Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Gaza refugee says sister-in-law ‘would be alive’ if Home Office had let her come to UK

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Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, says Home Office refused visa application despite Maryam having cancer

A man living in the UK has said he believes his sister-in-law who died from cancer in Gaza would still be alive today if the Home Office had agreed to bring her and her family to Britain.

Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, fled Gaza in 2020 and was granted refugee status in the UK in 2021. After the destruction of large areas of Gaza by Israeli forces following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, he applied to bring his brother Hassan, Hassan’s wife, Maryam, their two young children and other family members to the UK in October 2025. He said the Home Office rejected their application.

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Iranian town mourns after deadly strike on wedding

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Mourning turns to anger as residents of Kuhestak say Baloch communities are being placed in path of conflict

People in Kuhestak, a predominantly Baloch city in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, are mourning after a strike on a wedding killed at least four people, including a child, and injured more than 60, according to local authorities.

The blast hit at around 9.30pm on 1 September, turning a night of celebration into one of devastation for the small coastal community, which is on the strait of Hormuz.

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Israelis shoot dead two Palestinian teenagers after settlers encircle village

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Troops escort settlers into al-Mughayyir and raze village outside Hebron as ethnic cleansing of West Bank continues

Israelis have shot dead two teenagers in a Palestinian village encircled by settlers, and Israeli troops have razed an entire village outside Hebron, in the latest attacks in a surge of Israeli terror and ethnic cleansing across the occupied West Bank.

The shootings targeted Khalil Abu Alia, 16, who was about to start 11th grade at the al-Mughayyir boys school, and 19-year-old Omar al-Nassan, who graduated from the same institution with top marks this summer.

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Spain’s PM says no evidence ‘whatsoever’ Morocco behind Ceuta border breach

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Pedro Sánchez continues to defend Rabat after police report claiming border forces helped 70,000 cross border

Spain has seen no evidence “whatsoever” that Morocco planned or facilitated a mass border breach into its north African territory of Ceuta, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has told parliament.

The address on Thursday followed the emergence of a police report, commissioned by a judge and widely quoted in the media, claiming Moroccan border forces had actively aided about 70,000 people to cross the border in late July.

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Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’

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Defence minister says he believes US backing could tip regional balance in favour of forced resettlement

Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime.

Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this
migration” during a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He said the Israeli government was “organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, by every way possible”.

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Iran accuses US of ‘war crime’ after missile blast kills four people at wedding

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Blast also injures 68 guests at the wedding in southern Iran, prompting fears of escalation in hostilities

Iran has accused the US of a war crime after a missile blast killed at least four people and injured 68 who were attending a wedding at a private home in a coastal city of southern Iran, as the fresh exchange of strikes prompted fears of a wider renewal of hostilities.

Iranian media said that the wedding ceremony was being held in a home in the city of Kuhestak, Hormozgan province, late on Tuesday when a US missile struck, with shrapnel and debris from the strike killing and injuring people.

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UK must end all trade with Israel, says co-founder of BDS movement

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Exclusive: sanctions against ministers and settler groups are ‘smoke and mirrors cop-out’ says Omar Barghouti

Britain’s legal and ethical obligation to stop a genocide in Gaza requires it to take bigger steps than halting trade with illegal Israeli settlements or imposing further sanctions, Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has said.

He described sanctions against individual settler groups or extremist ministers as a “smoke and mirrors cop-out and distraction” from the UK’s legal obligation under international law to end all support for Israel, including arms exports, trade deals and academic relations that “may directly or indirectly enable Israel’s illegal occupation” of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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Trump threatens further action as US and Iran exchange fire in new flare-up

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Washington says it acted after observing Iran was planning to deploy fresh mines in strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran have exchanged fire for the first time in a month, with missiles and drones fired at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in response.

The US president, Donald Trump, on Monday threatened further action. The US is to trying to prise open Tehran’s grip on shipping going through the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply. Washington claimed that Iranian control over the waterway had been loosened by repeated US attacks on Iranian missile launchers and radars.

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Iran’s economy in crisis as US launches new sanctions campaign

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Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast is expected to push many Iranians into deeper poverty as food inflation soars

For many Iranians, the new US sanctions campaign, called Operation Economic Outcast, seems superfluous given the grim economic situation in their country.

Iranians are facing runaway food inflation, closed petrol stations and a seemingly never-ending depreciation of the nation’s currency caused by a lack of foreign exchange reserves.

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Morocco not to blame for Ceuta border breach, says Spanish PM

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Pedro Sánchez says two countries cooperating and accuses Israel and Russia of spreading fake news about migration

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said there is no evidence to suggest the Moroccan government was behind last month’s massive border crossing into Ceuta but accused Israel and Russia of spreading disinformation.

As many as 141 people are thought to have died trying to enter the Spanish enclave at the end of July. The influx of about 70,000 men, women and children unleashed a political crisis, a humanitarian emergency and reignited tensions within the EU over immigration.

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First US military attacks on Iran in a month prompt retaliation

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US attacks Iranian rocket launchers on island in strait of Hormuz and Tehran targets US bases in Jordan and UAE

The US has reverted to military attacks on Iran for the first time in a month, firing missiles and drones at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, prompting the Iranian military to attack US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

US Central Command said it acted late on Sunday after it detected the Iranians planning to fire fresh mines into the strait. Last week Donald Trump claimed the US navy had cleared the strait of mines for the first time since the conflict started on 28 February, a claim the Iranians rejected as lies.

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Humanitarian crisis worsening in refuge for civilians fleeing Sudan’s civil war

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Conditions are deteriorating in city of El Obeid and camps on its outskirts, with more people arriving every day

Humanitarian conditions in the Sudanese city of El Obeid and two camps on its outskirts are dire and deteriorating, according to people on the ground, as civilians displaced by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia continue to pour in from the surrounding countryside.

The UN says more than 15,000 families have arrived since mid-July, joining more than 200,000 people who arrived in the first half of the year, according to government figures cited by Save the Children.

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Palestinian woman and NBC News team reportedly attacked in West Bank

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Matt Bradley and crew assaulted while interviewing woman who said settlers had driven family out of home

A Palestinian woman and an NBC News team are reported to have been attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday, amid worsening confrontations in the area.

Benjamin Netanyahu said he condemned the violence committed “by a handful of rioters”.

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Bondi library returns book How to Sell a Genocide to shelves after State Library ‘outlines the law’

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Book was removed for review earlier this month following complaint but reinstated after petition and State Library letter to Waverley council

A Sydney library has returned to its borrowing shelves a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide following a public campaign and an intervention from the State Library of New South Wales.

Waverley library removed the book “for review” earlier this month after the Jewish news outlet JWire reported it had approached the council.

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UK urged to help free British-Egyptian ‘arrested in Cairo over sister’s activism’

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Lawyers claim Eman el-Shazly, from Birmingham, was detained in effort to silence her sister, a critic of Sisi regime

The UK Foreign Office has been asked to intervene to secure the release of a British-Egyptian woman who it is claimed has been arrested in Cairo because of her sister’s political activism.

Eman el-Shazly, a 45-year-old based in Birmingham, was arrested on 16 August while visiting Egypt. Her lawyers say she has been detained in an attempt to silence her sister Mona, a relentless and harsh critic of the Egyptian government on her UK-based YouTube channel.

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Trump downplays Moscow visit by CIA director as ‘semi-routine’

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President denies visit was to gain support for Iran sanctions or due to fears that Putin plans to ‘test Nato resolve’

Donald Trump has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as “semi-routine” after he turned up in the Russian capital unannounced, triggering a wave of speculation about the reasons for his trip.

Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday in a rare visit after taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.

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Iran seeks to criminalise all contact with foreign media in ‘chilling’ crackdown

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As photojournalist sentenced to 15 years, rights groups warn law would turn civic engagement into security crime

Iran has taken the first step towards criminalising contact with foreign media, in a move human rights groups have said attempts to “sever the entire Iranian society from the rest of the world”.

For journalists, researchers and even ordinary citizens, the proposed law being discussed by Iranian lawmakers this month could make speaking to international audiences and groups a potential criminal act and restrict coverage of events such as January’s mass anti-regime protests.

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Iran faces strait of Hormuz paradox as strategic value of chokehold erodes

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Internal calls to end war get louder as Gulf neighbours plan alternative pipelines to cut reliance on waterway

Is the strait of Hormuz, recently cited by the office of the Iranian supreme leader as “the pillar of Iran’s new security order”, and as transformative as possessing a nuclear weapon, in reality becoming a fast-diminishing asset, leaving Iran increasingly vulnerable to the new planned US wave of economic sanctions?

It is the key debate that is raging inside Iran, with many different conclusions being drawn for Tehran’s negotiating strategy. Those who warn the strait’s value as a chokehold on the world economy will erode, leaving the country without foreign exchange reserves, argue that Iran’s negotiators should seek a deal soon.

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China denounces US threat of sanctions over trade with Iran

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Beijing says it will take ‘all necessary measures’ to protect its interests as US steps up efforts to isolate Tehran

China has denounced the threat of US sanctions for its trade with Iran, saying any such measures would be illegal, and warned it would take “all necessary measures” to protect its national interests.

Beijing’s rejection of the US threat of secondary sanctions for any country or entity continuing to trade with Tehran had been predicted. China buys an estimated 80% of Iran’s oil exports and has defied previous US efforts to limit the flow of revenue to the Tehran regime.

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US threatens severe sanctions against countries with economic ties to Iran

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Washington launches campaign to isolate Tehran but it is unclear whether it will apply measures to China

The US has threatened to impose severe sanctions against any country or entity maintaining economic ties with Iran, hoping to achieve with economic measures what military means have so far failed to do.

It is unclear, however, how far the Trump administration is prepared to go in confronting China, Iran’s biggest trading partner, which has signalled its resistance to US economic pressure to cut off links with an ally.

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