Middle East & North Africa

10 May 2023; MEMO: In fresh Israeli bombing of southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, two Palestinians were killed and two others were wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

They have not yet been named, but Israel claims they were Islamic Jihad operatives who had been planning to launch rockets towards Israel.

In an official statement, the Islamic Jihad denied the victims were members of the group, but stressed it will retaliate for all of the victims killed since the morning.

10 May 2023; MEMO: Following Israeli attacks that killed 22 people, including women and children, in the besieged Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the occupation army deployed the Iron Dome Missile Defence system to counter rockets from Palestinian resistance groups. According to Israeli media reports, thousands of Jewish settlers were evacuated from the settlements around Gaza.

10 May 2023; MEMO: Iran's defence minister said on Monday that his country is ready to provide the Syrian armed forces with the latest defensive weapons. Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani made his comment after a meeting last week with his Syrian counterpart, General Ali Abbas, in Damascus.

10 May 2023; MEMO: Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Israel Katz, threatened yesterday to assassinate the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, and other senior officials if the movement joins any response by Islamic Jihad to the assassination of three of its leaders, Anadolu has reported.

JERUSALEM, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Israel was on high alert on Tuesday as it prepared for retaliatory rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip after a series of Israeli airstrikes killed militants and civilians in the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Israel's state-owned Kan TV news reported that over 2,000 Israelis have been evacuated from communities near the enclave, as a precaution against possible rocket attacks launched by Gazan militants at nightfall.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said it killed two Palestinian gunmen who fired on troops in the occupied West Bank early on Wednesday, the latest in near-daily violence roiling the region.

The shooting came as tensions are at a fever pitch following a series of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and 10 others — most of them women and children — on Tuesday. Palestinian militants have pledged to retaliate and Israel says it is prepared for a further escalation of hostilities.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — In the year in which the Turkish republic marks its centenary, the country is being closely watched to see if a united opposition can succeed in unseating an increasingly authoritarian leader in the NATO-member country.

Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, taking place on Sunday, could stretch President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule into a third decade — or they could set the country on a new course.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Billboards across Iran’s capital proclaim that women should wear their mandatory headscarves to honor their mothers. But perhaps for the first time since the chaotic days following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, more women — both young and old — choose not to do so.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A Tunisian naval guard shot and killed a colleague and two civilians Tuesday as he tried to reach a synagogue on the Mediterranean island of Djerba during an annual Jewish pilgrimage, the Tunisian Interior Ministry said. The attacker was slain by security guards, and 10 people were injured.

The motive for the attack was under investigation. It came as Tunisia, once a prized tourist destination and birthplace of the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings, has fallen into political and economic crisis.

TEHRAN, May 9 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran welcomes Syria’s return to the Arab League (AL), said the Iranian Foreign Ministry, yesterday.

At a weekly press conference in Tehran, the ministry’s spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, congratulated Syria in regaining its place and its seat in the AL. He attributed the success to the “decisive victory” of Syria and the resistance front in the fight against “terrorism” in the country, and people’s support for the Syrian government.