A cross-party group of members of the House of Lords welcomed the UAE’s normalisation agreement during a video call with the country’s ambassador to London last week. “We believe this is an exciting time for the UAE, Israel and the region,” Ambassador Mansoor Abulhoul told two dozen members of Read more…
A military court in Gaza this week convicted three Palestinian peace activists for holding a video call with Israelis in April. Rami Aman, the head of the Gaza Youth Committee, was sentenced to a year in prison after being found guilty of “weakening revolutionary spirit”. However, the court said it Read more…
Israel is to reopen some of its schools, as well as some businesses, such as hairdressers, that receive customers as the country continues to ease its covid-19 restrictions. Facing a surge in coronavirus cases, the Jewish state last month became the first country in the world to impose a second Read more…
Israel this week began lifting its nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Widely praised for its swift and tough action against the pandemic in the spring, the country last month became the first in the world to order a second shutdown after a sharp rise in cases. But the Jewish state is in Read more…
Iran has welcomed the lifting on Sunday of the 13-year arms embargo, labelling it as a “momentous day”. In a letter last week to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, LFI chair Steve McCabe expressed his disappointment that it has “not been possible to secure international consensus to extend the arms embargo” Read more…
A high-level delegation of ministers from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Israel on Tuesday – the first-ever official such visit. It followed the parliamentary ratification by Bahrain and the UAE on Monday of their normalisation agreements with the Jewish state. The Knesset gave its assent to the Abraham Read more…
Israel has given the Palestinian Authority control over three power stations in a bid to help stabilise and boost the supply of electricity to the West Bank. The three power stations – in Tarqumiyah, near Hebron, Qalandiyah, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and Nablus – were handed over by the Israel Read more…
Steve McCabe MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, has written a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab MP, expressing deep concern about the lifting of the UN arms embargo on Iran. In the letter, Steve McCabe expresses his huge disappointment that it has “not been possible to secure international Read more…
A decade-old ban on the sale of conventional arms to Iran will come to an end this Sunday, potentially opening the way for Russia and China to assist the Islamic Republic in a major, potentially hugely destabilising, expansion and advancement of its military capability. Since 2010, the supply of a Read more…
The European Union has said it won’t bail out the Palestinian Authority with additional aid for so long as it refuses to accept tax revenues collected by Israel, it has been reported. President Mahmoud Abbas announced in May that the PA would stop accepting $150m a month in tax revenues Read more…
Officials representing Israel and Lebanon sat down for their first talks in three decades this week. The discussions, hosted by the United Nations and mediated by the US, took place close to the border between Israel and Lebanon. Although sat in the same room, the Lebanese have insisted they will not Read more…
More than 20 members of the European parliament from 15 nations have urged the European Union to partially withhold funding from the PA until Ramallah makes sweeping changes to its controversial school curriculum. The new curriculum, introduced in 2017, incites violence, glorifies terrorism and contains antisemitic content. The UK government has Read more…