Middle East & North Africa

26 May 2021; MEMO: Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused Israel of launching attacks on oil tankers as they made their way to Syria over the past few months, warning that such attacks "cannot continue without a price."

Israeli attacks constitute a "violation of international law" and there must be a "deterrence" to stop Israel, the top diplomat in the Bashar Al-Assad regime added in an interview with the Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Tunisian authorities sent a military plane loaded with medical supplies and food aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, local news outlets reported.

Minister of Defence, Brahim Bartagi, said the plane was loaded with 1.5 million Tunisian dinars ($553,097) worth of aid.

26 May 2021; MEMO: A mysterious air base is currently being constructed on a strategically-located island off Yemen and which lies in the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, one of the busiest maritime chokepoints, crucial for commercial and energy shipments.

26 May 2021; MEMO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this morning announced that America will reopen its consulate in Jerusalem, to restore ties with Palestine that collapsed during former President Donald Trump's tenure.

Palestinian leaders decided to boycott the Trump administration's peace efforts over its decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv in 2018, upending decades of US policy.

26 May 2021; MEMO: The Secretary-General of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, said yesterday that any violations of Jerusalem and holy sites belonging to Muslims and Christians therein would lead to a regional war.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Qatar National Bank [QNB] announced yesterday that it has sacked the country's former Finance Minister Ali Shareef Al-Emadi from its board of directors following his arrest earlier this month over fraud allegations, Reuters reported.

26 May 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian Health Ministry yesterday released surveillance footage which shows the moment Israeli warplanes targeted a clinic in Gaza last week.

The CCTV footage dated 17 May shows people running in the corridors of Al-Remal Clinic, Gaza's main COVID-19 laboratory, as an Israeli air strike hits neighbouring buildings.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Screams, air raids, scattered pools of blood and constant fears and nightmares, this is how the children of Gaza live their lives. With every war they witness, the feelings and scenes are repeated in their minds and work to distort their view of the world, which they see as a place of war and in which they must constantly prepare for losing their lives, homes, their loved ones at any moment.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Social media users yesterday slammed Google for linking the iconic Palestinian scarf the keffiyeh with "terrorism".

A Google search asking 'what scarf do terrorists wear on their head?' brings up images of the Palestinian keffiyeh donned on the head or neck, alongside pictures of terrorists waving the Daesh flag, or even Muslim women wearing the hijab or headscarf.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Palestinian pop star Mohammad Assaf announced that he will not release his latest single We are Palestinians on his YouTube channel following the site's censorship of pro-Palestine content.

Assaf criticised YouTube for fighting pro-Palestinian content, saying: "This song will not be uploaded to my official YouTube channel, because YouTube is fighting Palestinian content during this period for no reason."