Author: Steven Sahiounie

Medical sources reported today that the death toll from the Israeli airstrike on the Al-Zawaida area in the central Gaza Strip has risen to 15. The occupation’s warplanes targeted at dawn tonight a shack and a house belonging to the Al-Ajl family near the entrance to Al-Zawaida on Salah Al-Din Street in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of at least 15 citizens and the injury of dozens of others. He added that paramedics recovered the bodies of two people and a number of wounded after the occupation fighter jets bombed the house of the Madi family in…

Firefighters in Izmir’s Karsiyaka district have resumed aerial interventions as strong winds exacerbate the forest fire that has led to widespread evacuations and destruction in western Türkiye over the past two days. The wildfire, which began in the area of Yamanlar Karatepe in the Karsikaya district, has intensified, forcing the evacuation of three neighborhoods and threatening both residential and industrial areas. As the morning light appeared, aerial firefighting efforts were resumed, with teams on the ground continuing to combat the blaze despite challenging conditions. The fire has already destroyed 16 homes and forced the evacuation of 87 houses and 45…

The Israeli settlers who attacked Hassan Arman’s village of Jit in the occupied West Bank had a simple aim, he says: “To burn, kill, or destroy” — all of which took place that night.Residents hid in fear while dozens of settlers ransacked their northern village late on Thursday, burning homes and cars, until eventually a young Palestinian man was shot dead.Arman, whose car was destroyed by fire during the attack, said he had “never seen anything like it” in Jit as he opened the charred door of his vehicle.Inside, everything had melted, leaving just a skeleton of twisted metal. When…

Türkiye on Friday strongly condemned a social media post by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, blasting it as “slander” and “disinformation.” On X, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Katz’s post targeted both Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated last month in Tehran, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, branding it “slander intended for disinformation purposes.” “These lies, aimed at diverting attention from the genocide taking place in Gaza, will not hinder our support for the Palestinian people,” the statement added. Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued…

The UAE has provided aid to the Palestinians displaced from east Khan Younis amid Israeli evacuation orders of the area, state news agency WAM reported on Friday. Shelter tents, food baskets and emergency supplies were distributed to support displaced families in their new areas. Since the evacuation began, the UAE volunteer teams have set up and equipped tents and distributed food baskets for the displaced. So far, more than 13,000 tents have sheltered 72,000 people. The number of food parcels distributed has exceeded 300,000, reaching families across various areas of the Gaza Strip. Source: Arab News

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al Sisi received a phone call, Friday from US President Joe Biden to discuss the situation in the region and efforts to restore regional stability. The Spokesman for the Presidency said the two presidents reviewed the outcome of the round of negotiations held in Doha over the past two days, within the framework of implementing the joint Egyptian-American-Qatari statement, regarding reaching an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, exchanging hostages and detainees, and ending the humanitarian plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They agreed to continue and intensify joint efforts in the coming days to…

The election campaign for Algeria’s early presidential elections, scheduled for September 7, has officially begun. According to the Constitutional Council, three candidates are competing for the presidency. Incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is running as an independent candidate, while Yousef Aouchiche represents the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), and Cherif Boudflika stands for the Movement for Society and Peace (MSP). The campaign will focus on their respective platforms and visions for Algeria’s future as they vie for the role of head of state. The presidential candidates have kicked off their campaigns by detailing their programs designed to “drive development and ensure security and stability…

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.“Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,”…

UN agencies on Friday called for two seven-day breaks in the fighting in Gaza to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against polio, which has been detected in the wastewater.The UN’s health and children’s agencies said they had drawn up detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory, starting later this month.But that would require pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said.They said they were planning two rounds of a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).Last month, it was announced that type…

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck the Jordan-Syria border on Friday, the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said.The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), it said.The earthquake, felt by residents across Syria and Lebanon, was revised from an earlier 5.2 magnitude.Syria’s National Earthquake Center said the tremor was felt by residents of Salamiyah city in western Syria, near where a 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck late on Monday, causing panic and dozens of injuries but no casualties. Source: Arab News