Author: Gulf News Week
Once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, Gaza City is home to one million now facing forcible displacement.Israel has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food.On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defence reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit…
Israel has repeatedly targeted the Houthis in recent months as tensions with the group increase over the war in Gaza.The leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, has denounced Israel and signalled defiance, hailing assassinated government leaders as “the martyrs of all Yemen”, the day after the group confirmed the death of its prime minister and other cabinet ministers.“The Israeli enemy, with its crimes and savagery, does not spare even children, women and defenceless civilians,” he said during his first speech on Sunday since the Israeli strikes, according to Houthi media.“The crime of targeting ministers and civilian officials is added to…
Everything you need to know about UNIFIL and the renewal of its mandate until the end of 2026.The United Nations Security Council voted on Thursday to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, until the end of 2026 and then to begin an “orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal” over the course of 2027.The winding down of UNIFIL has been pushed heavily by Israel and the United States, who accuse the group of providing political cover for Hezbollah since the 2006 war and failing to work to disarm Hezbollah, despite that not being the UN body’s…
Washington is pressing Baghdad to dismantle pro-Iranian paramilitary groups. The move is risky, but it may pay off.Over the past two years, Iran’s network of allies in the Middle East has taken painful blows. In Syria, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed. In Lebanon, Hezbollah was forced to lay down its arms under a United States-brokered ceasefire and now faces pressure to disarm. In Yemen, the Houthis were forced to stop disrupting maritime traffic through the Red Sea after massive bombardment of infrastructure and civilian areas by US forces. On Thursday, an Israeli attack killed their prime minister, Ahmed…
Vessels expected to reach Gaza in mid-September in third attempt by sea to end a war that has killed over 63,000 Palestinians.The Global Sumud Flotilla has left the Spanish port city of Barcelona, with the stated goal of “breaking Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza”.The boats started moving out of the port at approximately 3:30pm on Sunday, with crowds of activists, support staff, and well-wishers there to see the crews off.Mauricio Morales, reporting from on board the Familia, one of the Flotilla boats, said: “The turnout was overwhelming, I think nobody was expecting so many people to wave goodbye to the…
Train derails as it travels to Cairo from the western Mediterranean province of Matrouh, on the country’s north coast.A passenger train has derailed in western Egypt, killing at least three people and injuring 94 others, authorities have said, in the latest in a number of rail crashes in the country in recent years.The train derailed on Saturday as it travelled to the capital Cairo from the western Mediterranean province of Matrouh, on the country’s north coast, railway authorities said in a statement.Seven of its wagons went off the tracks, with two of them overturning.The Health Ministry detailed deaths and injuries,…
An international effort bringing together volunteers from all over the world aims to break the siege on Gaza.Barcelona, Spain – Volunteers from across the world have come together in the main hall of one of Spain’s oldest labour unions, the UGT – once a registration centre for international volunteers who came to Spain to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War.Now it has trained the nonviolent international volunteers – Palestine supporters, activists, journalists and politicians – who will sail on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza on Sunday.“We are not heroes. We are not the story. The story is the people…
Prabowo Subianto says some parliament policies to be revoked as he also promises stern action against rioters and looters.Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says political parties have agreed to revoke a number of perks and privileges for parliamentarians in a major concession to people taking part in antigovernment protests that have killed at least five people.Protests over what the demonstrators have criticised as excessive pay and housing allowances for parliamentarians started on Monday and expanded into riots on Thursday after one person, a motorcycle rideshare driver, was killed in a police action at a protest site.Rioters ransacked or set ablaze the…
More than 50 ships are heading to Gaza to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade and deliver urgent humanitarian aid.A global fleet of boats is preparing to set sail for Gaza as part of an international maritime initiative aimed at delivering humanitarian aid to starving people in Gaza.The first convoy, consisting of dozens of small civilian vessels carrying activists, humanitarians, doctors, seafarers, and humanitarian supplies, is scheduled to depart from Spanish ports on August 31, to meet up in Tunisia with a second wave on September 4.Organisers describe the Global Sumud Flotilla as the largest maritime mission to Gaza, bringing together more…
Sudan’s civil war saw a number of developments on the battlefield as well as in diplomacy and the humanitarian crisis.Sudan’s civil war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary has produced the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.Estimates suggested tens of thousands of people have died from combat and thousands more have perished from disease and hunger brought on by the war, now well into its third year.There have been many significant military and political developments this month. Here are the key updates:Fighting and military control The SAF is consolidating its control over the…