Middle East & North Africa

SANAA, July 15 (Xinhua) -- A vessel chartered by the United Nations set sail from Djibouti on Saturday toward Yemen to transfer oil from a deteriorating tanker that poses a major environmental and humanitarian threat.

The replacement vessel, Nautica, is expected to arrive at the site of the FSO Safer supertanker on Sunday. Once it arrives, a meticulous ship-to-ship transfer operation will be initiated to extract the oil from the Safer, according to a statement from the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

BEIRUT (AP) — The United Nations agency responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid has described conditions placed by the Syrian government on aid deliveries from Turkey to northwest Syria as “unacceptable.”

The future delivery of aid across Syria’s northern border was thrown into question Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council was unable to agree on either of two competing proposals to extend the mandate for bringing aid from Turkey by way of the Bab al Hawa border crossing.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday declared that he feels “very good” after he was rushed to the hospital for what doctors said likely was dehydration.

But doctors ordered him to remain in the hospital overnight for further observation, and his weekly Cabinet meeting was delayed by a day and rescheduled for Monday, his office said.

14 July 2023; MEMO: The Israeli High Court yesterday decided to discuss a petition which seeks to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office for violating the conflict of interest agreement he signed amid his ongoing corruption trial, local media reported.

14 July 2023; MEMO: Senior officials in high-tech companies in Israel are preparing a plan which will end with mass resignations if the planned judicial overhaul moves forward, Israel's Channel 12 reported.

14 July 2023; MEMO: Former Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, was "fully aware" of Israeli-Russian Elizabeth Tsurkov's frequent visits to Iraq and had warned both Washington and Moscow that her Israeli citizenship and "work" is "a danger to her", Israeli media reported.

According to the Israeli media, Tsurkov visited Iraq on numerous occasions from 2020 until she disappeared in March.

14 July 2023; MEMO: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened an investigation into alleged war crimes in Sudan, its Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, said yesterday in his briefing to the UN Security Council.

14 July 2023; MEMO: The Hadash-Ta'al list's Chairman, Ayman Odeh, was forced out of the Knesset plenary last week during a vote on the Counterterrorism Law after condemning the Israeli attack on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin.

He said: "People killed in Jenin. People wounded in Tel Aviv. A killed soldier. All of their blood is because of your damned occupation. Occupation blinds you. Power blinds you. You are not only acting like occupiers, you are acting like idiots."

14 July 2023; MEMO: Tensions have escalated, in recent months, between Israel and the Hezbollah movement on Lebanon's southern border over Tel Aviv's full occupation and annexation of the northern part of the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights, Anadolu Agency reports.

Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, spoke Wednesday, saying that Lebanon would not give up the village to Israel.

14 July 2023; MEMO: Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, strongly condemned the Swedish authorities on Friday for allowing the public burning of a copy of the Jewish holy book, Torah, while the Ashkenazi chief Rabbi also wrote to the Swedish Prime Minister, urging him to cancel the planned desecration on Saturday, Anadolu Agency reports.