Category: 2. Middle East

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that his country plans to recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations.

In a Friday post on X, Carney stated: “Canada supports a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.”  He added that Ottawa “will work intensively in all fora to further that end, including through the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN High-Level Conference on…

Hamas welcomed on Thursday the announcement by French President Emmanuel Macron that France plans to recognise the State of Palestine during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly meetings in September.

In a press statement, the movement described the announcement as “a positive step in the right direction towards justice for the oppressed Palestinian people”, and as support for their legitimate right to self-determination and the establishment of an…

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron has announced he will recognise Palestinian statehood, drawing angry rebukes from Israel and the United States and opening the door for other major nations to potentially like Britain and Canada to perhaps follow suit.

Below are some details about Macron’s announcement, driven by a rising global outcry over starvation and devastation in Gaza amid Israel’s war against Hamas militants, as well as other nations’ push to have Palestinian statehood…

By Andrea Shalal and Andrew MacAskill

EDINBURGH/LONDON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, heads to Scotland on Friday for a trip that will mix golf with politics mostly out of public view.

Trump plans to visit his golf resort in Turnberry on Scotland’s east coast, where he will meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday, before heading to his sprawling golf property 200 miles (320 km) away…

By Olivia Le Poidevin, Charlotte Greenfield and Jennifer Rigby

GENEVA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Gaza is on the brink of running out of the specialised therapeutic food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children, United Nations and humanitarian agencies say.

“We are now facing a dire situation, that we are running out of therapeutic supplies,” said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan told Reuters on Thursday, saying supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food…

Aid groups warned of surging numbers of malnourished children in war-ravaged Gaza as a trio of European powers prepared to hold an “emergency call” Friday on the deepening humanitarian crisis.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the United Nations said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition.

With fears of mass starvation…

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United Nations member states scheduled to convene for the Palestine conference on 28-29 July 2025 in New York to take immediate and concrete actions towards ending decades of “impunity” for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.

“It’s essential for governments to address Israel’s grave abuses by committing to concrete, timebound measures, including targeted sanctions, arms embargoes, suspending…

US envoy Tom Barrack met in Paris on Thursday evening with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Israel’s National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi, and Syrian Foreign Minister Hassan al-Shibani.

Following the meeting, Barrak stated on X, “Our goal was dialogue and de-escalation, and we accomplished precisely that.” He added: “All sides confirmed their commitment to continuing these efforts.”

The Paris meeting came amid heightened…

Hamas has submitted its response to the prisoner swap proposal put forward by mediators, which includes its demand to end the war once the proposed 60-day truce ends.

The American envoy Bishara Bahbah and several Israeli officials described the response as constructive and a potential basis for reaching a deal. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by pulling the Israeli delegation out of Qatar, accusing Hamas of imposing conditions on Tel…

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain supports eventual recognition of a Palestinian state, but the immediate priority should be alleviating the suffering in Gaza and securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a British cabinet minister said on Friday.

Successive British governments have said they would formally recognise a Palestinian state at the right time, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the conditions for it to happen.

“We want Palestinian statehood, we desire it, and we want to…