Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM (AP) — Two Palestinian men were critically injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest incident in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Israeli military were conducting an arrest raid in the village of Yamun, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank, when dozens of Palestinians started throwing rocks and explosives at the troops, who returned fire.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has launched a new ground and air cross-border offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, that has left at least 19 suspected Kurdish rebels dead and has wounded at least four Turkish soldiers, Turkey’s defense minister said Monday.

Turkish jets and artillery struck suspected targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and commando troops — supported by helicopters and drones — then crossed into the region by land or were airlifted by helicopters, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a video posted on the ministry’s website.

18 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt yesterday sentenced the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, to life in prison in a case known in the media as "storming Egypt's eastern border."

Since his arrest in 2020, Ezzat has been handed sentences of a total of 75 years in prison in different cases.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Libya halted oil production from its El Feel oilfield on Sunday and two sources at Zueitina oil port said exports there had been suspended after protesters calling for Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah to resign took over the sites, Reuters reports.

18 April 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned on Sunday Israeli assault on worshippersin Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City.

On his twitter, he stated that he had told his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas that he condemned Israel's storming of the mosque and threats to its status.

17 April 2022; MEMO: A yacht linked to Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska arrived in a bay near the southwestern Turkish resort of Gocek on Saturday, as more Russian billionaires head for Turkey to flee Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Deripaska, founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal RUAL.MM, has been sanctioned by the United States, European Union and Britain. He has previously called for peace.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Iraq on Sunday summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires, Hakan Rooth, to protest the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book of Quran by far-right extremists in Sweden, Anadolu reports.

On Thursday, Rasmus Paludan, the Danish leader of the far-right Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party, burned a copy of the Holy Quran in southern Linkoping in Sweden, according to media reports.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Sixteen Palestinian journalists are languishing in Israeli prisons, according to an Arab human rights group on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the Beirut-based Journalists' Support Committee said eight journalists have already been slapped with jail terms by Israeli authorities.

"Four journalists are held under Israel's policy of administrative detention, while four others are held under interrogation," the statement said.

TEHRAN, Apr 17 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, Ehsan Khandouzi, cancelled his trip to attend a World Bank meeting in the United States, due to the “delay” in issuing of U.S. visas.

Following the U.S. government’s delay in issuing visas for the Iranian delegation to the spring summit, Khandouzi cancelled his visit to the United States, local media reported.

BAGHDAD, Apr 17 (NNN-NINA) – Up to 13 people, including nine school teachers, were killed and four others wounded, in a car crash south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Iraqi authorities and a source said yesterday.

Iraqi Interior Ministry’s traffic directorate said, in a statement that, a 4-wheel drive vehicle and a minibus collided, as a result of inattentive driving and speeding, in the north of Babil’s province capital, Hilla, some 110 km south of Baghdad.

An earlier statement by the directorate said that, the accident took place around midnight.