Lebanon is prepared to defend itself against Israel’s attacks, which are in violation of the 2006 UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Saturday. In a televised address, the president said Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon had once again...

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Friday called an early general election for June 6, 2021, roughly a year ahead of when it would normally be held. Early elections are a key demand of Iraqi anti-government protesters who staged months of mass demonstrations last year and were...

Turkey has conducted more than 4.8 million COVID-19 tests so far, with some 46,500 tests over the past day, the country's health minister said Friday. According to figures Fahrettin Koca shared on Twitter, Turkey registered 982 new coronavirus cases and almost 1,000 recoveries over the past...

On the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, when Iraqis visit loved ones' tombs and take children to the funfair, the coronavirus pandemic put both cemeteries and Ferris wheels off-limits on Friday. The virus has cost almost 4,700 lives and infected over 121,000 people in Iraq, but it has also...

On the streets of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second biggest city and one of its poorest, there are no signs of festivities for Eid al-Adha this year, no decorations or twinkling lights. There’s no electricity anyway. Only a large billboard welcomes visitors at one of the city’s entrances. “We’re...

Iran will not open talks with the United States that will only benefit Donald Trump, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday, insisting the US president's sanctions policy had failed. Decades-old tensions between Tehran and Washington have soared in the past year, with the sworn...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday gave his clearest indication yet that the United States would seek to force UN sanctions on Iran if an arms embargo lapses. Russia and China, two of the Permanent Five nations that enjoy veto power on the Security Council, want the UN embargo on...

Israeli security officials announced Thursday they have caught a Hamas militant who fled the Gaza Strip and swam into Israeli waters, confirming weeks of rumors that a Hamas figure had "defected" to Israel. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that Izz el-Din Hussein, 24, fled Gaza on...

Tradition dictates that Muslims donate cuts of mutton during Friday's Eid al-Adha festival, which would spell brisk business for butcher Abdulrazak Darwish but Lebanon's economic crisis has cast a pall over his trade. "This year has been the worst for us because of soaring inflation," said...

The number of infections from the new coronavirus in Iran has reached 301,530, according to official Health Ministry figures announced on state TV Thursday. Iran has the Middle East’s highest number of recorded COVID-19 cases and infections and deaths have risen sharply since restrictions...

A second wave of coronavirus infections sweeping the Israeli-occupied West Bank is fuelling fears of a surge in overcrowded Palestinian refugee camps where social distancing is next to impossible. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, the Palestinian Authority quickly imposed a...

Thirty years have passed since Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait, but despite hints of a diplomatic rapprochement, people in both countries say the wounds have yet to heal. On August 2, 1990, Saddam sent his military, already exhausted by an eight-year conflict with...

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has approved legal amendments that restrict retired army officers from running in elections without permission from the military, according to an announcement in the official gazette on Wednesday. Critics of Sisi, a former army chief who was...

Lebanon on Wednesday reported 182 new coronavirus cases, its highest single-day infection tally since the country's outbreak began in February, ahead of fresh lockdown measures that go into effect at midnight. The new cases bring the total number of COVID-19 infections in Lebanon to 4,202,...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they launched ballistic missiles from "the depths of the Earth" on Wednesday during the last day of military exercises near sensitive Gulf waters. The launches came a day after the Guards struck a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier with volleys of missiles...

Jordan’s King Abdullah issued a royal decree to hold a parliamentary election, with the date to be set within the next 10 days by an independent election commission, state media said. Jordan’s electoral law marginalises representation of political parties. Constitutionally, most powers rest...

Human Rights Watch called on the Turkish government Wednesday to investigate "serious abuses" allegedly committed by police and "nightwatchmen" against more than a dozen people in the southeast and in Istanbul. "The cases illustrate a worrying pattern of violent arrest, beatings, and other...

Turkey's parliament passed a law regulating social media on Wednesday, that critics said will increase censorship and help authorities silence dissent. President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party, which has a majority with an allied nationalist party, had backed the bill. The assembly began...

Panama hats and designer sunglasses, champagne buckets and luxury cars: in the mountain resort town of Faqra, Lebanon's economic crisis is not immediately obvious. Digging into a crunchy salad at an exclusive country club in the Lebanese mountains, Zeina el-Khalil said she was glad to have...

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards launched a military drill in the Gulf on Tuesday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, at a time of high tension between Tehran and Washington. There have been periodic confrontations in the Gulf in recent years between the Guards and the U.S....