Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Iran says it could rejoin US nuclear talks if treated with ‘dignity and respect’

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Iran’s foreign minister says it has had requests to reopen negotiations, which collapsed after nuclear site bombings

Tehran is willing to restart nuclear talks with Washington as long as it is treated with “dignity and respect”, Iran’s foreign minister has told the Guardian.

Abbas Araghchi said only diplomacy worked, and disclosed fresh requests had come from intermediaries to reopen negotiations with the Trump administration. He said Iran did not have any undeclared nuclear sites, and Tehran could not yet allow the UN nuclear inspectorate to visit bombed nuclear sites for security reasons.

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Israel breaching international law by limiting Gaza aid, says Unrwa official

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Natalie Boucly says supplies are ready but only about half of what is needed is getting into territory

Israel is breaching international law by continuing to impose restrictions on aid flows into Gaza, where the population remains critically short of food and life-saving goods as winter sets in, a senior official at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.

In an interview during a recent visit to Brussels, Natalie Boucly, an Unrwa deputy commissioner general, said the whole world – including the EU and US – needed to increase the pressure on Israel’s government to ensure the unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza.

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US military planning for divided Gaza with ‘green zone’ secured by international and Israeli troops

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Exclusive: Almost all Palestinians have been displaced to ‘red zone’ where no reconstruction is planned

The US is planning for the long-term division of Gaza into a “green zone” under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a “red zone” to be left in ruins.

Foreign forces will initially deploy alongside Israeli soldiers in the east of Gaza, leaving the devastated strip divided by the current Israeli-controlled “yellow line”, according to US military planning documents seen by the Guardian and sources briefed on American plans.

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Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent named young journalist of the year in UK awards

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Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.

The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.

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South Africa to investigate ‘mysterious’ arrival of 153 Palestinians on plane

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Passengers held on runway for 12 hours after landing in Johannesburg without travel documents

South Africa will investigate the “mysterious” arrival of scores of Palestinians who were kept on a charter plane at Johannesburg for 12 hours by border police because they did not have travel papers, the president has said.

A group of 153 Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo international iarport in Johannesburg on a chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya on Thursday without departure stamps, return tickets or details of accommodation, according to the border authorities.

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British-Egyptian activist stopped from flying to UK, says family

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Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.

Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.

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Tenured professor sues University of Kentucky for banning him from law school over comments on Israel

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Exclusive: Ramsi Woodcock, who calls for an ‘end’ to Israel and military intervention against it, says the university violated his first amendment rights

A tenured law professor sued the University of Kentucky on Thursday after he was banned from teaching and from the law school for comments he made about Israel, including characterizations of the state as a “colonization project” and calls for the world to wage war against it.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, Ramsi Woodcock, an antitrust law scholar, argued that the public university violated his first amendment and due process rights when it abruptly placed him under investigation in July, just days after he was promoted to full professor, over allegations that he violated university policy – including anti-discrimination rules that incorporate a widely disputed definition of antisemitism.

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State-sanctioned fuel smuggling cost Libya $20bn over three years – report

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Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise

A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.

The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.

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Israeli president condemns ‘serious’ attack by settlers on West Bank villages

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Isaac Herzog makes rare statement on often-ignored violence as settlers injure Palestinians and attack soldiers

Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, injuring four Palestinians and attacking Israeli soldiers in the latest incident of rising settler violence.

The settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf, setting vehicles on fire and damaging property belonging to a Bedouin community, with charred remains of cars left behind the next day.

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French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal pardoned and to be released from prison

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Eighty-one year-old, who has prostate cancer, can now be transferred from Algeria to Germany for medical treatment

The French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal has been pardoned and is to be released from prison, the Algerian presidential office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The move, which will mean Sansal can be transferred to Germany for medical treatment, comes after the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, urged Algeria to free Sansal.

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Dire warnings over aid and hunger following RSF’s capture of Sudanese city

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Fears rise for displaced civilians as UN reports deteriorating situation and MSF warns of ‘staggering’ malnutrition

There are grave fears for civilians who survived the capture of El Fasher by a Sudanese paramilitary group last month, as the UN warned relief operations were on the brink of collapse and an aid group said malnutrition in displacement camps had reached “staggering” levels.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher – the capital of North Darfur state and the last urban centre outside of its grasp in the wider Darfur region – on 26 October. Survivor accounts and video and satellite evidence suggest more than 1,500 people were killed in ethnically targeted massacres in the immediate aftermath.

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Trump writes to Israeli president calling for Netanyahu pardon

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Isaac Herzog can pardon convicted criminals in some circumstances, but cases against Israeli PM are ongoing

Donald Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases.

The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.

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Israel attacked Palestinian water sources over 250 times in five years, data reveals

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Armed forces and settlers used bombs, dogs, poison and machinery to attack people and infrastructure at key sites

Israeli armed forces and settlers have attacked Palestinian water sources more than 250 times in the past five years, amounting to the most sustained assault on civilian water supplies in recent years, new research reveals.

Bombs, dogs, poison and heavy machinery were among the weapons used to attack Palestinians and their infrastructure at drinking water, irrigation and sanitation sites in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on at least 90 occasions between January 2024 and mid-2025, according to the Pacific Institute, a California-based nonpartisan thinktank tracking water conflicts.

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Men with family stuck in Gaza say lack of action from UK government is breach of human rights

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Two fathers in Britain enlist law firm to get government to follow through on evacuation promises made months ago

The British government is facing legal action over its lack of action to help evacuate families in Gaza after committing to do so months ago.

Two families have argued that the government’s failure to act is unlawful and in breach of their family’s human rights. They are among a number of separated families to which the government has failed to keep its evacuation promise, according to the law firm Leigh Day, which is representing them.

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Olympians call on Iran to halt execution of boxing champion

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Sports personalities including Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies sign letter condemning Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani’s death sentence

More than 20 Olympic medallists, coaches and other international athletes, including the tennis player Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies, have signed a letter calling for a halt to the execution of a boxing champion and coach, who is on death row in Iran.

Amid growing international outrage over Iran’s escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of oppression, the strongly worded letter condemns the Iranian regime’s decision to uphold the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

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US declares partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after historic meeting

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Ahmed al-Sharaa and Donald Trump hold first White House summit between a US and Syrian leader since 1946

The US has announced a partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after a historic meeting in Washington DC between its new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Donald Trump.

Monday’s meeting was the first summit between a US and Syrian leader at the White House since 1946. The meeting is part of a remarkable turnaround in US-Syrian relations after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, who had prosecuted a deadly civil war in the country from 2011 until his forces collapsed in December 2024.

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UAE refuses to join Gaza stabilisation force without clear legal framework

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Decision reflects wider regional doubts about terms of US-drafted plan to disarm Hamas

Plans for a UN-mandated international stabilisation force charged with disarming Hamas inside Gaza face growing opposition after the United Arab Emirates said it would not participate because it did not yet see a clear legal framework for the force.

Israel has already ruled out Turkey joining the force, and King Abdullah of Jordan has said Jordanian troops will not join. Azerbaijan, once mooted as a contributor, did not attend a planning meeting in Turkey last week and said it would not contribute unless a full ceasefire was in place.

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Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

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IDF soldiers tell documentary of opening fire unprovoked and arbitrary designations of who was an enemy

Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary.

“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening.

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Syrian president to hold talks with Trump at White House

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Ahmed al-Sharaa is expected to push for full lifting of remaining sanctions imposed during 13-year civil war

Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, will on Monday hold talks with Donald Trump at the White House, the first such official visit by a Syrian leader since national independence in 1946. He is expected to push for a full lifting of the remaining sanctions on his war-ravaged country.

Sharaa, whose Islamist rebel forces toppled the longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, has courted the US president to try to reverse the economic restrictions imposed during the 13-year civil war, arguing they are no longer justified.

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Water levels below 3% in dam reservoirs for Iran’s second city, say reports

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Storage dwindles in Mashhad, home to 4 million people, as country struggles with drought

Water levels at the dam reservoirs supplying Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad have plunged below 3%, according to reports, as the country suffers from severe water shortages.

“The water storage in Mashhad’s dams has now fallen to less than 3%,” Hossein Esmaeilian, the chief executive of the water company in Iran’s second largest city by population, told the ISNA news agency.

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