Category: 2. Middle East

At the break of dawn, 10-year-old Youssef al-Najjar races barefoot, clutching a battered pot, to a community kitchen in Gaza City, only to find hundreds of others already queueing.

“People push and shove out of fear of missing their turn. There are little children who fall,” said Youssef, his voice barely rising above a whisper.

Thousands of Gazans, including many children, rush to community kitchens every day in the hope of securing food for their families.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has…

The United States has hit more than 800 targets in Yemen since mid-March, killing hundreds of Huthi rebel fighters, including members of the group’s leadership, the US military said Sunday.

Washington’s forces have hammered the Huthis with near-daily air strikes since March 15 in an operation dubbed “Rough Rider,” seeking to end the threat they pose to vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and reestablish US regional “deterrence.”

“Since the start of Operation Rough Rider, USCENTCOM has…

Israel struck south Beirut on Sunday for the third time since a fragile November 27 ceasefire, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to call on its guarantors France and the United States to force a halt.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike targeted a building used by Hezbollah to store “precision-guided missiles” and vowed to stop the Iran-backed militant group using Beirut’s southern suburbs as a “safe haven”.

An AFP correspondent saw a plume of smoke…

The Israeli army said on Sunday it struck a southern Beirut building being used to store precision missiles belonging to Hezbollah, Reuters reports.

The attack was a further test of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group.

A huge plume of smoke billowed from the building, Reuters live footage showed, almost an hour after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order to residents of the Hadath neighbourhood.

Israeli Defence Minister…

Illegal Israeli settlers heavily damaged a Palestinian school in the southern West Bank on Sunday, in their latest attack in the occupied territory, a local official said, Anadolu reports.

According to the official news agency Wafa, the settlers rampaged through the Zanuta School east of Al-Dhahiriya, south of Hebron city, and stole its contents.

Municipal chief Fayez Al-Tal said the school was renovated by villagers in preparation for receiving…

Protesters disrupted the men’s elite race at the London Marathon on Sunday, calling on the British government to impose a full trade embargo on Israel and highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Anadolu reports.

Two members of Youth Demand, a youth-led civil resistance group in the UK, jumped over barriers near Tower Bridge and threw red powder paint in front of the runners.

The protesters wore ‘Stop Arming Israel’ t-shirts and were detained by the…

Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq met with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Muscat on Sunday to discuss bilateral ties and regional and international developments, Anadolu reports.

A Foreign Ministry statement said that the discussions took up historic and strategic relations and a host of regional and international issues.

Lammy listened to the views of the Omani sultan on key regional and international issues and expressed interest in efforts to reach a…

Qatar called on Sunday for urgent action to force Israel to allow the entry of humanitarian aid into the blockaded Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.

“Qatar rejects the use of starvation and humanitarian aid as a weapon against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Doha.

“We continue our efforts with our partners to end the war…

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the immediate deployment of emergency specialists to Iran to assist Iranian authorities in containing the fire at Shahid Rajaee Port after a request from Tehran, the Russian Embassy announced on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

According to the embassy, several aircraft carrying teams from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations are being dispatched to Iran.

“We wish success to the Russian rescuers and their Iranian…

The Gaza economy has collapsed with prices of essential goods skyrocketing by 527% amid an Israeli blockade on the enclave, the Gaza Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

“The (Israeli) occupation continues to prevent the entry of trucks of the private sector, causing almost a complete paralysis (of the economy),” the chamber said in a statement.

According to the statement, prices of essential goods and foodstuffs rose by 527%…