An Israeli lawyer, Mordechai Tzivin, has filed charges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against President Abbas and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on the grounds of committing crimes against humanity. The case is the first of its kinds against the Palestinian political leadership. The move comes in the...

Israel has begun the construction of 114 new housing units in the Al-Khader neighbourhood of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem. An Israeli decision to commence construction in the area was issued two months ago. The organiser of the Popular Committee against the Israeli Wall in Al-Khader, Ahmed...

The Islamic Resistance Movement has said that Israel’s decision to reduce the fishing limit imposed on the Palestinians of Gaza from six nautical miles as agreed as part of the truce last November, to three nautical miles, is a violation of the terms of the deal. The truce between...

The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr Muhammad Badie, received Mr James Watt, British Ambassador in Cairo, in his office yesterday. At the beginning of the meeting, the British ambassador expressed his pleasure of meeting the Supreme Guide for the third time, and condemned the campaign of attacks...

The Hamas government in Gaza has congratulated Turkey for the apology it received from Israel over the killings on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010. It is, said the Islamic Resistance Movement in a press statement, a “great achievement” that Ankara was able to impose conditions on Tel Aviv which...

The Attorney General in Egypt has opened an investigation into the demonstrations which led to the storming of the Muslim Brotherhood’s office in the Moqattam district of Cairo. Many people were injured during the resultant skirmishes with security forces, as buildings were set on fire and damaged. According to...

Hundreds of Egyptian youths affiliated with Islamist parties have placed the Egyptian Media Production Cities (EMPC) under siege in protest at their ‘biased-media coverage’, several media sources said. A spokesman of the Egyptian government has said that the siege around the EMPC in the Sixth October city on the...

The Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza has confirmed that his government is ready for full cooperation with the Egyptians in the investigation into the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers near Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza-Israel border as they broke their Ramadan fast last August. Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement...

A prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said on Monday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is still subject to US pressure regarding internal reconciliation. “I blame Abbas and Hamas for the delay in the reconciliation process,” Rabah Mohana told MEMO. “Both parties have...

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES The Qatari Committee has begun the second phase projects in the Gaza Strip which include Salah al-Din Street and other subsidiary roads. This is one of the main roads in the Gaza Strip which connects the north to the south, and the first section of it is...

The Emir of Qatar has told the Arab League that it should hold a special meeting in Cairo to discuss Palestinian reconciliation. Shaikh Hamad bin-Khalifa al-Thani is hosting the current meeting of the League in Doha. “The extraordinary meeting,” said Shaikh Hamad, “should be chaired by Egypt and attended...

The Egyptian media has “misrepresented” the “thugs” who caused injuries and destruction as they tried to storm a Muslim Brotherhood office as “victims” in the incident. That’s the claim made by leading columnist Fahmi Howeidi who condemned media bias as a great threat to society. Such bias, he insisted,...

The Wadi Halwa Information Centre has given details about illegal Jewish settlers who attacked Palestinian residents of Silwan and the Old City in Jerusalem during the week March 16th-25th. The settlers, it is reported, used pepper spray against Palestinians, including children. On Monday morning, in Silwan, four Jewish settlers...

An extreme right-wing member of the Israeli Knesset (MK) has called for Jews to storm the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa this week to perform religious rituals for Passover, which coincides with the Christian Easter festival. Al-Aqsa Foundation for Religious Endowments and Islamic Heritage warned of the potentially serious consequences...

Israel’s new Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, has been in touch with Ahmed Davutoglu, the Foreign Minister of Turkey, over compensation for the victims of her country’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010. Nine Turkish citizens were killed during the assault by Israeli commandos as the Flotilla was in...

Israel Today newspaper has prepared a special report on the Arab armies in the Middle East; its title is telling; “Long Arm in the Region” is a reference to the Israel Defence Forces. It is claimed that the IDF is planning for a confrontation with Egypt. The report has...

The Israeli occupation is to charge five Palestinian minors whom it claims are responsible for causing a car accident that resulted in the injury to several Israeli settlers in Salfeet. The Centre for Palestinian Prisoners (CPP) said in a statement issued on Tuesday that the hearing was planned to...

An Iraqi parliamentarian has called for the permanent members of the UN Security Council to support Iraq against what she calls “Kuwaiti land expansion” at the expense of Iraq’s territory. In a statement, Alya Nasif of the Free Iraq List Coalition called on the Security Council, especially Russia, to...

Israeli occupation forces have arrested five senior Hamas activists in Hebron as part of an arrest campaign which has seen another five men taken into detention across the occupied West Bank. Those detained include a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mohamed Jamal Al-Natsha. Along with Hamas members Abdul-Khaleq...

Protected by Israeli police officers, a large number of rabbis and illegal settlers have entered Al-Aqsa Mosque to mark the Jewish Passover. The mosque is the third holiest place in Islam. According to a live despatch sent to MEMO on Wednesday morning, hundreds of Israeli rabbis and Jewish settlers...

Dr Mohammed Morsi has insisted that he will not allow anyone to “interfere” in his country’s affairs. The Egyptian president expressed his people’s appreciation of those who stood beside the revolution which ousted Hosni Mubarak and brought democracy. “However, we have no wish to involve ourselves in other countries’...

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has called for international support for sports and youth projects in the Gaza Strip. Suggested projects include the provision of additional green spaces, the repair of sports stadiums damaged in the recent Israel offensive against civilians in Gaza and building new arenas. In...

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES An Israeli human rights organisation has criticised its government’s reduction of the fishing limit for Gaza’s fishermen from six to three nautical miles. “This constitutes collective punishment and severely damages the livelihood of the fishermen,” said the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories...

The leader of Ghad Althawra Party has voiced his party’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. “We are not for pitting one party against another, said Dr Ayman Nour. “We are the voice of wisdom at a time when wisdom is lost and we will...

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has estimated that 400,000 Palestinian refugees are now affected by the conflict in Syria. The figure includes almost 5,000 who have fled to Jordan and around 33,000 who have sought refuge in Lebanon. These “double refugees”, said UNRWA, are in dire need...

Huge gaps have opened up between Turkey and Israel over the amount of compensation for the Mavi Marmara families as well as Israel’s position towards the Palestinians, Syrians and Kurds, media reports have claimed. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that Turkey wants Israel to pay $1 million to each...

Egypt’s Al-Watan newspaper has, it is alleged, been cooperating with Fatah in the dissemination of false information about the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. It has been claimed that one of Al-Watan’s competitors, Al-Ahram, pulled the story from its morning edition on Thursday after it was ready to reveal the...

Abdullah Al-Obeikan, the chairman of Combibloc, part of the Saudi Obeikan Group, has announced that his company is negotiating with the Egyptian government for land to build five packaging factories. The total investment envisaged is $271.5 million. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Al-Obeikan said, “We have discussed this...

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, has said that his movement does not pin any hopes on Barack Obama to find a solution to the Palestine-Israel issue. The judgement is based on an evaluation of the US president through the prism of Palestinian national interests, he...

The Israeli authorities allocated less than one per cent of so-called state land in the West Bank to the Palestinians, compared to 37 per cent to the illegal Jewish settlers, Haaretz newspaper reported on Thursday. The total area of such land in the occupied West Bank is just over...

The Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza travelled to Cairo on Saturday for discussions on several key Palestinian issues, including the latest call by the Emir of Qatar for a special meeting of the Arab League to look at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. The visit of the Palestinian Prime...

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES Participants at a major conference in Gaza have concluded that as the influence of America, Russia and the EU diminishes, regional security is depending more and more on Palestine’s. The shift has come about, said the gathering of academics and researchers, following the democratic change in the...

An air bridge between Saudi Arabia and Egypt’s El-Arish International Airport started on Monday to transfer medical supplies provided by the Kingdom to the Gaza Strip. The first flight carried about 10 tons of medicines and medical equipment, which will be driven from El-Arish to the Rafah border crossing....

More than half of current Jordanian MPs, who are seen to be carrying out a wave of long-awaited reforms, are facing corruption and criminal charges, the Jordanian daily newspaper Al-Ghad revealed on Monday. The Judiciary is awaiting Parliamentarian recess in order to resume calls for an investigation into members...

Despite the construction of a new security wall along the Israel-Egypt border, African migrants continue to cross into Israel illegally, Israeli media has said. A statement issued on Monday by the Israeli occupation forces said that they had arrested four African ‘infiltrators’ during April. They succeeded in crossing the...

Hundreds of Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank following the Tuesday morning stabbing of a settler by a local man. Salam al-Zaghal, 24, stabbed his victim and then used the settler’s gun to shoot at police before being wounded and taken to hospital under armed...

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accused the current incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu of exaggerating the Iranian nuclear threat, called for a two-state solution with the Palestinians and predicted the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Speaking at the annual Jerusalem Post conference held in New York on Sunday, Olmert...

Israeli Economics and Trade Minister, Naftali Bennett, supported by Finance Minister, Yair Lapid, has suggested a draft law that obliges the government to put any political agreements with the Palestinians to a referendum, an Israeli daily said on Sunday. The Israeli newspaper Maariv revealed that a meeting on the...

The Iraqi authorities have suspended the broadcast licences of Al-Jazeera and nine other TV channels. Al-Jazeera has been told to stop all its operations and activities in the country. The Iraqi Information and Media Commission justified the decision by referring to what it called “biased media coverage for the...

With regards to the debate on whether chemical weapons were used in Syria, “Maariv” wrote on its website that there are differences in opinion within Israeli intelligence agencies regarding “who serves Israel’s security interests better; the al-Assad regime or the resistance.” The newspaper mentioned that the Israeli Prime Minister,...

Jewish settlers have set fire to several cars belonging to the United Nations and Palestinian-owned gardens in Jerusalem during their celebrations of the so-called Lag B’Omer Festival, during which bonfires are lit. According to the Wadi El-Helwa Information Centre, nine UN vehicles in the Mount Scopus district and the...

Head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has announced that he is to visit the Gaza Strip on May 8 with a delegation of senior sheiks for a three-day tour, the Qatari newspaper Al-Arab said on Monday. “I have decided to visit the Gaza...

Experts in Israel have concluded that Hamas has been able to preserve its power base and authority in the Gaza Strip despite Israel’s blockade and military offensives. This conclusion was reached at a seminar organised by the Jerusalem Institute for Public and State Studies which was attended by experts...

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS One Palestinian has been killed by a missile fired from an Israeli drone in the Gaza Strip. The attack took place while the victim was riding his motorcycle in the south-west of Gaza City. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health identified the dead man as Haitham...

The President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, has ordered the release of 103 Egyptian prisoners who are serving sentences for various crimes. According to the Emirates News Agency, the decision includes writing-off the fines imposed on the prisoners as part of their sentences.  ...

Palestinian Christians in the village of Beit Jala in the occupied West Bank have written an open letter to Pope Francis in protest at the Israeli decision to build a Wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem for the benefit of the illegal Jewish settlements. The Pope has been urged to...

In the first bill to be proposed in support of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, a Member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home Party – a partner in the coalition government – has asked that the Knesset’s agenda include discussions of a bill permitting settlers...

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Zuhair Salem, asserted that a number of domestic and international reports have reliably confirmed that the Syrian regime’s forces used chemical weapons against the Syrians rebels, in spite of the red line that American President Barack Obama has drawn. In a...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was understandably eager to swiftly and privately sign the famous Jerusalem agreement, over a month ago, which gave the Jordanian monarch religious authority over the holy sites in Jerusalem. Abbas’s keenness for secrecy reached the point that his office’s staff had no knowledge of the...

Israel has handed evacuation orders to 100 Palestinian families in the northern Jordan Valley so that its troops can carry out military exercises. The families were ordered to leave their homes by Monday morning. Palestinian officials and activists said that the area has been changed to a “military zone”...