A marble statue of a woman, believed to be more than 2,000 years old, was found abandoned in a garbage bag near the Greek city of Thessaloniki, police said Wednesday.

A resident discovered the 80-centimeter (31-inch) headless statue beside a trash bin in Neoi Epivates, outside Greece’s second-largest city. The man turned it over to local authorities, who contacted archaeologists to assess its significance.

Police said experts, following an initial evaluation, determined the piece dates to the Hellenistic era, a period roughly between 320 and 30 B.C. that was marked by a flourishing of art and culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The statue was sent for further examination by archaeologists. It will ultimately be handed over to the local antiquities authority for preservation and study.

Police opened an investigation to determine who discarded the statue and briefly detained a man for questioning who was later released without charge.

Accidental archaeological discoveries are relatively common in Greece, a country renowned for its ancient heritage, and often made during building construction or public works.

In December, workers installing natural gas pipelines near Athens uncovered a Roman-era statue of Hermes buried upright in a brick-lined pit near the Acropolis.

Thessaloniki weeks ago unveiled a trove of antiquities found during the decades-long construction of its metro system, which officially opened in November.

Key finds, including a marble-paved Roman thoroughfare and tens of thousands of artifacts spanning the Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman periods, are now showcased at subway stations.

Israel’s military is using lessons from the Gaza war in its new West Bank operation to ensure “terrorism does not return,” according to Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Katz said operation “Iron Wall” in the Jenin refugee camp would be a shift in the military’s security approach in the occupied West Bank.

“A powerful operation to eliminate terrorists and terror infrastructure in the camp, ensuring that terrorism does not return to the camp after the operation is over – the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza,” he said.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of a “large-scale military operation” in Jenin – just two days after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli warplanes struck Jenin and that Israeli forces, including sharpshooters and armored vehicles, were surrounding the city’s refugee camp and stopping ambulances from entering.

Katz said Israel would not allow Iran or any armed groups to threaten Israeli citizens. Israeli officials have previously accused Iran of assisting militant factions in the West Bank, especially in the Jenin refugee camp.

“We will not allow the Iranian octopus or radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of the settlers and establish a terror front to the east of the State of Israel,” Katz said.

More than 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war and is now home to 3.3 million Palestinians. Jewish settlements there are considered illegal under international law.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that along with the Israeli Security Agency, known as Shin Bet, and Israel Border Police, it had “hit more than 10 terrorists” in the Jenin operation and conducted “aerial strikes on terror infrastructure sites,” while “numerous explosives planted on the routes by the terrorists were dismantled.”

“The Israeli security forces are continuing the operation,” it said.

On Tuesday the Palestinian Health Ministry said that nine people had been killed, ranging in age from 16 to 57 years old. In addition, a 29-year-old man was killed in the town of Ta’nek, in Jenin district, the Ministry said.

Hospital ‘under complete siege’

“No-one can enter or exist the hospital since yesterday. Yesterday, five medical staff were injured from Israeli military gunfire,” Bakr said. “The roads outside the hospital have been destroyed by the Israeli military bulldozers. No ambulances are able to arrive to the hospital.”

Efforts by the Palestinian security forces over the last month to dislodge militant elements described as “outlaws” have largely failed.

Nearly 900 military checkpoints and gates have been set up across the West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to a statement from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a group affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of “collective punishment” against residents of the West Bank on Tuesday by sealing off of all entrances to Palestinian governorates, cities, towns, and refugee camps.

It said it considered the operation in Jenin to be “part of an official Israeli plan aimed at consolidating the occupation, imposing Israeli law, and the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.”

Some right-wing ministers in Israel have called for the annexation of parts or all of the West Bank, a view that has the support of some of US President Donald Trump’s nominees for office. In November, Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned as Israel’s National Security Minister last week over the Gaza deal, said it was time to apply Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.

More than 32,000 people have fled to towns in northeast Colombia as they attempt to escape a sharp rise in fighting between militant factions, according to the country’s ombudsman.

Iris Marín said the violence escalated last week in the Catatumbo region, displacing tens of thousands of people. Hundreds more remain confined to their homes and are unable to evacuate due to the ferocity of the clashes, Marín warned Tuesday in a video statement.

Colombian authorities say 80 people have been killed in the fighting.

Almost half of those displaced have flocked to the city of Cúcuta near the Venezuelan border. Officials there have launched a major campaign to shelter the more than 15,000 people who have arrived in recent days.

In Cúcuta, the city’s football stadium has been turned into a large welcome center, with thousands of displaced victims lining up to receive food, water and clothing from locals.

Many are also sheltering in hotels and the homes of relatives, Cúcuta Mayor Jorge Acevedo said, pledging to support those in need.

“We are going to address the emergency that is occurring. Total solidarity, respect, affection and love for these human beings who are arriving in the city of Cúcuta,” Acevedo said.

Violence in strategic drug production territory

The humanitarian crisis is a direct result of increased clashes between the National Liberation Army – ELN – and spin-off groups of the disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Both factions were founded around the 1960s and ‘70s as left-wing guerrilla groups, but are now mostly involved in drug trafficking and other criminal activities, according to Elizabeth Dickinson, Colombia senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The Catatumbo region in northeastern Colombia, where the crisis originated, is a strategic territory for both drug production and trafficking due to its proximity with Venezuela. The region has seen some of the highest levels of violence in modern Colombian history.

In response to the violence, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has suspended peace talks with the ELN, whose actions he described as criminal. On Monday, he said he would declare a state of internal unrest, but that decree has yet to be published or signed.

The Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday reactivated arrest warrants for 31 ELN members who were involved in peace negotiations. The judicial body said the move was due to “the evidence and the seriousness of the criminal acts” in the Catatumbo region.

The arrest warrants had been suspended since 2022, when Petro restarted the peace process with that armed group.

Some have criticized Petro’s “total peace” initiative which has attempted to reduce violence partly through negotiations.

“The crisis in Catatumbo should be a wake-up call for the Petro administration. Its ‘total peace’, coupled with the lack of effective security and justice policies, have allowed armed groups to expand their presence and brutal control over remote communities across Colombia,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

Evacuation efforts

The Colombian cities of Ocaña and Tibú have also received 11,503 and 5,300 displaced people respectively, Colombia’s ombudsman Marín said Tuesday.

Other victims have fled to neighboring Venezuela, a country that in recent years has seen far more people leaving its borders than entering due to spiraling economic and political insecurity.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said the country has implemented a humanitarian operation to help Colombian families that have arrived in the municipality of Jesus Maria Semprún near the border in recent days.

Colombia’s defense ministry said more than 400 evacuations have been carried out in the Catatumbo region since the uptick in fighting last week, while more than 5,000 soldiers and special forces unit have been deployed to Cúcuta.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement has released the crew of a cargo ship more than a year after its fighters hijacked the vessel in the Red Sea, as part of its campaign of attacks in support of Hamas in its war against Israel.

The Galaxy Leader’s 25-strong crew – comprising 17 Filipinos, three Ukrainians, two Bulgarians, two Mexicans and a Romanian – has been handed to mediators from Oman, the Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV reported Wednesday.

The crew’s release comes just days after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, bringing a reprieve to Palestinians in Gaza after 15 months of war. The Houthis had long said they would only wind down their campaign in the Red Sea once Israel halted its offensive in Gaza.

The crew had been held hostage since November 2023, when armed Houthis – descending from a helicopter bearing Yemeni and Palestinian flags – stormed the ship off the coast of Yemen.

The Houthi attacks forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through the Red Sea, one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, said the crew’s release was a “profound relief.”

“Today’s breakthrough is a testament to the power of collective diplomacy and dialogue, recognizing that innocent seafarers must not become collateral victims in wider geopolitical tensions,” he said.

Hans Grundberg, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, welcomed the “heartwarming” reports that the Houthis had “put an end to the arbitrary detention” of the ship’s crew for 14 months.

The Galaxy Leader sails under the flag of the Bahamas and is usually used to transport vehicles worldwide. It was among dozens of vessels targeted by the Houthis during their Red Sea campaign.

Eduardo de Vega, a Filipino foreign affairs official overseeing millions of Filipino migrant workers, said in March last year that little could be done to influence the Houthis except the end of hostilities in Gaza.

The Houthis – one side of Yemen’s civil war that has raged for more than a decade – played an outsized role during the past year of conflicts in the Middle East. As well as targeting ships, the Houthis fired a series of missile attacks at Israel.

Although most of the attacks were intercepted by Israeli air defense, Israel’s military responded with airstrikes of its own against Houthi targets in Yemen. The United States and United Kingdom, both allies of Israel, also carried out rounds of strikes against the Houthis.

A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan has been arrested following a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police said.

The suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 11:45 a.m. local (5:45 a.m. ET).

A 41-year old man and a two-year old boy were fatally injured, police said in a post on the social media platform X. Two seriously injured people were receiving hospital treatment.

Police said there was no indication of further suspects and no danger to the public.

The stabbing adds to a string of violent attacks in Germany that have raised concerns over security and stirred up tensions over migration ahead of parliamentary elections on February 23.

A Saudi doctor was arrested after a car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg on December 20, in which six people were killed and around 200 injured.