Category: 2. Middle East

Former Tunisian Prime Minister and deputy head of the Ennahda Movement, Ali Laarayedh, was sentenced to 34 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, media reports said Saturday.

Tunis Afrique Presse, (TAP), citing judicial sources, said Laarayedh and eight other defendants were charged with aiding the formation of a terror organisation, joining such a group within Tunisia, and facilitating the travel of Tunisian youth abroad to join terror groups.

The case is…

An Illinois man was sentenced to 53 years in prison on Friday for the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in an attack deemed an anti-Muslim hate crime linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

Joseph Czuba, 73, was convicted in February of fatally stabbing Wadea Al-Fayoumi and attacking the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen.

Czuba was the family’s landlord and the attack took place a week after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.

Wadea was stabbed 26 times and a serrated military…

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.

Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP.

AFP footage in the…

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Syrian territory, calling them “violation of Syria’s sovereignty”, Anadolu reports.

Speaking at a news conference, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Guterres is following the tensions in certain areas of Damascus with concern and condemned all acts of violence against civilians and activities that escalate sectarian tensions.

“In this context, he also condemns…

As Israel’s continues its devastating war and relentless humanitarian blockade, the ancient Gaza Strip – once a radiant Mediterranean hub of commerce, culture, and religious coexistence – now faces a deeper erasure: not just from maps, but from the world’s collective memory, Anadolu reports.

A new exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, titled ‘Gaza’s Saved Treasures: 5,000 Years of History,’ seeks to resist that disappearance. Running…

Turkiye on Friday condemned “in the strongest terms” an attack on civilian ship belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, Anadolu reports.

The group that organized the mission said Conscience, the humanitarian aid ship bound for Gaza with 16 people on board, came under a drone attack in international waters off Malta on Friday.

“There are allegations that the ship was targeted by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles. All necessary efforts will be made to…

Iran said Friday that continued US sanctions on its trade partners will not alter its policy, after President Donald Trump threatened to penalise countries or individuals dealing in Iranian oil.

“The continuation of these illegal behaviours will not change Iran’s logical, legitimate and international law-based positions,” a foreign ministry statement said, condemning what it called “pressure on Iran’s trade and economic partners”.

It added that such sanctions have created “deep suspicion and…

The United Arab Emirates endured its hottest April on record with an average daily high of 42.6 degrees Celsius (108.7 Fahrenheit), the National Center of Meteorology (NCM) said.

That topped the average daily high of 42.2 Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) recorded in April 2017, said the centre, which has been keeping comprehensive figures since 2003.

The oil-rich Gulf state has been gripped by a heatwave for several days that has prompted authorities to warn residents to drink plenty of fluids and…