A source told the Arabi21 newspaper that the Egyptian army has established a training camp to host Libyan rebels affiliated with the leader of the attempted coup, General Khalifa Haftar, and the leader of the National Forces Alliance, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, who is currently living in the...

The following is a statement from UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness: Since the beginning of 2013, UNRWA has observed a sharp increase in the number of Palestine refugees killed and injured during law enforcement operations carried out by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem....

The Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad movement, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, has said that his movement is willing to enter the Palestinian Liberation Organisation if there are new political and organisational foundations for the organisation. In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, Shallah observed that the meetings held...

The head of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood, Bashir Al-Kabti, said on Tuesday that he and his group operate under the umbrella of the rule of law. He rejected the accusations of terror made by the retired army general, Khalifa Haftar, and said that by announcing a freeze on the work...

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ahsrawi said that the US has partially withdrawn from directly intervening in the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis. According to Al-Araby Al-Jadid news website, Ashrawi gave an interview to official Palestinian radio on Tuesday, in which she explained that: “There are attempts by...

The Presidential Election Commission announced the names of the two candidates who will run for presidency in Egypt, namely Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and his shadow Hamdeen Sabahi, who was not able to meet the election eligibility requirements in accordance with the defective candidacy law customised by the interim president...

In keeping with previous declarations, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have signed agreements pertaining to taxation, energy and health, at the presidential Miraflores palace in the Venezuelan capital Caracas. Abbas’s third visit to Venezuela enhanced the foundations agreed upon in previous visits during the late...

A reinforced siege has turned the Gaza Strip into a “tinderbox”, while the West Bank economy remains stunted by a “labyrinth of restrictions” – that’s the stark message of a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The report, prepared for the ILO’s upcoming 103rd session, highlights the...

A senior IDF officer has told a Knesset committee that military training in live-fire zones in the West Bank “is used as a way of reducing the number of Palestinians living nearby, and serves as an important part of the campaign against Palestinian illegal construction”, according to a report...

Israeli media reported that Shabak assassinated a leader of the Hamas movement in West Bank by using poison ten years ago. According to the Voice of Israel, the two journalists Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, intelligence specialists, revealed in their new book that Shabak ten years ago attempted to...

The Islamic Movement confirmed that a wiretapping device was concealed inside a telecommunication box installed by a Bezeq (Israeli telecommunications company) employee in the office of Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, chairperson of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Islamic Movement reported that a Bezeq employee arrived at the Movement’s offices...

Cut once more to the scenario of General Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sisi in Egypt, but this time in Libya after its failure in Tunisia. This is not the first time that retired Brig. Gen. Khalifah Belqasim Haftar has tried to topple the ruling authorities in his country, Libya. He did...

The arrest of blogger Azyz Amami and photographer Sabri Ben Mlouka for the possession and use of marijuana in accordance with Tunisia’s notorious Law 52, a legacy of former President Ben Ali, has sparked debate about the law’s judicial practice. On the evening of May 12, blogger Azyz Amami...

The daughter of Egypt’s ousted President, Mohammed Morsi, said on Monday that former defence minister, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and army leaders, before his ouster, offered her father political asylum in a state of his choice as well as other privileges and money in return for stepping down but he...

The interior ministry in the Hamas government in Gaza Strip has accused “subversive parties” in the West Bank of hampering Palestinian reconciliation efforts by persisting with political arrests and summoning the movement’s supporters. The interior ministry’s media spokesman, Iyad al- Bozm said in a statement on Tuesday “the continued...

Saudi Press Agency, SPA, reported that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Spain have signed on Monday a security cooperation agreement. The agency said that Saudi interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Spanish minister of state for foreign affairs, Gonzalo de Benito signed the agreement on behalf of...

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government is facing a diplomatic crisis after failing to convince the world to reject the would-be Palestinian reconciliation government which is set to include Hamas. Israel has also failed to convince the international community to pressure Hamas to recognise Israel and stop violence, according to the...

Lebanon’s former Prime Minister and Head of the Future Movement, Saad Hariri has met with the Free Patriotic Movement leader, MP Michel Aoun to discuss the power vacuum as the next vote to choose Lebanon’s president scheduled on May 25, before the constitutional deadline expires. Observers believe that Hariri...

23 per cent of the food supply available to approximately 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza is contaminated because of illegal pesticides and a shortage of spare parts for related machinery, according to a study by the Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights (MCHR). Quds Net news agency reported on...

Gunmen have attacked the UAE embassy in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, leading to the departure of the Emirati Ambassador and the Embassy staff, Libyan activists reported. According to Libyan sources the attack comes as Libyan forces accuse the UAE of supporting retired General Khalifa Haftar and his National Libyan army...

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called for Israel to make efforts on all levels to acquire at least observer status in the Organisation of African Unity. Al-Quds news reported that during a Knesset meeting titled “gathering for the sake of Africa”, Lieberman reportedly hailed the economic developments in...

Assistant Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri warned on Monday that his country would not allow the Americans to cross Iran’s “red lines”. Iran’s official news agency IRNA quotes Jazayeri as saying: “We don’t allow the Americans and others to cross our redlines and...

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has announced that the death toll in Syria’s three-year revolution has exceeded 162,000. Amongst the dead there were more than 80,000 civilians, 8,600 children, 5,570 women, 27,000 rebel fighters and 2,300 Syrian army troops who defected and joined the rebels, the Observatory said...

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya, UNSMIL called on Monday for all Libyan parties to immediately cease all military actions and address differences through political means instead of violence and threats to the country and citizen’s security. UNSMIL expressed deep concern over the current violence in the country,...

Sixty-six years after the establishment of Israel (1948-2014), the Arab minority inside the Green Line are facing significant challenges, mainly the call by some Israelis – led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman – to expel as many Palestinians inside the Green Line as possible to the West Bank or...

The following notes come from a very important conversation with General Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi, which were not allowed to appear in Egyptian newspapers that normally publish interviews with presidents and world leaders. The only fault to this interview appears to be that it was published by Reuters on Saturday,...

The University of Haifa in Israel has announced that it will be giving Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last president of the apartheid-era in South Africa, an honorary PhD next week. In recent days, the University of Haifa caused outrage after the administration expelled two Arab students for organising...

Legal experts considered the recent presidential decree to raise the president’s monthly salary from EGP 2000 ($280) to EGP 42,000 ($5,900) as a return to “tailored laws” since it is widely believed to be designed for the most likely winner in the presidential race, Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. Professor of Law...

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” This is what W C Fields might now be saying to a US-backed rebel Libyan general who has now tried twice to stage a military coup and failed each time....

Two Palestinian fishermen were wounded on Monday night when Egyptian marine forces targeted their fishing boats while approaching Egyptian waters, Palestinian security sources said. Rassd news website quoted the spokesperson of the Palestinian ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qedra, as saying that Palestinians Abdul-Aziz Soboh, 25, and Khalil al-Bardaweel, 24,...

Senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk is to leave the Gaza Strip for Cairo on Tuesday through the Rafah Crossing, an informed source told Turkish news agency Anadolu. Abu Marzouk is to return to Cairo to attend the wedding of his son. The source, who spoke on condition of...

Egyptian authorities issued a travel ban to and from Libya starting from Tuesday until the security situation in Libya improves, a security official told Anadolu news agency. According to General Anani Hamouda, Matrouh Secrurity Director, the Sallum Port security directorate received orders, effective on Tuesday, to stop Egyptians from...

The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie said in a speech before the court Sunday that “the real terrorists are those who killed worshippers and burned the wounded to death.” Badie was referring to the Rabaa massacre where police and army troops violently broke up the...

British parliamentarian George Galloway said that although the Muslim Brotherhood committed mistakes, it should not be excluded from the political arena in Egypt. In an interview with the Austrian daily Der Standard published Monday, Galloway said: “it is not possible to rule Egypt without the Muslim Brotherhood, and it...

Member of the political bureau of Hamas movement Mahmoud Al-Zahar said that remarks by Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi regarding his movement constitute a testimony that Hamas is not a terrorist group. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Monday, Al-Zahar stressed that Hamas is not related to the Anasr Bait Al-Maqdes...

On the 26th and 27th May, Egypt will go to the polls to vote in a controversial presidential election. There are only two candidates: former Field Marshall Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi and underdog liberal candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. Al-Sisi, who left his post as head of the army in March so...

In an escalation of the attacks on the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor speaks Monday at an event targeting the rights of Palestinian refugees. The day conference, ‘UNRWA – Providing Humanitarian Relief or Prolonging...

The Popular Committee against the Siege organised a sea rally in the Gaza sea against the Israeli siege and in memory of those killed on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship, with supporters from Miles of Smiles 27 convoy and Jordanian and Algerian delegates, along with two foreign supporters, as...

We should not be talking about a Nakba, or catastrophe, to describe the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis, Professor Ilan Pappe told the guests at Interpal’s Nakba Narratives event in central London on Sunday evening. “Describe it for what it is, ethnic cleansing, which is a crime against...

Palestinian-Egyptian choir singer Mahmoud Sameh recounts the difficulties of commemorating his people’s expulsion from Palestine under the current political climate in Egypt. The political situation for Palestinians in Egypt, especially regarding public demonstrations, has been difficult for a very long time. Under the guise of Egyptian “national security”, much...

Egyptian presidential candidate Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi knows that if he wants to restore Egypt’s responsibility on the Palestinian issue, he must not ignore Hamas and the Israeli-Egyptian siege on Gaza, Israeli analyst Zvi Bar’el has said. Bar’el, the Middle Eastern affairs analyst for Israeli Newspaper Ha’aretz, expected that Egypt was...

Iraq’s State of Law Coalition, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is said to have won majority of votes in the country’s Parliamentary elections winning 96 seats out of the Parliament’s 328 seats, Iraqi Media Network reported on Sunday. The Network quoted official sources in Iraq’s Independent High Electoral...

The Israeli government has decided to postpone moving its ministerial offices to Jerusalem for five additional years; Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported. The newspaper pointed out that the government took the decision during its weekly cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who endorsed the decision. The paper noted...

The Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners and Freed Prisoners is to hold a meeting on Monday with the EU representatives and ambassadors from other countries, in Ramallah to give update about the latest situation of the Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails. “We will lay the responsibility for the hunger...

The Jordanian government is negotiating with Israel to import its natural gas to substitute the Egyptian gas for the same price; Jordan Al-Ghad newspaper said on Monday quoting an unnamed government official. The source said the price the Jordanian government is negotiating with the Israeli side is $4.5 per...

The Israeli District Planning and Building Committee approved on Sunday a plan to annex more than 700 dunams to build the National Gardens on lands belonging to Palestinians living in Issawiya and Al-Tur neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem. The Arab Centre for Alternative Planning (ACAP) and Adalah, in coordination...

Head of the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission Rafik Natsheh has revealed that Jordan would soon hand over three Palestinian officials accused of embezzling public funds, Arab media reported. An informed official told Rai Al-Youm news website that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had also officially submitted orders to Egypt and other...

Egyptian presenter Osama Kamal did not expect the reply from chief political commentator and journalist Peter Oborne, of the British Daily Telegraph, when he asked him about the Muslim Brotherhood. Oborne affirmed that it is a great political movement, not only in Egypt, but also in the Middle East...

Ali Benflis, an unsuccessful candidate in the last Algerian presidential elections, announced on Sunday his opposition to the amended draft constitution which the presidency presented, as well as the discussion by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika due to take place in June. Benflis (70) said in a statement today, “we need...

The Israeli Magistrate Court issued on Monday a suspended 6 months sentence to the head of the Islamic movement inside Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, and a fine of 9,000 Shekel (2600 dollars) in the case known as karama crossing. (Allenby Crossing according to Israel National News) Zahi Nujeidat, the...