الشرق الأوسط

On Wednesday, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said Israel was “blocking” all attempts to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip, a day after the temporary ceasefire collapsed in the Palestinian enclave. “Israel is blocking any kind of agreement leading to calm” in Gaza, Arabi told journalists. “The Arab League wants to reach a permanent truce as soon as possible”, …

  Even before starting work as chairman of a United Nations human rights commission investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza, Canadian law professor William Schabas has been vilified as an apologist for Iran incapable of setting aside his perceived anti-Israel bias. Full page adverts have been taken out against him in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington …

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, on Wednesday warned foreign airliners against flying to Tel Aviv, threatening to escalate the conflict with Israel and declaring that truce talks in Egypt were over. “We are warning international airlines and press them to stop flying into Ben Gurion airport from 6 am (0300 GMT) Thursday”, Abu Obeida, a spokesman …

Well-known Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim, known all over the Arab world for his nationalist writing, passed away on Tuesday after his battle with cancer. 75-year-old Qasim died in the Safed hospital in northern Israel, Issam Khuri, a family friend said, after suffering from liver cancer for the past three years. Qasim was best known for nationalist poetry in which he …

Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 31 Palestinians and wounded 120 others on Wednesday, after the temporary ceasefire between Hamas and Israel had ended a day earlier. The infant son and wife of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif were among those killed in an Israeli strike which leveled a six-story building in Gaza city, Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for …

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a combined effort to get rid of the “cancer” of extremists in Syria and Iraq, after militants from the Islamic State murdered 40-year-old American journalist James Foley. Obama also said that the entire world was shocked by the beheading of Foley, which IS videotaped and put on the internet. “There has to …

Arab Bank, one of the most prestigious banking giants in the world, is currently on trial for allegedly supporting terrorism. The Arab Bank had been charged last week with “aiding terror” by transferring funds to families of Palestinians killed while conducting anti-Israeli attacks during 2005’s Second Intifada. The bank, established in 1930 byAbdel Hamid Shoman, a Palestinian who had worked …

The United Nations on Monday said that it was ready to check its imports on construction material sent to Gaza to ease Israeli concerns that the supplies would be used to rebuild Hamas’ tunnels. Robert Serry, the U.N. Mideast envoy, told the UN Security Council that the reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave remained the biggest priority once a permanent peace …

Donors from all over the world will meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo to pledge funds and reconstruct Gaza after a more permanent ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis is reached. The funds will be raised under the patronage of Norway and Egypt and will be released to Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority,Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge …

Relations between the United States and ally Israel showed signs of stress ahead of tough talks to extend the fragile ceasefire in Gaza to a more permanent deal. The US denied a report which said that the White House was reducing its regular delivery of military assistance to Israel over concerns of disproportionality of its actions in Gaza. However, the …