position:afp correspondent

#Egypt blocks aid convoy from entering #Gaza
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/egypt-blocks-aid-convoy-entering-gaza

Egyptian soldiers in north Sinai prevented an aid convoy of activists from reaching the Rafah border crossing with the embattled Palestinian Gaza Strip on Saturday, an AFP correspondent said. An army officer at the Balloza checkpoint, one of many along the desert highway to Rafah, told an AFP correspondent that the security situation in the restive peninsula was too unstable to allow the convoy of 11 buses and 500 activists to pass. There was a brief scuffle between some activists and soldiers but no arrests were made. read more

#Israel

#Palestinian teen abducted, killed in Jerusalem
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/palestinian-teen-abducted-killed-jerusalem

A Palestinian teenager from annexed east Jerusalem was kidnapped and killed early Wednesday, army radio reported, hours after Israelis rampaged through the city calling for Arabs to die in “revenge” for the killing of three settlers. The killing sparked a wave of clashes in east Jerusalem where around 200 angry young Palestinians threw stones at police, who responded with sound bombs and rubber bullets, an AFP correspondent and police said. Quoting witnesses, the radio said the youth was seen being forced into a car in the city. read more

#Israel

Israeli police injure dozens at #jerusalem's #al-Aqsa mosque
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-police-injure-dozens-jerusalems-al-aqsa-mosque

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Palestinian women react after having their IDs and bags checked by Israeli police outside of the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on April 16, 2014. (Photo: AFP - Ahmad Gharabli)

Israeli police wounded dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes that erupted Wednesday when Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound was opened to Jewish visitors, an AFP correspondent said. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP that Palestinians threw “stones and firecrackers” at police when they opened the walled compound’s gates. Police responded with stun grenades, Rosenfeld said, and closed the complex to the Jewish visitors after a number had toured the site. read (...)

#Israel #Palestine #Top_News

Egyptian #police kill pro-Mursi student protester
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/one-killed-cairo-clashes-police

Updated 7:10 pm: One person was killed and 14 wounded Wednesday when police and student supporters of #Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Mursi clashed at #Cairo University, the health ministry said. Riot police fired volleys of tear gas from the university’s main gate at students who were demonstrating against Monday’s sentencing of 529 Mursi supporters to death in the biggest such act in the country’s modern judicial history, an AFP correspondent reported. read more

#Muslim_Brotherhood #Top_News

Israeli #settlers slash tires of 45 West Bank cars
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-settlers-slash-tires-45-west-bank-cars

Suspected Jewish extremists punctured the tires of dozens of Palestinian cars in occupied east Jerusalem on Monday in the latest so-called “price tag” #hate_crime, police and an AFP correspondent said. The attack took place in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in the northern sector of east Jerusalem, with Hebrew graffiti on a nearby bus reading “Gentiles in the land are enemies.” An AFP correspondent at the scene said 45 cars had their tires punctured, noting all four wheels of each vehicle were slashed. read more

#Israel #Palestine #price_tag #Top_News

Deadly car bomb strikes Cairo police headquarters
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/deadly-car-bomb-strikes-cairo-police-headquarters

A car bomb struck Cairo police headquarters on Friday, killing at least four people in an early morning blast heard across the Egyptian capital, police and health ministry officials said. The explosion sent a large plume of smoke billowing above the city and left a deep crater in the street, an AFP correspondent reported. The attack came a day before police were to deploy across the capital for the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, with Islamists calling for mass protests against the new regime. read more

#Egypt #Top_News

Israeli forces open fire on #Gaza #protesters, two wounded
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-forces-open-fire-gaza-protesters-two-wounded

The Israeli army fired live ammunition and tear gas at protesters near the border fence in the Gaza Strip on Friday, wounding two Palestinians, medics and an AFP correspondent said. Occupation forces fired at some 300 demonstrators who were protesting against #Israel's destruction of farmland for its 300-meter (yard) buffer zone, the correspondent said. Two protesters were moderately wounded and taken to hospital, Gaza’s Hamas health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP. Israel’s army was “unaware of the incident,” a spokeswoman said. read more

#Palestine #Top_News

African women refugees protest Israeli immigration policies
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/african-women-refugees-protest-israeli-immigration-policies

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A protestor hold up a sign as several hundred African women asylum seekers and their children, who entered Occupied Palestine illegally via Egypt, stage a protest in Tel Aviv, on January 15, 2014, after days of mass protests against #Israel's immigration policies. (Photo: AFP - Jack Guez)

Thousands of African women and children seeking asylum staged a protest march in Tel Aviv Wednesday against the Israel immigration policies, an AFP correspondent said. “We are refugees,” women chanted, many of them carrying infants or pushing prams along the streets of this coastal city where most of them live. Holding placards reading “We need freedom” and “stop racism!” they marched first to the headquarters of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, then on to the US embassy. read (...)

#African_immigrants #Top_News

Palestinians mourn #Gaza man shot dead by Israeli forces
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/palestinians-mourn-gaza-man-shot-dead-israeli-forces

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Relatives of Palestinian Huwayshel Hawajira, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, mourn during his funeral near Gaza City on October 1, 2013. (Photo: AFP - Mahmud Hams)

Palestinians on Tuesday held the funeral of a Gaza resident killed by the Israeli army the night before, an AFP correspondent said, in an incident human rights groups condemned. Huwayshel Hawajira, 36, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday evening, Palestinian (...)

#Israel #Palestine #Top_News

Libya Islamists bulldoze mausoleum
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/libya-islamists-bulldoze-mausoleum

Islamist hardliners bulldozed part of a revered mausoleum in Tripoli on Saturday in the second such attack in Libya in two days, an AFP correspondent reported.

[…]

The radicals used an excavator to demolish part of the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman, close to the center of the Libyan capital, the correspondent said.

It was the second such assault on a Muslim pilgrimage site in as many days.

[…]

Witnesses told AFP on Saturday that another mausoleum, that of Sheikh Ahmed al-Zarruq, had been destroyed in the port of Misrata 200 kilometres (125 miles) east of Tripoli.

Hardline Sunni Islamists are implacably opposed to the veneration of tombs of revered Muslim figures, saying that such devotion should be reserved for God alone.

[…]

He also said it was “regrettable and suspect” that members of the security forces and former rebels may have taken part in the attacks.