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Israel's Prime Minister has announced a major military operation in the occupied West Bank after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers in an attack near Hebron.
Benjamin Netanyahu says the first steps of the campaign will involve displacing Hebron residents, searching homes and destroying what he has called terrorist infrastructure.
The planned operation is on a scale unseen since Israel first occupied the Palestinian territory in 1967, coming just days before Israeli elections where Netanyahu is locked in a tight race to keep his job.
Israel's national security minister Itmar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both called for the military to wrest control of the West Bank from the Palestinian authority.
Authorities in Taiwan are warning of destructive winds as a powerful typhoon pounds the island, killing at least one person.
It's understood the person died after being swept away by waves whipped up by the storm.
Typhoon Champi has dumped heavy rain, toppled trees and knocked out power to thousands of households as it sweeps past Taiwan's northeast on the way to China and Japan.
At least 350 have been injured and more than 4,300 people evacuated from their homes, while most shops and schools have been shut across Taiwan, and hundreds of flights are cancelled.
Federal minister Anika Wells says her Brisbane electorate office will remain closed while security updates are installed, following an incident earlier this week.
Queensland Police have charged a 47 year old woman over the incident, and she will appear in court on a public nuisance charge.
Multiple MPs have also shared stories of threats and security concerns, including Senator David Pocock who says he has had to move house with his young family in the face of safety concerns.
The Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says security funding for MPs has increased in the past year in response to higher threat assessments, which are constantly updated.
"And that is undertaken by our security agencies and we have enormous confidence in that work and we respond accordingly. In fact, in the last budget we significantly increased the expenditure in providing security and safety to members of parliament."
Australian consular officials have visited detained Australian citizen and pro democracy activist Tran Hiep in Vietnam for the first time.
Mr Hiep's wife, Chloe Dang, says the 30-minute visit follows nearly a month of advocacy by the family and Australian diplomatic authorities.
Ms Dang has told SBS Vietnamese Mr Hiep wanted people to know he had not entered Vietnam voluntarily or crossed the border illegally, contrary to reports by Vietnamese authorities.
She says family members are concerned about his psychological and physical wellbeing.
“He is worried, frightened and traumatised by his current circumstances. He had appeared physically well, but his psychological state was far from stable. Australian consular officials have requested monthly visits, but the next visit has not yet been confirmed. His blood pressure was unstable, and Vietnamese security personnel reportedly took him directly to Cu Chi Hospital after bringing him back to detention.”
A Perth grandmother who was jailed for drug smuggling in Japan has returned home to serve her sentence in Australia.
60 year old Donna Nelson has reunited with family at Bandyup women's prison in Perth's north, where she will do her remaining time.
A Japanese court sentenced the Indigenous community leader to six years' prison in 2024 for bringing two kilograms of methamphetamine into the country.
Nelson had told the court she was unaware of the drugs and she was carrying the suitcase for a man she hoped to marry.
The Bureau of Meteorology is warning of severe thunderstorms across eastern states this weekend, including an already-drenched Queensland.
Torrential rain in the state's southeast has already caused flash flooding and hundreds of calls for help on Thursday and Friday.
The Bureau is now forecasting damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain across Canberra, western NSW and western Queensland.
New Zealand rugby great Sonny Bill Williams has revealed he's had successful open-heart surgery at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
The 41 year old has confirmed the operation in a long video on his YouTube channel that documents his health issue.
Williams started out as a rugby league player, becoming a superstar in the 13-man code before switching to 15-man rugby union and winning the World Cup twice with the All Blacks, in 2011 and 2015.
He says he discovered he'd been born with a heart defect after going for a routine check-up following a neck operation.
"Crazy, but go ahead and get it checked. Because the majority of patients who have this, they don't even know they have it. So if they don't get it checked they wouldn't know, and it's a case of a perfectly normal looking healthy person, dropping dead."
