Category: 2. Middle East

It had been nearly two years since AFP journalist Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali set foot in his home in war-torn Khartoum, after the sound of children playing in the street gave way to the fearsome fire of machine guns.

Sudan’s once-peaceful capital awoke to the sound of bombs and gunfire on April 15, 2023 as war broke out between its two most powerful generals — army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces…

Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.

“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.

“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.

Since the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14…

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Hamas late Thursday signalled rejection of Israel’s latest truce proposal and called for a “comprehensive” deal to end the 18-month-long war.

The comment by the Palestinian militants’ chief negotiator came after civil defence rescuers in Gaza said a rash of Israeli air strikes killed at least 40 people, most of them in encampments for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive in the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of the strikes.

A senior…

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani during a brief visit to Qatar earlier this week, facilitated by Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a senior Iraqi government source told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Thursday, Anadolu reports.

The tripartite meeting, held in the presence of the Qatari emir, addressed the volatile regional situation, particularly ongoing developments in Syria, the source said.

The source did not…

Illegal Israeli settlers shot and wounded a Palestinian man, 60, in the occupied West Bank’s Hebron governorate on Thursday, according to activists, Anadolu reports.

The attack occurred in the al-Rakiz area in eastern Yatta and targeted Sheikh Saeed Amour while he tended his land, said Hassan Malihat, general supervisor of the non-governmental Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights.

Malihat said Amour sustained moderate injuries and was rushed…

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Thursday with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at the Kremlin to discuss indirect negotiations between Iran and the US, as well as Russian-American consultations, according to the Iranian diplomat, Anadolu reports.

“I told the Russian president about the current situation in the indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States, we held consultations on this matter. Russian-American negotiations on Ukraine and…