Category: 2. Middle East

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Friday began the first steps of officially handing over its weapons, marking a historic shift that ends over four decades of armed conflict with Turkey.

This development follows a video message from the party’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who declared an end to the armed struggle and called for a complete shift towards democratic politics and the rule of law.

The disarmament ceremony was held today near the city of…

Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for women’s and human rights in Iran, has received death threats from Tehran, the Nobel Committee said Friday.

Mohammadi, who has spent much of the past decade behind bars, was released from Tehran’s Evin prison in December for a limited period on medical leave, with her legal team repeatedly warning that she could be re-arrested at any time.

Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said in a…

Israeli forces were targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in southern Gaza, the military said Friday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced hope that an agreement with Hamas could be reached within days for a pause in the 21-month war.

Negotiators from Israel and the Palestinian militant group have been locked in indirect talks in Qatar since Sunday to try to agree a temporary ceasefire.

Netanyahu said a lasting truce could follow, but only if Hamas lays down its arms and is no longer…

Ten Palestinians were reported killed Friday waiting for rations in Gaza, adding to the nearly 800 killed seeking aid in the last six weeks, according to the UN, with Israel’s army saying it issued troops new instructions following the repeated reports of deaths.

Friday’s violence came as negotiators from Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas were locked in indirect talks in Qatar to try to agree on a temporary ceasefire in the more than 21-month conflict.

Israel’s Prime Minister…

The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Thursday that banning international media from entering Gaza for over 640 days is aimed at hiding the atrocities committed against civilians, including one million children, in the besieged Strip.

In a post on X, Lazzarini stated that the ban is also intended to “increase dehumanization & prevent compassion” toward them.

He described the ongoing media restriction…

Ongoing Israeli attacks on towns in the occupied West Bank are causing widespread destruction and severely worsening the humanitarian situation, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday.

In its daily update on 10 July, OCHA stated that Israeli assaults operations “are causing massive destruction, driving further humanitarian needs and dampening hopes of thousands of displaced families that they will…

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Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.

Hamas said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is placing obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement that would secure the release of prisoners and end the aggression against the Gaza Strip. 

In a statement on Thursday, Hamas described Netanyahu’s recent comments to the families of Israeli captives—where he said a comprehensive deal was not possible—as proof of his “malicious and ill intentions”.

Hamas added it had previously proposed a…