Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Israel restores indoor mask requirement after rise in Covid cases

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Increase is probably due to highly contagious Delta variant, says pandemic response chief

Israel has decided to reimpose the mandatory wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces owing to a rise in Covid-19 cases just 10 days after the measure was lifted – a blow for a country that has prided itself on one of the world’s most successful vaccine rollouts.

The head of Israel’s pandemic response taskforce, Nachman Ash, told public radio on Friday that mask mandates in most indoor situations would be reinstated, after the country recorded four successive days of more than 100 new cases, with 227 cases on Thursday.

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Fossilised bones found in Israel could belong to mystery extinct humans

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Remains with combination of Neanderthal and early human features date back 100,000 years

Fossilised bones recovered from an ancient sinkhole in Israel may belong to a previously unknown group of extinct humans that lived in the Levant more than 100,000 years ago.

Researchers unearthed the bones alongside stone tools and the remains of horses, fallow deer and wild ox during excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site near the city of Ramla in central Israel.

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Amnesty: ‘catalogue of violations’ by Israeli police against Palestinians

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Palestinians face repression from Israel and Palestinian Authority, human rights watchdog says

The latest flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by a “catalogue of violations” committed by Israeli police against Palestinians in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, according to research from Amnesty International.

Arab citizens of Israel have been subjected to unlawful force from officers during peaceful demonstrations, sweeping mass arrests, torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and police have failed to protect Palestinians from premeditated attacks by rightwing Jewish extremists, the human rights watchdog said on Thursday.

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Violence towards refugees at Libyan detention centres forces MSF to pull out

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Medical charity says abuse and attacks have escalated as more migrants are intercepted at sea and camps become increasingly overcrowded

Increasing violence towards refugees and migrants held in Libyan detention centres has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations at two facilities, the medical charity said.

MSF said its teams witnessed guards beating detainees, including those seeking treatment from MSF doctors, during a visit to the Mabani detention centre in Tripoli last week.

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Libya talks set December date for national elections

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Conference in Berlin also calls for phased withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country

Foreign powers and Libya’s new interim government of national unity have called for nationwide elections on 24 December and the phased withdrawal of all foreign forces, starting with some mercenaries in a matter of days.

There are thought to be as many as 20,000 foreign fighters in the country on both sides of its civil war, including Syrians under Turkish control, Turkish government forces, Russians in the Wagner Group and Sudanese forces.

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‘We thought we would return’: 10 years on, Syrian refugees dream of home – photo essay

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A decade after civil war broke out, women who fled to Lebanon are still struggling to build a life amid the country’s unfolding economic crisis

Millions of Syrians have fled fighting over the past 10 years. The vast majority of refugees – more than 3.5 million – are living in Turkey, but more than 850,000 are living in informal settlements in Lebanon.

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Assad forces’ shelling in Syria causes 5,000 civilians to flee

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At least 31 people killed since start of June amid government attacks on Idlib area

About 5,000 civilians in the north-west of Syria have been forced to flee their homes after more government shelling targeting the contested area, a local aid agency said.

At least 31 people have died since the beginning of June, victims of Bashar al-Assad’s forces hitting civilian buildings in southern Idlib province. The buildings included a hospital, displacement camp school, and a White Helmets headquarters. The number of dead includes three children and a civil defence worker who was killed in an attack on the town of Qastoun on Saturday.

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US takes down dozens of Iran-linked news sites, accusing them of disinformation

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Notices appear on Iran-affiliated sites saying they had been seized as part of law enforcement action

US authorities have seized a range of Iran’s state-linked news websites, which they accused of spreading “disinformation” on Tuesday, a US official said, a move that appeared to be a far-reaching crackdown on Iranian media amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

The US government official, who spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the case had not yet been officially announced, said the US had effectively taken down roughly three dozen websites, the majority linked to Iranian disinformation efforts.

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Bahraini prisoners allege brutal crackdown in response to Covid protest

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Authorities deny reports that inmates were beaten after a 10-day sit-in over concerns about virus spread and lack of medical care

In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.

Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.

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Deadly traffic: the fuel drivers caught up in Pakistan-Iran border tensions

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As the two countries crack down on smuggling, those forced to cross the border ‘for survival’ face a perilous journey

Karim Jan* spent the festival of Eid al-Fitr sitting in the scorching May sun as he had spent the previous five days, waiting in a long queue of traffic to get into Iran. Like hundreds of other drivers, Jan came to this desolate town of Mand, on the Pakistan border with Iran, from across Balochistan.

As they waited, some drivers slept in their Iranian pickup trucks , known as Zamyads, while others slept out under the open sky.

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Raisi sets out hardline stance in first remarks since winning Iran election

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New president offers blunt preview of Iran’s global relations but vows to salvage nuclear deal with the west

Iran’s president-elect staked out a hardline position in his first remarks since his landslide election victory, rejecting the possibility of meeting Joe Biden or discussing Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and support of regional militias.

The comments by Ebrahim Raisi on Monday offered a blunt preview of how Iran might deal with the wider world in the next four years as it enters a new stage in negotiations to resurrect its tattered 2015 nuclear deal with global powers.

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Karim’s story: Egypt’s crackdown on human rights workers – podcast

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Ten years since the Arab spring rocked Egypt and removed its president, the country is still detaining human rights workers and locking up political prisoners

Karim Ennarah, a human rights worker for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, was at a beach resort in South Sinai when he was arrested and accused of joining a terrorist group and “spreading false news”. He was detained in a prison in Cairo and became one of thousands of political prisoners in the country.

Ennarah tells Anushka Asthana that his arrest was only the beginning of his separation from his British wife. Jess Kelly describes to Anushka the moment that she found out her husband had been arrested by the security services as she rode her bike along a London street, and the great difficulties she herself has faced to be reunited with him.

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Raisi’s election victory raises difficulties as Iran nuclear deal talks resume

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The hardliner president-elect has caused alarm in some countries, though Iran and the US say agreement can still be found

World powers attempting to revive the Iran nuclear deal have warned of complications on the path to an agreement as they met for the first time since the election as Iranian president of Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline conservative cleric deeply antagonistic towards the west.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said the arrow was pointing in the right direction, but he refused to say if sanctions imposed on Raisi by the Trump administration would be lifted. The German government’s human rights commissioner, Bärbel Kofler, said it was concerning that Raisi had not distanced himself clearly from human rights abuses. A European diplomat meanwhile warned the talks could not be open-ended, hinting strongly they needed a deal before Raisi took power in early August.

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Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi hailed as Iran’s new president

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Three main rivals congratulate candidate whose election is likely to unlock talks on reviving nuclear deal

Ebrahim Raisi, the hardline head of Iran’s judiciary, has been hailed the country’s new president after his three main rivals congratulated him on his victory and preliminary results showed he had secured 17.8m votes, a huge 14.5m more than his nearest rival.

With 90% of the votes counted, Iranian officials said 28.6 million people had cast their ballots. More than 41 million did so in 2017.

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Ebrahim Raisi hailed as Iran’s new president – video

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The hardline head of the Iranian judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, has been congratulated by his three main rivals on his victory in the country's presidential election after preliminary results showed he had secured 17.8m votes, a huge 14.5m more than his nearest rival

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Low election turnout could spell trouble for Iran regime, experts say

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Islamic republic’s leaders may face crisis of legitimacy if disillusioned Iranians stay away from polls

The 2021 Iranian presidential election will mark a turning point in the country’s history and a fundamental crisis of legitimacy for the regime if turnout fed by disillusionment falls below 50%, according to leading experts.

The election – in effect a contest between the hardline chief of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, and the quasi-reformist former governor of the central bank Abdolnaser Hemmati – has been one of the most engineered in the history of the Islamic republic.

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‘They beat him’: fear and anger at latest police killing in Tunis

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Protests erupt again in Tunisian capital after man ‘beaten to death’ amid claims of police impunity

Almost everyone in the streets around Ahmed Ben Ammar’s house in the Tunis district of Sidi Hassine claims to have known him or his family. Nearly everyone also has a slightly different account of his death in police custody on Tuesday. Details vary but all agree that the 32-year-old was beaten to death by police this week.

Sidi Hassine is to the west of Tunisia’s capital, on the far side of the Sebkha Sijoumi wetlands and the hulking landfill at Borj Chakir, already years past its scheduled closure date. The smell and the mosquitoes fill the air. At one end of the road is a thriving market, at the other – near where Ben Ammar lived – cafes and shops line the dusty street.

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Israel responds to incendiary balloons with airstrikes on Gaza – video

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Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for a second time since a ceasefire ended May’s 11-day conflict with Palestinian militants. The strikes came after incendiary balloons were launched into Israel for a third day running. Israel's military reported that fighter jets struck Hamas 'military compounds and a rocket launch site'  and said its forces were preparing for a 'variety of scenarios including a resumption of hostilities'

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‘We have more in common than what separates us’: refugee stories, told by refugees

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In One Thousand Dreams, award-winning photographer Robin Hammond hands the camera to refugees. Often reduced by the media’s toxic or well-meaning narratives, the portraits and interviews capture a different and more complex tale

Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories. From photographing the Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to documenting the lives of people in countries where their sexuality is illegal, his work has earned him award after award.

But for his latest project the photographer has embarked on a paradigm shift: to remove himself – and others like him – from the process entirely. Instead, as part of an in-depth exploration of the refugee experience in Europe, the stories of those featured are told by those who, arguably, know them best: other refugees.

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Israel launches new airstrikes on Gaza in response to incendiary balloons

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Military says it is prepared for all scenarios including ‘resumption of hostilities’

Israel has launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for a second time since a shaky ceasefire ended last month’s 11-day war.

The strikes late on Thursday came after activists mobilised by Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers launched incendiary balloons into Israel for a third day running. The balloons are basic devices intended to set fire to farmland and bush surrounding the Gaza enclave.

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