Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, Apr 18 (NNN-PNA) – Israel’s Islamic party of Ra’am, said yesterday that, it considered quitting the coalition government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, to protest against the police actions at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Mansour Abbas, chairman of the Ra’am party, told the Israeli-Arab A-Shams Radio that his party, which has four seats in the 60-seat coalition, was mulling resigning, in protest of the police actions at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, injuring and arresting hundreds of Palestinians over the past three days during the clashes.

JERUSALEM, April 18 (Reuters) - A rocket was launched on Monday from the Gaza Strip at Israel, which shot it down, the Israeli military said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any Palestinian faction. Monday's launch was the first such attack from Gaza in seven months, Israel's Kan radio said.

ALGIERS, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Algerian Health Ministry said on Sunday that no new COVID-19 cases were reported over the past 24 hours for the first time since the outbreak of the disease two years ago.

The overall number of cases stabilized at 265,739, and the death toll remained at 6,874, while the number of recoveries reached 178,335, according to the ministry.

Algeria registered its highest 2,521 daily infections on Jan. 25, 2022, while a record daily death toll of 49 was reported on July 28, 2021.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Two Palestinian men were critically injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest incident in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Israeli military were conducting an arrest raid in the village of Yamun, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank, when dozens of Palestinians started throwing rocks and explosives at the troops, who returned fire.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has launched a new ground and air cross-border offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, that has left at least 19 suspected Kurdish rebels dead and has wounded at least four Turkish soldiers, Turkey’s defense minister said Monday.

Turkish jets and artillery struck suspected targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and commando troops — supported by helicopters and drones — then crossed into the region by land or were airlifted by helicopters, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a video posted on the ministry’s website.

18 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt yesterday sentenced the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, to life in prison in a case known in the media as "storming Egypt's eastern border."

Since his arrest in 2020, Ezzat has been handed sentences of a total of 75 years in prison in different cases.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Libya halted oil production from its El Feel oilfield on Sunday and two sources at Zueitina oil port said exports there had been suspended after protesters calling for Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah to resign took over the sites, Reuters reports.

18 April 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned on Sunday Israeli assault on worshippersin Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City.

On his twitter, he stated that he had told his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas that he condemned Israel's storming of the mosque and threats to its status.

17 April 2022; MEMO: A yacht linked to Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska arrived in a bay near the southwestern Turkish resort of Gocek on Saturday, as more Russian billionaires head for Turkey to flee Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Deripaska, founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal RUAL.MM, has been sanctioned by the United States, European Union and Britain. He has previously called for peace.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Iraq on Sunday summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires, Hakan Rooth, to protest the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book of Quran by far-right extremists in Sweden, Anadolu reports.

On Thursday, Rasmus Paludan, the Danish leader of the far-right Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party, burned a copy of the Holy Quran in southern Linkoping in Sweden, according to media reports.