Middle East & North Africa

ANKARA, Apr 22 (NNN-ANADOLU) – Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, yesterday summoned the charge d’affaires of the Iraqi embassy, to defend Turkey’s fresh cross-border operation in northern Iraq.

The ministry expressed its “discomfort over the baseless allegations” by the Iraqi authorities against Turkey’s military operation, dubbed Claw-Lock, that targeted the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tanju Bilgic, said in a statement.

BAGHDAD, Apr 22 (NNN-NINA) – Four militants of the Daesh group were killed yesterday, in an Iraqi airstrike, in a rugged area in Salahudin Province, north of the capital Baghdad, the Iraqi government said.

Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi armed forces launched an airstrike on abandoned houses in the al-Eith area, in the eastern part of the province and killed the four Daesh militants, according to a statement by the Federal Intelligence and Investigations Agency of the Ministry.

RAMALLAH, Apr 22 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has on U.S. President, Joe Biden, and his administration, to intervene to stop Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories, mainly in East Jerusalem.

Abbas made the request yesterday, in a meeting with U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Yael Lambert and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel and Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

TUNIS, April 22 (Reuters) - Tunisia's president seized control of the country's election commission on Friday, saying he would replace most of its members in a move that will entrench his one-man rule and cast doubt on electoral integrity.

The commission head Nabil Baffoun told Reuters that President Kais Saied's decree was a blow to the democratic gains of the country's 2011 revolution and meant the body was no longer independent.

"It has become the president's commission," he said.

21 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on Monday that restoration work has begun on the Ben Ezra synagogue in the Religious Complex of Old Cairo.

The restoration work, which includes cleaning walls, treating cracks and insulating the roof will be the first time similar repairs have been carried out since 1991.

21 April 2022; MEMO: Turkiye has sent two more trucks of humanitarian aid to the Crimean Tatars in Ukraine, authorities said Thursday, and Anadolu News Agency reports.

According to Turkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), the trucks were sent to Lviv, a city near the border with Poland, in western Ukraine.

Under the coordination of AFAD, Turkiye has sent 82 trucks of humanitarian aid and a mobile food truck for the people of Ukraine, it said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police in full riot gear stormed a sensitive Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims on Friday after Palestinian youths hurled stones at a gate where they were stationed.

The renewed violence at the site, which is sacred to Jews and Muslims, came despite Israel temporarily halting Jewish visits, which are seen by the Palestinians as a provocation. Medics said more than two dozen Palestinians were wounded before the clashes subsided hours later.

22 April 2022; MEMO: The European Commission announced on Thursday that the EU will send €20 million (almost $22 million) of humanitarian aid to Lebanon to ease the food insecurity exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"To support the most vulnerable segments of the population in Lebanon, the EU has allocated an additional €20 million in humanitarian aid to respond to rising food insecurity and other needs," the EU executive body said in a statement.

22 April 2022; MEMO: Iran has sent Israel "photos and maps of Israeli nuclear weapons stores" through a European mediator, an Iranian source said.

Al Jazeera quoted an unnamed source as saying: "Tehran had sent to Israel, through a European country, photos and maps of the Israeli nuclear weapons stores," adding that "most of the pictures are terrestrial and not satellite."

21 April 2022; MEMO: The leader of Turkiye's main opposition party said today that power had been cut at his home, after he refused to pay his bills for two months in protest at steep hikes in subsidised energy prices, Reuters reports.

A currency crisis late last year sent inflation soaring and prompted the government to raise prices of everything from gas and electricity to road tolls, alcohol, bus fares and petrol in January.