Middle East Experience

Russia and the United States will name teams to negotiate a path to ending the war in Ukraine, the powers decided on Tuesday in discussions that drew a rebuke from Kyiv over its exclusion.Washington noted European nations would have to have a seat at the negotiating table "at some point", after the first high-level official Washington-Moscow talks since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Russia, US to name negotiators on ending Ukraine war

Ali Qashmar walked into his south Lebanon hometown on the Israeli border Tuesday to find bulldozed fields and piles of rubble where there used to be neighbourhoods brimming with life."We came back to breathe the air of our lands and village, and we found our homes destroyed," said Qashmar, 74, from Odaisseh.Qashmar, his children and their families fled in October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated cross-border hostilities with Israel over the war in the Gaza Strip.More than a year later, the town "seemed totally abandoned, empty", he said.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Returning Lebanese say find 'total destruction' after Israel pullout

A British couple charged with spying in Iran during what they called a "slightly bonkers" round-the-world motorbike trip said they had ignored warnings not to travel to the country.Husband and wife Craig and Lindsay Foreman were arrested in the southeast of Iran earlier this year and on Tuesday Iranian authorities said they had been charged with espionage.Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said the pair had entered Iran "posing as tourists" and gathered information before their arrest in Kerman province.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: UK couple admitted they ignored Iran travel warnings

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday dismissed a proposal by the United States to displace Palestinians from the war-devastated Gaza Strip, saying it "will go nowhere".Khamenei made the remarks during a meeting in Tehran with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, leader of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad."The idiotic American plans or some other plans regarding Gaza and Palestine will go nowhere," Khamenei said.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Iran's Khamenei: US plan to displace Gazans 'will go nowhere'

Arab states have grown increasingly frustrated over the US administration's rhetoric about displacing 2.1 million Gazans from the enclave.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: UAE conveys frustrations to US' top diplomat Rubio over Gaza, Ukraine

Trump administration cuts all aid for Palestinian security forces, delaying key training programs.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Trump administration cuts all funding for Palestinian security forces

Arab municipal leaders criticize Israel's handling of rising crime, calling for stronger government action and Shin Bet involvement to combat violence.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Arab municipal leaders demand stronger government response to rising crime

Dostri's move comes after the two journalists published that Netanyahu had reprimanded his spokesman following his conduct.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Why were KAN's senior journalists removed from the PMO updates group?

'Not implementing phase two means clear and real danger to dozens of living hostages and to the ability to bring the slain hostages to burial in Israel,' the families said in a letter to Netanyahu.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Hostage families demand clarification on 'lack of advancement' towards phase two

Seventeen family members of varying degrees of relation were interviewed with informed consent by Dr. Einat Yahne, a rehabilitation psychologist with the Hostage Families Forum Health Division.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: New report exposes severe mental and physical toll on families of deceased hostages