Middle East & North Africa

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Hezbollah began bringing Iranian fuel into Lebanon via Syria today, a move the group says should ease a crippling energy crisis but which opponents say risks provoking US sanctions, Reuters reports.

Dozens of trucks carrying Iranian fuel oil entered northeastern Lebanon near the village of Al-Ain, where Hezbollah's yellow flag fluttered from lampposts.

"Thank you Iran. Thank you Assad's Syria," declared a banner, referring to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Five military groups in northern Syria operating under the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) united under the umbrella the Syrian Liberation Front, Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reports.

The groups Hamza Division, Mutasim Division and Sultan Suleyman Shah Division, the 20th Division and North Falcons Brigade joined the Syrian Liberation Front which has in its ranks 20,000 armed soldiers, the report says.

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Bahrain has released 30 prisoners conditionally, including 27 political prisoners, under legislation allowing electronic monitoring and house arrest instead.

Under the 2017 "alternative sentence" law, prisoners who have served at least half their sentence in jail are allowed to complete it in other ways, including community service, rehabilitation courses and electronic surveillance. Last week, the King of Bahrain amended the law to allow a switch to non-custodial punishments at any point in a sentence.

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: The judge investigating last year's Beirut port blast today issued an arrest warrant for former public works minister Youssef Finianos after he failed to show up for questioning, the state National News Agency reported.

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz has said that Israel will not be removing any illegal Jewish settlements from the occupied West Bank and will maintain them in the long term, Foreign Policy reported yesterday.

Speaking to the news site, he addressed several issues related to Iran, the region and Palestine, saying: "We need two political entities here."

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Palestinian prisoner Yaqoub Qadri, who was among the four Gilboa Prison escapees to be recaptured, pledged to seek freedom again, Safa news agency reported on Tuesday.

According to lawyer Hanan Al Khatib, Qadri said: "The five days I spent in the open air of Palestine without restrictions were the best of my life."

The lawyer also reported him saying he saw children during his freedom and kissed one of them. "That was the most beautiful thing to happen to me," he said.

16 Sep 2021; MEMO: Time magazine has named Palestinian twins and activists, Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd of Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The magazine said Muna and her twin brother Muhammad have become symbols of the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation's attempts to evict Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah.

JERUSALEM, Sept 15 (NNN-BNA) – Bahrain’s first ambassador to Israel, Khaled Yusuf Al Jalahma, presented his credentials to Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, yesterday, a year after the two countries signed a normalisation deal.

The Israeli president received the credentials from the Bahraini ambassador at the president’s residence in Jerusalem, Israeli president’s office said in a statement.

“Brave states take brave steps,” Herzog told the ambassador.

RAMALLAH, Sept 15 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestine yesterday called on donor countries, to cover the deficit in the budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), to continue providing its services.

Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said in a statement that, he met with UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini in Ramallah, and discussed the importance of helping the UN agency to overcome the deficit in its budget.

HAJJAH, Sept 15 (Reuters) - In the poor village of Jarb in northern Yemen, Ashwaq Mahmoud gives her time and spare cash to provide basic health services that people there could not otherwise reach or afford.

The 23-year-old Mahmoud was trained by the United Nations children's agency UNICEF as a community health worker after a village elder noticed her helping displaced people fleeing the frontlines of Yemen's war.

She now offers basic treatments and maternal health, malnutrition and vaccine advice.