October 10th, 20231The human rights chief of the United Nations warned that a total blockade on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli government would violate international law and amount to a war crime.
In a statement on Tuesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said that a total blockade would “seriously” risk an already dire...
September 11th, 20230On Sunday, September 10, the Syrian government called on the United Nations and the international community to hold the United States government “accountable” for the continuing theft of Syrian oil and other natural resources from northeast Syria.
In a letter addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, the Syrian...
October 28th, 20220BEIRUT — Lebanese and Israeli leaders finalized a U.S.-brokered maritime demarcation deal on Thursday, bringing a measure of accommodation between the enemy states as they eye offshore energy exploration.
Leaders from Lebanon, Israel and the U.S. have all hailed the deal as "historic" but the possibility of a wider diplomatic...
September 3rd, 20220WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday the U.S. will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, the White House said, as Tehran seeks stronger guarantees from Washington for the revival of a nuclear deal with world powers.
Israel opposes a return to the 2015 deal, which imposed curbs on...
June 29th, 20220JERUSALEM — Rabeha Rajabi did not think she would be holding her wedding celebrations in the rubble of her own home in Occupied East Jerusalem, until Israeli authorities destroyed it.
"Before any blow hit the house, it hit our hearts," said Rajabi, a Palestinian, speaking among the debris and donning a traditional Palestinian thobe...
November 12th, 20210A Palestinian prisoner ended a 113-day hunger strike on Thursday after Israel agreed not to extend his detention without trial beyond February, Palestinian officials said.
Miqdad al-Qawasmi's mother voiced concern for his life earlier this week after his condition deteriorated. The officials said he refused food during the protest, but...
August 6th, 20210The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets towards Israeli forces on Friday, drawing fire from Israel into south Lebanon, in a third day of cross-border salvoes amid wider regional tensions with Iran.
Suggesting its attack was calibrated to avoid further escalation, Hezbollah said it had targeted open ground...
August 5th, 20210Israel’s defense minister warned Thursday that his country is prepared to strike Iran, issuing the threat against the Islamic Republic after a fatal drone strike on a oil tanker at sea that his nation blamed on Tehran.
The comments by Benny Gantz come as Israel lobbies countries for action at the U.N. over last week’s attack on...
August 3rd, 20210BEIRUT — A report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday concluded there was strong evidence to suggest some Lebanese officials knew about and tacitly accepted the lethal risks posed by ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut port before the fatal blast there on Aug. 4 last year.
HRW called for a U.N. investigation into the...
June 24th, 20210YEMEN — On Thursday, the U.S. called on the international community, especially regional countries, to fulfill their pledges to increase funding for humanitarian assistance to Yemen and warned that aid programs could otherwise be forced to close.
U.S. Special Envoy to Yemen Timothy Lenderking told a webinar sponsored by the...
May 27th, 20211GENEVA — In remarks to the Human Rights Council on Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in their 11-day assault on the Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 248 in Gaza, including 66 children and 39 women, before a ceasefire was announced last...
May 17th, 20210PALESTINE — As Israel continued its assault on Gaza, with at least 220 Palestinians killed, including 59 children, and more than 1,300 wounded by Monday tallies, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had personally not seen evidence for Israel’s claim that Hamas was present at a building used by international media it...
April 23rd, 20210DAMASCUS — Thanks to a global initiative, Syria received the first 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, U.N. officials announced on Thursday.
The doses were delivered through the global COVAX initiative, which has also delivered the badly needed vaccine to Yemen. Another 54,000 vaccines were delivered to the northwest...
April 18th, 20210DAMASCUS — Syria will hold a presidential election on May 26 that is virtually certain to return President Bashar al-Assad for a third term — an event that Washington and the opposition say is a farce designed to cement his autocratic rule.
Assad's family and his Baath party have ruled Syria for five decades with the help of the...
April 14th, 20210The Israeli government’s position regarding an impending investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of alleged war crimes committed in occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to...
April 8th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C./WEST BANK — On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would provide $235 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians, restarting funding for the United Nations agency supporting refugees and restoring other assistance cut off by former President Trump.
The package, including humanitarian, economic and...
April 6th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) joined Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) in leading 76 of their congressional colleagues to call for the Biden administration to publicly increase pressure on Saudi Arabia to lift the blockade on Yemen immediately, unilaterally and...
March 26th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Special Envoy Tim Lenderking was scheduled to travel to the Middle East on Thursday, to press a plan for a ceasefire in Yemen, talks on settling its civil war and an end to the humanitarian catastrophe that it has caused, the U.S. State Department announced.
Lenderking’s trip was expected to include...
March 1st, 20210SANAA — Unable to find work, Ahmed Farea has sold everything, including his wife’s gold, to feed and house two young daughters in one small room.
Elsewhere in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, widow Mona Muhammad has work, but struggles to buy anything more nutritious than rice for her four children amid high prices.
And in a nearby...
February 4th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, President Biden said he seeks to raise the annual refugee cap to 125,000, an increase that will take place in the beginning of October.
Biden made the announcement during a speech at the U.S. State Department.
Biden also said he would approve an executive order that would restore the U.S. refugee...
February 4th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, President Biden declared a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, demanding that the more than six-year war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, “has to end.”
Biden also named veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking as the U.S. special...
August 18th, 20200LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands — On Tuesday, a U.N.-backed tribunal convicted Salim Jamil Ayyash, allegedly a member of the Hezbollah group, of conspiring to kill former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a 2005 bombing that set the stage for years of confrontation between Lebanon’s political forces.
Hariri, a Sunni Muslim...
June 15th, 20200NEW YORK — On Monday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres removed a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition from a U.N. blacklist. The coalition was condemned and was on the list for several years for killing and injuring children in Yemen.
Reuters reports that Guterres wrote in his annual report to the U.N. Security Council on...
May 6th, 20201WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a disappointing and surprising move, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has signed her name to a letter backed by the Israeli lobby AIPAC that demands an extension of the U.N.’s arms embargo on Iran.
Omar has joined 391 members of the House in signing the letter, which effectively bolsters the Trump...
December 8th, 20190BAGHDAD —Fears of infiltration by unknown groups grew in Iraq on Thursday after 13 people were stabbed in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. The stabbings caused no fatalities in the area of Iraq’s capital that has been the home of recent protests against the country’s government.
Protesters gathered in Tahrir shouting slogans in...
October 22nd, 20180The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has made her post a “more glamorous” position than her predecessors — as President Trump described Haley’s 2-year term at the U.N., following her resignation announcement.
We may never know the nature of Haley’s purported “glamour” at the U.N., but we certainly know that,...
June 15th, 20181What is taking place in Palestine is not a "conflict." We readily utilize the term but, in fact, the word "conflict" is misleading. It equates between oppressed Palestinians and Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations resolutions.
It is these ambiguous terminologies that allow the likes of United...
June 12th, 20180GENEVA/BEIRUT ― The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR hopes the Lebanese foreign ministry will quickly reverse a decision to freeze residency applications the agency has submitted for its staff, its spokesman said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil ordered the freeze last week after accusing UNHCR of hindering the return of...
