Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Israel and Hamas at war after surprise attacks from Gaza Strip

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Twenty-two Israelis confirmed dead so far and 545 injured, with death toll likely to rise, after aerial and ground attack

Israel and Hamas are once again at war after the Palestinian militant group launched a large aerial and ground operation from the blockaded Gaza Strip, its biggest attack in years.

Sirens sounded across Israel and as far north as the contested city of Jerusalem from about 7am on Saturday after volleys of what Hamas claimed were 5,000 rockets launched from the blockaded enclave. A ground infiltration by Hamas gunmen into Israeli towns and villages on the periphery – an unprecedented development in the 16 years since the Islamists took over the strip – is ongoing, with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) saying seven villages and towns are under Hamas control. The Israeli army put the number of projectiles at around 2,200.

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UK government pressed for answers on Sheikh Mansour and Russians

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  • Ukrainian activist urges government to investigate City owner
  • ‘Many oligarchs appear to have found home for wealth in UAE’

The UK government has been asked to reveal what steps it has taken to investigate whether Manchester City’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, assisted wealthy Russians on whom it has imposed sanctions in moving their assets to the United Arab Emirates.

Lawyers acting on behalf of a Ukrainian activist – who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from Russia – have written to the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, to ask whether investigations have been carried out to determine whether Mansour, the UAE’s deputy prime minister, should be identified as a “designated person” subject to financial sanctions under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

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American tourist arrested for damaging Roman statues at Israel Museum

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Vandalism stirs concern about safety of collections amid rise in attacks on cultural heritage in Jerusalem

Israeli police have arrested an American tourist at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after he hurled works of art to the floor, defacing two second-century Roman statues.

The vandalism late on Thursday raised questions about the safety of the priceless collections and stirred concern about a rise in attacks on cultural heritage in Jerusalem.

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Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel peace prize

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Mohammadi wins prize for her fight against oppression of women in Iran and to promote human rights for all

Narges Mohammadi, the most prominent of Iran’s jailed women’s rights advocates, has vowed to stay in the country and continue her activism after winning the 2023 Nobel peace prize.

“I will never stop striving for the realisation of democracy, freedom and equality,” she said in a prewritten statement released after the announcement. “Surely, the Nobel peace prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful and enthusiastic on this path, and it will accelerate my pace.”

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US shoots down Turkish drone flying near its troops in Syria

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Turkey’s defence ministry says the device did not belong to the country’s armed forces

The US has shot down an armed Turkish drone that was operating near its troops in Syria, the first time Washington has brought down an aircraft of its Nato ally.

A Turkish defence ministry official said the drone did not belong to the Turkish armed forces, but did not say whose property it was.

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More than 100 dead in attack on Syrian military academy

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Civilians and military killed by drone-delivered bombs in Homs, shortly after defence minister left graduation ceremony

More than 100 people have been killed in an attack on a military academy in Syria, a war monitor and an official said, with weaponised drones bombing the site minutes after Syria’s defence minister left a graduation ceremony there.

It was one of the bloodiest attacks ever against a Syrian army installation, and unprecedented in its use of weaponised drones in a country that has endured 12 years of civil war.

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Menendez’s alleged sharing of information with Egypt risked lives of US embassy staff, ex-US official says

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Former diplomat said senator’s allegedly corrupt actions could have put embassy staff in the sights of Egyptian intelligence

The lives of staff at the US embassy in Cairo may have been put in jeopardy by the indicted Democratic senator Bob Menendez’s alleged sharing of sensitive personnel information with the Egyptian government, according to former senior US officials who said the charges represented a grave betrayal of trust.

The New Jersey senator temporarily stepped down from his powerful position as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee in September after he was indicted by federal prosecutors in New York on corruption charges, including allegations that he accepted cash bribes and gold bars in exchange for breaching his duties “in ways that benefited the government of Egypt”.

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Call for Labour government can transform Israel-Palestine policy

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Group says party ‘freed of the stain of antisemitism’ can promote two-state solution and reverse Tory apathy to Middle East

An incoming Labour government “freed of the stain of antisemitism” can seek an Israeli settlement freeze, promote a two-state solution and call out democratic backsliding not only by the Palestinian Authority, but also by the Israeli government, according to a pamphlet from Labour Friends of Israel.

The pamphlet is designed to mark a breakpoint from Labour’s debilitating debates about antisemitism, and promote a detailed policy solution to the Israel-Palestine question around which the majority of people in the party can gather.

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US supplies Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran

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Justice department claimed ownership of the ordnance on the grounds that they were being smuggled to Yemeni Houthi forces, breaching a UN embargo

The United States has supplied Ukraine with more than a million rounds of Iranian ammunition confiscated in the Gulf late last year.

The transfer of the ordnance followed a civil forfeiture case pursued by the justice department to gain ownership on the grounds that the bullets were seized as they were being smuggled to Yemeni Houthi forces in violation of a UN arms embargo.

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Gaza Strip protesters received bullet wounds to ankles, medics report

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Influx of injuries may suggest deliberate targeting by Israel’s army, which human rights groups say is unlawful

Medics in the Gaza Strip have reported treating an influx of protesters who appear to have been deliberately targeted in the ankle in recent unrest at the volatile boundary of the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

At least one person has been killed and dozens more wounded since demonstrations by groups of young men, some of them throwing stones and molotov cocktails, began in mid-September.

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UK government asks UAE for assurances over free speech at Cop28 summit

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Statement at UN human rights council voices ‘disappointment’ after host country refuses to change restrictive laws

The UK has asked the United Arab Emirates, one of its closest Gulf allies, to explain how it will guarantee free speech around the UN Cop28 climate summit in Dubai after the country refused to change its restrictive laws.

The refusal came after a four-yearly UN review of the UAE’s human rights record.

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Outrage over Jerusalem video of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting as Christians pass

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Intimidating behaviour beside procession of worshippers seen as another sign of victimisation and was condemned by Netanyahu

A video of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground beside a procession of foreign Christian worshippers carrying a wooden cross in the holy city of Jerusalem has ignited intense outrage and a flurry of condemnation in the Holy Land.

The spitting incident, which the city’s minority Christian community lamented as the latest in an alarming surge of religiously motivated attacks, drew rare outrage on Tuesday from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other senior figures.

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Hospitalisation of Iranian girl leads to claims against ‘morality police’

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Incident puts country back on edge a year after mass protests over death in custody of Mahsa Amini

The hospitalisation of a 16-year-old girl in Tehran has led to accusations by a rights group and activists that she was beaten into a coma by Iran’s feared “morality police”, putting the country back on edge a year after mass protests erupted over the treatment of women.

Footage of the incident showed a girl being carried off a train by other girls at a metro station and placed on the platform, where she stays still, apparently unconscious.

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Sudan conflict ‘like planning for the apocalypse’, say aid workers

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At least 5.4 million people have been displaced by the fierce fighting that broke out in the country in April

Humanitarian officials say the widening conflict in Sudan has left them trying to “plan for the apocalypse” as aid supply lines are disrupted and more people are displaced both internally and across the country’s borders.

At least 5.4 million people have already been displaced by the fighting that broke out in April between between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces loyal to his rival Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti.

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Celebrated Syrian author, poet and screenwriter Khaled Khalifa dies aged 59

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Khalifa was one of Syria’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, though his six novels were banned in the country

Syrian author, poet and screenwriter Khaled Khalifa, whose novels set in Aleppo memorialised a city ruined by civil war, has died aged 59.

The writer died from cardiac arrest at his home in Damascus, a close friend told the French news agency AFP.

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East Libya postpones Derna reconstruction conference amid calls for unity

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Rival governments urged to work together to best manage donations for city after catastrophic flooding

The government in eastern Libya has been forced to postpone a reconstruction conference for the stricken city of Derna amid concerns about how donations will be spent and a lack of coordination with the west of the country.

A large part of Derna was destroyed on the night of 10 September when severe flooding caused two dams above the town to burst. The death toll has been put at more than 10,000, but no official figure is yet deemed accurate.

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‘I had to drink my own urine to survive’: Africans tell of being forced into the desert at Tunisia border

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As EU prepares to send money as part of €1bn deal, people trying to reach north African country detail border ‘pushbacks’

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have spoken of their horror at being forcibly returned to remote desert regions where some have died of thirst as they attempt to cross the border into Tunisia.

As the European Union prepares to send money to Tunisia under a €1bn (£870m) migration deal, human rights groups are urging Brussels to take a tougher line on allegations that Tunisian authorities have been pushing people back to deserted border areas, often with fatal results.

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‘It’s a torment’: refugee tells how his family died in desert on quest for a future in Europe

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Pato Crepin’s wife and six-year-old daughter were repeatedly pushed back by authorities in Tunisia, which has signed a €1bn deal with the EU

Pato Crepin had walked for three days through the desert and could not take it any more. Twice, he and his family tried to cross the border from Libya into Tunisia; twice, they had been pushed back. Crepin, who was recovering from an infection and had not had a drink for 24 hours, found he could not get up. In the blistering heat of the mid-July desert, his legs had given up.

His wife and six-year-old daughter, however, seemed stronger. Crepin, an asylum seeker from Cameroon, believed that if they left him behind they might yet make it to Tunisia and, from there, perhaps, on to Europe. He did not want to slow them down. “Go,” he told them. “I’ll catch up with you in Tunisia.”

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Palestinian negotiators sceptical over potential Israel-Saudi deal

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Despite outward positivity, sources say normalisation deal unlikely to happen any time soon

A potential normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is being treated with scepticism by Palestinian negotiators, despite outwardly positive signals from Palestinian officials, several sources with knowledge of the talks have said.

Unofficial relations between Israel and the powerful Gulf petrostate have been growing for years. The possibility of a formal diplomatic agreement, however, has come to the fore since the two countries, along with the US, signalled progress on the matter during the UN general assembly in New York last week.

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More than 100 people killed after fire breaks out at Iraq wedding

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Blaze started after fireworks lit during celebration in Nineveh province, according to local media

More than 100 people have been killed and 150 others injured in a fire at a wedding reception in the district of Hamdaniya in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, attracting global messages of sympathy.

Survivors said the fire, which swept through the hall in a matter of seconds, was triggered by fireworks that had been set off inside the hall before the bride and groom’s slow dance.

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