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Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed at least five people. More than half of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah. Israel has conducted near-daily raids there as it prepares for an offensive in the city. Four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling in central Gaza. Officials said that a ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday. It was the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Israel-Hamas war.

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A U.S. Army reservist who provided the clearest warning ahead of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting will answer questions from the commission that's investigating the tragedy. Six weeks before Robert Card killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, his best friend and fellow reservist Sean Hodgson texted a warning to supervisors saying he feared Card was about to conduct a mass shooting. The commission is hearing Thursday from Hodgson, other Army personnel and the state’s director of victim witnesses services. The failure of authorities to remove guns from Card in the weeks before the shooting has become the focus of a monthslong investigation.

The first six of 12 Rafale multipurpose fighter jets purchased by Croatia from France have landed at an air force base near Zagreb  with a welcome ceremony attended by top officials. The deal, signed in 2021 with French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation, was said to be worth over a billion euros. In addition to the aircraft, the contract covers weapon systems, spare parts, logistics and training. France is to deliver the remaining six jets in 2025. The acquisition will enable the air force of Croatia, a NATO member, to replace its outdated Soviet-designed Mikoyan MiG-21 fighters.

Ukraine is scrambling to get much-needed new supplies of weapons and ammunition from a huge U.S. aid package to its eastern front line. Russia is pressing forward with efforts to take ground for Kyiv’s outnumbered and outgunned troops. Ukraine is also seeking to reverse the drain from the country of potential soldiers. It has announced that men of conscription age will no longer be able to renew their passports from outside the country. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Poland's defense minister said Warsaw was ready to help “in ensuring that those who are subject to compulsory military service go to Ukraine,” though he did not specify how.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thursday's hearing is a historic day for the court, with the justices having an opportunity to decide once and for all whether former presidents can be prosecuted for official acts they take while in the White House. But between a decades-old case about Richard Nixon, and an obscure constitutional provision about presidential impeachments, there are likely to be some unfamiliar concepts and terms thrown about.

A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden has come under attack, the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The attack comes after the U.S. military said early Thursday an allied warship shot down a Houthi missile targeting a vessel the day before near the same area. The Houthis claimed that Wednesday assault, which comes after a period of relatively few rebel attacks on shipping in the region over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In Thursday’s attack, a ship was targeted just over 25 kilometers southwest of Aden. That's according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.