Middle East & North Africa

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Just days after the FIFA World Cup during which the issue of Palestine featured prominently, Israeli occupation forces have today shot dead a Palestinian footballer and wounded at least 24 other people in Nablus. Local sources said that Ahmad Atef Daraghma, 23, from the northern West Bank city of Tubas, played for the Thaqafi football club in Tulkarem and was hit by live rounds in the back and feet.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Chilean President Gabriel Boric has announced that during his presidency his country will raise the level of its representation in the Palestinian territories to an embassy. Boric made the announcement in a speech on Wednesday evening at a Christmas celebration with the Palestinian community in Santiago, during which he also stressed that Palestinians are "a people who exist, who resist, who have a history."

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkiye has rejected a Chinese lecture regarding its fight against the People's Defence Units (YPG) in Syria, a group which the Turkish government has designated as a terrorist organisation.

China's Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang accused Turkiye on Wednesday of "repeatedly pounding northern Syria with air strikes and artillery shelling and threatening to launch ground operations."  He called at the Security Council for Turkiye to "immediately cease cross-border attacks."

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has described Greece's attempt to obstruct NATO flights as "hostile", adding that it shows that "Athens has become so arrogant that it ignores the basic principles of the alliance", Anadolu reported.

The minister made the remarks yesterday after a trilateral meeting held with the defence ministers of Azerbaijan and Georgia in central Turkiye.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Syrian regime President Bashar Al-Assad yesterday issued a legislative decree granting a general amnesty for military service deserters on the condition that they surrender within three months for those living in Syria, and four months for those living outside the country.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources has announced that the Kingdom's mineral wealth is now valued in excess of $1.3 trillion, including deposits of copper, zinc, phosphates, uranium and gold, the Saudi Press Agency has reported. The announcement was made in an online meeting organised by the ministry's Assistant Undersecretary for Investment Development, Turki Al-Babtain, with a group of British investors on Tuesday.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Morocco is set break its perceived neutrality over the conflict in Ukraine, becoming the first African country to provide military support to Kyiv.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Sixty-five scholars of Anti-Semitism, Holocaust and Jewish Studies have issued a letter to denounce the escalating smear campaign against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur (SR) on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called on the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) to condemn the Israeli killing of a Palestinian footballer, Wafa has reported. Ahmad Atef Mustafa Daraghma, 23, was shot and killed during an Israeli army raid in Nablus.

22 Dec 2022; MEMO: Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Thursday that Lebanon is at a crossroads: improve its conditions or further deteriorate, Anadolu reports.

Mikati's statement was made at the opening of the Arab Economic Forum in Beirut.

Mikati said if the country managed to realize the first scenario, the economy will grow 4% or 5% in 2023 and will help stabilize the Lebanese pound.