Category: 2. Middle East

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy predicts that more Arab countries will normalise relations with Israel as part of the so-called “Abraham Accords”.

“We think [we] will have some, or a lot of announcements, very, very shortly, which we hope will yield great progress by next year,” Steve Witkoff said during an event organised by the Israeli Embassy in Washington yesterday night, as cited by the Jewish Insider.

The event was held to mark the…

Dozens of former Eurovision contestants have signed an open letter urging the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to ban Israel and its public broadcaster from this year’s contest, accusing it of whitewashing alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The letter blasted last year’s Eurovision in Sweden as “the most politicised, chaotic and unpleasant in the competition’s history,” and accused Israeli public broadcaster KAN of being “complicit in Israel’s genocide…

Qatar said today that mediation efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire are ongoing “despite the difficult situation.”

“The Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediation is focused on ending the catastrophic war in Gaza,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari told a news briefing in Doha, without providing specific details.

He said previous mediation efforts “have led to the release of more hostages than what was achieved through military operations.”

The Qatari…

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will provide assistance to help ensure food reaches Palestinians in Gaza, while avoiding criticising Israel’s role in restricting the delivery of lifesaving aid.

Speaking at a White House event yesterday, Trump was asked about the severe difficulties Palestinians in Gaza face to access food due to the ongoing Israeli blockade.

“Hamas is making it impossible, because they’re taking everything…

The Palestinian government yesterday rejected the Israeli-proposed mechanism for distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, warning against attempts to eliminate the role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and other Palestinian humanitarian institutions.

In a statement issued by the Palestinian Cabinet, the government stressed its firm opposition to any actions aimed at undermining the work of UNRWA or Palestinian…

Israeli fighter jets launched a series of airstrikes in Yemen’s capital Sanaa targeting Houthi infrastructure at the city’s lone airport, less than a day after similar strikes in the port city of Hodeidah.

Yemeni news agency SABA cited a local source as saying that the attack, which it described as “US-Israeli aggression,” targeted the Sanaa International Airport, the Dhahaban power station in the Bani al-Harith district in the north of Sanaa and the Attan area.

A US official told…

Israel has sharply criticised US airlines for suspending flights to Tel Aviv following the Houthi missile strike on Ben Gurion airport over the weekend, according to local media.

The strike, claimed by Yemen’s Houthi group, targeted the airport, leaving thousands of Israeli travellers stranded abroad and prompting several international airlines to suspend their flights to Israel.

Israel’s Consul General in New York, Ofir Akunis, criticised US airlines for 

The consequences of Israel’s bombing of Yemen will be dire for the occupation state, a member of the Houthi’s political bureau warned yesterday.

Ali Al-Qhoom stressed that the Yemeni response to the Israeli bombing is coming and will be strong, and that they must bear the devastating blows.

In a post on X he wrote: “The Israeli aggression against greater Yemen will have dire consequences for the Zionists.”

He added that “targeting civilian targets,…

The Israeli government yesterday rejected a call from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara for an official state commission of enquiry into the events of 7 October 2023, explaining that instead it has decided to form a “special” commission of inquiry.

Attorney General Baharav-Miara has previously sent a letter to the government saying that “refraining from making a decision regarding the formation of an official commission of inquiry is harmful and…

Four Palestinian photographers from Agence France-Presse (AFP) were finalists for their Gaza coverage in the “Breaking News Photography” category of the Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious awards in US journalism.

The jury for the award, presented on Monday by Columbia University in New York, praised the “powerful images” from Gaza by Mahmud Hams, Omar Al-Qattaa, Said Khatib and Bashar Taleb.

The AFP photographers’ work encapsulated “the enduring humanity of the people of Gaza amid…