President Mahmud Abbas will travel to the United Nations next week to push for a Security Council resolution condemning US President Donald Trump's peace proposals, Palestinian officials said Wednesday. The resolution will almost certainly be vetoed by the United States. "The draft...

The Iraqi government has told its military not to seek assistance from the U.S.-led coalition forces in operations against Daesh, two senior Iraqi military officials said. The move comes amid a crisis of mistrust tainting U.S.-Iraq ties after an American strike killed a top general and Iraqi...

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted Wednesday that Donald Trump would outlive the US president's controversial proposals for Israeli-Palestinian peace. "This plan will certainly not work and it will die before Trump," Khamenei told a gathering in Tehran to mark the...

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas positions in Gaza early Wednesday, the military said, after Palestinians in the enclave launched projectiles and explosive balloons at the Jewish state. In a further punitive move, Israel later restricted Gaza fishing activity, a frequently used sanction...

At least 33 people were killed in eastern Turkey Wednesday by a second avalanche which buried a team of rescuers searching for people hit by the first the day before. The bodies of 33 rescue workers and civilians were discovered in Van province, where they had been helping dig out a minibus...

Iraq's premier-designate Mohammad Allawi has met with dozens of representatives of the protest movement rocking the capital and Shiite-majority south since October, a participant in the meetings said Wednesday. The protesters have been demanding an overhaul of the ruling elite and have...

Returning to his fields for the first time in 14 years, Palestinian farmer Naser Abu Isaeed surveyed the toll taken by conflict on formerly productive soil. “I saw an empty area full of holes and dry weeds,” said Abu Isaeed, who once grew fruit on the tracts along Gaza’s volatile border...

A draft United Nations Security Council resolution on Tuesday condemned an Israeli plan to annex its settlements in the West Bank in a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel peace proposal. The draft text, circulated to council members by Tunisia and Indonesia, would seemingly face a...

 Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for a high turnout in a February parliamentary election, the YJC news site, which is affiliated with Iran’s state TV, reported on Wednesday. “Any person who has an affinity for Iran and its security must take part in the election,”...

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas positions in Gaza early Wednesday, the military said, after Palestinians in the enclave launched projectiles and explosive balloons at the Jewish state. The "fighter jets targeted Hamas terror targets in the southern Gaza Strip" including "a weapons...

The European Union on Tuesday rejected the U.S.’ so-called Middle East peace plan, saying the initiative “departs from internationally agreed parameters” for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “To build a just and lasting peace, the unresolved final status issues...

 Iran said Tuesday that its top court confirmed a death sentence for an Iranian man convicted of spying for the CIA, with state media alleging that he had shared details of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program with the American spy agency. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili...

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East slipped quietly into Iraq Tuesday, as the Trump administration works to salvage relations with Iraqi leaders and shut down the government's push for an American troop withdrawal. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie became the most senior U.S. military...

An Israeli prison has launched a sometimes-violent crackdown on Palestinian prisoners at Ofar prison, west of Ramallah, said a Palestinian prisoners’ group on Tuesday. Though the number of injured prisoners is not clear, four detainees were referred for investigations and 38 detainees were...

Iran will be committed to its pledges if the members of the nuclear agreement fulfill their obligations, the country's president on Tuesday stressed during a meeting in the capital Tehran with the EU foreign policy chief. Hassan Rouhani said in his meeting meeting with Josep Borrell that...

Sudan's leader Tuesday briefed the country's ruling body after the Israeli prime minister said the two had discussed normalising bilateral ties after decades of hostility. On Monday, Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he had met General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of Sudan's ruling...

Lebanon's English-language The Daily Star suspended its print edition Tuesday, the latest casualty in the collapse of the country's once-flourishing press. The newspaper, which is co-owned by the family of former prime minister Saad Hariri, said on its website the temporary halt of the...

Anti-government demonstrators faced off against followers of influential cleric Moqtada Sadr in protest squares across Iraq Tuesday, a day after one demonstrator was killed in a clash between the two sides. Sadr, an enigmatic militiaman-turned-politician, backed the anti-government rallies...

 Major banks in Lebanon began tightening banking controls this month, halving the amount of dollars depositors are allowed to withdraw every month, despite growing public anger. Faced with a dollar liquidity crunch, banks have imposed informal controls on dollar withdrawals and...

The United States has requested a closed door UN Security Council meeting Thursday for President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, to present the administration's new Mideast peace plan, diplomatic sources told AFP Monday. Kushner intends to set forth the plan that...