Author: Steven Sahiounie

The French Foreign Ministry employee who was killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Gaza had remained in the strip to report on what was happening on the ground. “France always kept cultural diplomatic antennas in Gaza through a French centre,” Renaud Girard, chief foreign affairs correspondent for Le Figaro, told Al Jazeera. Girard said the employee worked for that centre, while his family had left Gaza. “France is very concerned by the humanitarian situation in Gaza that’s why it was useful for France to have a reliable witness to tell the French embassy what was happening there,” Girard…

Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for an end to the war ravaging the Holy Land, praying especially for Christians holed up in the Holy Family Catholic Parish in Gaza. At the Angelus prayer, the Pope said he continues to receive troubling news from Gaza, where “unarmed civilians are the targets of bombings and gunfire.” Pope Francis condemned an attack on the compound of the Catholic parish, “where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, and nuns.” “A mother, Mrs. Nahida Khalil Anton, and her daughter, Samar Kamal Anton, were killed, and others were…

Ranking diplomats from Iran, China and Saudi Arabia held a trilateral meeting in Beijing to discuss a range of regional and international issues. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Abdulkarim El Khereiji, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the meeting in Beijing. In the gathering, Wang Yi hailed the holding of the first meeting of the deputy foreign ministers of Iran, Saudi Arabia and China in Beijing. Voicing China’s support for closer cooperation between Tehran and Riyadh, Wang Yi said Beijing wants to help strengthen economic, security and cultural relations as well as…

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for President Mahmoud Abbas, has strongly condemned the ongoing assault by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right extremist government on the Palestinian National Authority. He criticized Netanyahu’s boastful statements about preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, stating that such actions “align with the frenzied campaign led by certain Western media outlets to undermine the Palestinian national project, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people.” Abu Rudeineh added that “these statements and the suspicious campaign are part of the all-out war waged by the…

UK MP Layla Moran says her relatives are among hundreds of people trapped inside Gaza’s only Catholic church as Israeli forces operate in the vicinity. Moran, the foreign affairs spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said that four members of her extended family, including a grandmother and 11-year-old twins, have been sheltering at Holy Family Parish for weeks. “I’m now no longer sure they are going to survive until Christmas,” Moran told the BBC on Saturday. Moran, whose mother is Palestinian, said a sixth member of her extended family died last month after not being able to get to hospital for…

Catherine Colonna has arrived in Israel where she was due to press for an “immediate and durable” truce. The truce should lead to a lasting ceasefire with the aim of releasing all captives and delivering aid to Gaza, read a statement from the Foreign Ministry. Colonna will meet her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Tel Aviv before moving to the occupied West Bank where she is scheduled to meet her Palestinian counterpart, Riyad al-Maliki. The visit comes as France condemned the Israeli bombing of a civilian building in southern Gaza that killed one of its diplomatic staff. Source: AlJazeera

Twenty Palestinians have been arrested across the occupied West Bank since Saturday night by Israeli forces, according to a joint statement published by the Prisoners Affairs Authority and the Prisoners’ Club. The detentions took place in cities including Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, the statement said, adding that the number of Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces since October 7 is now 4,540. Source: ALJazeera

More than 19,000 people have been killed in Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip and the more intense clashes in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. “Since the start of Israel’s aggression in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, 19,088 people have been killed,” the ministry’s statement said, as quoted by the Al Qahera Al Ekhbariya television channel. According to the ministry’s statistics, “70% of the victims caused by the Israeli attacks are women and teenagers.” The ministry added that currently “only eleven hospitals are partially operating” in Gaza. Tensions flared up in the…

The Foreign Ministry stated that the two diplomats indicated “the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire to ensure unimpeded and safe humanitarian access to those in need and to protect civilians Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths touched upon the humanitarian crises in the Middle East, including in the Gaza Strip, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its website following the meeting held on December 14. “They exchanged views on humanitarian crises, focusing on the Middle East countries. The interlocutors discussed in detail the current situation in the…

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin and Syrian First Deputy Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh noted at a meeting the importance of preventing the spread of the Middle Eastern crisis to other countries of the region, according to a statement released on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry. “The discussion of the current situation in the zone of the Palestine-Israeli conflict took place with a focus on the necessity to stop violence in the Gaza Strip. In this respect the importance of preventing the spread of the crisis to other countries of the region was noted. The issues of activities of the…