Middle East & North Africa

GAZA (Reuters) - Vineyard owner Haidar al-Zahar recalls with joy the day in 2005 when Israel removed its settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip, part of a withdrawal that few Palestinians thought they would ever see.

“I felt like a prisoner who suddenly found himself a free man,” he said.

A decade and a half later he is on the warpath as Israel considers whether to annex its settlements in the occupied West Bank, 40 km (25 miles) away, divided from Gaza by Israel and which Palestinians seek as the heartland of a future state.

CAIRO, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday spoke over the phone, discussing Ethiopia's hydropower dam being built on the Nile River as well as other regional issues, Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

"Minister Shoukry touched on the latest developments regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) issue in light of the stalled negotiations due to intransigent Ethiopian stances," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez in a statement.

BAGHDAD, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Wednesday held talks with top Iraqi leaders over bilateral relations and cooperation in Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Iraqi President Barham Salih met Safadi and his accompanying delegation, and the two sides discussed the Arab and regional situations, as well as coordinating their stances in order to mitigate the regional crises, said a statement by the media office of the presidency.

24 June 2020; MEMO: Sudan repelled an Ethopian cross-border attack on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reported.

Governor of Sudan’s eastern Gadaref province, Major General Nasr Al-Deen Abd Al-Qayyum, said armed forces had “successfully fended off an attack by Ethiopian forces” on Sunday, reporting no fatalities.

24 June 2020; MEMO: Jordan has surpassed Indonesia to have the highest smoking rate in the world, a report by the Guardian has found.

24 June 2020; MEMO: Thousands of Israelis protested yesterday evening in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square against Israel’s decision to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Celebrities, activists, entrepreneurs and security experts were in attendance and delivered speeches, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The protest comes after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Israel to drop its annexation plans in a report stating it would be a “serious violation of international law”.

24 June 2020; MEMO: An Israeli occupation soldier had been sentenced to 45 days of community service for killing a Palestinian fisherman off the Gaza coast in 2018, Israel Hayom reported on Monday. In what rights groups have said is proof that Israel “protect[s] perpetrators, not their victims”.

The sentence came following an army investigation that found the soldier had opened fire at the Palestinian without authorisation.

DUBAI, June 24 (NNN-WAM) – The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), announced on Tuesday that, it signed an agreement worth 20.7 billion U.S. dollars, with a consortium of investors and funds.

The consortium consists of some of the world’s leading infrastructure investors and operators, as well as, sovereign wealth and pension funds, including Global Infrastructure Partners, GIP; Brookfield Asset Management, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC; Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Ontario Teachers; NH Investment & Securities and Snam.

DAMASCUS, June 24 (NNN-SANA) – Israel launched strikes at military bases in southern and eastern Syria on Tuesday evening, killing two soldiers and wounding four others.

The strikes targeted a military site in Kabajeb, west of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, and the Sukhneh area in the remote eastern countryside of Homs province, as well as, the Salkhad area in the southern countryside of the southern province of Sweida, said the report.

RAMALLAH, June 24 (NNN-WAFA) – A Palestinian man was killed on Tuesday, by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in the south West Bank.

Ahmad Erekat, 27, was shot dead after his vehicle crashed at the checkpoint, located between East Jerusalem and the southern West Bank district of Bethlehem, Palestinian medical sources said.

But Israeli sources said that the man attempted to run over Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint.