Marcus Fakana could face two decades in jail for having sex with girl, also from London, while on holiday in UAE
An 18-year-old man from London could be jailed in the United Arab Emirates after having sex with a 17-year-old girl.
Marcus Fakana, from Tottenham, was on a family holiday in Dubai when he met the British girl, who is also from London and has since turned 18.
Continue reading...Woman says French-Algerian writer’s prize-winning Houris uses her story as she told it to therapist Aicha Dehdouh
Two complaints have been filed in Algeria against the French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud, the winner of France’s most prestigious literary award, and his wife, a therapist, alleging that they used a patient’s life story as the basis for his prize-winning novel.
The writer, the first Algerian novelist to be awarded the Prix Goncourt, won this year’s prize for his novel Houris, a fictional account of a young woman who lost her voice when an Islamist cut her throat during the country’s brutal 1992-2002 civil war.
Continue reading...Amos Hochstein to meet Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday after Beirut discussions over deal to end fighting
The US envoy Amos Hochstein has said there is “positive progress” towards a ceasefire in Lebanon after talks in Beirut aimed at ending 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hochstein has met Lebanese officials over the past two days after Hezbollah indicated it had agreed to the text of a US ceasefire proposal, although with some comments. He said on Tuesday that the gaps between Hezbollah and Israel had “narrowed”, raising optimism about a deal between the two parties.
Continue reading...UN inspectorate chief calls Tehran’s move a ‘concrete step in the right direction’, amid threat of restored sanctions
Iran has offered to keep its stock of uranium enriched up to 60% – below the purity levels required to make a nuclear bomb – the head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, has confirmed amid the threat of restored European sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
“I think this is … a concrete step in the right direction. We have a fact which has been verified by us. It is the first time Iran has agreed to take a different path,” Grossi said in Vienna on Tuesday.
Continue reading...WHO says hijacking by armed men has aggravated already severe scarcity of food, medicine and other aid
Food prices have soared in Gaza after the looting of nearly 100 aid trucks amid an already severe food crisis caused by more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas.
This weekend’s hijacking of 98 lorries of a 109-strong convoy by armed men – the biggest such attack to date – has aggravated food, medicine and other aid shortages, according to a World Health Organization spokesperson, Margaret Harris. “It’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in,” she said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Draft resolution for UN general assembly seeks to protect the aid agency and allow it to keep functioning in Gaza
Norway is to seek an international court of justice (ICJ) advisory opinion condemning the Israeli government for ending cooperation with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa.
The Israeli Knesset passed two bills last month banning Unrwa from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli state contact with the agency, moves that would prevent it from delivering aid to Gaza, after allegations by Israel that members of Unrwa staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas. The UN launched an investigation into the Israeli claims and fired nine Unrwa staff as a result.
Continue reading...Huge rise in attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers killed 171 children in year after 7 October
Mohammad was 12, a football-mad teenager who spent his days dreaming of a career on the pitch and his last minutes practising ball skills. Ghassan was 14, a quiet, generous teenager who ran errands for elderly relatives, with an adoring six-year-old brother who stuck to him like a shadow.
Both boys were shot dead this summer by Israeli soldiers, victims of an unprecedented surge in attacks on children in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Continue reading...Hamas-run interior ministry says it carried out security operation after armed looters hijacked almost 100 trucks
Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry has said that at least 20 people have been killed in an operation targeting “gangs” accused of looting trucks bringing aid into the war-torn territory which is facing the threat of famine.
Gunmen attacked and looted about 100 trucks carrying desperately needed supplies over the weekend, the biggest such attack during 13 months of war in the territory and new evidence of the growing power of Gaza’s criminal gangs.
Continue reading...Images released by MSF doctors highlight impact of conflict in the country, with medical supplies and aid unable to reach people due to fighting
A series of X-rays showing a piece of shrapnel buried deep inside a 20-month-old girl’s head and a bullet embedded in an 18-month-old boy’s chest are among images released by medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) revealing the impact of the war in Sudan on children.
The two babies were treated at Khartoum’s Bashair teaching hospital.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Group of more than 90 including writers Tim Winton and Charlotte Wood have paid for every federal senator and MP to receive curated package
Some of Australia’s most prominent authors are among a group of more than 90 writers and literary supporters who have paid for every federal parliamentarian to receive a carefully curated package of books on the Middle East to expand their knowledge of the history of the conflict.
Each of the 227 MPs and senators is being given the same five books – nonfiction, fiction and reference works – as part of the campaign to encourage wider reading on the origins of the Middle East conflict among Australia’s political leaders.
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Continue reading...After 20 people including 15 first responders killed in Douris, rescuers ask why state service was targeted
All the corpses had been recovered but still the rescuers sifted through the rubble. A paramedic carried a sack with him, filled with the charred remains of his colleagues. Every few feet he stopped and knelt down, assessing. In the twisted mess left behind by the Israeli airstrike, it was hard to distinguish between flesh, earth and the life-saving equipment that had melted in the heat of the blast.
The night before, on Thursday, an Israeli jet had dropped a bomb on the salon of the Douris civil defence centre on the outskirts of the ancient Lebanese town of Baalbek, killing 20 people, including 15 first responders. Five were rendered unrecognisable by the force of the explosion. On Friday afternoon, emergency workers were still collecting bodily remains to be taken for DNA analysis.
Continue reading...Rights group says Abdallah Said’s case is a troubling first for the country amid president’s increasing crackdown
Tunisian anti-terrorist investigators are handling the case of a leading advocate for migrants who has been taken into custody, in what the head of a rights group said was a troubling first for the country.
Abdallah Said, a Tunisian of Chadian origin, was questioned along with the secretary general and treasurer of his association, Enfants de la Lune, said Romdhane Ben Amor, the spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights.
Continue reading...Practice banned in both countries but widespread among those displaced by Sudan’s civil war, say aid workers
Women’s rights campaigners have spoken of their concern over the spread of female genital mutilation among Sudanese refugees in camps across the border in Chad.
Both countries have outlawed the practice but it continues in secret. The UN children’s agency, Unicef, says that about 87% of Sudanese women aged 14-49 have been cut – one of the highest rates in the world. In Chad, the figure is 34.1%, though rates are higher in the south and east, which is where the camps for Sudanese people have been set up.
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A Lebanese soldier has been killed, with three wounded after Israel attacked an army post in a Lebanese town.
The Lebanese Army posted on X that one of those injured was in a critical condition after the attack on Sunday.
Continue reading...Attack came without warning on day dozens killed in airstrikes in Gaza and Israel struck other targets in Lebanon
Hezbollah’s chief spokesman has been killed by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut, as Israel intensifies its air offensive in Lebanon despite ongoing indirect negotiations for a ceasefire.
Mohammed Afif, who has been the public face of Hezbollah for months, was killed in a strike on offices of the Ba’ath party in Ras al-Nabaa, central Beirut. The attack in the busy residential area came without warning, and appeared to damage to neighbouring buildings.
Continue reading...Palestinian groups shocked by US president-elect’s favouring of outspoken supporters of far-right activists in the region
Rightwing settlers and extremist nationalist Zionists in Israel have described top officials in Donald Trump’s new administration as a “dream team” which will offer a “unique and special opportunity” to expand Israel’s hold on occupied territory and permanently end any prospect of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian groups and leftwing NGOs in Israel have been shocked by Trump’s appointment of outspoken supporters of the projects of far-right Israeli activists and say the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by Trump’s victory.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Middle East coverage here
Another airstrike hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut around midday local time, according to AFP, after the area was hit earlier this morning.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a raid by “enemy aircraft” in the neighbourhood of Chiyah.
Continue reading...Police investigate claim that Israeli PM’s chief of staff changed recorded time of call made about Hamas attacks
A top aide of Benjamin Netanyahu has been questioned by police investigating reports of alterations made to official records of phone calls involving the Israeli prime minister on the morning of the 7 October attacks.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, is suspected of changing the recorded time of a conversation the prime minister held with his military secretary in the first minutes of the attack to protect the prime minister.
Continue reading...Senior official Bassem Naim says militant group ‘ready for ceasefire’ and urges Donald Trump to ‘pressure’ 'Israel to ‘end the aggression’
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that two Palestinian people were killed in an Israeli artillery attack in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Three other Palestinians were killed in a separate Israeli airstrike near the general security junction in western Gaza City, according to Wafa. A renewed Israeli assault was launched on the northern part of the Gaza Strip last month, with the Israeli military claiming it was to stop Hamas fighters regrouping there. The blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, however, have led to accusations that Israel is committing the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population. The entirety of northern Gaza has been under Israeli evacuation orders but it is unclear how many people remain.
We have some comments coming through from Ali Larijani, the senior advisor to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. He has been speaking with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, in Beiurt.
Continue reading...Attacks on Thursday night bring total number of emergency workers killed by Israel in Lebanon to more than 200
Twenty-one civil defence rescuers have been killed in two Israeli strikes on Lebanon, in one of the deadliest days for rescue workers since the fighting began between Israel and Hezbollah 13 months ago.
Thursday night’s airstrikes brought the total number of emergency workers killed by Israel in Lebanon to more than 200, most of them during the last two months.
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