Middle East

AJ+ | (Video News Report) | – – “These Palestinians can only access their land for a couple of days per year. This is how they harvest olives under occupation. Filmed by video journalist Elia Ghorbiah in Palestine.” AJ+: “The Struggle Of Palestinian Farmers Under Occupation”

Displaced and Refugees

Civilians in both Aleppos are Hurting

contributors

By Hadeel al-Shalchi | (Human Rights Watch) | – – The small child cries hysterically on the hospital bed, covered in dust and blood. The video, posted by the pro-Syrian government news agency al-Akhbariya, shows scene after scene of civilian men, women, and children injured from what they say were rockets launched by armed opposition […]

Featured

War within War – Iraqi PM: We don’t want to fight Turkey but we’re Ready

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP Arabic reports that Iraqi PM Haydar al-Abadi said Tuesday that “We do not want a war with Turkey, and do not want a confrontation with Turkey, but if a confrontation takes place, we are ready for it.” He added that if Turkey “attacks Iraq, it […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel bans for 10 yrs. Mairead Maguire, others on International Women’s Boat to Gaza

contributors

By Mairead Maguire | (Inter Press Service) | – – ROME, Nov 1 2016 (IPS) – A few weeks ago, the US government agreed to give Israel $38 billion dollars, the largest military funding package the U.S. has given any nation. This $38 billion in military and other type of Aid will be used to […]

Israel/ Palestine

Colonizing the Dead: Israeli authorities demolish graves in East Jerusalem cemetery

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli Nature and Parks Authority forces demolished several graves inside a Palestinian cemetery in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, according to local sources. Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, told Ma’an that forces from the Nature and Parks Authority raided the […]

Featured

Hizbullah’s Candidate becomes Lebanese President after Sunni Compromise

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Lebanon finally has a president, Michel Aoun. In accordance with the country’s national pact, he is a Maronite Christian (a Catholic uniate church), and happens to be a former general. The US and Israel won’t be pleased that he is a strong ally of the Shiite […]

Iraq

Sectarian Tensions flare in Baghdad as some Sunni Arab families forced from Neighborhoods

contributors

By Ibrahim Saleh | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Several Sunni Muslim families were forced out of their mainly Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in Baghdad recently. Locals fear the creeping return of sectarian tensions, as street by street changes. Earlier this month, the head of the Baghdad provincial council’s security committee, Mohammed al-Rubaie, announced that […]

Displaced and Refugees

Another Saudi War Crime in Yemen as 43 Prisoners dead in Airstrike

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Saudi airstrikes targeting a judiciary building in al-Hudayda, a port on the western coast of Yemen under Houthi control, have killed some 43 people and wounded dozens of others, most of them prisoners. The strike on the judiciary building, which had a prison attached, could have […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli squatter saboteurs cut down 18 Palestinian trees near Bethlehem

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Saturday morning cut down 18 olive trees belonging to a Palestinian family in the village of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank. Journalist Hani Fanun, whose family owns the trees, said his family went to harvest olives on their […]