Published Nov 15, 2026 5:13 am
Jordanian security personnel stand guard outside the State Security Court, which sentenced three men to death Sunday for an Oct. 23 shooting that killed nine people at St. George's Greek Orthodox Church in Hamoud village in Karak governorate, in Amman, Jordan, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)
Israeli forces killed a top commander of the militant Hamas group in an overnight airstrike on southern Gaza, Israel said Sunday.
In Jordan, three men were sentenced to death for a deadly shooting last month at a Greek Orthodox Church in a village north of the city of Karak. In Yemen, the Houthis said they freed around 600 detainees captured in the latest escalation of fighting.
And Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed that it struck a radar system at an American helicopter base in Bahrain. The U.S. military command did not immediately comment on the claim.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Sunday. Read our full coverage here.
Israel says it killed a top Hamas commander in Gaza
Israel said it killed a top Hamas commander in an airstrike on southern Gaza just after midnight Saturday. A Hamas statement confirmed the killing of Samir Mahmoud Hassan Abu Younis and said a funeral would be held for him later Sunday.
The Israeli military said Abu Younis had been directing plans “to advance and carry out terror attacks.” Two months earlier, his predecessor was also killed in an Israeli strike.
The military said it targeted other Hamas militants in Sunday’s strike but provided no details.
Jordan sentences 3 men to death over deadly church attack
Jordan’s State Security Court on Sunday sentenced three men to death for a deadly shooting at a Greek Orthodox Church in a village north of the city of Karak last month, state-run Al Mamlaka TV said. The men were charged with “carrying out terrorist acts.”
The Oct. 23 attack was one of the deadliest on Jordan’s Christian minority in decades, with nine people killed and dozens wounded. The attackers targeted mourners attending a funeral at St. George’s Church in Hamoud, a village about 100 kilometers (71 miles) south of the capital, Amman.
The three defendants — two brothers and their brother-in-law — were arrested three days after the attack following a shootout with security forces. All three were wounded. Jordanian authorities described the men as followers of an extremist ideology but said they were not affiliated with an organized group. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Days later, Jordan launched airstrikes in southern Syria, saying they targeted militant groups linked to the attack. Syrian authorities disputed Jordan’s account and reported civilian deaths.
Yemen’s Houthis release hundreds of detainees
The Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday freed some 600 detainees captured in the latest escalation of fighting, the largest unilateral release of detainees in the country’s 12-year civil war, said Abdul-Qader al-Murtaza, a Houthi official on prisoners affairs.
Also Sunday, a group allied with the Saudi-backed Yemeni government that is fighting the Houthis said its fighters pulled out from areas along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait amid relentless attacks by the rebel group.
The group, known as the Southern Armed Forces, said it would now focus on securing Yemen’s southern city of Aden, held by the internationally recognized government, as well as trying to break the Houthi siege of the crucial city of Taiz.
Earlier in the day, Houthi health officials said an airstrike on Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, wounded two women and two children. The strike hit a residential neighborhood in the Houthi-held Sanaa, according to the rebels’ Health Ministry. It said the wounded were taken to the Muayyad Hospital for treatment but provided no other details on the strike.
A Houthi spokesman, Anees al-Asbahi, blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike. There was no immediate comment from the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Saudi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki said air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis early on Sunday toward Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Two drones were also shot down over the Saudi oil-rich Eastern Region, said the spokesman.
Iran says it hit an American radar system in Bahrain
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed early on Sunday that it struck a radar system at an American helicopter base in Bahrain, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, did not immediately comment. On Friday, CENTCOM had said it intercepted two Iranian drones headed toward Bahrain and denied an Iranian claim at the time that it had struck a U.S. early-warning radar system there.
Bahrain’s military said Sunday its air defense systems intercepted a number of Iranian projectiles before they reached their targets. Earlier, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued two nationwide alerts warning of a threat, the first such alerts since September.
It gave no further details but said “Iran continues its systematic hostile approach through its sinful attacks targeting the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
Iran rejects a German demand to halt uranium enrichment
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, on Sunday rejected Germany’s demand that Tehran halt uranium enrichment, saying the country has a right to enrich uranium as a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
“Iran’s right to enrichment is not something Germany, France or others have granted us,” Baghaei added.
Baghaei also criticized the U.N. nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — for what he described as “nontechnical speculation” about a possible new uranium enrichment facility in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
He said the agency had lost access to Iran’s nuclear facilities during the war with the United States and Israel, but claimed Iran had not suspended its safeguards obligations.
Asked about a possible response to any renewed U.S. attacks, Baghaei said Iran would “not leave any blow unanswered.”
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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
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This story was corrected earlier to say that the shooting in Jordan took place in the village of Hamoud in the Karak governorate, not in the city of Karak.
By The Associated Press