By Middle East Correspondent
LONDON, (The Muslim News): Twelve people were killed in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, five Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, and nine Palestinians were injured in attacks on olive harvesters in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, according to reports from the region.
The developments came amid escalating hostilities in Yemen, with US President Donald Trump saying Washington might join Saudi strikes against the Ansar Allah [Houthis]. Separately, a complaint was filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged abuses of Palestinian detainees, while the Pentagon revised its death toll for US military operations linked to Iran to 21.
Riyadh airport attack kills 12 as flights are suspended
Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh suspended operations on Saturday after an attack killed 12 people, according to the country’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).
A notice to air missions said the airport would be closed from 4:27 pm to 9 pm as a precaution, according to the NOTAM Viewer website.
The US and UK embassies urged their citizens to avoid the airport, while Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry advised passengers affected by cancellations and delays to contact Saudi diplomatic missions for assistance.
Kuwait Airways cancelled flights KU775 from Kuwait to Riyadh and return flight KU776, citing the “security situation”. The airline urged passengers to follow official updates and check their booking contact details for notifications.
The attack followed two incidents on Thursday targeting facilities at the airport and a Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft. Saudi authorities said three citizens were killed and others injured. GACA later confirmed that airport operations had resumed and air traffic had returned to normal.
The Ansar Allah have claimed responsibility for several missile and drone attacks on King Khalid International Airport and other Saudi airports in recent days. GACA’s initial statement on Saturday did not identify those responsible for the latest attack or specify the weapons used.
Trump weighs joining Saudi strikes on Yemen’s Ansar Allah
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington might join Saudi strikes against the Houthis in Yemen following the attack on Riyadh airport.
Asked by reporters whether he had decided to participate, Trump said: “We may. We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack. We will make a decision. We move very quickly.”
The remarks came amid renewed attacks on Saudi aviation infrastructure and escalating hostilities in Yemen.
The Ansar Allah group separately claimed on Saturday that Saudi Arabia had carried out four airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport. Ansar Allah-affiliated Al-Masirah television also reported three Saudi strikes targeting a telecommunications network in Al Mahabishah, in Hajjah province.
There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials or Yemen’s government on the reported strikes.
Five killed in Gaza despite ceasefire
Four Palestinians were killed and five others wounded when an Israeli drone struck a gathering near Haidar Roundabout in western Gaza City, medical sources told Anadolu.
Another Palestinian was killed and an unspecified number of people were wounded in a separate Israeli drone strike targeting a gathering in the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City, the sources said.
Two Palestinians, including a woman, were later seriously wounded in an Israeli strike on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City.
Eyewitnesses said an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at the gathering near Haidar Roundabout, an area crowded with residents and passers-by.
In southern Gaza, two Palestinians, including a child, were wounded by Israeli gunfire at the Regional Camp for displaced people south of al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis.
Musa Abu Dan died from injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike on a tent sheltering displaced people in al-Mawasi on Friday. His death followed the previous day’s attack and is separate from the five Palestinians reported killed in strikes on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, two Palestinians, including a woman, were wounded by Israeli gunfire after Israeli forces fired towards residential homes and displacement tents in al-Mawasi and east of Khan Younis, medical sources said.
Israeli military vehicles also shelled and fired on areas along the eastern edges of cities across the Gaza Strip, from north to south, according to eyewitnesses.
Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023 has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000, according to Palestinian figures. About 90 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, Israeli violations have killed more than 1,470 Palestinians and wounded over 5,180, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Nine injured as attacks target West Bank olive harvesters
Nine Palestinians were injured on Saturday when Israeli soldiers and illegal Israeli settlers attacked farmers harvesting olives in Deir Abu Mashal, northwest of Ramallah, preventing them from reaching their land.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its teams treated nine people: one with a live-fire wound, two hit by rubber bullets and six beaten.
Anadolu Palestinian photojournalist Issam Rimawi, who was covering the harvest, was struck in the right calf by a rubber bullet fired by the Israeli army.
In a separate incident, several Palestinians suffered tear gas exposure when Israeli forces and settlers surrounded the home of Mohammad Hamed Abu Aliya in al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, and fired tear gas canisters, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Family members suffered breathing difficulties. Wafa said Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from approaching the site and fired tear gas at its crew.
The Palestinian government’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said it had documented at least 12 attacks since Saturday morning across the governorates of Ramallah and al-Bireh, Nablus, Qalqilya, Hebron and Jericho.
The incidents included assaults on olive harvesters, expulsions from farmland, detentions, beatings, pepper-spray attacks, property theft, attacks on homes, the demolition of a wall and road closures, the commission said.
Attacks on Palestinian farmers and restrictions on access to farmland have intensified since the olive harvest began in early October.
More than 45,000 trees were cut down or damaged across the West Bank in the first half of 2026, including over 26,000 olive trees, according to the commission.
Official Palestinian figures estimate that about 750,000 Israeli setters live in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, across 194 settlements and 400 outposts.
ICC complaint alleges medical complicity in detainee abuse
The Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor alleging that Israeli medical officials were complicit in the torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention facility, Israeli media reported on Saturday.
Submitted under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, the complaint names the Israeli Medical Association, Health Ministry officials and medical personnel, alleging that their actions could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
Since October 2023, the military base in Israel’s southern Negev desert has held thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, including civilians, women, children, older people, journalists and health and humanitarian workers.
The foundation said detainees were classified as “unlawful combatants”, a designation it argued was used to deny them basic legal protections and allow detention without charge or trial.
According to the complaint, the Health Ministry established a medical facility at Sde Teiman shortly after October 7, 2023, and required medical personnel to sign documents placing them under military police authority rather than the army’s Medical Corps.
A ministry directive issued on December 19, 2023, allegedly required staff to treat detainees while they were handcuffed and blindfolded and permitted forced medical treatment without adequate safeguards. Medical personnel were also reportedly instructed to withhold their names and sign records using only their professional titles, which the foundation said hindered accountability and the documentation of injuries.
The complaint cited accounts from Israeli medical workers and former Palestinian detainees. It said a doctor wrote to Israeli authorities in April 2024 that two detainees had undergone leg amputations within one week because of injuries caused by shackling, which the doctor described as routine at the facility.
Medical workers also told the Associated Press they had witnessed surgeries performed without adequate pain relief. One described an elderly detainee screaming and shaking during leg surgery. Others reported that detainees were blindfolded, made to wear diapers and restrained by all four limbs to hospital beds.
The foundation said at least 29 detainees had died at Sde Teiman by November 2025 as a result of physical violence, medical neglect or both.
It also accused the Israeli Medical Association of helping legitimise the alleged abuses, saying the organisation had responded with general reminders about professional ethics rather than sufficient investigative action. The foundation said findings from an internal Health Ministry ethical assessment following a visit to the facility had not been made public.
“Instead of investigating the allegations, leaders of the association publicly defended the medical care provided at Sde Teiman,” the foundation said.
The complaint calls for investigations into officials from Israel’s health and defence ministries, medical personnel, hospital administrators and the Israeli Medical Association.
Those named include former health ministers Moshe Arbel and Uriel Buso, association chairman Zion Hagay, director general Leah Wapner and ethics board chairman Yosef Walfisch.
Established in February 2024, the foundation has pursued legal cases in several countries against Israeli officials and military personnel over alleged violations in Gaza. The allegations remain unproven, and the filing of the complaint does not itself establish criminal liability.
Pentagon revises Iran-linked US military death toll to 21
The Pentagon raised the official death toll of US service members linked to military operations against Iran to 21 late on Friday, acknowledging that two deaths had not previously been included in its figures.
As of Friday, the Defense Casualty Analysis System listed 21 military deaths connected to the operations and 865 US service members wounded, according to The Washington Post.
The newly included deaths were those of Army National Guard Maj Sorffly Davius, 46, who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy service member who died by suicide in September, the newspaper reported.
Separately, the military confirmed that Sgt Devin A. Seibel, 26, died in Iraq in May in a training accident unrelated to the conflict with Iran. His death was recorded under Operation Inherent Resolve, the US military’s long-running campaign against the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh.
Two senior Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee welcomed what they described as the Pentagon’s public correction of the casualty figures.
“There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, and Representative Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on its military personnel subcommittee, said in a joint statement.
They described the need for congressional intervention to correct the figures as “an embarrassment” for the military.
In a statement to The Washington Post, the Pentagon did not directly address the revised death toll but outlined changes to its casualty reporting system, including a “pending adjudication” category for records still under review.
The department reiterated its commitment to accurate reporting, saying it “continues to maintain a steadfast commitment to the transparent, accurate accounting of all Service member casualties”.
[An infographic titled “Airports attacked in Saudi Arabia” created in Ankara, Turkiye on October 9, 2026. Photojournalist:Kadri Suat Çelik/AA]
