A building housing displaced Palestinian families collapsed in Gaza City on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people, including four children. The multistory structure was heavily damaged during the Israel-Hamas war and there had been warnings about its safety.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said late on Tuesday that its air defenses, which have been fending off attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, had intercepted a drone that the kingdom said was headed toward its holy city of Mecca.
Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
A damaged building in Gaza City housing about six displaced families collapsed on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people and injuring 15, according to Shifa Hospital. At least four children were among the dead.
Dozens of people remained missing or trapped under the rubble and video showed civil defense crews surveying the wreckage and using bulldozers to dig out people, including children.
The building had been partially destroyed in an Israeli strike earlier in the war. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse, but in Gaza — where the majority of buildings have been damaged or destroyed — dozens of multistory structures have collapsed throughout the war, particularly during winter weather.
Building collapses have become a major hazard in Gaza. Displaced families have often returned from tent camps to homes damaged by bombardment during the almost three years of war.
Saudi military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki said the kingdom's defenses intercepted and destroyed a drone on Tuesday evening before it entered the airspace over Mecca, Islam’s holiest city and a focal point for followers of the faith.
Mecca is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the location of the Kaaba, the black cube-shaped structure that Muslims around the world turn to five times a day when praying. Muslims believe Muhammad first received God’s revelations of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in Mecca.
The security of the holy city is “a red line,” al-Malki said, adding that Saudi forces will not hesitate to act against “hostile and terrorist behavior.”
The Iran-backed Houthis in neighboring Yemen denied targeting Mecca. But the allegation drew condemnations throughout the Islamic world, including from Pakistan and the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
Palestinians inspect a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”
Meink did not detail what the weapons were, how they work or if they were targeting other objects in space or on Earth. The U.S. had warned two years ago that Russia was developing a new space-based, anti-satellite weapon, though the White House said the danger wasn’t imminent at the time.
But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications. The U.S. has also previously demonstrated its own abilities to shoot down satellites from Earth.
In his remarks to the Air and Space Forces Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems to its capabilities and predicted the service would look “radically different” by 2032. For example, he foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the “primary killer.”
“We are increasing readiness against existing threats," he said.
The revelation comes as the Trump administration puts a growing focus on space.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump created the Space Force as a separate military branch. In his second term, he has announced the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which includes plans to put U.S. weapons in space.
Trump said last year that he expected the system would be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in January 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
Trump also has directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors, in an executive order during the first week of his presidency.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.
The Biden administration announced in 2024 that Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it.
That kicked off a renewed debate on the idea of weapons in space at the United Nations.
In April 2024, Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia.
The treaty also declared that outer space was a global commons that could be used for only peaceful purposes.
The Russian delegation called the resolution hypocritical and a double standard and instead proposed a rival resolution to ban all weapons in space “for all time.” It ultimately failed.
Russia had argued that the United States and its allies opposed a ban on all weapons in outer space because they planned to deploy weapons there.
FILE - Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink speaks during the United States Air Force Academy Graduation Ceremony at Falcon Stadium, Thursday, May 28, 2026, at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, Pool, File)
