Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Israel election: Netanyahu wins fifth term as rival concedes

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Benjamin Netanyahu has already begun to broker deals with religious and far-right parties

Benjamin Netanyahu is set to serve a fifth term as Israel’s prime minister after his main rival conceded that he had lost the election.

With 97% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s Likud party and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had tied with 35 seats each in the 120-seat house, the Knesset. However, the rightwing bloc that Netanyahu is part of had 65 in total, a comfortable majority.

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Iraq seeks multibillion dollar fee to receive Isis prisoners

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Baghdad in talks with US to receive remnants of terror group held in detention centres in Syria

Baghdad and Washington are in talks to transfer and place on trial tens of thousands of suspected Isis fighters and their families from detention centres in Syria to prison camps in Iraq, with Iraqi officials seeking a multibillion dollar fee to receive remnants of the terror group captured over five years of war.

Discussions about what to do with Isis members, among them thousands of foreign men, women and children, have been pushed intensively by US officials, who have also lobbied coalition partners to remove their citizens from two cramped detention centres in Syria’s north-east, which one former senior US official described as a “volcano”.

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‘I was raised to love our home’: Sudan’s singing protester speaks out

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Alaa Salah, 22, talks to the Guardian about having her image seen around the world

The young woman in a photo that has come to symbolise the protest movement in Sudan has been identified as Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old architecture student in Khartoum.

Salah told the Guardian she was happy that the image, taken on Monday evening at a demonstration in the Sudanese capital, had been viewed so widely.

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Netanyahu will now feel free to pursue hardline agenda of confrontation | Simon Tisdall

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Election victory gives Israeli PM confidence he will get his way on Iran and Palestine

His supporters call him a magician. And there is truly something uncanny about how Benjamin Netanyahu has conjured up three-way US, Russian and Arab support for his hardline security and nationalist agenda. For a small country, Israel packs an ever bigger punch – and pugnacious Bibi’s likely fifth term presages a new era of escalating confrontation.

First in line for the Netanyahu treatment is Iran. He claimed credit on Monday for Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, including its al-Quds force, a foreign terrorist organisation. The provocative move, akin to singling out the US marine corps for punishment, bought a vengeful riposte from Tehran.

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Israel election: Netanyahu and rival Gantz tied with 97% of vote counted – live updates

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Polling suggests the race for prime minister will be tight, as Benjamin Netanyahu runs against Benny Gantz

Our correspondent, Oliver Holmes, has this wrap of the night’s results.

Related: Israel election: Netanyahu appears on track for victory despite tied result

It appears that Arab parties have lost three seats in the Knesset in this election, after calls within the Arab community, which makes up almost a fifth of Israel’s population, to boycott the election.

Likud was censured on Tuesday for sending monitors with body-cameras to polling stations with Arab constituents, which Arab politicians condemned as voter intimidation. A Likud party official defended the move, saying the cameras were deployed to ensure there would be no vote rigging.

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Israel election: Netanyahu appears on track for victory despite tied result

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Major parties neck and neck but incumbent has path to form majority government with right-wing allies

Benjamin Netanyahu was on track on Wednesday morning to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, despite his Likud party winning the same number of seats as his rivals.

With 97% of votes counted, both Likud and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had won 35 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset.

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Why should we Yemenis stop having babies and surrender to war? | Elle Kurancid, Elham Hassan and Amira Al-Sharif

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Four years into the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis, three Yemeni women ask – exactly what is required of people living in warzones?

A news report from December 2018 lays bare the depths of the crisis gripping Yemen. Mothers watch doctors measure the arms of their children. “When the tape shows red,” the TV correspondent narrates, “it means they’re severely malnourished.” After more than four years of a civil war and proxy conflict, these Yemeni children, mothers, and doctors are trapped in what the UN has called “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time”.

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Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz declare Israeli election win – video

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With the final votes still being counted, both Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud and Benny Gantz's more centrist Blue and White party have declared victory. Both are currently tied at 35 seats, which is far below the 60 seats required for a majority in the Knesset. But Likud's right-wing coalition partner options are stronger than the left-wing allies available for the Blue and White party, which gives Likud and Netanyahu a slight advantage in the negotiations to come over the next few days.


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Uproar in Algeria as ally of former president named new leader

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Appointment of regime stalwart is met with opposition boycott and fresh protests

Algerian lawmakers have appointed a regime stalwart as the country’s first new president in two decades, to the dismay of protesters seeking sweeping change after the resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

The appointment of Abdelkader Bensalah, the speaker of the upper house, as interim president follows constitutional rules but goes against the demands of demonstrators, who are pushing for him and other veteran politicians to stand down.

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Libya crisis: UK officials anxious as blame is laid at doors of Gulf allies

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There will be deep unease in Foreign Office over role of Saudi Arabia and UAE

Blame for the renewed Libyan crisis has been laid at the doors of some of Britain’s closest allies in the Gulf, highlighting again how the UK’s commercial interests so often trump its political priorities in the Middle East.

In exchanges in the UK parliament, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, traced the crisis to Nato’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, an intervention described even by the government minister Mark Field as “calamitous”. She also accused France of supporting Khalifa Haftar’s attack on Tripoli, an accusation that the Élysée Palace strenuously denies. Other MPs blamed Russian meddling.

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Sudan protesters resist attacks by armed militias

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Witnesses in Khartoum describe attacks by militia using teargas and firing live ammunition

Thousands of protesters camped in the centre of Khartoum appear to have defied a fresh attempt to clear them by armed militia loyal to the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Civil society groups run by medics reported two dead and many wounded, some critically, in renewed violence in the capital on Tuesday morning. Other groups put the toll as high as five dead, including at least one soldier, and more than a hundred hurt.

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Libyan crisis escalates as warplane strikes Tripoli airport

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Passengers reported to have been seen leaving terminal after strike by pro-Haftar forces

A warplane has attacked the only functioning airport in Tripoli as fighting between forces loyal to the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar and rival militias escalated and EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to try to de-escalate the violence.

Mitiga airport, in an eastern suburb of the capital, was closed after it was hit in an airstrike by pro-Haftar forces. Passengers could be seen leaving the terminal, a Reuters correspondent at the airport said. Fighting was also under way at Tripoli’s international airport, 15 miles from the city centre, which has not been functioning since fighting destroyed much of it in 2014.

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Trump designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as foreign terrorist organization

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Statement marks first time US has formally labeled another country’s military a terrorist group

The United States has designated Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization, Donald Trump said on Monday, marking the first time Washington has formally named a branch of the armed forces of a foreign government as a terrorist group.

In a statement, Trump said this unprecedented step, “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft”.

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‘We’re frightened’: Tripoli braces as fighting reaches suburbs

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Violence at edge of capital contrasts with tense calm in city centre as Libyans fear bloodbath

Residents of Tripoli have spoken of their fear and confusion as clashes between UN-backed government forces and troops loyal to the Benghazi strongman Khalifa Haftar continue in its southern suburbs.

“We are sandwiched between the forces, people are wondering what to do, we are frightened,” said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous, living with her family in the southern suburbs.

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Sudan: gunfire heard at peaceful protest in Khartoum – video

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Sudanese security forces have used teargas in an attempt to disperse protesters in central Khartoum. The demonstrators have been camped for more than two days as they call for the president, Omar al-Bashir, to resign. Protests began in December 2018 after the government raised bread prices, but they have since evolved into nationwide unrest against Bashir's rule. 

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What does the battle for Tripoli mean for Libya and the region?

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Khalifa Haftar is leading an advance on the capital, with far-ranging consequences

Libya is on the brink of an all-out civil war that will upend years of diplomatic efforts to reconcile two rival armed political factions. An advance led by Khalifa Haftar, the warlord from the east of the country, has diplomats scrambling and the UN appealing in vain for a truce. The French government, the European power closest to Haftar, insists it had no prior warning of his assault, which is now less than 20km from the capital, Tripoli. The outcome could shape not just the politics of Libya, but also the security of the Mediterranean, and the relevance of democracy across the Middle East and north Africa.

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The secret of Netanyahu’s success? A simple tale of good versus evil | Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

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The Israeli prime minister is a master storyteller. But his narrative is raising a generation for whom peace would mean betrayal

Israel is a land of storytellers. Authors such as Amos Oz and David Grossman are acclaimed worldwide, and the political thriller Fauda has the nation well and truly addicted. But the best storyteller in our country is Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister’s talent allows him to construct a narrative so realistic, one could actually believe in it. Above all, it is his great skill in manipulating characters that makes him transcend mere politics. In fact, I would hazard a guess that Netanyahu is the best storyteller in the world.

The word “storyteller” might sound disrespectful. In the streets where I grew up, in the heart of Tel Aviv, it was usually used as an insult. Jewish mamas want their sons to be doctors, not storytellers. But storytelling is a very serious business. In the case of Netanyahu, you could say it’s deadly serious.

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Israelis go to the polls: what you need to know

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Election seen as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu, who could almost certainly become Israel’s longest-serving leader

Israelis are due to cast their votes on Tuesday in an election that could end Benjamin Netanyahu’s astonishing 10-year uninterrupted run as prime minister. Or he will be re-elected, virtually guaranteeing him the title of Israel’s longest-ever serving leader.

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Battle for Tripoli escalates as fighting nears Libyan capital

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Fighting rages between UN-backed Tripoli government and self-styled Libyan National Army

The battle for Tripoli escalated on Sunday as a military assault on the city by the eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar led to 21 deaths and nearly 90 injuries, and international calls for calm were ignored.

As the fighting neared the capital, the UN issued a plea for a temporary ceasefire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. Hours earlier, the US announced it was withdrawing some of its troops from the country, citing deteriorating “security conditions on the ground”. India also withdrew a group of its peacekeepers, saying the situation in Libya had suddenly worsened.

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