Middle East & North Africa

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.

London, IRNA – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors will discuss the consequences of the risks posed by the use or threat to use of nuclear weapons by the Zionist regime at a meeting next week, according to the informed sources.

IRNA correspondent in London, quoting informed sources, reported on Thursday that the discussion will take place at the council meeting.

Tehran, IRNA - In the latest Israeli attempt to justify their crimes, Israeli soldiers claimed they found Hamas' military equipment during a raid in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but no evidence yet of a vast tunnel network it claimed was used by Hamas, media reports said.

Tehran, IRNA – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has rebuked Western countries for drafting and voting for an anti-Iran UN resolution, saying they are not qualified to preach human rights to Iranians.

In reaction to the anti-Iran resolution in the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Kanaani said that the countries that have a long history of systematic human rights violations and crimes against nations are in no position to give human rights advice to the Iranian government and people.

16 November 2023; MEMO: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that the war waged by the Israeli occupation army on the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October targets “the Palestinian existence” and he stressed that Palestinian blood will be “a curse on the [Israeli] occupation and those standing behind it.”

17 November 2023; MEMO: The mother of Qatar’s Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani has stepped down from her role as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, due to the organisation’s inability to perform its role and protect Palestinian children in Gaza.

16 November 2023; MEMO: Turkiye’s First Lady has said that Gaza has become a city of “unknown children”, a reference to the children who were killed in Israeli bombing raids who have nobody to identify their remains. Emine Erdogan made her comment in her speech on Wednesday at the Summit of First Ladies in Istanbul under the banner “One Heart for Palestine”.

16 November 2023; MEMO: “Grave violations” committed by Israel against Palestinians since Oct. 7 “point to a genocide in the making,” a group of independent UN experts said on Thursday.

16 November 2023; MEMO: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Thursday, paid a visit to the patients who were transferred from Gaza to Turkiye via Egypt, Anadolu Agency reports.

A total of 27 cancer patients are currently under treatment at the Bilkent City Hospital in the capital, Ankara.

Erdogan, along with Health Minister, Fahrettin Koca, and Hospital Chief Physician, Prof. Ercan Yeni, visited patients one by one and expressed his get well soon wishes.

16 November 2023; MEMO: Egypt’s Foreign Minister has called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to allow aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. “The Rafah crossing is open on our side,” Sameh Shoukry told journalists, “but the entry of aid is subject to approval from the Israeli side.”