Middle East & North Africa

20 July 2021; MEMO: At least 22 people were killed and 47 others injured in an explosion in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Monday, the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, health officials said.

The blast took place in the al-Wuhaylat public market, Sadr City district during rush hour. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi ordered the authorities to initiate an investigation, and bring the perpetrators to account.

BAGHDAD, July 20 (Xinhua) -- At least 28 people were killed and 66 others wounded in a bomb explosion at a crowded market in eastern Baghdad on Monday, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The huge explosion ripped through the popular market in Sadr City, a suburb district of Baghdad, destroying several nearby shops and stalls and damaging surrounding buildings on the eve of the Eid al-Adha festival, the source said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told the head of Unilever on Tuesday that Israel will “act aggressively” against Ben & Jerry’s over the subsidiary’s decision to stop selling its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and contested east Jerusalem.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s president said Tuesday his country will talk with the Taliban regarding Turkey’s bid to operate and secure the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Speaking after Eid al-Adha prayers in northern Cyprus, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that the hardline Islamist group had some “discomforts” over Turkey’s proposed plans for Hamid Karzai International Airport.

GAZA, Jul 19 (NNN-WAFA) – The partnership between the United States and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is fully restored, a senior UNRWA official said.

The UNRWA media advisor in Gaza, Adnan Abu Hasna, said, the U.S. financial aid to the UNRWA has reached 320 million U.S. dollars this year, which is “close to the same level of financial aid as the United States used to donate, before former President Donald Trump.”

BEIRUT, July 19 (Reuters) - Lebanon's presidency said parliamentary consultations to choose a new prime minister will begin on July 26, in another attempt to push Lebanon’s fractious political class to form a government to rescue the country from financial meltdown.

Lebanon has been run by a caretaker administration for nearly a year, while its currency has collapsed, jobs have vanished and banks have frozen accounts in what lenders have called one of the most severe financial crises of modern times.

ADDIS ABABA July 19 (Reuters) - Forces from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region have mounted attacks in neighbouring Afar region, a spokesman for Afar said on Monday, marking an expansion of an eight-month-old conflict into a previously untouched area.

Tigrayan fighters crossed into Afar on Saturday and Afar forces and allied militias were still fighting them on Monday, Afar spokesman Ahmed Koloyta said.

"Now (Ethiopian military forces) are on their way and we will work with them to eliminate (the Tigrayan forces)," he said.

JERUSALEM, July 19 (Reuters) - A liberal party in Israel's governing coalition said on Monday it would ask the Defence Ministry about exports of Israeli spyware that media reports have linked to hacking of phones of journalists, civil servants and rights activists worldwide.

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, head of the Meretz party and a member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's decision-making security cabinet, told reporters he would meet Defence Minister Benny Gantz on Thursday to discuss the exports by NSO Group.

19 July 2021; MEMO: The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, reiterated on Sunday that access to and the use of Al-Aqsa Mosque "is an exclusive right" for Muslims.

"Any aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque or on the Muslims who pray in it is considered aggression against the freedom of worship guaranteed by international conventions and humanitarian ethics," said the Patriarch. A copy of his statement was sent to MEMO.

19 July 2021; MEMO: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pardoned nearly 14,000 prisoners on Sunday who are not accused of "terrorism crimes, vandalism, corruption or conspiracy against the state," Anadolu has reported.