All Stories Archive

The Iranian government has ordered anti-American slogans to be removed from public places in Tehran, in a sign of the new rapprochement between the two countries. A spokesman for Tehran's municipality told the official IRNA news agency that the move is due to the lack of formal approval by...

The United Arab Emirates signed an aid agreement with Egypt on Saturday bringing its total support to the Egyptian economy since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi up to $4.9 billion, the state news agency WAM said. The aid package includes a $1 billion grant sent to Egypt in...

The Israeli government is set to announce the approval of 1,700 new housing units in illegal West Bank and Jerusalem settlements. Most of the homes will be built in the Shlomo settlement in occupied Jerusalem; the rest will be in other parts of the West Bank, said Maariv newspaper....

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has reported that the Syrian regime has submitted a preliminary report on the destruction of its chemical arsenal within the time specified by the international agreement. "On 24 October, the Syrian Arab Republic submitted a formal initial report on the...

The Ministry of Economy in the government of the Gaza Strip said on Sunday that the closure of the tunnels beneath the border with Egypt has caused heavy losses amounting to $230 million per month. The tunnels have in the past been described as "Gaza's lifeline" but are being...

The UAE's Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour Bin-Zayed has stated that Arab support for Egypt will not continue forever, therefore Egypt must think of innovative and unconventional solutions to help address the country's growing financial problems. In a meeting with Bin-Zayed, Egypt's interim Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi confirmed that...

Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on Monday morning hitting vacant land near a primary school in the north-east of the Gaza Strip. Dozens of children were traumatised by the strike, which Israel claimed was in retaliation for "four rockets" fired towards Ashkelon. A spokesman for the Palestinian health...

VIDEO Efraim Halevi, Israel's former Head of Mossad, has said that Israel could benefit from what he describes as a struggle between religion and modernity in the Middle East. Adopting an Orientalist view of the Arab and Muslim nations, while using a completely different framework for understanding his own...

A group of Palestinian refugees who fled to Gaza from the conflict in Syria have held a demonstration in front of the UNRWA headquarters in the beleaguered territory. They accuse the UN agency of neglecting them and their suffering, alleging that it has not supported them nor offered them...

Tal al-Mallohi's name should go down in history, the heroes of freedom are not just a number. The released female detainees should take their place under the sun, and their names, faces, countries must not be forgotten, including Tal al-Mallohi and her fellow liberated detainees. Yet, there are another...

Fatah's Central Committee has said that former member Mohammed Dahlan's false accusations against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prove that he is a conspirator. In a statement published by Wafa News Agency, the The Central Committee asserted that: "Dahlan is the last person entitled to discuss our national issues,...

The Palestinian Authority is ready to exchange land with Israel in a deal which will mean that 65 per cent of the illegal settlers and their homes will stay "within Israel", Haaretz has reported. The land swap will amount to 1.9 per cent of the occupied West Bank it...

A member of the Fatah delegation responsible for talks with Hamas told Al Quds Al Arabi on Sunday that his movement has called on Hamas to form a national consensus government with Mahmoud Abbas as its head. The faction is also being asked to set a date for parliamentary...

Forces within the Syrian opposition have escalated their stance against the Arab and international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, over his insistence that Iran should participate in the Geneva II Conference. Member of the National Coalition for the Opposition Syrian Forces, Samir Nashar, told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has apparently told John Kerry that his negotiators cannot carry on talking to the Israelis as long as settlement construction and expansion continues. Abbas told the US Secretary of State that the PA cannot accept more confiscation of Palestinian land and Israel's ongoing Judaisation of...

Kuwait's Administrative Court is considering an urgent motion demanding that it blocks a decision by the government to grant Egypt $5 billion in aid. Describing the decision by the Cabinet as "a serious waste of public money which violates the Constitution and the law", the motion before the court...

Israel has bulldozed the home of Ameen Showaiki in Beit Hanina neighbourhood of occupied Jerusalem. Witnesses said that the army bulldozers arrived at 4am. Soldiers broke into the house and forced the sleeping residents to leave before the demolition began. They were unable to remove any personal belongings, which...

A member of the Israel negotiating team had said the Palestinian Authority chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, has softened his opposition towards a proposed interim solution like that of the Oslo agreement, saying that he is looking to make "achievements." Israeli radio quoted members of the Israeli negotiating team as saying,...

The UN's Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories has suggested that the General Assembly should "seek an opinion" from the International Court of Justice about Israel's occupation. Richard Falk told the UN human rights committee that the UN should take this step if the current...

Immediately after the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, Israel announced plans to build 1,500 new settlements in the occupied Palestinian city of Jerusalem, as well as the construction of a new park near Silwan. As part of a deal with the Palestinian Authority (PA), earlier this week Israel released...

Saudi Arabia is asking for UN Security Council reforms to be comprehensive and to reflect the current plurality of the international community, including the interests of all UN member states. The acting head of the Saudi delegation to the UN, Abdul-Mohsin Elyas, made the request during a meeting to...

Israeli occupation forces have demolished another three-storey Palestinian building and arrested three more Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem. Owner Ayman Karsh said that Israeli soldiers told his family to leave the premises in Beit Hanina neighbourhood of the city before their bulldozers destroyed the building. The family was unable to...

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared that the joy of liberating 104 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails will be repeated a third and a fourth time, congratulating the freed prisoners. However he also said that the joy will not be whole unless all Palestinian prisoners are released from...

Bishop Alexius of the Roman Orthodox Church in Gaza has praised the safety and security enjoyed by Christians in the Gaza Strip under the rule of the Palestinian government headed by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Alexius told the German DW TV channel that: "our relationship with Hamas rule in...

Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad has issued a formal decree sacking Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jameel from his position. Jameel is alleged to have carried out meetings "without coordinating with the government", the Syrian news agency SANA said on Tuesday. Arab and foreign media sources said earlier that Jameel, who...

The Executive Committee of Fatah has accused former leading official Mohamed Dahlan of "assassinating" several of its members in the Gaza Strip and embezzling "millions of dollars". The accusation has been made as an anonymous Fatah official denied that President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to reconcile with Dahlan, who...

The Arab Forum on Asset Recovery has announced that it will prosecute deposed heads of state who are believed to have stolen public funds while they were in power. Speaking during a meeting in Morocco, the UK's spokeswoman on the Middle East and North Africa, Rosemary Davis, said that...

Israel's online economic magazine Globes is reporting that Israel has refused an American offer to solve the dispute with Lebanon over the maritime borders in the Mediterranean. According to the magazine, the continuing dispute over the borders could undermine the development of Lebanese area Block Nine, where excavation work...

Nobel Peace prize winner Tawakkol Karman, has donated her cash prize to a charitable institution which works with the families and victims of the Yemeni Arab Spring revolution. The 2011 Nobel laureate confirmed on her Facebook page that she has decided to donate the $500,000 prize money to the...

Israel is preparing for a new, "even fiercer" war against the people of the Gaza Strip, claims a senior Hamas official, and the preparations have exposed "US hypocrisy" yet again. Political Bureau member Dr Mousa Abu Marzook played down the significance of the threats made by the Israeli occupation...

In an editorial published on Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz condemned the amended version of the Contributors to the State bill that was supposed to soften the extreme discriminatory nature of the original version of the draft law. The amended bill was approved on Monday by the Ministerial Committee...

The Palestinian Primary Court in Ramallah has postponed a hearing against 16 members of Hamas for the thirteenth time. The reason given was the repeated absence of representatives from the Preventive Security Service, which is the claimant in the case against the Hamas men. The defendants were arrested more...

Israeli occupation forces have killed an unarmed Palestinian in clashes with civilians near the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The incident took place when a large Israeli military contingent entered Qabatiya, 6km south of the city centre. Medical sources said that Ahmed Tazaz'a, 20, was rushed to hospital...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked US President Barak Obama not to cut or delay American aid to Egypt amidst fears that the Camp David peace treaty may collapse. Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on Thursday that one of the key issues Netanyahu discussed with Obama when the two...

Israel's Maariv newspaper has reported that representatives of several Arab states met with Israeli officials last week in Glion, Switzerland to start preparing for an international conference to push for a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) free zone in the Middle East. According to the newspaper, representatives of Libya,...

Israel's Haaretz newspaper has reported that Israel is hoping to receive new information regarding Ron Arad, the Israeli pilot who has been missing since 1986, as part of a deal between Iran and Western intelligence agencies. According to the newspaper, "the deal includes the disclosure of information about Arad...

Amnesty International has urged the countries neighbouring Syria, and particularly Jordan, to keep their borders open to all those fleeing the conflict. In a new report published on Thursday, the organization asked for international support to help Jordan "put an end to border restrictions for refugees fleeing the armed...

Whilst the Israeli defence ministry is seeking further budget provisions, the Israeli finance ministry is insisting on budget cuts. The Defence minister has warned that this could affect army training programmes. Israeli media have reported fierce disputes between finance minister, Yair Lapid and defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, over the...

A leading official in Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, Zuhair Salem, has urged the Syrians to re-read the national, regional and international scene objectively as three years have passed since the outbreak of the revolution. Salem said, in a press statement on Thursday, "the Syrian revolution has been discredited since day...

The Gaza Strip ranks third across the Arab region in terms of poverty rates after Sudan and Yemen, according a World Bank report. The report finds that the poverty rate is 38 per cent in Gaza, 28 per cent in Lebanon, and 25 per cent in Iraq. Out of 144...

The Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip has denied the allegations made by Egypt's interim Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to the Egyptian media about the presence of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the Gaza Strip, including the group's Deputy Supreme Guide Dr Mahmoud Ezzat. Yusef Rizqah, a political advisor to...

The two leaders of Palestine's negotiating team, Dr Saeb Erekat and Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, have submitted their resignations to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Ma'an news agency. The resignations follow Israel's announcement that it plans to demolish 20 Palestinian buildings in occupied Jerusalem, leaving 16,000 Palestinians homeless....

The Israeli Air Force attacked a Syrian military base in Latakia on Thursday, according to a US official. The official, who preferred to remain anonymous, explained that the airstrike targeted Russian-made missiles that the Israelis believe were likely to be transported to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli media reported a...

"When the Nazis killed the Jews during the Holocaust in World War II, they numbered each person, and when that person's number was called he/she would enter the furnace. Today, the Jerusalem municipality sends us numbered demolition notices that do not carry the name of the building owner, but...

Israeli occupation forces killed three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis after they invaded the location where a tunnel between Gaza and Israel was revealed two weeks ago. Palestinian medical sources confirmed the death of the three Palestinians. They were identified as Khalid abu-Bakra, 35; Mohamed...

The US intelligence leak that confirmed Israeli warplanes attacked Syrian territories has stirred considerable anger in Israel, with officials accusing the US of causing damage to Israel. Israel's Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper reports that after the US leaked the information confirming that Israel's Air Force was responsible for the attack...

Four members of a Palestinian refugee family in Syria were killed on Friday night whilst trying to flee the continuous shelling of Palestinian refugee camps by Bashar al-Assad's army, Action Group for Palestinian Refugees in Syria said. According to Action Group, a number of other Palestinian refugees were wounded...

Israeli minister, Silvan Shalom, has said that negotiations with the Palestinians are continuing despite the serious difficulties facing them. During a radio interview on Saturday, Shalom said that the criticism directed by some countries' governments against Israel over settlement construction showed moral double standards. He said that settlement construction...

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS A number of families of Palestinian martyrs and those that have been wounded set up a protest in front of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) head office in the Gaza Strip. The families said that they are protesting against the continued cut of their salaries. The Palestinian...

Israeli newspaper Maariv has revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to order the construction of a wall along the border of the Jordan Valley, similar to the apartheid wall between the West Bank and Israel. The construction of the Jordan Valley wall will begin after the construction...