Category: 2. Middle East

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Belgium’s King Philippe described abuses in Gaza as a “disgrace to humanity” in a speech on the eve of Monday’s national day, unusually direct remarks on international affairs from a monarch who traditionally avoids public politics.

“I add my voice to all those who denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves,” he said speaking at his palace in Brussels.

“The current…

Israel pounded Yemen’s Huthi-held port of Hodeida with air strikes on Monday for the second time in a month, stoking fears of escalation as it warned Yemen could face the same fate as Iran.

Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen have come under repeated Israeli strikes since the Iran-backed rebels began launching missile and drone attacks on Israel, declaring they act in solidarity with Palestinians over the Gaza war.

In its latest raids, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel struck “targets of…

The Turkish government issued a decree late on Sunday to terminate a 52-year-old oil pipeline agreement with Iraq that facilitated the flow of crude between the two countries, effective July next year. The pipeline has not transported oil for more than two years.

What happened: The decree, issued in the Official Gazette and signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the 1973 Turkey-Iraq Crude Oil Pipeline Agreement — and all subsequent negotiated accords — would be…

CAIRO (Reuters) -An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said.

Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force “abducted” him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the…

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece revealed on Monday the boundaries of two planned marine parks in the Ionian and Aegean Seas, which Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said will be the largest in the Mediterranean region.

Athens wants to establish the parks, for the protection of sea mammals and turtles in the Ionian Sea and for seabirds and seals in the Aegean, this year. Mitsotakis said they will help the country meet its global commitment to expand its marine protected areas to 30% of its waters by…

LONDON (Reuters) -The co-founder of a pro-Palestinian campaign group sought on Monday to challenge the British government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a move her lawyers said had “the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power”.

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, is asking London’s High Court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the group’s proscription, which was made on the grounds it committed or participated in acts of…

By Asif Shahzad

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) -Islamist militants in Pakistan have started using commercially acquired quadcopter drones to drop bombs on security forces in the country’s northwest, police said, a potentially dangerous development in the volatile region.

The use of such drones, which are powered by four rotors allowing for vertical take-off and landing, is worrying the overstretched and under-equipped police force, the frontline against militant attacks, officials said.

Two…

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in the Gaza strip in a phone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement.

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti and Alvise Armellini, editing by Gianluca Semeraro)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has strongly rejected what he described as efforts to impose pressure and force on the Iranian people, warning that such actions are unacceptable and counterproductive.

“Using force and pressure to deny our people their legitimate rights is absolutely unacceptable,” Pezeshkian said on Sunday.

He reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to international law and transparency, particularly regarding its nuclear programme. “The Islamic…

The German government has raised concerns over the effectiveness and neutrality of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly established mechanism supported by Israel and the United States.

“In the view of the German government, it is now obvious that [the GHF’s new distribution mechanism] does not reach the civilian population to a sufficient extent and does not operate in accordance with humanitarian principles,” the…