Middle East & North Africa

18 May 2021; MEMO: Senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook said that ceasefire mediation has not succeeded so far, stressing that any successes would be after Hamas' conditions are accepted.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Mubasher, Abu Marzook said: "Mediation has not succeeded yet; if they succeeded, they would have adopted our conditions, not Israel's conditions."

18 May 2021; MEMO: Egypt's Journalists Syndicate Council said it has joined all international legal cases filed with the competent international bodies against Israel over its violations of international laws, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine.

In a statement, the council slammed Israel's "brutal attacks" amounting to "war crimes and crimes against humanity" against the Palestinian people across historic Palestine.

18 May 2021; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan yesterday proposed the establishment of a commission with Jewish, Muslim, Christian representatives to govern Jerusalem, Anadolu Agency reports.

Erdogan also called on the UN, UN Security Council (UNSC), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and other international bodies to unite against the oppression of civilians in Palestine.

18 May 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian Mission to the UK said on Facebook that it had "received a letter of intent from Facebook to resolve serious issues" relating to the silencing of Palestinian voices by the social media platform.

18 May 2021; MEMO: Israeli rights group B'Tselem has said that Israel is committing war crimes as it is killing blockaded civilians and destroying infrastructure on a massive scale.

Gaza City (Gaza Strip), May 18 (AP) Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territories went on strike in a rare collective action against Israel's policies on Tuesday as Israeli strikes rained down on Gaza and militants fired dozens of rockets from the Hamas-ruled territory.

With the war in Gaza showing no sign of abating and truce efforts apparently stalled, the general strike and expected protests could again widen the conflict after a spasm of communal violence in Israel and protests across the occupied West Bank last week.

JERUSALEM, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza killed two foreigners who work in a packaging factory in southern Israel on Tuesday, Israeli medics said.

Additional seven people were wounded in the incident in the Eshkol Regional Council, one of whom sustained serious injuries, the Magen David Adom emergency health service said in a statement.

Israel's state-owned Kan TV news reported that the victims were two males in their 30s, without specifying their nationalities.

TEHRAN, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticized on Monday the United State for selling advanced weapons to Israel amid the intense bombardment on the Gaza Strip.

Zarif, on his Twitter account, said the United States sold Israel "precision" missiles to "kill more children with more precision."

The foreign minister was referring to an earlier report by the Washington Post claiming the Biden administration greenlighted the sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel, worth 735 million U.S. dollars.

Gaza City, May 17 (AP) Israeli warplanes unleashed a new series of heavy airstrikes at several locations in Gaza City early Monday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled the fourth war with Gaza's Hamas rulers would rage on.

17 May 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian ambassador to Algeria said on Sunday that de-escalation in the occupied territories must have a price to be paid by the Israeli occupation authorities. Most notably, insisted Amin Maqboul, this would be the suspension of settlement activities in the Palestinian territories.