Category: 2. Middle East

When he arrived in the town of Masaoudiyeh in northern Lebanon earlier this month, fleeing massacres on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, Dhulfiqar Ali had escaped death not once but twice.

He is among thousands of Syrians who have fled across the border after armed groups descended on the Syrian coastal heartland of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority and killed hundreds of civilians, mostly Alawites.

“They didn’t even speak Arabic… they knew only: ‘Alawites, pigs, kill them’,”…

ANKARA — Demonstrators across Turkey defied protest bans on Friday night, with hundreds of thousands rallying at Istanbul City Hall and thousands more taking to the streets elsewhere to protest the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

Imamoglu, a popular opposition figure and potential presidential contender against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was detained on Wednesday on terrorism and corruption charges. His arrest has sparked protests in dozens of provinces, with supporters…

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The UN warned Friday that all of Gaza’s approximately one million children were facing “massive trauma” as fighting in the war-ravaged territory resumed, and amid dire aid shortages.

Humanitarians described an alarming situation in Gaza, amid a growing civilian death toll since Israel resumed aerial bombardment and ground operations this week after a six-week ceasefire.

Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director in Gaza for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, highlighted the…