الشرق الأوسط

Gunfire stopped distribution of food today in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp, a United Nations spokesperson confirmed today, reiterating demands that the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees be allowed to safely and without interruption distribute substantial quantities of food and other humanitarian assistance inside Yarmouk. Spokesman Chris Gunness said the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the …

The Syrian government and opposition rebels on Friday reportedly agreed to a deal which will allow opposition fighters besieged in the city of Homs to withdraw during a ceasefire. The deal means that all but one district in the city, once called the “capital of the revolution”, will be under government control again. Britain-based monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for …

The police in the northern Israeli coastal city Haifa on Friday said that suspected Jewish extremists had vandalized a Muslim grave in a cemetery in the city, the latest in a string of racist attacks in Israel. In a statement, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that “Graffiti was found sprawled on and around a grave in the Al-Qassam cemetery in …

On Friday, violence north of Baghdad, including a car bomb attack set off by a suicide bomber, resulted in the deaths of six people, just two days after Iraq’s parliamentary elections held on Wednesday. The bloodshed, in the aftermath the first elections held in the country after the withdrawal of US troops in 2011, is the latest in the midst …

On Wednesday, Syrian air forces killed over 20 people, including 17 children, in an air strike on the battered city of Aleppo, as civilians continue to bear the brunt of the brutal civil war in the country. The air strikes come a day after a twin car bomb attack, claimed by the al-Nusra Front, on a pro-regime area in Homs …

UK has called on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to “urgently” carry out an investigation into the alleged use of Chlorine gas in Syria. The OPCW on Tuesday said that a mission would depart “soon”. However, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said “time is of the essence in establishing the full facts”. He added that claims …

On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that he has enough support to form a coalition government after the election, held on Wednesday, but reiterated that he would leave his post if need be. Maliki is seeking a third term in office, following the first elections in Iraq after the withdrawal of US troops. He faces significant opposition from …

The nine month deadline for the US-sponsored peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel has passed, with no progress made in the period of intense American diplomacy. Both parties are now possibly further apart than they were before the talks started in July last year. The negotiations had started with US Secretary of State John Kerry hoping that there …

On Wednesday, UN humanitarian chief Valarie Amos said that a Security Council measure aimed to provide aid to more than nine million desperate Syrians was “not working”. According to Amos, instead of relieving the misery of the Syrians who urgently need help, the humanitarian crisis in the country has only worsened since the Security Council adopted Resolution 2139 in February. …

On Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called for the UN Security Council to stop the supply of weapons to the Syrian regime, which it said was launching attacks with “barrel bombs”. The Human Rights Watch said that it had documented 85 aerial attacks by the Syrian regime against the opposition in areas they control, like the Aleppo province, since …