Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, Aug 3 (NNN-PNN) – Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, said yesterday that, Iran has been stepping up its aggression in the Middle East and called for “action against Iran” over its alleged attack on an Israeli oil tanker last week.

In a speech during a plenum session of the Knesset (parliament), Gantz addressed the deadly drone attack on an oil tanker, off the coast of Oman, last week.

Iran denied any involvement in the attack on the Israeli-managed ship, but security officials in Israel, Britain and the United States estimated Iran is behind the assault.

GAZA, Aug 2 (NNN-WAFA) – The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), warned yesterday of the shortage of raw materials to launch reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

Director of UNRWA in Gaza, Sam Rose, said in a press statement that, the lack of raw materials for starting the reconstruction plan “was due to the closure of the only commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel.”

AMMAN, Aug 3 (NNN-PETRA) – A Royal Jordanian flight from Cairo, yesterday, made an emergency landing in Amman, with all passengers and crew members safe and sound, it was reported.

Royal Jordanian Airlines announced that, its flight RJ 508 was forced into an emergency landing, at Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport, 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled landing time, Petra said.

All 133 passengers and six crew members of the flight were evacuated after the successful landing, according to the airline.

03 Aug 2021; MEMO: The head of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea, yesterday called for early parliamentary elections to be held in order to resolve Lebanon's crises.

Geagea's call came during a rally organised by his party in Beirut to commemorate the first anniversary of the Beirut post explosion which killed more than 200 people and wounded 7,000 others on 4 August 2020.

03 Aug 2021; MEMO: Amnesty International yesterday accused the Lebanese authorities of "obstructing" the quest for justice in the investigation into the Beirut port explosion which killed nearly 200 people and left 300,000 others homeless one year ago.

03 Aug 2021; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday stressed the importance of respecting the rule of law, and guaranteeing freedom, during a call with his Tunisian counterpart Kais Saied, Turkish diplomatic sources reported.

Erdogan told Saied that stability, peace, and serenity in Tunisia are important and benefit the whole region, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

03 Aug 2021; MEMO: Tunisian President Kais Saied yesterday dismissed two ministers from the former cabinet.

According to a presidential statement, the former Minister of Economy, Finance and Investment Support, Ali Kooli, was removed from his post and Sihem Boughdiri Nemissa was appointed as his successor.

Saied also sacked Mohamed Fadhel Kraiem, the communications technology minister and the acting agriculture minister, and appointed Nizar Ben Neji as his successor.

BAGHDAD, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The United States is returning more than 17,000 ancient artifacts looted and smuggled out of Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003, including a 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Iraq said on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of antiquities disappeared from Iraq after the 2003 invasion that toppled leader Saddam Hussein. Many more were smuggled or destroyed by the iconoclastic Islamic State group, which held a third of Iraq between 2014 and 2017 before it was defeated by Iraqi and international forces.

DUBAI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Iran is dropping plans for prisoner swaps with the United States due to "breaches" by Washington in efforts to free the detainees, an unnamed Iranian official told the semi-official Nour News agency on Tuesday.

Tehran and President Joe Biden's administration have been communicating on prisoner exchanges aimed at securing the release of Iranians held in U.S. jails and other countries over violations of U.S. sanctions, and of Americans jailed in Iran.

DUBAI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Iran's hardline incoming president Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday he would take steps to lift "tyrannical" sanctions imposed by the United States, after winning the formal endorsement of the country's supreme leader to take office later this week.

Raisi, who is under personal U.S. sanctions over allegations of human rights abuses in his past as a judge, promised to improve the living conditions of Iranians, which have worsened since 2018 when Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran after abandoning a nuclear deal.