Palestine

The Levant News Exclusive — Sources in the Palestinian Authority claim that President of Tunisia El Beji Caid Essebsi will pay an official visit to Ramallah. President Essebsi is planned to travel to the PA after his visit to Jordan on 20-21 October. According to our sources, Azzam Al Ahmad, …

The Levant News — Palestinians torched a site revered by Jews in the West Bank overnight, Israeli and Palestinian sources said Friday, amid calls for fresh protests after more than two weeks of deadly unrest. Video showed what looked like an extensive blaze at the site in the northern city …

The Levant News — Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Nofal Abdel Hafiz said that Palestine has called for an immediate visit by representatives from the Middle East Quartet from the United States, United Nations, the European Union, and Russia in order to assess the acute situation in the region. MOSCOW (Sputnik) – …

The Levant News — Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on targets in Gaza overnight in retaliation to rocket fire directed at Israeli territory earlier in the day. Although an ISIS-affiliated group claimed responsibility for the attack, Israel holds Hamas responsible. Witnesses reported at least four airstrikes in the Gaza strip early Monday, …

The Levant- – The Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip continues to hinder the reconstruction process in the Palestinian territory, leaving thousands of families homeless. During the recent war on Gaza, Israeli forces killed over 22-hundred Palestinians and destroyed the territory’s infrastructure. Our correspondent Ashraf Shanon explains how Israel’s control on …

The Levant- – The forum was organized by The Alliance of Palestinian Resistance forces, on Saturday in Damascus, to express solidarity with al-Aqsa Mosque and the prisoners in the Israeli jails. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation entity, broke into the holy mosque on Wednesday amid brutal assault …

THE LEVANT NEW – By: Labib Taha*– Shias is one of the major sects in Islam; their name emerged in the first years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Although Shias and Sunnis sects comply with Islam in general, the disparity between both sides has its aspects in political, …

by Ali Hashem  – THE LEVANT NEWS — Who wants to be in Hamas’ shoes? Probably no one in the greater Middle East, where the Palestinian group is trapped between two major blocs who used to have much in common prior to the Arab Spring.  On one side there’s the ideological …

The LEVANT EXCLUSIVE — By Labib Taha* —      As Israeli settlers set fire to a dwelled house and burned Dawabsha family in Duma village, the leaders of Israel rush to repudiate and condemn that thing. The scene seems contradictory between the crimes of the settlers on the one …

 By Jasmin Rasheed — Exclusive to THE LEVANT NEWS — Palestinian well informed sources say that on Aug. 26 the Palestinian civilian organizations intend to submit an independent report on the violation of the international law by Israel to the office of the ICC Prosecutor, Mrs. Fatou Bensouda. This report is …

The Levant News — The Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionism organization, Neturi Karta, has  Condemned the Zionist Brutal Murder of Dawabsha’s Baby in West Bank. It has issued the following statement: “In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful Condemnation of the cruel Zionist Brutal Murders We Palestinian Jews are participating in the …

By Jasmin Rasheed — THE LEVANT NEWS EXCLUSIVE — Palestinian well informed sources told The Levant News that in recent days Turkey is coordinating its attempts to obtain foothold in the Aqsa Mosque with the PA. For example, recently, Turkish security elements met in Ramallah with members of the Palestinian …

By Jasmin Rasheed — The Levant News — Palestinian sources revealed that President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and a high-ranking delegation will visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the coming days. The Palestinian delegation is to include figures such as Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, PA spokesman Nabil Abu …

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and BEN HUBBARD for The New York Times —  The Levant News — CAIRO — King Salman of Saudi Arabia met Friday with top political leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the most striking example yet of the new king’s willingness to work with Islamist …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE — By Geoffrey Cook — Your writer is in the great American Pacific Northwest, in the State just south of Rachel Corrie’s home, the State of Washington. I am revisiting/revising an article of over decade ago because of the unjust verdict on the appeal in the Israeli …

Author: Hana Salah – Translator: Pascale el-Khoury for AL-MONITOR — Gaza Strip — Tensions are ongoing between the Hamas movement and the Salafist Ansar al-Dawla movement, which in February publicly declared its support for the Islamic State (IS), to which Hamas is opposed and which in turn does not look …

By Mitchell Plitnick — On Wednesday, the Senate adopted an amendment to the Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (TPA) designed to defend Israel against the global “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement” (BDS). A similar amendment was adopted in the House of Representatives. Whatever one thinks of the …

By Adnan Abu Amer – Translator: Tyler Huffman for Al-Monitor — With the continuation of Operation Decisive Storm, which the Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out against the Houthis in Yemen since March 26, more positions continue to emerge on the operation — some in support and some opposed — …

By Layal Abou Rahal  for AFP —  Ain al-Helweh (Lebanon) (AFP) – Lebanon’s Ain al-Helweh camp has long provided a stable, if destitute, bolthole for Palestinian refugees, some of whom have lived within its walls since fleeing their homes more than six decades ago. But the war in neighbouring Syria …

AFP, Gaza – Unidentified assailants blew up the car of a Hamas security official in Gaza during the night, the interior ministry said Tuesday, in a sign of increasing instability in the Palestinian territory. “A home-made bomb damaged a car belonging to a military police officer which was parked in …

Reuters – Arab foreign ministers on Thursday endorsed a Palestinian plan to resubmit a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council calling for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories by late 2017. The United States helped defeat a similar draft resolution in a Security Council vote on Dec. 30. Palestinian …

Reuters – A Palestinian minister died on Wednesday shortly after an altercation with Israeli border police in the West Bank during which one of the policeman grabbed him by the neck. Ziad Abu Ein, 55, a minister without portfolio, was taking part in a protest against Israeli settlements when he …

THE LEVANT  – Egypt would be ready to lend a hand in securing a future Palestinian state by sending in troops that could help out local police and offer Israel security guarantees, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a newspaper interview. Sisi, who is visiting Italy and France this week, …

THE LEVANT – Friday morning around 50 Palestinian and international activists used makeshift bridges to cross the Apartheid wall between Qalandiya and Northern Jerusalem. This non-violent direct action was in response to the restrictions Israel had placed on Palestinian worshippers wishing to access Al-Aqsa Mosque in the past months. Activists scaled the wall one by …

THE LEVANT – A Palestinian bus driver was found hanged in his vehicle in west Jerusalem overnight, in what Israeli police said was an apparent suicide but a colleague said looked like murder. The incident happened late on Sunday, with a supervisor finding his body at a bus depot in …

THE LEVANT – Israel will never agree to limit its construction activity in annexed east Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday. “One thing should be clear: we will never accept the definition of building in Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem as settlement activity,” he said at a news conference …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – Denmark is to send a further 25m kroner to Gaza to help the Palestinian children, announced Trade and Development Minister Mogens Jensen. The minister said that the latest funding, which is in addition to the 11m kroner sent in July, was to help the children of …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – By John Simmens – The Gaza Strip is not a place most world travelers would eagerly visit. But Olympia clinical psychologist John Van Eenwyk, 68, is not your typical world traveler. He founded the International Trauma Treatment Program in Olympia and has spent much of his …

THE LEVANT – French lawmakers will vote on November 28 on a proposal by the Socialist Party urging the government to recognise Palestine as a state, a parliamentary source said Wednesday. The non-binding but highly symbolic vote would follow a similar vote in the British parliament and after Sweden announced …

THE LEVANT – Israel will not cooperate with a United Nations inquiry into its 50-day war with rocket-firing militants in Gaza this summer, a government spokesman said Wednesday. Israel will not cooperate with a United Nations inquiry into its 50-day war with rocket-firing militants in Gaza this summer, a government …

THE LEVANT – The leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, has described the continuous violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque at the hands of Israel as “an indication of the occupation’s arrogance and its increased stupidity,” Al-Araby Al-Jadid news website reported on Tuesday. Salah further explained that, “the …

THE LEVANT – Individual resistance operations in the West Bank and Jerusalem are a justified and natural reaction to the Israeli military occupation and its crimes against the Palestinian people and holy sites, Hamas said. Hamas criticised the murder of Khayr Al-Din Hamdan in cold blood, describing it as a …

THE LEVANT – Palestinian Jerusalemite Bassam Zeidani confirmed that Israeli forces stormed his Jerusalem home yesterday and ordered the arrest of his nephew Hamza Zeidani, a child who is only two years old. Zeidani added that Israeli forces entered his home with a warrant for Hamza’s arrest and when they …

THE LEVANT – Thousands of Jordanians took to the streets on Friday and called for the government to cancel the peace agreement with Israel in response to the escalation of violence in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, Arabs48 website said. Demonstrators chanted “death to Israel” and called for the closure of the Israeli …

THE LEVANT – By Haytham Mouzahem  for Al-monitor – It’s no secret that the longtime Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are suffering from poor economic and social conditions as a result of the decreasing aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and from Lebanese laws that prevent these …

THE LEVANT – The International Criminal Court will not prosecute over Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010 in which 10 Turkish activists died, despite a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed”. Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that there would be no investigation leading to a …

THE LEVANT – Jordan told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that it was ready to take measures to stop Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque in east Jerusalem after Israeli forces stormed the compound. “Jordan considers such serious and outrageous actions by Israel an unprecedented escalation,” said Ambassador Dina …

THE LEVANT – About 20,000 civil servants in the Gaza Strip went on strike Tuesday to protest the Palestinian unity government’s refusal to pay military and security employees of the Islamist movement Hamas. All ministries and other institutions run by Hamas in Gaza were shut and gated, except for schools, …

THE LEVANT – This combustible city at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been edging toward a new conflagration, with politicians on both sides stoking religious fervor over an ancient Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews. After months of escalating violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday …

THE LEVANT – Jafar M Ramini  – Israel’s President Rivlin Calls the Brutal Killings in Kafr Qasim “Anomalous and Sorrowful” Kafr Qasim Memorial, Palestine. (LONDON) – On this fateful day, 29th October 1956 the ‘most moral army in the world’ while plotting with Britain and France to attack Egypt, known as the …

THE LEVANT – By Lukas Mikelionis – Another round of the never-ending battle is about to begin between Israel and Palestinians. A recent bloody tragedy stirred by Hamas caused a three-month state of emergency near the border of Gaza while IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will be using Apache attack helicopters to …

THE LEVANT – US Secretary of State John Kerry hit out Thursday at reported insults by an American official against the Israeli prime minister, saying it was “disgraceful, unacceptable and damaging.” Kerry also pledged that the United States would continue to work “quietly and effectively” in order to relaunch the …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – By Julia Lugovska – Hamas officials revealed negative reaction on the plans of Egyptian government to create a buffer zone in Northern Sinai, in the areas close to the Gaza Strip border. The decision of Egyptian government to clear the area and to relocate local residents …

THE LEVANT – The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss Israeli plans to build more Jewish settlements in Arab east Jerusalem, diplomats said. The urgent talks were requested by Jordan following a letter from Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour, who called on the 15-member council to …