Israel / Middle East - Page 588

BEIRUT — The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has marked the Shiite religious holiday of Ashoura with a speech warning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against pushing the region into war.

Hamas has accepted an Egyptian proposal for a prisoner swap with Israel and is awaiting Jerusalem’s response to the offer, the terror group’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, said Thursday night, according to Channel 2 news.

A university in Saudi Arabia has said it will open a driving school for women, in a first for the ultra-conservative country after a ban on women driving was lifted.

CAIRO — Two international rights groups called on Egyptian authorities on Saturday to halt their crackdown on people suspected of homosexuality following the waving of the LGBT rainbow flag at a recent concert in Cairo.

Two suspected members of Adolf Hitler’s mobile “Einsatzgruppen” death squads identified by the Simon Wiesenthal Center have been tracked down by German reporters but deny participating in wartime massacres.

TEL AVIV — Fatah Revolutionary Council secretary Fayez Abou Aita told Breitbart Jerusalem in an interview that his movement is preparing to return to power in the Gaza Strip amid progress in Egypt-brokered talks toward reconciliation between the movements of Fatah and the Hamas terrorist group.

TEL AVIV — The movements of Hamas and Fatah are continuing to prepare for the possibility of a reconciliation deal that would see Hamas ostensibly hand over of power in the Gaza Strip to the government of the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah, the movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Iranian government arrested scores of Kurdish civilians in Rojhelat this week following the historic “yes” vote for Kurdish independence on Monday.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley blasted Russia on Thursday for trying to shield Iran from United Nations nuclear inspections. She accused Russia of completely undermining the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Turkish President Recep Erdogan dismissed the possibility of Kurdistan becoming an independent state on Thursday following their independence referendum this week, claiming the process will only end in “disappointment.”

The president of Iraq’s Kurdish region warned on Friday that the Kurds might be forced to retaliate if the central government persists with what his spokesman called a “very aggressive” stance toward the pro-independence referendum.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world-leading security organisation has warned the spectre of terrorism will continue to haunt Europe for many years to come against an increase in radicalisation in European nations.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Danish military deployed troops in Copenhagen on Friday to guard the city’s synagogue and the Israeli embassy, hours ahead of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday.

I just returned from Europe, where I heard an eerie echo of its past.

When legislation on U.S. foreign policy, vehemently opposed by the president, comes before the U.S. Senate for approval, the chances the bill will sail through by unanimous vote are highly unlikely.

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Ankara this week to discuss the ongoing war in Syria with his Turkish counterpart, marking the latest sign of an improving relationship between the two countries that is prompting concerns in the West.

The head of U.N.’s top human rights agency has reportedly been sending letters to companies that do business in Israeli settlements.

Russia and U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism Iran continue to provide weapons and other military aid to Taliban jihadists in Afghanistan, reiterates United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, repeating accusations made by the United States armed forces.

NEW YORK — Dina Habib Powell, the Trump administration’s Deputy National Security Advisor, was a featured speaker at the gala dinner of a George Soros-financed group that honored a notoriously anti-Israel Palestinian legislator.

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently made headlines for using the term “alleged occupation” during an interview with the Jerusalem Post. Palestinian Authority (“PA”) dictator and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas condemned the term “alleged occupation” and then falsely proclaimed that there is an Israeli “occupation of the territory of the state of Palestine” and variations of the same line some 27 times during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week.

The prime ministers of Iraq and Turkey spoke on the telephone on Wednesday to discuss the likely outcome of the Kurdistan’s referendum on independence, the results of which will be announced Friday.

Heightened security will be in effect throughout the country during Yom Kippur Friday and Saturday, with an emphasis on Jerusalem and the Old City, as tens of thousands of Jews from across the globe converge at the Western Wall.

Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian hijacker who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, is reportedly slated to give two talks in Spain in the next few days despite attempts by Israeli officials to block her.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned a deadly Palestinian shooting attack that killed three Israelis, his spokesman said, two days after it took place.

NEW YORK — The United States pressed Thursday for the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out more nuclear inspections in Iran, warning that failure to do so would make the nuclear deal with Tehran “an empty promise.”

Retired Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday encouraged university students not to back down from difficult discussions surrounding Israel on campus, urging them to make complex, cogent cases rooted in history when faced with propagandistic attacks.

NEW YORK — U.S. Envoy to Israel David Friedman has once again stoked Palestinian Authority anger by shining the light of accuracy on key Israeli-Palestinian issues, ignoring Palestinian misinformation and declaring that so-called Israeli settlements are “a part of Israel.”

The U.S.-backed Iraqi military has reportedly announced that it plans “to coordinate military efforts” with neighboring Iran, considered by the American government to be the leading state-sponsor of terrorism.

Following Kurdistan’s overwhelming vote in favor of seceding from Iraq on Monday, Baghdad’s parliament announced a series of measures intended to prevent their independence, including deploying Iraqi troops to Kurdish Peshmerga held areas.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to free American pastor Andrew Brunson, imprisoned for allegedly spreading both pro-Kurdish propaganda and supporting Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen despite being a Christian, in exchange for Gulen himself on Thursday.

Representatives from various ethnoreligious minority groups in Iraq – including Christians, Yazidis, and Turkmen – expressed distress towards Kurds voting “yes” to Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence this week, with some saying the referendum was “illegal” and “forced.”

A British born Imam who was caught given hate-filled sermons by an undercover police officer who attended the mosque has been jailed for six and a half years.

Two residents of the Arab Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm were charged on Thursday with planning to carry out a shooting attack on the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, similar to the one that took place in July.

NEW YORK – American Jewish groups have slammed Interpol for for granting ‘Palestine’ entry to the international police organization as a full member state.

NEW YORK – U.S. Jewish groups alongside their Israeli counterparts have called for a pre-Yom Kippur protest to be held Thursday outside the Qatari embassy in Washington, DC to demand that the Gulf state pressure terror group Hamas to release the remains of two IDF soldiers killed during the conflict with Israel in 2014. 

NEW YORK – The U.S. will not honor Palestinian arrest warrants issued through Interpol, a senior official in Washington said following the international police organization’s vote to include ‘Palestine’ as a full member state.