Harnaaz Sandhu from India’s Punjab has made the country proud by winning the Miss Universe 2021 title after Lara Datta in 2000. Chandigarh-born Harnaaz said that her 1.5 month-long journey in Israel has been nothing short of a “ride of love, fun, and immense hard work.” Upon qualifying for the top 2 rounds, the 21-year-old … Read more
Miss India Harnaaz Sandhu was named Miss Universe early Monday in the Israeli resort of Eilat, with several contenders ignoring boycott pressure in support of Palestinians. The South African Ministry of Sports, Culture and Arts had advised its competitor to avoid Eilat because of “Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.” Read more: S.Africa pulls plug on Miss … Read more
ABU DHABI: As Prime Minister Naftali Bennett starts the first official trip by an Israeli premier to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, here is a timeline of key recent developments between the two countries. The rapprochement between Israel and several Arab states began in August 2020 with a UAE-Israel normalisation deal, and was followed … Read more
GAZA: A senior Palestinian official on Sunday accused Israel of impeding the process of reconstruction in the besieged Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Naji Sarhan, the undersecretary of the Hamas-run ministry of housing and public works, told a news conference in Gaza city that the reconstruction plan “is going … Read more
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian man was killed, and two others injured early on Monday by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian medics and eyewitnesses said. The head of the Emergency and Ambulance Department at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Ahmad Jibril, told reporters that 31-year-old Jamil al-Kayyal was shot dead, and … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israeli police arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian girl from a school in annexed east Jerusalem Wednesday on suspicion of stabbing an Israeli woman in the back, police said. The attack took place in the flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where Israeli settlers have been mounting legal campaigns to expel Palestinian residents whose homes belonged to Jews … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday launched a 3-billion-shekel (around $940 million) plan to strengthen Druze and Circassian communities in the country, said Israeli Ministry of Finance in a statement. This is a three-year plan approved by the Israeli government, with the aim of raising growth in the two minorities’ towns in northern Israel. The plan includes … Read more
DUBAI: The new Covid-19 variant, omicron, has prompted global economic concerns, as fears of its spread begin to affect stock markets and oil prices, Arab News reported. Saudi Arabia’s main market, the Tadawul All Share Index, opened 5.3 per cent lower on Sunday, trading near 10,700 points. The Dubai Financial Market was down 8.49 per cent in … Read more
Israeli air assaults on Syria’s central area killed two civilians and injured seven on Wednesday. Syrian air defences attempted to stop the airstrikes from reaching Homs (a city in western Syria). According to official reports, two people were killed and another was seriously injured in the strike, which also injured six Syrian military soldiers. The … Read more
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s graft trial resumed Tuesday, with his ex-spin doctor due on the witness stand, but the defence has asked the highly-anticipated testimony be delayed. Netanyahu, now opposition leader in parliament after he was ousted by a broad coalition of rivals in June, arrived at the Jerusalem courthouse without … Read more
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas organisation which rules the Gaza Strip said Tuesday it had sentenced three people to death, two of them for collaborating with its enemy Israel. The Hamas military court said recent rulings “included three death sentences, two of them against collaborators with the occupation, and the third against a drug dealer”. … Read more
TEHRAN: An Iranian general has said Israel and the United States were likely to have been behind a cyber attack that interrupted the distribution of fuel at service stations. Tuesday’s attack “technically” resembles two previous incidents whose perpetrators “were unquestionably our enemies, namely the United States and the Zionist regime”, the Revolutionary Guards’ Gholamreza Jalali … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday announced plans to build more residences for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, drawing immediate condemnation from Palestinians, peace activists and neighbouring Jordan. The announcement from the housing and construction ministry in right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government said tenders had been published for 1,355 homes in the West Bank, … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israel designated six leading Palestinian civil society groups as outlawed “terrorist organisations” on Friday in a move swiftly condemned by the Palestinian Authority and international human rights groups. The Jewish state said its move was due to the groups’ alleged financing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) after it earlier … Read more
WASHINGTON: The top diplomats from Israel and the United Arab Emirates are set to hold three-way talks in Washington Wednesday as President Joe Biden’s administration embraces and looks to expand a normalization drive. Concerns about Iran — the spectre of which helped bring together Israel and Gulf states when they established relations last year as … Read more
Prime Minister Imran Khan said the United States (US) has to “pull itself together” and deliver an aid package to Afghanistan or face its collapse which would become a haven for Islamic State militants. In an interview with the Middle East Eye (MEE) in Islamabad, the premier said it was important to Pakistan that Washington … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian woman who tried to stab officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday, hours after a Palestinian militant was shot dead in a West Bank clash, police said. The violence comes days after an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank left five Palestinians dead. At dawn the sound of … Read more
Israeli authorities on Sunday released from jail Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar after two years in detention. Jarrar, 58, was sentenced to two years in March 2021 for belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel and the United States label a “terrorist” organisation. But the Israeli military did not find … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israeli teachers who have not been vaccinated against the Covid-19 will be banned from entering schools unless they present a negative test result, Israeli Ministry of Education said on Thursday. Under the decision, teachers who do not present the Green Pass, which is a proof of Covid-19 vaccination or recovery from the disease, are … Read more
Israeli occupation forces attacked Palestinian primary school students with tear gas canisters in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron). According to the media reports, the international humanitarian movement Red Cross said that over 30 Palestinian students in an elementary school in the Tayasir village suffocated as Israeli forces fired teargas canisters towards them during … Read more
A year has passed since Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalised ties in a US-brokered agreement, leading to a raft of deals ranging from tourism and aviation to cutting-edge technology. On September 15, 2020, the UAE became the first Gulf nation to establish formal relations with the Jewish state, and the third Arab country … Read more
GAZA: Israeli fighter jets early on Monday attacked several facilities that belong to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but no injuries were reported, according to security sources. The sources said that the Israeli fighter jets struck by air-to-ground missiles five different facilities in the northern, central, and southern Gaza Strip for a third day in … Read more
Six Palestinians broke out of an Israeli prison Monday through a tunnel dug beneath a sink, triggering a massive manhunt for the group that includes a prominent ex-militant. The Israel Prison Service said an alert was sounded at roughly 3:00 am (0000 GMT) by locals who spotted “suspicious figures” outside the Gilboa prison in the … Read more
DAMASCUS: A fresh Israeli missile strike targeted sites in Damascus in the wee hours of Friday, state news agency SANA reported. The Syrian air defenses intercepted missiles over the southwestern countryside of Damascus as the sound of the interception was clearly heard in the capital. The Israeli strike was carried out from inside the Lebanese … Read more
WASHINGTON: When the two leaders met at the White House on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett hopes to convince President Joe Biden to stay away from Iran nuclear deal. The meeting, which had been set for Thursday, was postponed for one day as Biden has been focusing on suicide bomb attacks at Kabul airport that killed at … Read more
JERUSALEM: Israel‘s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Friday received the third dose of the coronavirus vaccine, the state’s Prime Minister’s Office said. Earlier on Friday, the Israeli health ministry lowered the eligibility age for the third dose of the vaccine from 50 to 40, following the recent sharp increase in Covid-19 morbidity in the country. … Read more
GAZA: Israeli fighter jets early on Saturday attacked posts and facilities that belong to militant groups in the Gaza Strip in response to incendiary balloons launched towards Israel, Palestinian security sources said. The sources told Xinhua that the fighter jets attacked two military facilities belonging to al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance … Read more
Lebanese PM urges UN to stop Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty BEIRUT: Caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab urged on Friday the United Nations to exert pressure on Israel to stop its violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty, al-Jadeed TV channel reported. “Israel’s attacks against Lebanese territories constitute a clear violation of the UN Security Council Resolution … Read more
