Several blasts hit a position held by Iraqi Shia paramilitaries next to Balad air base north of Baghdad on Tuesday, an Iraqi military official and a source in a paramilitary group said, reports Reuters. It was one of a series of explosions in recent weeks at weapons depots, bases...

Paraguay has included Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas on its list of terrorist organisations, along with Daesh and Al-Qaeda. Israeli media said Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the move and called on all countries around the world to follow Paraguay’s lead. Katz stressed that...

Traumatised patients who I see in my office often express negativistic mistrust when I ask them about their feelings: “It is humiliating to complain to anyone other than God”; “Don’t complain about injuries, don’t hurt anyone but yourself”; “Contain your pain in your aching heart to avoid the shame...

Israel’s ban on Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering the country is an effort to stop them doing their jobs, the officials said in a press conference yesterday. Speaking to member of the media, the pair explained that they had planned a trip to meet with members...

The US State Department has called on the Turkish authorities to remove its drilling vessels from the territorial waters around Cyprus and to cease immediately any “unlawful activities”. The demand comes as Turkey has established a significant presence in the waters off the Mediterranean island; its Yavuz, Fatih and...

Twenty-four-year old Raghad Mohamed was killed on Saturday at an Egyptian army checkpoint whilst walking in the city of Al-Arish with her mother, Al Jazeera Mubasher has reported. Raghad was killed just days before she was due to get married. Her death comes a week after a stray bullet...

With the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) facing a financial deficit of $150 million, PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat is calling upon the UN Secretary General to hasten the investigations into the allegations of corruption and misconduct at the agency. Now that the Netherlands, Belgium...

An Israeli businessman has spearheaded a multi-million dollar initiative to sell intelligence-gathering aircraft to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), ostensibly to spy on shared regional foe Iran. According to an exposé by Haaretz, Israeli businessman Matanya “Mati” Kochavi has supplied the UAE with surveillance planes as part of a...

A scheme intended to enhance the voice of Palestine globally and professionally has been launched in Nablus at the Second Conference for Palestinian Expatriates. The “Palestine Ambassador Initiative” will equip anyone wanting to present the Palestinian cause in the public domain with access to concrete facts and the skills...

China’s envoy has warned that there is a clear danger of a revival and resurgence of Daesh forces within Syria, and has urged for faster progress to be conducted for the political process between the Syrian regime and the opposition. Speaking to reporters after talks with the United Nations...

Egyptian authorities have enforced a presidential decree to demolish a Sufi mosque in Mahmoudiyah Road in Alexandria because it was allegedly built on state owned land without a license. السلطات المصرية تهدم مسجد أبو الإخلاص الزرقاني في الإسكندرية بحجة أنه يعرقل بناء مشروع تجاري في المنطقة. pic.twitter.com/x1yLzZp021 — شبكة...

Israel is actively pushing Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, asking a number of European and Middle Eastern countries to absorb them and offering to arrange their flights if they agree to emigrate. The policy was disclosed by a senior official accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a...

Al-Azhar University – Gaza closed its doors today in protest against the extension of the terms of its chairman. The Workers Union called for civil action after Abdel Khaliq Al-Farra was handed a three year extension to his term as chairman of the university The union went on to...

An Egyptian court has sentenced six people to death on charges of establishing a terror group between 2013 and 2015 and killing three people, Al-Khaleej Online reported yesterday. The Giza Criminal Court also sentenced 41 defendants, including 28 in absentia, to life in prison on similar charges, including possession...

Swiss prosecutors have ordered that an Israeli billionaire should stand trial on corruption and bribery charges allegedly involving a widow of the former President of Guinea, international news agencies have reported. Prosecutors in Geneva allege that the diamond-mining magnate Beny Steinmetz and two other defendants paid $10 million in...

The Jordanian parliament yesterday recommended the Israeli ambassador to Amman be expelled as a result of Israel’s violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Quds Press reported. Officials also called for re-evaluating the mutual treaties between the two countries. The recommendation was made during an emergency parliamentary meeting held to discuss the Israeli violations in...

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas sacked all of his advisers, Wafa news agency reported yesterday. The Fatah head also ordered former Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and his ministers repay money they received “illegally”. The ministers, Abbas ruled, must repay the funds in a single payment and not in instalments. The Palestinian Authority has been reeling as a result...

Eight Palestinian prisoners in Israel are continuing their open-ended hunger strike in protest at being held under so-called administrative detention having been neither charged with any offence nor put on trial, Arab48.com reported on Monday. According to the PLO’s Prisoners’ and Freed Prisoners’ Committee, the hunger strikers have been...

Countries that believe Palestinian refugees are a burden on their economies or on others should help Palestinians gain their right of return, Hamas chief abroad said in a statement. Released on the movement’s site the statement said measures such as those taken by Lebanon which quash Palestinian worker rights...

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen launched an attack on Monday on military targets in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthi movement, Saudi state TV and Reuters reported. The coalition advised civilians to stay away from the targeted areas, state TV added. Read: EU: Asylum applications from...

Turkey said an airstrike on a Turkish military convoy in northwest Syria killed three civilians and wounded 12 on Monday as Syrian troops advanced against rebels inside a key town, Reuters reports. Syrian government airstrikes hit near the convoy that was approaching front lines in Idlib province, two Turkey-backed...

An Israeli delegation “discreetly” visited the Republic of Chad early August to discuss economic cooperation between two countries, Israel’s Channel 13 had reported yesterday. The visit came in response to a recent invite by the Chad President Idriss Déby. The delegation, which was led by the Israeli economy and...

For the first time, Kurdish authorities yesterday handed over four children, whom parents were German Daesh fighters, to Berlin. Abdulkarim Omar, a Kurdish authorities’ spokesperson in Syria, told Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) that the children included “three orphans, a boy and two girls, and a six-month-old baby sick baby...

  Qatar announced on Monday the launching of the project to build the port “Hobyo” in the Mudug region in central Somalia. This came during a joint press conference, held in the capital Mogadishu, by the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim bin Saif Ahmed Al-Sulaiti, and the Minister...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came under pressure on Monday from the opposition Conservatives who warned against giving any assistance to Jack Letts – a dual citizen dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by the media – after Britain’s decision to strip him of his British citizenship, Reuters reports. Letts, who had...

An Iranian tanker at the centre of an angry confrontation between Iran and Washington sailed for Greece on Monday after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar, as Washington called the release unfortunate and warned Greece and Mediterranean ports against helping the vessel, Reuters reports. Tehran said any US...

Nasser Boudiaf, son of the late Algerian President Mohamed Boudiaf, accused four Generals of involvement in the murder of his father, pointing out that the assassination “was political par excellence.” In a post on his Facebook page, Boudiaf revealed on Sunday that he intended to officially file a complaint...

Sudan’s military junta announced, Monday, a 48-hour postponement of the council’s announcement. This came at the request of the Forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change so that it could settle on its list of the five candidates for the Council. This came in press statements to the...

Ousted President Omar Al-Bashir admitted receiving funds worth millions of Dollars from UAE and KSA. Al-Bashir’s confession came during the first session of his trial on a charge related to illegal dealing with foreign currency in Sudan. The ousted Sudanese president acknowledged receiving $ 90 million in cash from...

OPINION: The Palestinian cause on World Humanitarian Day...

Israeli Prime Minister’s wife Sara Netanyahu had to be restrained by security after her fury at not being welcomed by name by the pilot on her flight this weekend. According to the Jerusalem Post, Mrs Netanyahu reportedly attempted to force her way into the cockpit of the airborne El...

Six civilians were killed in a regime airstrike in the de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to the White Helmets civil defense agency. Three people were killed in the town of Maarat Al-Numan and three in the town of Hesh, Mustafa Haj Youssef, director of the White...

In the years before Syria’s war, the boatmakers of Arwad used to sell their wooden vessels along the Mediterranean coast down to Lebanon and up to Turkey, but the trade has withered, reports Reuters. The tiny island is one of the few places in Syria physically untouched by eight...

A Muslim convert who was stripped of his British citizenship after travelling to Syria to fight with Daesh said on Monday he hoped Canada, where he is a citizen, would take him from the Kurdish prison he is being held in, reports Reuters. Canada said on Sunday that it...

Turkey’s Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister has died in a car accident in the eastern province of Van, state broadcaster TRT Haber said on Monday, reports Reuters. Ahmet Haluk Dursun was in the eastern province of Mus for the anniversary of a battle between the Seljuks and the Byzantine...

READ: Haftar-linked armed gang kidnaps Libya lawmaker...

Egypt will soon reopen the century-old Baron Empain Palace after a $6 million renovation of the Indian-inspired mansion built by a wealthy Belgian engineer in the upmarket Heliopolis district of the capital Cairo, reports Reuters. Built in 1911, the two-story mansion fell into disrepair after Edouard Empain’s death in...

At the beginning of July, the UAE started to reduce its troop numbers in Yemen, signalling a shift in its military engagement. The move has been interpreted as a sign of the Emirates trying to distance itself from its main coalition partner, Saudi Arabia. Despite the troop drawdown, though,...

READ: Egypt torture conference ‘kafkaesque horror’, says head of revolutionary council ...

In recent months, Hamas has held a number of public political conferences in which it discussed its future, its internal and external developments, and its political and military relations. These conferences were attended by a number of its leader in Gaza, while many of its leaders abroad gave speeches...

The Palestinian Archbishop of Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Church, Atallah Hanna, has said that the March of Return rallies in the Gaza Strip are aimed at declaring and affirming that the Palestinian people are adherent to their national rights and constants, especially the inalienable right of return. “The message of the March...

Syrian government forces stormed the town of Khan Sheikhoun yesterday amid fierce clashes with armed opposition groups, leaving dozens dead. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government’s ground troops penetrated Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province for the first time since they lost control of it in 2014. Khan Sheikhoun is the...

What is happening to Muslims across the world? What is this persecution, violence and racism to which they are being subjected everywhere we look? Rohingya Muslims are still suffering in Myanmar. The men are being burned, the children killed and the women raped. They are being displaced from their...

The European Union (EU) invested over $115 million in Israeli-made unmanned drones to police the Mediterranean Sea. The Observer discovered three contracts with Frontex, the EU’s border and coastguard agency, and the European Maritime Safety Agency, totalling at $115 million with Israeli arms companies Elbit Systems, and state-owned Israel...

Israel’s police has drawn up new regulations restricting the rights to civil protests, with those who break them committing “criminal offences”. Despite the Israeli High Court of Justice having permitted the holding of demonstrations of any size without the necessity for a permit two years ago, police are exploiting...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to strike the already-besieged Gaza Strip regardless of the country’s upcoming general election. Speaking yesterday as he embarked on a two-day visit to Ukraine, Netanyahu said: “I heard comments that I am refraining from a large campaign because of the...

Bedouin in the city of Negila west of Marsa Matrouh are staging a sit-in to protest the confiscation of their land they say is being sold on to the UAE. أنباء عن قيام أهالي مدينة النجيلة غرب مطروح باعتصام مفتوح احتجاجاً على مصادرة مساحات شاسعة من أراضيهم الواقعة على...

Last week US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib rejected an offer from Israel to visit her grandmother in the West Bank village of Beit Ur Al-Fouqa, after she and fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar were banned from taking part in a diplomatic visit. Though Israel said it would allow Tlaib to visit...

The number of Saudi Arabian nationals who apply for asylum in the European Union (EU) has increased by 106 per cent within the first six months of 2019 alone, official figures released last week have shown. According to the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), the latest data shows that...

When Benjamin Netanyahu and three of his cabinet ministers cancelled the visit to Israel of Democratic US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, he no doubt thought that he had achieved a victory for “the only democracy in the Middle East”. Israel’s Prime Minister said...