutors formally indicted President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday, charging him with insurrection over his brief imposition of martial law in December, according to opposition lawmakers and South Korean media.
“The prosecution has decided to indict Yoon Suk Yeol, who is facing charges of being a ringleader of insurrection,” Democratic Party spokesman Han Min-soo told a press conference, Reuters reported. “The punishment of the ringleader of insurrection now begins finally.”
Yoon had declared martial law in a televised speech on Dec. 3. The president said the measure was necessary due to the actions of the country’s liberal opposition, the Democratic Party, which he accused of controlling parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government. A South Korean court issued an arrest and search warrant on Dec. 31.
The indictment follows Yoon’s arrest ten days ago, when South Korean prosecutors finally succeeded in forcing him to surrender at his residence after a prolonged stand-off with his presidential bodyguard.
Yoon has previously pledged to fight the charges. He has been suspended from his position since Dec. 14.
(LONDON)– Rebel forces in Syria are building a transitional government after toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group. The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza.
Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.
Negotiation team returning after ‘significant week’: Israeli PM office
The Israeli negotiation team will return to Israel from Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday after a “significant week of conducting negotiations” regarding a ceasefire and hostage deal, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.
“The team returned for internal consultations in Israel regarding the continuation of negotiations for the return of our hostages,” the statement continued.
-ABC News’ Anna Burd
IDF ‘besieging’ 3 Gaza hospitals, health ministry says
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement Tuesday that Israeli forces are “intensifying” their attacks on three hospitals in the devastated and depopulated northern portion of the strip.
Israeli troops, the ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, are “besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital during the past hours and insisting on putting them out of service.”
The ministry said Israeli troops were “forcing the wounded and patients to evacuate the Indonesian Hospital,” while bombing “all departments of Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surroundings around the clock without stopping.”
“Shrapnel is scattered inside the hospital yards, causing terrifying sounds and serious damage,” the ministry said.
“We appeal to all international and UN institutions and concerned parties to urgently intervene to protect the health system in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry wrote.
On Monday, Palestinian officials said 20 people were injured when Israeli forces detonated a “robot bomb” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The IDF has not commented on the latest developments around Kamal Adwan or the other north Gaza hospitals.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta
3 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that three soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza.
Cpt. Ilay Gavriel Atedgi, 22, Staff Sgt. Netanel Pessach, 21, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Hillel Diener, 21, were all killed by an explosion during an operation in the Beit Hanoun area, which has been a focus of Israel’s intense recent offensive in the northern part of the strip.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and the border zone is now 391.
Health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir and Ellie Kaufman
20 injured after bomb detonates near Gaza hospital
Twenty people were injured among the medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Monday evening after a “robot bomb” was detonated in the hospital’s vicinity, according to medical sources.
ABC News has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for a comment.
-ABC News’ Samy Zyara
Israeli forces kill Hamas operative in Gaza City, IDF says
Israeli forces killed the head of the national security directorate of Hamas’ security mechanism during an attack on Sunday in Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The Hamas operative, Tharwat Muhammad Ahmed Albec, was “operating in a command and control center” that was embedded in a “compound that previously served as the ‘Musa bin Nusayr’ school” in a neighborhood in Gaza City, the IDF said in a statement on Monday.
Hamas has yet to comment on the IDF’s statement.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
‘Certain progress’ made in hostage negotiations: Netanyahu
“Certain progress” has been made in ongoing hostage and ceasefire negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a speech at the Israeli parliament on Monday.
“I can carefully say there has been a certain progress” made in the ongoing negotiations, Netanyahu said, adding that he “doesn’t know how long it’s going to take.”
“We will continue to operate in any way and without a pause until we bring them all back home from the enemy’s land,” he said.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
Hamas reports Israeli attack on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp
Hamas on Monday said the Israel Defense Forces killed or wounded at least 50 people in an air and ground assault on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
An IDF airstrike was followed by an incursion into the camp supported by 17 heavy vehicles, among them tanks and bulldozers, Hamas said.
Israeli forces also attacked Nuseirat camp two weeks ago, killing at least 33 people according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
The IDF is yet to comment on Monday’s operation.
-ABC News’ Diaa Ostaz and Tomek Rolski
Netanyahu says Israel will act against Houthis after missile strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his nation would “act forcefully” against the Houthis in Yemen after a weekend missile attack on Tel Aviv injured 16 people, according to Israeli emergency authorities.
“Just as we acted forcefully against the terrorist arms of Iran’s evil axis, so we will act against the Houthis — the result will be the same,” Netanyahu said in a statement posted to X.
Since October 2023, the Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, as well as long-range drone and missile attacks towards Israel.
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said it intercepted a Houthi missile but that debris destroyed a school building in Tel Aviv.
The Houthis — which have close ties with Iran and are part of the Tehran-led “Axis of Resistance” — are demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, infiltration attack into southern Israel.
The U.S. and U.K. — supported by other allies — have launched a series of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen since January. Israel has also launched significant strikes in Yemen in recent months, most recently on Thursday.
At least 7 dead after IDF strikes humanitarian area in Gaza
At least seven people were killed after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip.
The strike hit a collection of tents within what had been designated a humanitarian area, where displaced people were sheltering.
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged the strike on Sunday, saying in a statement it was “an intelligence-based strike on a Hamas terrorist.”
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” the IDF said.
– ABC News’ William Gretsky
21 killed in Gaza, IDF northern offensive continues
The Gaza Ministry of Health said Saturday that 21 people were killed and 61 injured in three separate Israeli attacks over the last 24 hours in the Hamas-run territory.
A total of 45,227 people have been killed since the start of the war, health officials said.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces continued intense operations in northern Gaza, particularly around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia.
The director of the hospital said there is shooting “around the clock” nearby, adding that on Friday the third floor and the hospital entrance were shelled.
The director said the IDF is blocking the entry of all requested medical supplies. Nine people need urgent evacuation for surgery in Gaza City and the hospital is currently treating over 70 people, he said.
(ROME) — The pope spent another ‘quiet night’ in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been recovering from a bout with bronchitis since Feb. 14, the Vatican said early Wednesday.
Pope Francis’ condition remains “critical but stable,” Vatican officials said in a brief update on Tuesday.
“There have been no acute respiratory episodes and hemodynamic parameters continue to be stable. In the evening, he underwent a scheduled CT scan for radiological monitoring of the bilateral pneumonia. The prognosis remains uncertain,” the Vatican said Tuesday.
Vatican officials said Sunday he remained in critical condition but officials said that he had shown a “slight improvement” on Monday.
Further updates on the pontiff’s condition are expected on Wednesday.
LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said President Donald Trump is in a “disinformation space” as public recriminations between the two leaders deepened on Wednesday amid nascent talks to end Russia’s three-year-old full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
The series of attacks, Zelenskyy suggested, were informed in part by “disinformation,” which the Ukrainian president said “comes from Russia — and we have evidence.”
Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections,” claiming — without providing evidence — that his Ukrainian counterpart’s approval rating was as low as 4%. Trump also wrote on Truth Social that Zelenskyy “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
Trump’s apparent push for new elections in Ukraine aligns with longstanding Kremlin talking points framing Zelenskyy as an “illegitimate” leader unsuitable for peace talks.
Ukraine’s latest presidential election was scheduled to be held in 2024, but was postponed due to Russia’s war on the country. Ukraine’s constitution stipulates that elections cannot be held under martial law, which was introduced within hours of Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to weaponize the delay to undermine Kyiv. “You can negotiate with anyone, but because of his illegitimacy, he has no right to sign anything,” Putin said of Zelenskyy in January.
The country’s parliament and its speaker “remain the only legitimate authorities in Ukraine,” Putin declared in May 2024, the month that was supposed to mark the end of Zelenskyy’s term.
Trump’s broadside against Zelenskyy included a call for new elections, despite the ongoing war. “That’s not a Russia thing, that’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also,” Trump said.
Dmitry Medvedev — Russia’s former president, prime minister and a longstanding top ally of Putin — was gleeful in his response to Trump’s most recent remarks.
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud,” Medvedev — who is now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council — wrote on X. Trump, he added, “is 200 percent right,” describing Zelenskyy as a “bankrupt clown.”
Russia’s ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, also celebrated the U.S. pivot. “For the first time we have noticed that they are not simply saying that this is Russian propaganda and disinformation,” he told the BBC.
“They have listened and they hear what we’re saying,” Kelin said.
Trump suggested this week that Ukraine’s long-time desire to join NATO was a major cause for Russia’s 2022 invasion. The assertion won him more praise in Russia.
“He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told lawmakers.
Like Moscow, Trump and his domestic allies appear to be presenting Zelenskyy as a key impediment to peace.
Vice President JD Vance said the Ukrainian leader’s “badmouthing” of Trump was an “atrocious” way to interact with the administration.
“We obviously love the Ukrainian people,” he told the Daily Mail. “We admire the bravery of the soldiers, but we obviously think that this war needs to come to a rapid close.”
“That is the policy of the President of the United States,” Vance said. “It is not based on Russian disinformation. It’s based on the fact that Donald Trump, I think, knows a lot about geopolitics and has a very strong view, and has had a strong view for a very long time.”
Trump confidante Steve Bannon, meanwhile, told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper he believed Zelenskyy is “finished.”
“Of course, if he decides to accept the terms of the agreement with Russia, he will be welcome, but he no longer has the power to dictate them,” Bannon said.
Russian officials, meanwhile, also framed Kyiv as the key impediment to peace.
“The Ukrainian side is practically ready to use any tool that will be aimed at stopping or preventing dialogue and preventing the search for a scenario for a political and diplomatic settlement,” Rodion Miroshnik, an ambassador-at-large for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, told state television on Thursday, as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.
Several of Kyiv’s European partners, meanwhile, expressed deep concern over the the latest developments.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “stressed the need for everyone to work together,” in a statement, expressing “his support for President Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader.” Starmer said it was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the U.K. did during World War II.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy democratic legitimacy.”
ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
