Middle East
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday he did not think a wider war in the Middle East was inevitable and the United States was seeking to cool rising tensions in the region. “I don’t think war is inevitable. I maintain that. I think there’s always room
Middle East
A team of UN investigators said Tuesday they had met in Chad with victims of violence in Sudan’s brutal civil war and had documented “disturbing patterns” of grave abuses. The recently established UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the situation in Sudan said it had spent three weeks in
Middle East
At least 85 people have died in a single hospital in the Darfur city of El-Fasher since fighting reignited between Sudan’s warring parties on May 10, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday. On Monday alone, nine of 60 casualties received at Southern Hospital — El-Fasher’s only remaining medical
Middle East
The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.” Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023
Middle East
A major city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur has been rocked by fighting involving “heavy weaponry,” a senior UN official said Saturday. Violence erupted in populated areas of El-Fasher, putting about 800,000 people at risk, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said in a
Middle East
mong the bustling workshops of central Cairo’s Al-Sabtiyah district, Om Ghada’s blacksmith business has seen profits dip as two-hour power cuts each day returned after a brief suspension during the holy month of Ramadan. When scheduled outages began last summer it came as a shock to Egyptians accustomed
Middle East
Lebanese authorities arrested on Wednesday six people for their alleged involvement in sexual assaults on children, sometimes using the video-sharing platform TikTok to lure minors. The Internal Security Forces said in a statement that among those arrested was a “TikTok influencer,” who is also a hairdresser, according to local media.
Middle East
France President Emmanuel Macron will meet Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati and army chief Joseph Aoun on Friday in Paris, the French presidency said. Lebanon is grappling with a deep economic and political crisis. Lebanon has been without a president for more than a year after ex-head of state
Middle East
Lebanese security forces have arrested seven Syrians on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a local politician, a judicial official said Tuesday, amid a backlash against Syrian refugees. Pascal Sleiman was the coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area, north of Beirut, for the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian party
reports
In the past six months, Syria has experienced the worst surge of violence since 2020, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic said on Monday. During that time, it added, various forces have targeted civilians and essential infrastructure across several battlefronts, committing acts that
Middle East
Israel’s military proposed a plan for evacuating civilians from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Monday, after he said a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory’s southern city Rafah was necessary for “total victory.” Foreign governments and aid organizations have repeatedly expressed fears that
News
Israel has begun investigating possible breaches of the law by its forces during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, the military said on Tuesday, following reports some Israeli civilians may have been killed by friendly fire in the fighting. The left-wing daily Haaretz said the investigation centered on an incident
Middle East
Nearly 100 migrants have died or disappeared in the central and eastern Mediterranean since the beginning of 2024, more than double the toll recorded last year during the same period, the UN migration agency said on Monday. The comment was made during an Italy-Africa Conference in Rome attended by more
Live News
Blinken meets Arab leaders in diplomatic push over Gaza war.
East And West
A senior Hezbollah commander has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.