A series of large explosions shook a fireworks factory in northwest Turkey’s Sakarya province on Friday, killing two people and wounding 73, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Fire crews fought to contain the blaze ignited by an initial blast at 11.15 am (0815 GMT) in the province’s...

An online video and messages purportedly claiming responsibility for a fire that analysts say damaged a centrifuge assembly plant at Iran's underground Natanz nuclear site deepened the mystery Friday around the incident. The multiple, different claims by a self-described group called the...

Major retailers in Lebanon announced Thursday they will temporarily shut down in the face of an increasingly volatile currency market and their inability to set prices while the Lebanese pound plunges against the dollar. Later in the day, owners of the businesses rallied in central Beirut...

The family of a Palestinian man with autism who was fatally shot by Israeli police said Thursday that it took a month for authorities to confirm the existence of security-camera footage of the shooting, raising concerns that no one will be punished for killing their son. The existence of...

 Some 20 activist groups called on Facebook Thursday to stop the spread of "hate speech" targeting sexual minorities in the Middle East and North Africa through its platform. "We the signers below are concerned about the increase of hate speech against the LGBTQI+ community on...

Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas pledged unity against Israel's West Bank annexation plans in a rare joint conference Thursday, as signs emerged of a rift between Israel and Washington over the project. The relationship between Fatah, which controls the Ramallah-based Palestinian...

Iran's nuclear body said an accident had taken place Thursday at a construction site in a nuclear complex without causing casualties, state news agency IRNA reported. "An accident occurred on Thursday morning and damaged a warehouse under construction in open space at the Natanz site" in...

 In its more than 1,400-year existence, the majestic domed structure of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has served as the Byzantine Empire’s main cathedral, a mosque under the Ottoman Empire and a museum under modern Turkey, attracting millions of tourists each year. The 6th-century building...

Iraq's official death toll from the novel coronavirus has surpassed 2,000, the health ministry said Wednesday, as the war-ravaged country's crippled healthcare system struggles to cope. Health authorities announced there were now 51,524 cases of the COVID-19 disease in the country and that...

Thousands of Palestinians protested in Gaza on Wednesday against Israel's plans to annex parts of the West Bank, where Palestinian authorities announced a new five-day lockdown amid a worrying resurgence of the coronavirus. Israel's centre-right coalition government had set July 1 as the...

Gaza's Hamas rulers fired a volley of rockets into the sea Wednesday in a warning to Israel not to annex part of the West Bank, sources in the Islamist organisation told AFP. The showcase launch of about 20 test rockets from the coastal Palestinian territory came as thousands of people in...

Turkey’s president vowed Wednesday to tighten government control over social media following alleged insults directed at his daughter and son-in-law when they announced the birth of their fourth child on Twitter. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his party in a...

A Turkish military aircraft carrying medical supplies, which departed from the capital Ankara for Iraq to help fight the pandemic, landed at the Baghdad International Airport on Wednesday. "The Turkish Armed Forces aircraft carrying medical supplies for use against the #COVID19 outbreak has...

An explosion from a gas leak in a medical clinic in northern Tehran killed 19 people, Iranian state TV reported Tuesday. Authorities initially said 13 people were dead, but Jalal Maleki, spokesman for the Tehran Fire Department, later told state TV that the toll had risen to 19....

The US State Department has put the ambassador to Israel's official residence outside Tel Aviv up for sale, in a decision aimed at cementing the American embassy's controversial move to Jerusalem. The beachfront mansion in the affluent Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya is going on the market...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran, warning that the Middle East's stability was at risk, but he faced wide skepticism over US threats to trigger sanctions. The United States is adamant about prolonging the ban on...

The Lebanese army has scrapped meat from all meals it offers to soldiers on duty as food prices skyrocket because of a deepening economic crisis, state media said Tuesday. Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic downturn since the 1975-1990 civil war, with poverty surging to now...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to carry out his pledge to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, possibly as soon as Wednesday. His vision of redrawing the map of the Holy Land, in line with President Donald Trump’s Mideast plan, has been welcomed by...

Iran's coronavirus epidemic is still in its first wave, the health ministry said Tuesday, a day after reporting the highest single-day death toll since the country's outbreak began in February. "The coronavirus is currently peaking in border provinces or cities which did not experience a...

France's president Monday accused Turkey of importing Islamic militants into Libya, labeling Ankara's intervention "criminal" and he lambasted Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambivalence towards his country's mercenaries operating in the North African state. Ties between NATO allies...