May 29th, 20180BEIRUT ― Lebanon’s search for its first oil and gas reserves began on Tuesday after authorities approved an exploration plan submitted by a consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
Energy and Water Minister Cesar Abi Khalil also said in a televised statement that Lebanon hoped to launch a second...
May 25th, 20180WEST BANK — Jerusalemite activists have launched a hashtag on Twitter – #we are not hungry – as a rejection of Ramadan meals provided by the UAE for visitors to Al-Aqsa Mosque. They argue that the Gulf State is consorting with the Israeli occupation of Palestine, having sent a team of cyclists to participate in the international...
May 25th, 20180Sixty Palestinians were killed in Gaza on May 15, simply for protesting and demanding their Right of Return as guaranteed by international law.
Fifty more were killed since March 30, the start of the “Great March of Return”, which marks Land Day.
Nearly 10,000 have been wounded and maimed in between these two...
May 23rd, 20180TEL AVIV — Israel is pressing the Trump administration to recognize its sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Wednesday, predicting U.S. assent could come within months.
Interviewed by Reuters, Intelligence Minister Israel Katz described endorsement of Israel’s 51-year-old hold on the...
May 22nd, 20180THE HAGUE ― Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki asked prosecutors at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday to launch a full investigation into accusations of Israeli human rights abuses on Palestinian territory, saying the evidence was “insurmountable”.
Maliki submitted a so-called “referral”, giving the...
May 18th, 20180By Mohamed Mohamed
“It was like a dream.”
That is how my maternal grandfather, Abu Ahmad, described his memories of our village near Safad in the Galilee in the northern part of Palestine, after I had curiously asked him about it as a kid. He told me it was cradled within a lush, beautiful landscape, where cherry and...
May 18th, 20181By Alaa Elassar
“It’s important to recognize that we are here out of extreme heartbreak and outrage, but also to remember that this outrage is not just as a result of the recent killings in Gaza, but through the everyday experiences in Palestine." - Rozina Gilani, a Jewish Voice for Peace organizer
ATLANTA — It began...
May 16th, 20180AMSTERDAM - The office of the prosecutor of the world’s permanent war crimes court on Wednesday expressed “grave concern” about escalating violence in Gaza against Palestinian civilians and said alleged crimes could be subject to an investigation.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire during protests on Monday,...
May 15th, 20180ANKARA - Turkey and Israel expelled each other’s senior diplomats on Tuesday in a dispute over the killing by Israeli occupation forces of 60 unarmed Palestinians on Monday during protests on the Gaza border.
“The Israeli ambassador was told that our envoy to Israel was called back for consultations, and was informed that it would...
May 15th, 20180PARIS - French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday described the situation in the Middle East as “explosive” and criticized the United States for unilateral acts in the region and Israel for what he said was an unjustified level of violence.
Thousands of Gaza residents turned out on Tuesday for the funerals of...
May 15th, 20180CANNES, France - Hollywood actor Benicio del Toro joined Palestinians at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday in a demonstration against the Israeli army’s killing of Palestinians on the Gaza border.
Sixty people were killed on Monday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, by Israeli gunfire or tear gas, in what Palestinian...
May 14th, 20180GAZA — Israeli troops shot dead dozens of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border on Monday as the United States opened its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, a move that has fueled Palestinian anger and drawn foreign criticism for undermining peace efforts.
It was the bloodiest single day for Palestinians since the Gaza conflict in...
May 11th, 20180The Gaza border protests must be understood in the context of the Israeli occupation, the siege and the long-delayed “Right of Return” for Palestinian refugees. However, they should also be appreciated in a parallel context: Palestine’s own factionalism and infighting.
Factionalism in Palestinian society is a deep-rooted ailment...
May 7th, 20180JERUSALEM ― U.S. Embassy road signs went up in Jerusalem on Monday ahead of next week’s opening of the mission in accordance with President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.
Trump says he is making good on U.S. legislation and presidential pledges dating back decades. Other world powers have not...
May 4th, 20181By Jake Johnson
"How can this hypocrisy continue, with Israel having hundreds of nuclear weapons, no inspections and no adherence to any nuclear treaty calling out Iran on nuclear weapons?" - Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit the U.S. media circuit on Tuesday to...
May 4th, 20180By Seyed Hossein Mousavian
Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of lying "big time" about its nuclear program. In a theatrical announcement Monday, the Israeli prime minister presented files and CDs that he claimed show Tehran hid secret nuclear plans after signing the multinational 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action...
May 4th, 20180Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.
Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing — nearly 45 dead and more than 5,500 wounded — the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long...
May 1st, 20180TEL AVIV — Israel said on Tuesday it does not seek war with Iran, a day after presenting purported evidence of past Iranian nuclear arms work, but suggested President Trump backed its latest attempt to kill a deal aimed at curbing Iran’s atomic ambitions.
A senior Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had...
April 30th, 20180The wars America fights and funds often happen in far-away places. To make killing less easy, we need to learn to dwell on the visual evidence that follows war, to humanize and individualize “collateral damage.”
Until Wednesday, I had never seen pictures of the kids in Qana. Those from the first massacre. Qana was attacked twice,...
April 27th, 20180WASHINGTON, D.C. — Foreign corporations cannot be sued in American courts for human rights abuses committed overseas, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, refusing to revive a lawsuit claiming Jordan-based Arab Bank helped finance militant attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The 5-4 decision ended a lawsuit by some...
April 16th, 20180AMMAN - Syrian anti-aircraft defenses shot down missiles that hit the Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs province late Monday night, Syrian state television said.
State television showed pictures of a missile that was shot in the air above the air base only days after a U.S., British and French attack on Syrian targets in retaliation...
April 13th, 20180GAZA – An Israeli air strike on Thursday killed a Hamas gunman and wounded another and troops later shot dead a man close to the border, Palestinian medical officials said, as tensions across the Gaza Strip border simmered.
Israel said the air strike was launched in response to a bomb attack on a military vehicle on the Gaza border...
April 13th, 20180DEARBORN – On March 30, Land Day 2018, the Israeli army shot more than 1,000 protesters killing 17 of them, according to multiple reports.
On April 8, members of the Arab Student Union at the University of Michigan-Dearborn drew bodies outlined in chalk, with the names of the victims written inside them, on the sidewalk between the...
April 6th, 20180Music unites Palestinians when politicians fail. In fact, while for years the collective calls for "Palestinian unity" has gone unheeded, Palestinian music has continued to bring Palestinians closer.
Rim Banna passed away at the age of 51. Her death on March 24, after a decade-long battle with cancer, brought grief to...
April 6th, 20180 By Diana Buttu
Israel's killing of 18 Palestinian protesters in Gaza last Friday was entirely predictable.
It was also entirely avoidable. The victims were taking part in the annual Land Day march commemorating the 1976 killing of six Palestinians who were protesting Israel's confiscation of thousands of acres of their...
April 3rd, 20180RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said in a published interview that Israelis are entitled to live peacefully on their own land, another public sign of an apparent thawing in ties between the two countries.
Asked if he believes the Jewish people have a right to a nation state in at least part of what they consider their...
March 30th, 20180The "deal of the century" is a farce. We suspected that, of course, but, upon his return from Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed in more detail why the long-anticipated plan of the administration of President Trump has no basis in reality.
Netanyahu told his cabinet that there are "no concrete details" to...
March 23rd, 20180WEST BANK — A teenage Palestinian girl who was filmed kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank accepted a plea deal on Wednesday under which she will be sentenced to eight months in prison, her lawyer said.
Ahed Tamimi, 17, became a hero to Palestinians after the Dec. 15 incident outside her home in the...