All Stories Archive

The head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, confirmed that the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip is ready for all possibilities, stressing at the same time the need to deter Israel's aggression and lift the siege of Gaza, Assabeel newspaper reported. Speaking on the telephone on Thursday with...

Hamas's spokesperson in Gaza Sami Abu-Zuhri has denied the reports that a ceasefire agreement had been agreed between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, telling Agence France Press that: "The news about a ceasefire is incorrect." International media initially reported an Israeli official who said that...

In a UK parliamentary debate yesterday, Conservative MP, Robert Halfon, posited the "Jordan solution" as an answer to the question of a Palestinian state. The debate, titled the Middle East and North Africa, saw a number of MPs from all parties take part covering a range of countries, but...

Speaking this morning as Israeli forces continue a new ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described the IDF as "a moral army like no other". He added: "those responsible for the damage to uninvolved civilians are the Hamas, and Hamas alone, who use civilians as...

In the height of the summer, with nowhere to shelter from the sun, a group of people stand waiting to enter the UNHCR offices in Rabat, Morocco. Ahmed, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, says he has been waiting more than three hours for a 9am appointment....

In the height of the summer, with nowhere to shelter from the sun, a group of people stand waiting to enter the UNHCR offices in Rabat, Morocco. Ahmed, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, says he has been waiting more than three hours for a 9am appointment....

French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, scheduled in Paris tomorrow, to be banned citing the violence that erupted between them and pro-Israeli demonstrators last week. On Sunday, Paris witnessed marches in support of Palestine. The demonstrations were attended by 30,000 people according to protesters, or...

Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek strongly condemned on Friday Israel's ground operation in the Gaza Strip, which was launched late Thursday evening, saying it is totally unacceptable, Anadolu news agency reported. The news agency quoted Cicek as saying that: "It is time for everyone to say enough of this...

The government of Kurdistan has started to import medical supplies from Turkey as it has been unable to ship them from Baghdad due to the deteriorating security situation and the stopping of cargo flights between Baghdad and Erbil, the Minister of Health of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Dr Rekawt...

There has been a 40 per cent reduction in trade in Israeli cities since Israel began its military operation in Gaza, Israel's Channel Two said today. Since July 7, Israel has waged raids across the Gaza Strip in a military operation it calls "Operation Protective Edge". Channel Two reported...

Dozens of Palestinians, including children, suffered from suffocation on Thursday due to inhaling what is being described as a "strange toxic gas" launched by the Israeli army during its ground incursion in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency reported. Anadolu quoted Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra,...

While "social justice" was one of the primary demands of the popular uprising in 2011, the time since such calls reverberated around the streets and squares of Cairo has seen the turmoil-ridden country burdened by continuous unrest. Not only is the economy shattered but there is also anything but...

So now we know. The Egyptian ceasefire initiative was neither an initiative in the sense that anyone had consulted one of the combatants. Nor was it Egyptian. According to Arabi21, the initiative was concocted by the Israelis and Tony Blair. Further, it was published, against US wishes, to stymie...

Turkey's Human Rights Investigation Commission will hold an emergency meeting this afternoon in response to Israel's ground assault on the Gaza Strip which started late last night, the chairman of the organisation said earlier today. In a statement to Anadolu news agency, Ayhan Sefer Ustun said that following the...

President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz met on Thursday in Brussels with Nikos Anastasiades, the president of the southern part of the island of Cyprus, and reiterated the EU's commitment to resolving the Cyprus question. According to the official media statement, Schulz stressed that the EU needs "a...

Germany's security council approved the sale of Tanin submarines to Israel; they were received by Tel Aviv secretly last month. According to the German news agency DPA, the board also approves the sale of parts for the development of two submarines to Colombia, as well as spare parts, especially...

The Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas, this morning announced that they had struck the southern Israeli city of Dimona with two M75 rockets. The group said in a press statement that: "The mujahedeen were able to attack Dimona with two homemade M75 missiles." Yesterday...

The Israeli army announced thwarting an attempt by 13 Hamas fighters to infiltrate Israel via an underground tunnel from GAza The Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said Thursday that a group of its fighters had managed to infiltrate Israel in the early hours ofThursday and return...

This week, Lebanon's border with Israel has seen escalating unrest agitated by the current aggression against Gaza. On Tuesday, Israel unleashed an artillery salvo on the outskirts of villages near the southern port city of Tyre. Inhabitants reported that the shelling took place around the Palestinian refugee camp of...

The Palestinian American teenager whose savage beating by Israeli soldiers was caught on camera returned home to the United States on Wednesday. Fifteen year old Tariq Abu Khdeir had reportedly attended a protest for his cousin, Muhammed Abu Khdeir, when he was seized by Israeli soldiers, beaten and detained....

Former Second Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hassan Khreisheh said the Egyptian ceasefire initiative with its present terms aims "to save the Israeli occupation of its predicament in the Gaza Strip" and "to undermine the Palestinian resistance strategic achievements". Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Quds...

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, yesterday penetrated the messaging system of the Benjamin settlement council near Ramallah, in central West Bank, and sent threatening message to the settlers, Israeli media revealed. One message said: "To the Israeli public: your government claimed yesterday it had stopped firing but...

A senior official at the UAE's Ministry of Oil said that the UAE is considering an Egyptian request to renew oil aid in the last third of 2014. The official's statements come after a surprise visit by Egypt's three ministers of finance, oil and investment to the UAE. The...

Egypt has always been an important regional power. During the three decades that Hosni Mubarak was in power, it was a key ally of the west in the Middle East, helping the United States with counter-terrorism and its diplomatic wrangling. The country had a peace deal and unofficial alliance...

Iraq is losing about $2.8 billion a month due to the suspension of exports from the country's northern regions, the country's Oil Ministry announced. Assem Jihad, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry, told the Anadolu news agency that Iraq is losing about $1.5 billion per month, due to...

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced Thursday that some 20 rockets had been discovered hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. The UNRWA statement issued by spokesperson Chris Gunness said that those responsible were guilty of "a...

The Chairman of the Committee on Foreign, Political and National Security Affairs of the Arab Parliament, Muslim Ben Ali Maashni yesterday demanded Israeli leaders be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court for "their crimes against humanity". Maashni's remarks came during the committee's emergency meeting at the Arab League's headquarters...

  Several European Union parliamentarians have made it clear that they hold Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his policies responsible for the crisis engulfing the country. Their remarks came during a session on Wednesday evening at which the situation in Iraq was discussed. According to Benedetto della Vedova,...

Following a recent perfunctory visit to Gaza, UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl issued a statement detailing the horrific statistics of Israel's atrocities in the enclave. Embellished with the usual "worry", "urgency" and "alarm", Krähenbühl evoked the fragmentation of Palestine within the so-called humanitarian language beloved of UN organisations. Statistics...

Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces prevented on Wednesday several Palestinian marches from reaching Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, Anadolu news agency reported. " security services stopped a massive march, called for by the Palestinian popular forces, from reaching an Israeli checkpoint near the Israeli settlement of Beit...

Turkey's IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation has delivered €250,000 worth of medical aid to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in the framework of its "Be the Remedy for Gaza" campaign. In a statement issued yesterday, IHH announced that the "Be the Remedy for Gaza" will continue as part of the foundation's...

The Algerian Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs, Mohamed Issa, called on Wednesday upon the Jewish community in Algeria to disown "Zionist acts" in Palestine as a condition to reopen the Jewish synagogues in the country, Al-Alam Online news website reported. Al-Alam Online quoted Issa as saying that the...

A temporary UN-brokered ceasefire has been in place over the Gaza Strip today, Thursday. The agreement was for all military operations to stop between 0700 and 1200 GMT. A spokesman for Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said that resistance groups agreed to accept the UN proposal "to attend to humanitarian...

The Chairman of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani criticised Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and held him responsible for the fall of Mosul to ISIS militants, saying that Al-Maliki is an unpopular figure. In a statement posted on his official website, Rafsanjani said: "The Iraqi army did...

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu-Zuhri said in a press conference on Wednesday that his movement would not accept any ceasefire without meeting its conditions, Anadolu news agency reported. Abu-Zuhri also said that Hamas had informed Cairo about its official response to the Egyptian ceasefire initiative, which his movement heard about...

Ninety per cent of aircrafts parked at Tripoli International Airport have been destroyed and two people were killed during an attack against the airport on Monday night, government spokesman Ahmed Lamine said on Tuesday. Lamine pointed out that the Libyan government is considering the possibility of requesting the intervention...

For the third time in five years, the world's fourth largest military power has launched a full-scale armed onslaught on one of its most deprived and overcrowded territories. Since Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip began, just over a week ago, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed. Nearly...

A Palestinian informed source revealed on Thursday that Hamas has introduced five ceasefire conditions, Felesteen Online reported. The informed source, whose condition was to remain anonymous, reportedly told Anadolu news agency that Hamas has five conditions for any potential ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which will be presented to...

The blatant aggression against the Gaza Strip we are witnessing affects anyone who has a heart, as Israel's destruction and barbarism are unprecedented and worse than any I have seen in my life. The horror of today's attacks is incomparable with any of the raids and wars against the...

Since Israel began its latest brutal aggression against the people of Gaza, a number of articles in the Arab media have included statements blaming the Palestinians for resisting the occupation forces and for daring to confront Israel by firing rockets. The individuals who have these opinions, and who have...

A UK-based human rights group has called upon the British and other European governments to put an end to the activities of Zionist organisations which recruit volunteers to work for the Israeli Defence Forces. The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) pointed out that these...

Responding to a UN call, a Hamas official said that his movement had accepted a five-hour long humanitarian truce on Thursday starting at 10 am Gaza local time. The official told Anadolu news agency that Hamas discussed the issue internally and consulted with other groups fighting on the ground...

Former Israeli intelligence chief Efraim Halevy called for negotiations with Hamas, even though it is "inconvenient politically" for both sides to admit this. His remarks came during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. "Hamas is a very bad option, undoubtedly. But there are worse options than Hamas,"...

As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues, international solidarity with the people of Gaza has only grown, with protests, vigils, and the like happening all around the world. But solidarity has always been ever-present in the Palestinian refugee camps of southern Lebanon. Established in the aftermath of the 1948...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani discussed a draft ceasefire initiative that would be proposed as an alternative to the Egyptian one, Palestine Online news website reported. According to Turkish journalist Muhammad Zahid Gul, the initiative "will be publicised in the coming...

Tony Blair played a pivotal role in drafting the so-called Egyptian Ceasefire Initiative in a bid to hinder a Qatari truce initiative, Arabi 21reported. According to informed sources quoted by the London-based Arabi 21, Qatar has been reaching out to different parties in the conflict in order to broker...

A Cairo-based Hamas leader confirmed yesterday that he submitted his movement's official rejection of the Egyptian truce proposal to the Egyptian government. Hamas spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri, said earlier that Hamas rejected the Egyptian initiative from the beginning, but sent its official rejection yesterday following "internal consultations". Informed sources...

The Egyptian government has cancelled subsidies on natural gas and cut bread subsidies by 13 per cent in the new budget of fiscal year 2014/2015, an Egyptian official said yesterday. In the previous fiscal year, 2013/2014, natural gas subsidies amounted to eight billion Egyptian pounds ($1.12 billion). "Subsidies on...

The Sisi regime in Cairo is a crucial ally to Israel in its efforts to crush Palestinian resistance, Israeli commentator Ron Ben-Yishai said on Tuesday. In his column for Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ben-Yishai said that the Egyptian regime, led by President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, is working jointly with Israel...

On the eighth day of Israel's most recent assault on the Gaza Strip, a senior officer in the Israeli military commented on the overnight bombing of the house of senior Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades figure Marwan Issa. "You call it a home", the anonymous official said, "we call it...