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    What to Know About the Saudi Crown Prince’s Role in Global Diplomacy

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    The kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was once shunned in diplomatic circles. Now he is playing an important role in negotiations over Gaza and Ukraine.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has long angled to play a leading role on the world stage, was at the diplomatic center this week of two of the globe’s most pressing crises.On Monday, Prince Mohammed met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss both the future of Gaza and the Ukraine war. The following day in Riyadh, there were friendly talks between Russia and the United States.And on Friday, the kingdom is expected to host Arab officials to plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.That Saudi Arabia is the setting for talks with such monumental stakes stands as further evidence that the crown prince — known by his initials M.B.S. — is well on his way to achieving his goal of becoming a global power player.The meetings represent a remarkable turnabout for Prince Mohammed, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom’s de facto leader who was shunned for a time in diplomatic circles. He was accused of severe human rights abuses that he has denied, including approving the killing in 2018 of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.Here is what to know about the crown prince’s past actions and his plans for Saudi Arabia.A new vision for the kingdomIn 2016, about a year after his father, King Salman, ascended the throne, Prince Mohammed, then a deputy crown prince, introduced Vision 2030. The bold plan aimed to diversify the kingdom’s economy and make it less reliant on oil. It included increasing the number of Saudis in private employment, including women; soliciting foreign investment; and selling shares of Saudi Aramco, the state oil monopoly, to raise capital to invest in other sectors, like tourism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Steps Up Attacks in Lebanon as Fighting Spreads

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      With the region on edge about a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran, U.S. Central Command hit targets in Yemen, and Israel ordered evacuations in Gaza.As Israel escalated its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday, much of the Middle East was on edge, with many expecting an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran as payback for its missile barrage on Israel earlier this week.Fighting expanded across the region, with the United States Central Command striking Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and Israeli forces warning residents in two areas in the central Gaza Strip to evacuate, presumably in preparation for stepped up military action there.In Lebanon, a huge strike earlier in the week reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was recently assassinated by Israel. It was not clear whether Mr. Safieddine had been killed.Israeli strikes appeared to hit the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut, where Hezbollah holds sway and where the Israeli military late on Friday again issued evacuation warnings for civilians. At least four hospitals across southern Lebanon are now out of service as a result of Israel’s bombardment, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The Saint Therese Medical Center near the Dahiya has also suspended services, saying that Israeli strikes inflicted “huge damage.”Hezbollah on Saturday fired more rockets into northern Israel, though most seem to have been intercepted by Israel’s air-defense system.Concern has been building over whether the broadening war would further draw in Iran, which supports both Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that Iran could carry out additional attacks on Israel “if necessary.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Targets Hezbollah as Khamenei, Iran’s Leader, Warns of Retaliation

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      Israel is drastically widening its fight against the Lebanese militant group that is backed by Iran, whose supreme leader said that “any strike on the Zionist regime is a service to humanity.”Less than a week after Israel killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli warplanes bombarded areas south of Beirut around midnight on Thursday, this time targeting his presumed successor.It was unclear on Friday whether the strikes in Lebanon had succeeded in killing the group’s potential next leader, Hashem Safeiddine, who is also a cousin of Mr. Nasrallah’s. And it was difficult to assess the scale of the damage from the bombardment, described as the heaviest of the rapidly escalating war in Lebanon.But it was clear from the images of destroyed buildings, now merely broken concrete and twisted metal, along with Israel’s ground invasion in the south, that Israel was determined to take the fight against Hezbollah to a new level.It’s doing so not just in southern Lebanon, where its ground invasion is seeking to halt Hezbollah’s rocket fire into northern Israel, but also with its systematic targeting of the Iran-backed group’s remaining leaders, whose movements Israeli intelligence apparently still track.Many people in Lebanon and the broader Middle East had long feared that such a war was coming, even before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that began the war in Gaza. Hezbollah began firing on northern Israel shortly afterward in solidarity with Hamas, an ally.Over the past three weeks, Israel has stepped up attacks on Hezbollah, detonating pagers and walkie-talkies owned by its members, dropping bunker-busting bombs on Lebanese sites where the group’s leaders were thought to be meeting and assassinating Mr. Nasrallah and other Hezbollah commanders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Bombs Residential Site in Effort to Kill Hezbollah Leader

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      The strike came barely an hour after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered a fiery address to the U.N. General Assembly.The Israeli military bombed residential buildings south of Beirut on Friday that it said stood over the central headquarters of Hezbollah, barely an hour after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a combative address to the United Nations in which he vowed to defeat the group and other Iranian-backed militias.A huge blast shook the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway, and thick black smoke began rising above the skyline, in what appeared to have been the most intense bombing in the area since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began last October.The strike targeted Hassan Nasrallah, the cleric who since 1992 has led Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese armed group and political party, according to Israeli and American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Nasrallah was killed, though there were growing concerns in Tehran that he was in the buildings when they were hit, three Iranian officials said.Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said the bombing had caused the “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings. At least six people were killed and more than 90 others injured, the Health Ministry said, although Mr. Abiad warned that the toll was likely to rise.“They are residential buildings. They were filled with people,” Mr. Abiad told The New York Times. “Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.”An injured person being helped at the scene of the bombing.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Crew of Oil Tanker Hit by Missiles in Red Sea Is Rescued

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      The crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that came under gun and missile attack in the Red Sea has been rescued after they were forced to evacuate the vessel into a lifeboat, a European Union naval mission said on Thursday. The attack appears to have been the most serious in weeks against commercial shipping off the coast of Yemen.The Yemen-based Houthi militia, which has staged a series of attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, has not claimed responsibility.A Houthi fighter on the beach in December, with the Galaxy Leader cargo ship, seized by the Houthis in November, in the background.Yahya Arhab/EPA, via ShutterstockThe tanker, the Sounion, was sailing about 90 miles west of the Yemeni port of Hudaydah early on Wednesday when two small boats approached it, said a statement on social media from Britain’s maritime trade agency, which is based in Dubai.“The first craft had three to five persons onboard while the second had approximately 10,” the statement said. “The two small craft hailed the merchant vessel, leading to a brief exchange of small-arms fire.”The small craft retreated and the ship was then hit by three “unidentified projectiles,” starting a fire and causing the ship to lose engine power, it said. It was not clear on Thursday whether the fire had been extinguished.The crew were rescued by a ship from an E.U. military mission, Operation Aspides, that has been mounted in response to attacks by the Houthi militia, according to a statement the mission posted on social media Thursday.The statement included a photograph showing an enclosed lifeboat, typical in the oil industry, bobbing in the water and a second photo of crew members aboard a rescue speedboat.After coming under attack, the ship’s captain called for help. The E.U. military destroyed what it described as an “unmanned surface vessel” that had posed an imminent danger to the Sounion. The crew was being transported to Djibouti, the statement said.The stricken vessel, which was carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, was still floating and had become a “navigational and environmental hazard,” according to the E.U. statement. A statement from Delta Tankers, the ship’s operator, said it would be moved to a safer place for repairs. It was not clear whether any oil was leaking.The Houthi militia, which is backed by Iran, began firing late last year on ships entering the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal, which is a vital artery for vessels moving between Asia, Europe and the eastern United States.The United States and Britain have launched strikes against the Houthis in response, but analysts have said they have done little to damage the militia’s military infrastructure. The attacks have continued, forcing ships to find alternative routes and disrupting global trade. Oil prices on Thursday were little changed, trading near their lowest levels of the year.Over the course of dozens of attacks, at least two vessels have sunk and at least three crew members have been killed.Jason Karaian More

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      Blinken Travels to Israel Amid Push for Gaza Cease-Fire

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautioned that the negotiations were “very complex,” as the secretary of state flew to Israel to try to clinch a deal. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was heading to Israel on Sunday to try to clinch a deal that could end the war in Gaza, even as the Middle East remained on edge amid the looming threat of wider regional conflict.The visit, part of an intensive diplomatic campaign led by the Biden administration, comes days after Israel’s negotiating team held talks in Qatar with senior American officials, as well as Qatari and Egyptian representatives who are mediating between Israel and Hamas.Those talks ended without a major breakthrough, but the White House said on Friday that the United States had put forward a “bridging proposal,” with Egyptian and Qatari support, aimed at closing the remaining gaps between the sides. It said that teams would continue to hash out details and that senior negotiators hoped to reconvene in Cairo before the end of this week to finalize an agreement.While the Biden administration had suggested that the process was “now in the end game,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel cautioned on Sunday that the negotiations were “very complex” and called his approach to the talks one of give and take — “not give and give.” “There are things we can be flexible about, and there are things we cannot be flexible about,” he said in remarks recorded at the beginning of his weekly cabinet meeting.“We know very well how to distinguish between the two,” Mr. Netanyahu added, saying that he was insisting on certain principles that he considered vital for Israel’s security.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress: Key Takeaways

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      Here are six takeaways from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to U.S. lawmakers.Israel’s leader traveled some 5,000 miles and did not give an inch.Addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back forcefully on condemnations of Israel’s prosecution of the war in the Gaza Strip. He lavished praise and thanks on the United States for its support. And he gave scarcely a hint that a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and brought protesters out to the streets around the world — including those outside the doors of Congress on the same day as his speech — would be drawing to a close any time soon.Here are some of the highlights.He name-checked both Biden and Trump.Mr. Netanyahu was careful to walk a middle path, thanking both Democrats and Republicans, including President Biden and the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, for their support.“I know that America has our back,” he said. “And I thank you for it. All sides of the aisle. Thank you, my friends.”Mr. Netanyahu said he had known Mr. Biden for 40 years and expressed particular appreciation for his “heartfelt support for Israel after the savage attack” on his country that was led by Hamas on Oct. 7. But he also made a point of praising Mr. Trump, who as president was more receptive to some of his expansionist policies.Mr. Netanyahu also made clear how well he knew his audience, both in the chamber in the country at large. An American university graduate, he delivered a speech fluent in English and ornamented with colloquialisms like “what in God’s green earth.”He denied that Israeli was starving Gazans.Mr. Netanyahu rejected accusations by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court that Israel was deliberately cutting off food to the people of Gaza. “Utter, complete nonsense, a complete fabrication,” he declared.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Strike on Port of Hudaydah in Yemen Will Harm Civilians, Not Houthis, Experts Say

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      Israel’s counterattack on the Houthis, which set a vital Yemeni port ablaze, will do little to deter the militia, Yemeni and international experts said.The Israeli bombing of a vital Yemeni port controlled by the Houthi militia is not expected to deter the group from further attacks but is likely to deepen human suffering in Yemen, regional experts said.Israeli officials said the barrage of airstrikes that hit the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah on Saturday was a counterattack after the Houthis launched a drone that struck Tel Aviv on Friday, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.The Israeli strikes in Hudaydah killed three people and injured 87, many of whom were severely burned, according to a statement from the health ministry in the capital, Sana, which the Houthis control. Photos and videos from Hudaydah showed an enormous fire at the city’s port that sent black smoke billowing into the sky. The port is the main conduit by which food imports, fuel and aid enter the impoverished northern Yemen.Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, said that Israel carried out the bombardment “in order to stop the Houthi’s terror attacks” and that it had hit “dual-use” targets including energy infrastructure.Yemeni scholars and former American officials who study the country were nearly uniform in their assessments that the Israeli strikes would do little harm to the Houthis. Instead, they said, the attack is likely to exacerbate suffering in Yemen, which is already experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after a decade of war. The bombs hit a port that more than 20 million Yemenis depend on.“The target of the strike does more to hurt the average Yemeni than the Houthis’ ability to launch attacks on the Red Sea or Israel,” said Adam Clements, a retired U.S. Army attaché for Yemen. “Hitting a radar site, a known launch site or another military target could disrupt Houthi capabilities for a few days more than the port.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Houthi Drone Strike Highlights Dilemmas for Israel

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      Israel has few options to retaliate for the attack in Tel Aviv, which made clear the weakness of its air defense system against unmanned aircraft and heightened concerns about the threat of Iranian-backed militias.Israel faces a strategic dilemma over how best to retaliate for the drone attack on Tel Aviv claimed by Yemen’s Houthi militia, which is based thousands of miles from Israel’s southern borders.The attack, which struck an apartment building early on Friday near the United States diplomatic compound, killing one person and wounded several others, has heightened concerns in Israel about the threat of Iran. Tehran funds and encourages militias opposed to Israel throughout the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, in addition to the Houthis in Yemen.On a technical level, the attack highlighted the weakness of Israel’s air defense system against unmanned aircraft, which travel at slower speeds, fly at lower altitudes and emit less heat than high-velocity rockets and shells. According to military experts, those factors make it harder for drones to be tracked by radar and intercepted by surface-to-air missiles.Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has vowed revenge for the attack, but analysts said this weekend that Israel had few obvious options against a militia that shares no common border with Israel and has appeared undeterred by earlier displays of force by Western powers.One immediate, short-term response, some analysts said, might be a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel, a move that could halt attacks from Hamas’s allies, like the Houthis and Hezbollah in Lebanon. While the Houthis’ opposition to Israel long preceded the war in Gaza, the group had rarely attacked Israeli interests before it began.A truce in Gaza could “prompt some kind of a lull for a while” in Yemen and Lebanon, said Relik Shafir, a former general in the Israeli Air Force.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More