Category: 2. Middle East

The mother of an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza longs for her son’s return, fearing that Israel’s renewed bombardment of the territory puts his life at even greater risk.

“Our children are in danger,” Herut Nimrodi told AFP during an interview. Her son, Tamir, was just 18 when he was taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023.

“We don’t know much, but one thing that is certain is that military pressure on Gaza endangers the hostages,” she said.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s…

Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday said he was prepared to grant temporary shelter to Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza between the Israeli military and the territory’s rulers Hamas.

Nearly 400,000 Gaza residents have been displaced in the weeks since Israel resumed military operations in the territory last month, according to the United Nations.

“We are ready to receive wounded victims,” Prabowo said before leaving for a Middle East visit to the United Arab Emirates,…

Fear, bombs and screams stalk Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s resumption of strikes three weeks ago has sparked fresh displacement and an ever more desperate search for shelter.

“They are asking for evacuation, but where will we go?” asked Mahmoud Hussein, who fled bombardments in the north to live in a tent in the central town of az-Zawayda.

“There is nothing, nothing,” he said, listing off several nearby areas marked for evacuation on a map published by the Israeli…

A French court will rule on September 25 in the trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy on charges he accepted illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi, a judge said Tuesday.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has denied the charges.

He is already serving a one-year sentence with an electronic bracelet in a separate influence-peddling case.

Prosecutors argue that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally…

A Lebanese judge on Tuesday referred former central bank governor Riad Salameh to court for trial over the alleged embezzlement of $44 million of the bank’s funds, a judicial official said.

The move came seven months after Salameh was arrested in Lebanon over the case.

Salameh, who headed the central bank for three decades, faces numerous accusations including embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion in separate probes in crisis-hit Lebanon and abroad.

On Tuesday, the judge issued a…

US President Donald Trump appeared to catch Tehran off guard on Monday when he announced “direct talks” between the arch-foes over Iran’s nuclear programme, having previously threatened to bomb the Islamic republic.

Despite previously having expressed major reservations over the talks, Tehran has agreed to participate but through an intermediary.

– What does Iran want? –

The priority for the Islamic republic is the lifting of biting sanctions that have placed a stranglehold on the energy-rich…

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that Gaza had become “a killing field,” blaming Israel for blocking aid and failing in its “unequivocal obligations” to meet the needs of the Palestinian territory’s residents.

“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies. As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened,” Guterres said in remarks to journalists.

Pointing to the Geneva…