Category: 2. Middle East

Protesters were defiant Wednesday despite a growing crackdown and nearly 1,500 arrests as they marked a week since the start of Turkey’s biggest street demonstrations since 2013.

The protests erupted on March 19 after the arrest of Istanbul opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as part of a graft and “terror” probe, which his supporters denounced as a “coup”.

Vast crowds have hit the street daily, defying protest bans in Istanbul, the capital Ankara and Izmir with the unrest spreading across the…

Israeli survivor Gal Gilboa-Dalal has led a life of pain and worry since Hamas militants took his younger brother Guy hostage from the music festival they attended together on October 7, 2023.

Wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the face of his 23-year-old brother, he showed a photo of their final moments together before being separated during the attack.

Of the 1,218 people killed as a result of the October 7 attack, militants murdered more than 370 people at the Nova music festival, at…

Huthi media in Yemen reported Wednesday at least 17 strikes in Saada and Amran, blaming the United States for the attacks.

The rebels’ Ansarollah website said US warplanes carried out “aggressive air raids… causing material damage to citizens’ property”, but gave no details of casualties.

Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Huthis, promising to use overwhelming force until the group stopped firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red…

Huthi media said 19 strikes hit rebel-held parts of Yemen, mostly Saada, blaming the United States, with the group later announcing they targeted a US warship and Israel.

Al-Masirah TV reported that “the US aggression launched 17 raids on the Saada governorate during the night”, and earlier said two raids hit Amran.

The Iran-backed rebels’ news agency, Saba, said “the American aggression targeted the Oncology Hospital building in Saada”.

The hospital, which Huthi media said was under…

Syria slammed Israeli attacks as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty after a deadly bombardment Tuesday in the country’s south, where Israel’s military said it had responded to incoming fire.

The violence near the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights followed Israeli air strikes in central Syria, the latest in a string of attacks on military sites since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian foreign ministry in a statement condemned “the…

In a matter of days, US President Donald Trump has extended a hand to Iran and bombed Tehran’s allies in Yemen. His administration has both demanded that Iran dismantle its nuclear program and offered more flexibility.

Trump has for years dangled force as a means to get his way in negotiations.

But on Iran, some observers see less a strategy than mixed messaging, with a real debate on how the norms-breaking president will handle a US adversary of nearly half a century.

“There is a lot of…

Israeli police released Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal on Tuesday, after detaining him a day earlier for “hurling rocks” following what activists described as an attack by settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Basel Adra, who worked with Ballal on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land”, posted a photo of Ballal on X after his release with blood stains on his shirt.

“After I won the Oscar, I did not expect to be exposed to such attacks,” Ballal said in a video by…

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the country’s chief negotiator in the now-defunct Israel-Hamas ceasefire, met Tuesday in Washington with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, days after Egypt put forward a new proposal to temporarily end fighting in the Strip.

Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that the meeting took place in Washington on Tuesday. Contacted by Al-Monitor, a White House spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. 

Dermer arrived in Washington…

President Donald Trump and top US intelligence officials raced Tuesday to stem a growing scandal after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about air strikes on Yemen’s Huthi rebels in a stunning security breach.

Trump brushed off the leak as a “glitch,” while the CIA director and the White House intelligence chief both claimed during a Senate hearing that no classified information was divulged in the conversation on the Signal messaging app.

The president also defended his…