In Libya, Tripoli is like a ghost town as civilians leave, and the rebel National Transitional Council says it is moving its political leadership to the capital, Tripoli, from its eastern stronghold city of Benghazi. NATO joins the rebels in the hunt for Gadhafi.
Israel conducts airstrikes into Gaza, and the number killed, as claimed by the Palestinians, is 10.
Syria's best known political cartoonist is attacked and severely beaten by government forces.
In Yemen, the fighting continues, and officials say an airstrike has killed eight militants in the country's south.
Details after the break.
Instead of a bustling seaside capital of 1.5 million people, we drove Thursday past kilometer and kilometer of shuttered metal storefronts.
The city is stripped of people.
As shots rang in the distance, only an occasional car or pickup truck raced down glass-strewn streets.
Entering from the west, there are checkpoints at every block. Tense rebels dressed in tee-shirts, shorts and sandals manned roadblocks improvised from mattresses, even school desks.
Heavily armed, they were men from the mountains. Fifteen minutes after we left one beachfront hotel, a firefight erupted outside.
Meanwhile, Libya's rebel National Transitional Council says it is moving its political leadership to the capital, Tripoli, from its eastern stronghold city of Benghazi.
Council official Ali Tarhouni, in charge of financial matters, on Thursday declared "the beginning and assumption of the executive committee's work in Tripoli."
The announcement came as embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi urged his supporters to rise up and defeat the rebels trying to oust him from power.
In a short audio broadcast Thursday, he described his opponents as "rats" and denounced foreign countries for their involvement in the conflict.
Meanwhile, fierce gunbattles between pro-Gadhafi forces and opposition fighters continued in at least two areas of Tripoli.
In the Abu Salim neighborhood, a pro-Gadhafi stronghold, rebels have been conducting raids in search of Gadhafi loyalists. Opposition fighters have been pouring into Tripoli to help combat the remnants of pro-Gadhafi forces and were reportedly advancing toward the Libyan leader's hometown of Sirte, where his loyalists have been massing for a showdown.
Meanwhile, British Defense Minister Liam Fox said Thursday NATO is helping rebels in their hunt for Mr. Gadhafi and members of his government by providing the rebels with intelligence and reconnaissance equipment to aid in their search. However, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the alliance does not target individuals.
Israel:
Palestinian sources say the number of casualties from the latest round of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza has risen to 10 dead and at least 20 wounded.
Israeli warplanes carried out air raids over the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Thursday after Palestinian militants fired rockets into southern Israel.
More rockets struck southern Israel on Thursday.
Palestinian sources said at least one militant from the Islamic Jihad group was among those killed in the airstrikes.
Escalating retaliation
Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have traded attacks across the Gaza border for the past week, since militants crossed into southern Israel and attacked a bus, cars and security personnel on August 18. Eight Israelis were killed.
Pursuing the attackers, Israeli troops killed some of the assailants along Israel's border with Egypt's Sinai peninsula. Five Egyptian officers were also killed, sparking outrage and anti-Israel protests in Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered Thursday to hold a joint investigation with Egypt into the killing of the Egyptian officers. A statement issued by Netanyahu's national security adviser said military officials on both sides would set terms of the probe.
Egypt's military-backed government threatened to withdraw its ambassador to Israel to protest the killings. Egypt blamed the deaths on Israeli troops it said had violated the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
Syria:
Syrian security forces have attacked the country's best-known political cartoonist, beating him severely and leaving him hospitalized.
Human rights activists say passers-by found Ali Ferzat on a road outside Damascus on Thursday, after he was kidnapped, beaten and dumped on the side of a street.
A relative of Ferzat told Western media the attackers threatened to break Ferzat's bones as a warning for him to stop from drawing cartoons of government officials.
Bruised and bandaged
The Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera showed a man it identified as Ferzat lying on a hospital bed with his face badly bruised and his hand heavily bandaged.
Through his cartoons, Ferzat has become a noted critic of Syria's government and its five-month crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and dissent. Some of his drawings have mocked President Bashar al-Assad.
Government crackdown intensifies
In other news, activists say Syrian tanks have been shelling areas near the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, a flashpoint in the five-month-old uprising.
Yemen:
Officials in Yemen say an airstrike has killed eight militants in the country's south.
The officials said Thursday's strike targeted a position held by militants with suspected links to al-Qaida in Yemen.
On Wednesday, clashes between Yemeni forces and militants near Zinjibar in southern Abyan province killed at least 30 militants and seven soldiers.
Militants have taken control of several areas in southern Yemen during the six-month uprising pressing for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's resignation. Mr. Saleh remains in Saudi Arabia, where he is recovering from injuries sustained in a June attack on his presidential compound.
Government forces have been trying to remove the Islamist militants, but have made only modest headway after weeks of fighting and airstrikes.
Information for these reports compiled from articles at VOA News.
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