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JERUSALEM, March 24 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers flocked to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque on the first Friday of Ramadan for noon prayers, which passed peacefully amid tight security imposed after months of escalating tension and violence. "I cannot describe to you how happy I am to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque. I'm 50 years old and they only recently removed the security ban that had prevented me from coming here," said Nasser Abu Saleh, a resident of the West Bank city of Hebron. The Muslim Waqf, custodians who manage the site which houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque, said around 100,000 people had visited for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan. [1/5] Palestinians make their way through an Israeli checkpoint to attend the first Friday prayers of Ramadan in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 24, 2023.

☆ Israel's attorney general accuses Netanyahu of breaking the law
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Henriette Chacar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Israelis demonstrate during the "Day of Shutdown", as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist coalition government presses on with its judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Israel March 23, 2023. REUTERS/Nir EliasJERUSALEM, March 24 (Reuters) - Israel's attorney-general on Friday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of breaking the law by ignoring a conflict of interest over his ongoing trial for corruption and getting directly involved in his government's judicial overhaul plan. The protests followed Netanayhu to London on Friday, where he met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Broadcasters had expected to be able to film the start of the meeting between Sunak and Netanyahu but that appeared to have been cancelled. Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Clarence Fernandez, James Mackenzie, William MacleanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Israeli minister says "no such thing" as Palestinian people
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

JERUSALEM, March 20 (Reuters) - An Israeli minister with responsibility for the administration of the occupied West Bank drew condemnation on Monday after he said there was no Palestinian history or culture and no such thing as a Palestinian people. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned Smotrich's remarks, saying they amounted to incitement to violence. After two Jewish settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman near the West Bank town of Huwara last month, and settlers responded by torching homes and cars there, killing one Palestinian, Smotrich said Huwara should be "erased". The West Bank has seen a surge of confrontations over the past year, with near-daily Israeli military raids and escalating violence by Jewish settlers, amid a spate of attacks by Palestinians. Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war.

☆ Israel FinMin says immediate liquidity risk averted after SVB collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

JERUSALEM, March 14 (Reuters) - Israel's Finance Ministry said on Tuesday that a panel formed to assess the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB.O) determined that the immediate liquidity risk has been averted. The ministry in a statement cited a decision by U.S. authorities to back accounts - even those uninsured - at the bank, which has been an important lender for Israeli technology companies. "Israel's economy is strong and relatively easy to manage in times of crisis," Smotrich said. Smotrich was in the United States for Sunday's Israel Bonds conference. Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Additional reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Steven Scheer and Bill BerkrotOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Israel president says judicial compromise 'closer' as protests escalate
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Steven Scheer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

JERUSALEM, March 6 (Reuters) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday said a compromise in the government's judicial overhaul plan could be imminent even as protests against the reform continued to spread. In a statement late on Monday, Netanyahu criticised the threats to refuse military service, which he said endangered Israel's existence. "There is room for protest, there is room for disagreements, for expressing opinions, but there is no room for refusal." Herzog last month floated a compromise plan to spare the country what he described as a "constitutional collapse". The judicial overhaul plan, which has already received initial parliamentary approval, would give the government greater sway on selecting judges and limit the power of the Supreme Court to strike down legislation.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6 killed more than 47,000 people, damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings in Turkey and Syria and left millions homeless. In Turkey, 865,000 people are living in tents and 23,500 in containers, while 376,000 are in student dormitories and public guesthouses outside the earthquake zone, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. Six people were killed in the latest earthquake to strike the border region of Turkey and Syria, authorities said on Tuesday. Turkey's internet authority blocked access to a popular online forum, Eksi Sozluk, on Tuesday, two weeks after it briefly blocked access to Twitter, citing the spread of disinformation. Information Technologies and Communications Authority (BTK) website shows the website was blocked late on Tuesday, without citing any explicit reason.

[1/4] A man sits outside after an earthquake in Antakya in Hatay province, Turkey, February 20, 2023. The fear that kept her awake at night for two weeks had now come true. "I will pick you up and we will leave," Havva told her daughter. On Tuesday, Reuters saw Havva with Mehmet and her two daughters just outside Antakya city centre, boarding a bus that would take them to Edirne free of charge. Murat Vural, a 47-year-old blacksmith, who was at the camp on Monday night, likened the earthquake to religious stories about Antakya.

When a fresh quake shook the southern city again on Monday, local media reported that at least three people were killed while retrieving belongings. But because we survived, we are trying to get out whatever is left," said the 28-year-old natural gas pipe welder. Bayrakci and six relatives returned to help their brother retrieve belongings from his apartment. TELEVISIONS AND TOILET PAPERIn another Antakya neighbourhood, Kinan al-Masri hoped to retrieve some savings, passports and birth certificates from his apartment. He had hoped to retrieve some possessions before the authorities demolished the building, he said, but it was too dangerous to enter.

[1/7] Destroyed buildings are seen at night in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Antakya, Turkey February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim ShemetovSummary Rescue work winds down in TurkeyPregnant women need helpTurkey death toll risesANTAKYA, Turkey, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Turkey stepped up work to clear away rubble from collapsed buildings on Monday, as rescue work wound down two weeks after major earthquakes killed more than 46,000 people in southern Turkey and northwest Syria. The women include 226,000 in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, about 38,800 of whom will deliver in the next month. In Syria, already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, the bulk of fatalities have been in the northwest. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday announced further aid to Turkey and said the United States would provide longer term help to Turkey Ankara as it seeks to rebuild following this month's earthquake.

[1/4] People gather for a funeral in a large graveyard, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake outside Kahramanmaras, Turkey February 17, 2023. The scene in Pazarcik, epicentre of the quake that struck in the dead of night on Feb. 6, captured the struggle facing people trying to find and bury their dead since the disaster, which has killed more than 43,000 in Turkey and neighbouring Syria. Tents had been erected to perform Islamic burial rituals, and to wrap the bodies in a shroud. Ghassals - who prepare bodies for burial in accordance with Islamic rituals - had been working "in rotation as hundreds of bodies piled up at once", he added. On Friday, thousands across Turkey participated in symbolic funerals for the dead who were still under the rubble.

The quake killed at least 36,187 in southern Turkey, while authorities in neighbouring Syria have reported 5,800 deaths - a figure that has changed little in days. While several people were found alive in Turkey on Wednesday, the number of rescues has dwindled significantly. Neither Turkey nor Syria have said how many people are still missing. More than 4,000 fatalities have been reported in the rebel-held northwest, but rescuers say nobody has been found alive there since Feb. 9. Deliveries from Turkey were severed completely in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, when a route used by the United Nations was temporarily blocked.

☆ Disease the new threat as Turkey faces post-quake water shortage
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Henriette Chacar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Debris are seen in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey February 15, 2023. REUTERS/Clodagh KilcoyneKAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey, Feb 15 (Reuters) - More than a week after his home was wrecked in a deadly earthquake that hit southern Turkey, Mohammad Emin's body is still covered in dust and grime. He also said he had not been able to take a shower nor, like several other camp residents who Reuters spoke to, change his clothes. Batyr Berdyklychev, the World Health Organization's representative in Turkey, said the water shortage "increases the risk of waterborne diseases and outbreaks of communicable diseases." The WHO was working with local authorities to step up monitoring of waterborne diseases, seasonal influenza and COVID-19 among those displaced, he added.

The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria has climbed to more than 41,000, and millions are in need of humanitarian aid, with many survivors having been left homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures. It asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to open more border crossing points with Turkey to allow aid to get through. "I shouted, shouted and shouted. Civil war hostilities have obstructed at least two attempts to send aid to the northwest from elsewhere in Syria, but an aid convoy reached the area overnight. "The children and I, by some miracle, we ended up in this small space that I had left empty."

[1/2] Rescuers and medics carry 8-year-old boy Arda Gul from the debris of a collapsed building following an earthquake in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras province, Turkey February 7, 2023. "His mother and sister are still under the rubble," a neighbour, Mustafa Bahcivan, said. He said he had returned to sift through rubble in the hope of finding intact phones that he might be able to sell. Up the street, four members of a family climbed another mound of rubble, trying to salvage belongings. A telecommunications engineer who had toured damage in the area said Elbistan was particularly hard hit.

[1/7] Children draw at a makeshift shelter that hosts about 250 people, half of whom are children, following the the deadly earthquake in Mersin, Turkey, February 13, 2023. Anti-Syrian slogans such as "We don't want Syrians," "Immigrants should be deported," and "No longer welcome" trended on Twitter. TENSIONS ON THE RISETurkey is home to nearly 4 million Syrian refugees, having opened its borders to those fleeing the civil war that erupted there in 2011. Turkey has spent more than $40 billion since 2011 accommodating the refugees at a time of intense economic hardship in the country. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday a new influx of refugees from Syria to Turkey was "out of the question".

☆ Palestinian teenager dreamt of being a chef before attack, teachers say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Henriette Chacar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Although he grew up in Silwan, a cauldron of Palestinian-Israeli tensions near Jerusalem's Old City, Aleiwat had not shown an interest in politics, teachers, relatives, and children from his area told Reuters. They described a popular teenager with a strong personality, a passion for football and an ambition to be a chef. The Jan. 28 attack in Silwan is part of a recent surge of violence in Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. After the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli forces took control of Aleiwat's family home and the government ordered it sealed. Abbasi and other relatives said Aleiwat's family had for years feared their home would be demolished because it was built without the required Israeli permissions.

GAZA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft struck in Gaza on Thursday in response to Palestinian rocket fire, days after the United States called for calm, but there was no immediate sign of a wider escalation in violence following days of tension. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) said it had fired some of the rockets in response to the air strikes and the "systematic aggression" against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. In Gaza, activists rallied in support of women prisoners held by Israel after far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees prisons, said he would push ahead with plans to toughen conditions for Palestinian prisoners. Ben-Gvir has vowed a crackdown on "benefits and indulgences" offered to Palestinian prisoners and ordered amenities including prisoner-operated bread ovens in some prisons to be curtailed. Cairo has also invited Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, who currently resides between Qatar and Turkey, for separate talks next week, said a Palestinian official familiar with Egyptian mediation.

Now Israel has normalised relations with more Arab states, while Palestinians have grown more isolated and divided. Most world powers consider Israel's settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal. Israel says its West Bank raids targeted militants such as the suspects behind deadly attacks carried out by Palestinians inside Israel last year. "Each area of the West Bank is witnessing some form of armed clashes, but these are not united mass-scale movements," said Tahani Mustafa of the International Crisis Group. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Israel and the West Bank this week.

☆ Seven dead in synagogue attack outside Jerusalem, Israeli officials say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/7] Israeli forces work next to a covered body at the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov which lies on occupied land that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war January 27, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar AwadJERUSALEM, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Seven people were killed and 10 were injured in a synagogue shooting attack on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday, Israel's foreign ministry said. The incident comes a day after the deadliest raid in the West Bank in years, and falls on the Jewish Sabbath. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also praised but did not claim the attack. Reporting by Henriette Chacar in Jaffa and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Mark Porter and Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Traffic in Suez Canal normal after ship breakdown dealt with- SCA
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] An aerial view of the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal are pictured through the window of an airplane on a flight between Cairo and Doha, Egypt, November 27, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah DalshCAIRO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Shipping traffic in the Suez Canal was proceeding normally on Monday after tugs towed a cargo vessel that broke down during its passage through the waterway, the Canal Authority said. The M/V Glory, which was sailing to China, suffered a technical fault when it was 38km into its passage southward through the canal, before being towed by four tugs to a repair area, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement. The Suez Canal is one of the world's busiest waterways and the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. In 2021, a huge container ship, the Ever Given, became stuck in high winds across a southern section of the canal, blocking traffic for six days before it could be dislodged.

☆ Efforts under way to refloat ship stuck in Suez Canal, authority says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

DUBAI, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Efforts are under way to refloat a cargo vessel carrying grain from Ukraine that has run aground in the Suez Canal, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority told Al-Arabiya TV on Monday. The M/V Glory ran aground while joining the southbound convoy transiting through the canal and tug boats are trying to refloat the vessel, Osama Rabie told Al-Arabiya. The ship is a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier, data from trackers VesselFinder and MarineTraffic showed. It departed Ukraine's Chornomorsk port on Dec. 25 bound for China with 65,970 metric tonnes of corn, according to the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) overseeing Ukraine grain exports. The Suez Canal is one of the world’s busiest waterways and the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

☆ Israel's Netanyahu says he has secured deal to form new government
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Henriette Chacar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

JERUSALEM, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Wednesday he had secured a deal to form a new government after weeks of unexpectedly tough negotiations with religious and far-right coalition partners. "I have managed (to form a government)," Netanyahu said on Twitter, minutes before a midnight deadline set by President Isaac Herzog. Netanyahu's conservative Likud and like-minded religious-nationalist parties close to the ultra-Orthodox and West Bank settler communities won a comfortable majority in a Nov 1 election, promising him 64 of parliaments's 120 seats. But agreement to form a government was held up by disputes over a package of proposed legislation on issues ranging from planning authority in the West Bank to ministerial control over the police. At the same time, Aryeh Deri, head of the religious Shas party, is bidding to become finance minister, despite a conviction for tax fraud.

☆ In the holy land, a Christmas spirit is reborn
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Henriette Chacar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/5] Palestinian Nader Muaddi serves arak at his family distillery in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, December 11, 2022. "So, it's not only the spirit of Palestine, it's our Christmas spirit." Historically, families across the Levant produced their own wine and arak, which they would share with guests visiting during Christmas. Christians make up a small fraction of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Craft distilleries, wineries and breweries are cropping up across the West Bank.

☆ Israeli far right's Ben-Gvir to be police minister in coalition deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Israeli ultranationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks at the president's residence during consultations on Israel's next government with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem November 10, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen ZvulunJERUSALEM, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative Likud party signed its first coalition deal with Itamar Ben-Gvir's far-right Jewish Power party, Likud said in a statement on Friday. "We took a big step tonight toward a full coalition agreement, toward forming a fully, fully right-wing government," Ben-Gvir said in the statement. Netanyahu's Likud and its religious and far-right allies marked a clear victory in Israel's Nov. 1 election, ending nearly four years of political instability. The incoming government looks to be the most right-wing in Israel's history, forcing Netanyahu into a diplomatic balancing act between his coalition and Western allies.

☆ Israel calls U.S. move to investigate Al Jazeera journalist's killing 'serious mistake'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

JERUSALEM, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Israel will not cooperate with any external investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday. "The U.S. Justice Ministry's decision to investigate the unfortunate death of Shireen Abu Akleh is a serious mistake," Gantz said in a statement. The circumstances of Abu Akleh's killing remain heavily disputed. Other witness accounts of the incident have disputed that Israeli positions were under fire from the area where Abu Akleh was standing when she was killed. "We continue to pursue all possible avenues for accountability and we have hope that some day we will see justice for Shireen."

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