Middle East & North Africa

05 July 2023; MEMO: The UN Security Council will convene on Friday to discuss the deadly escalation following Israeli attacks on the Occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Anadolu Agency reports.

The 15-member Council will meet in closed consultations, said the UK mission to the UN, which holds the organ's rotating presidency for July, on Twitter.

The meeting was requested by the United Arab Emirates.

TEL AVIV, July 4. /TASS/: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed an underground storage site for explosive devices, as well as two command and control centers for terrorist groups, in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Tuesday night as part of a major counterterrorism operation, the IDF press service said.

According to the military, last night the IDF, the General Security Service (GSS) and the border police continued their counterterrorism operation in the city of Jenin and the adjacent Jenin refugee camp.

CAIRO, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The United States is to blame for destabilizing the Middle East, an Egyptian expert has said.

The United States has pursued hostile behavior and discrimination based on exploitation, imposing a fait accompli policy and igniting the region with wars and military aggressions in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries, Abu Bakr al-Deeb, advisor to the Cairo-based Arab Center for Research and Studies and an Egyptian researcher in political economy, told Xinhua.

TEHRAN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran said on Monday that its upcoming admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a full member state will promote regionalism and facilitate the economic development of other member states.

At a weekly press conference held in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani hailed Iran's SCO membership, which is expected to be approved at the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State on July 4, as a "positive development" for the organization.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Egypt and Turkey took a further step toward restoring full diplomatic ties on Tuesday by dispatching ambassadors for the first time in years, the latest step in the reconciliation between the two regional powers.

In a joint statement, the two countries announced the appointment of Salih Mutlu Sen as Turkish ambassador to Cairo and of Amr Elhamamy as the Egyptian ambassador to Ankara.

JENIN, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) - Israeli forces hit the city of Jenin with drone strikes on Monday during one of the biggest West Bank incursions in twenty years, killing at least eight people and involving hundreds of troops and gun battles that lasted into the afternoon.

With drones clearly audible overhead and the sounds of gunfire and explosives heard across the city hours after the strikes, the Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of militant groups based in the city's crowded refugee camp, said it was engaging Israeli forces and had shot down one of the unmanned aircraft.

DUBAI, July 3 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's biggest oil exporters, deepened oil cuts on Monday, sending prices higher despite concerns over a global economic slowdown and possible further interest rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Saudi Arabia said it would extend its voluntary oil output cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) for another month to include August, adding that the cut could be extended beyond that month.

BEIRUT, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Two men were shot dead in a disputed area in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese Army announced in a statement on Sunday, confirming earlier media reports.

The two young men, Haitham Tawk and Malek Tok, were found shot dead in Qornet al-Sawda, a disputed area between Bcharre and Bkaasafrine in northern Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported on Saturday evening.

Seven other civilians were also wounded in the conflict, the L'Orient Today news website quoted locals in Bcharre as saying.

TUNIS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia has foiled 65 illegal immigration attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, the Tunisian National Guard said on Sunday in a statement.

The statement, posted on its Facebook page, said Tunisia's maritime guard thwarted these illegal immigration attempts between June 27 and June 29, and rescued 2,068 illegal immigrants from sinking boats during these operations.

JERUSALEM, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have developed a method that makes cancer cells to self-produce toxins and thus "commit suicide," Tel Aviv University (TAU) in central Israel said in a statement on Sunday.

In a study published in the journal Theranostics, TAU researchers "for the first time in the world" encoded a toxin produced by bacteria into messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules and delivered these particles directly to cancer cells, the statement added.