Author: Gulf News Week
From South Africa’s Cape Town to Manila in the Philippines and London in the UK, voices are raised in protest.Protests and vigils have taken place around the world in support of Palestinians suffering in Gaza and to pay tribute to the four media journalists and two freelancers killed by Israel in the besieged enclave in a deliberate targeted assassination on Sunday.Journalists, students, activists and members of civil society – notably in Cape Town, South Africa; Manila, the Philippines; and London, the United Kingdom – held the protests on Wednesday to call on their governments to put pressure on Israel to…
There are 60 survivors from the perilous journey from Libya, but a UN agency says there could be more people missing.At least 26 people have died after two boats sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, and a United Nations agency says more refugees and migrants could be missing as search operations continue.Rescue services on Wednesday rescued 60 survivors, with 56 men and four women brought ashore to Lampedusa, according to the Italian Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesperson for the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), said around 95…
The surge in Israel’s bombardment in the north of the Gaza Strip comes as it plans to seize Gaza City.At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources, with media’s team on the ground reporting the intensification of strikes on the northern parts of the besieged enclave, where 61 people were killed in Gaza City alone.Israeli air strikes on groups trying to secure the distribution of aid north of Gaza City killed at least 12 people on Wednesday.At least 37 people desperately seeking any food for their families were killed by…
The occupied West Bank town’s mayor says Thamin Khalil Reda Dawabsheh killed as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians.A Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank has been shot dead in an attack instigated by Israeli settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry as cited by the Wafa news agency.Thamin Khalil Reda Dawabsheh, 35, was shot Wednesday morning in the town of Duma, south of Nablus, by an Israeli off-duty soldier who was accompanying “an Israeli civilian” near Duma “during engineering works”, the Israeli army said.Earlier Palestinian reports of the attack had stated that Dawabsheh was killed by an Israeli settler. 35-year-old…
Turkish foreign minister hosts Syrian counterpart in Ankara; defence ministers sign military cooperation memorandum of understanding.Turkiye has said that Israel and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) must stop threatening the security and stability of Syria as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan hosted his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shaibani in Ankara.Speaking at a joint news conference on Wednesday, Fidan accused Israel and the SDF of wilfully undermining the country’s recovery efforts after the devastation of a 14-year civil war and the ouster of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad last December by a lightning rebel offensive.Fidan said Israel had “fuelled certain difficulties” in Syria…
The security chief’s visit comes after Iran expressed opposition to a government plan to disarm Hezbollah.Lebanon’s president has told a senior Iranian official that Beirut rejects any interference in its internal affairs and has criticised Tehran’s statements on plans to disarm Hezbollah as “unconstructive”.Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani’s visit to Beirut on Wednesday comes a week after the Lebanese government ordered the army to devise plans by the end of 2025 to disarm the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group.Iran expressed opposition to the plan to disarm Hezbollah, which before a war with Israel last year was believed to…
The so-called E3 group says they are ready to trigger the ‘snapback’ mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal.France, Germany and the United Kingdom have told the United Nations they are prepared to reinstate sanctions on Iran, according to a joint letter.The letter, sent to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council, said the three European powers were “committed to use all diplomatic tools at our disposal to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon” unless Tehran meets a deadline to speak with them.“We have made it clear that if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic…
A transit corridor pact signed by Azerbaijan and Armenia could be game-changing, according to several experts.Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, his late father and predecessor Heydar Aliyev and some of their closest political allies hail from Nakhchivan.The name of this tiny, mountainous and underdeveloped Azeri area sandwiched between Armenia, Iran and Turkiye sounds unfamiliar to those outside the strategic South Caucasus region.But Nakhchivan’s name and geopolitical significance resurfaced after United States President Donald Trump hosted a White House summit between Azeri and Armenian leaders on Friday.Azerbaijan’s Aliyev and the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a preliminary peace deal to end…
Human rights groups have warned that expelling the population from Gaza would violate international law.Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza to the East African country, according to six people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press.The proposal is part of an Israeli effort to displace Palestinians from Gaza – a move human rights groups warn would amount to forcible expulsion, ethnic cleansing, and would violate international law.Critics of the transfer plan fear Palestinians would never be allowed to return to Gaza and that mass departure could pave the way for…
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres puts both countries ‘on notice’ over documented pattern of sexual violence.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has put Israel and Russia “on notice” that their armed forces and security personnel could be listed among parties “credibly suspected” of committing sexual violence in conflict zones.The warning on Tuesday resulted from “significant concerns regarding patterns of certain forms of sexual violence that have been consistently documented by the United Nations”, Guterres wrote in a report seen by the Reuters news agency.In his annual report to the UN Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence, Guterres said that Israel and…