Middle East & North Africa

26 Mar 2020; MEMO: Blue and White party leaders have concluded that there is no chance of forming a minority government reliant on external support from the Joint List, reported Israel’s Channel 13 News.

Faction chair Benny Gantz met Tuesday with MKs from his Israel Resilience party, as well as MKs from Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, and Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem party. The Blue and White list constitutes an alliance between the three separate parties.

26 Mar 2020; MEMO: Istanbul’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has prepared an indictment against 20 Saudis in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate 17 months ago in Istanbul.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey can resort to the “highest measure” of adopting a complete curfew if coronavirus infections continue to spread, the government said on Thursday as it clamped down further on medical tools leaving the country.

Turkey had announced a partial curfew for senior citizens older than 65 over the weekend, but not for the general public as some other hard-hit countries have done.

The highly contagious respiratory disease has killed 59 in Turkey after cases surged in two weeks to 2,433, the world's nineteenth highest here count.

TRIPOLI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Libya's east-based army said on Wednesday that the army has repelled an attack by the forces of the rival UN-backed government on Alwatya air base, some 130 km southwest of the capital Tripoli.

The UN-backed government's forces suffered great losses to the east-based army, Ahmad al-Mismari, spokesman of the army, told a press conference in the eastern city of Benghazi.

He also accused the government forces of indiscriminately shelling residential neighborhoods in Tripoli.

JERUSALEM, Mar 26 (NNN-MA’AN) – A total of 439 people in Israel have been tested positive for the COVID-19, on Wednesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 2,369, the Ministry of Health said.

Of the 392 patients being treated in hospitals across Israel, 39 are in serious condition and 64 in moderate condition.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Leaders of the world’s most powerful economies will convene virtually on Thursday to try and coordinate a response to the fast-spreading coronavirus, which has shuttered businesses and forced well over a quarter of the world’s population into home isolation.

JUBA, March 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Sudan’s defence minister, General Gamal al-Din Omar, has died of a heart attack while on an official visit to neighbouring South Sudan, according to the Sudanese officials.

Omar was in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, taking part in peace negotiations between his country’s transitional government and rebel groups.

BEIRUT (AP) — Through 15 years of civil war and various bouts of violence since, Lebanon’s Barbar eatery never closed its doors, serving up sandwiches to customers even if it meant doing so from behind sandbags.

The coronavirus pandemic, however, has managed to do what various wars could not: Close bars, restaurants and entertainment spots across the tiny Mediterranean country. It’s an economic gut punch at a time when Lebanon is already mired in the worst financial crisis in its history.

CAIRO (AP) — An international aid group said Wednesday that closures aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic are preventing it from reaching 300,000 people in conflict zones across the Middle East, as the virus arrived in war-torn Libya and case counts rose in Syria and the Gaza Strip, among the world’s most vulnerable places.

25 March 2020; AFP: Turkish prosecutors have charged 20 suspects including two former top aides to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi.

Prosecutors accuse Saudi Arabia's deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and the royal court's media czar Saud al-Qahtani of leading the operation against Khashoggi and giving orders to a Saudi hit team.