Tag Archives: Middle East

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Efforts to get desperately needed humanitarian aid to war-wracked northern Gaza gained momentum Wednesday with the European Union increasing pressure for the creation of a sea route from Cyprus to Gaza and British Foreign Minister David Cameron saying that Israel’s allies were losing patience. While aid groups say all of Gaza is mired in a …

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israel’s war on Hamas began nearly five months ago, health officials in the territory said. On Thursday, Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd of people scrambling for aid in Gaza City. More than 100 people were killed and at …

BEIRUT (AP) — Austria’s foreign minister on Thursday urged Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group against escalating the conflict along the volatile Israel-Lebanon border and expressed hope for a pause in the fighting in Gaza in time for the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in March. The Middle East has witnessed enough devastation and cruelty, Austrian Foreign …

BRUSSELS (AP) — Humanitarian aid groups appealed on Thursday to the European Union to release tens of millions of euros in funding due to the main U.N. agency that delivers most aid to people in the Gaza Strip as the organization teeters on the brink of financial collapse. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, was due to disburse 82 …

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s government plans to boost its defense spending by up to 19% over the next four years, citing a rise in global instability, including wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and gaps created when Swiss authorities cashed in on a peace dividend from the fall of the Berlin Wall decades ago. Laying out mid- and long-range …

JERUSALEM (AP) — It was a warm handshake between the unlikeliest of statesmen, conducted under the beaming gaze of U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Sunlight streamed through the trees at Camp David, Maryland, as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin solidified a landmark agreement that has allowed over 40 years of peace between Israel and Egypt. It …

January 2024 The war in the Gaza Strip entered its fourth month as the exchange of fire continued between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel, while Israel expanded the campaign to Beirut with a high-profile killing of a top-ranking Hamas commander. Yemen’s Houthis continued targeting shipping lines in the Red Sea, while the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack …

BEIRUT (AP) — A U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group this week highlighted the ambiguous status of the country’s Iran-allied armed factions. Some operate simultaneously as a part of the official security forces and outside of state control. That has put the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in an …

Two women and five children were among at least 13 people killed as Israeli airstrikes pounded the city of Rafah on Gaza’s southern border, according to the hospital that received the remains. The overnight airstrikes came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a cease-fire proposal from the Palestinian militant group Hamas and said he would expand the offensive …

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish police arrested seven people on Friday on suspicion of selling information to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. The suspects, who allegedly passed details to Mossad via private detectives, were detained in a joint operation with Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, or MIT. Acting on warrants issued by the Istanbul Chief Public …