Hey everyone, here’s this week’s news. First and foremost:
🇵🇸 In the past week, hundreds of Palestinians have been injured and arrested by the Israeli police for protesting against the court-ordered eviction of Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarrah.
Violence has since severely escalated and the following events took place:
🕌 The police stormed Al-Aqsa mosque and fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians praying there, injuring more than 330 Palestinians.
✈️ An Israeli airstrike targeted a building in Gaza and killed 9 children.
🚀 Hamas launched 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv.
🌙 On Eid al-Fitr, Israeli forces bombarded the Gaza Strip leading to an overall death toll of 69, including 17 children.
💣 Bombardments are still ongoing (live updates here) and intercommunal violence is rapidly spreading, with multiple lynch mob attacks taking place in religiously mixed cities and being shown live on local TV
🇸🇦🇵🇰 In a bid to continue Saudi Arabian foreign policy repositioning in an era of diminished US support, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invited Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for a three-day visit to the Kingdom in order to ease tensions 🤝 caused by their disagreements on the Kashmir dispute. The two agreed to establish a Saudi Pakistan Supreme Coordination Council and increase economic cooperation.
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🇱🇧 🇫🇷 French Foreign Minister Le Drian visited Beirut once again in order to discuss how to end the political stalemate in Lebanon. Last week, France imposed travel bans 🛫 on Lebanese senior officials, with threats of possible sanctions to ‘’people implicated in the political blockage under way… or implicated ’in corruption’’, in an attempt to pressure officials to form a new government.
👉🏻 Lebanon has had a caretaker government since the August Beirut port blast. Efforts to form a government so far have led nowhere due to senior officials’ ongoing disagreement on issues related to the formation of a cabinet.
🇲🇦 Morocco’s Foreign Minister has been quite busy:
FM Nasser Bourita issued a statement that Iran is working to destabilise North and West Africa by training its proxies and stated that “Morocco is facing the same threats that Israel and the United States face from Iran. We have to work together as allies to counter Iranian moves,”. A stronger Morocco-Israel-US alignment may be in sight.
Of course, the above 👆 is very connected to the below 👇
As Morocco-Israel US relations strengthened after Morocco agreed to normalise ties with Israel in exchange for the US recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, Germany was quick to show their opposition to the US decision. In fact, Germany called for a closed-door UN Security Council meeting to debate the issue, which highly disappointed Morocco. Well, as tensions heightened this week, Bourita also recalled Morocco’s ambassador to Germany, citing the country’s ‘’destructive attitude’’ on the Western Sahara issue and Germany’s alleged attempts to excluded Morocco from talks about the future of Libya.
🇩🇿 The Algerian interior ministry announced new regulations regarding demonstrations, which will now have to be registered and pre-authorised, threatening judicial consequences on those who fail to comply.
Just a week ago, protesters pressured President Tebboune to call for dialogue between social players. Until now, the Hirak was one of the few truly leaderless movements. This seems an attempt to hurt the protesters, which only a week ago had pushed President Tebboune to call for dialogue between social players. The restrictions also come right before the new legislative elections of June 12, which Tebboune has promised will be fair and transparent.
🇮🇶 Protests erupted in Karbala, Iraq after activist Ihab Jawad Al-Wazni was killed on Sunday. The protesters demanded justice for Al-Wazni, and an end to a political sphere controlled by the militias, often financed by other regional powers. 24 hours later, journalist Ahmed Hassan was shot and is now in critical condition. As a result, PM Al Kadhimi announced an investigation to identify “all the killers”.
You are all up to date, but remember that Israeli attacks on the Palestinian Territories are ongoing; also, remember not to believe everything the media, - proven to be extremely pro-Israeli - says about the events!
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