Gaza war rages as US wants to ‘close’ ceasefire agreement
Doha, Qatar - Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said Wednesday that a truce and hostage release deal to end the Gaza...Geostrategy
Israeli forces kill 4 Palestinians in West Bank
The Israeli military said it shot at a group of four people who attempted to flee in a vehicle and...Geostrategy
Turkey sidelined as EU prepares to open door to others
As when the European Union published its annual reports on candidate countries' progress towards EU norms on Wednesday, all eyes...Turkey's ambassador to the EU reaffirmed Turkey's commitment to accession, but acknowledged it was not going to be easy
"Turkish government is committed to EU membership," said Faruk Kaymakci adding they expect equal treatment among candidate countries
IS claims Kabul bus bombing that killed at least 7
Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said the explosion occurred in the capital's Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood -- an enclave of the historically...The IS-affiliated news outlet Amaq later announced its fighters had "detonated an explosive device" on a bus carrying Shiites in west Kabul
The number of bomb blasts and suicide attacks has reduced dramatically since the Taliban ended their insurgency after seizing power in August 2021
MSF says staff member killed in Gaza bombing
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing figures from the Hamas-run ministry of health,...Mohammed Al Ahel, a laboratory technician, was killed in his home in the Shati refugee camp when the area was bombed and his building collapsed
Claire Magone, General Director of MSF France, told reporters on Tuesday that Gaza's people had been "bled dry" and rescue workers are "practically powerless"
‘Gulf nations should unite for Palestinian cause’
"Our stance on the Palestinian issue is unequivocal. The Palestinian people's right to resistance, including reclaiming their occupied land and...GCC parliament heads condemn violence against Palestinians, support their struggle for statehood and rights.
As part of global diplomacy, GCC seeks to to strengthen relations with European and Latin American parliaments.
18 hospitals forced to close their doors in Gaza: report
Dubai, UAE - Eighteen hospitals in the Gaza Strip were forced to end their work in the Gaza Strip amid...The situation in Gaza hospitals is catastrophic, particularly so in northern regions, Al-Jazeera reported
Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has been hitting it with airstrikes and also parts of Lebanon and Syria
US opposes reoccupation of Gaza by Israel: State Dept
In a rebuke to the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu who vowed to have "overall security" of Gaza after the war,...Netanyahu told ABC News on Monday that Israel would assume security of Gaza for an indefinite period
The Israeli military has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and is scaling up ground operations into the enclave
US diplomat urges calm at Lebanon-Israel border amid skirmishes
Beirut, Lebanon - Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein on Tuesday urged for calm to return to Lebanon's southern border with Israel,..."The United States does not want to see conflict in Gaza escalating and expanding into Lebanon," Hochstein told a press conference in Beirut.
"Restoring calm along the southern border is of utmost importance to the US and it should be the highest priority for both Lebanon and Israel," he added.
UN calls for overhaul of financial system to help poorest countries
The UN called for an overhaul of the global financial system to help the world's poorest countries and their struggle...The 46 so-called least developed countries, or LDCs, suffered a sharp economic slowdown in the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a consequence of the economic slowdown, an additional 15 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty, the UN body said.
Netanyahu says Israel will have ‘security responsibility’ of Gaza
In the relentless bombardment and ground attacks, 10,328 Palestinians have been killed in the besieged enclave, 300 since Monday alone....The US acknowledged there had been "thousands" of civilian casualties in Gaza, after President Joe Biden previously called into question the validity of numbers published by Hamas.
Hundreds of Palestinian foreign passport holders waited on Tuesday inside Gaza Strip to escape through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Gaza refugee camps: born during first Arab-Israeli war
Over 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what is referred to by Palestinians as the "Nakba"...More than two-thirds of the 2.4 million people living in Gaza are registered refugees. Israel has persistently rejected their "right of return", which the UN backed in 1948.
Gaza's camps are among the most densely populated places on the planet, with over 620,000 people packed into less than 6.5 square kilometers of land.