Originals - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Originals

Palestinian supporters of the Hamas movement wave flags as they rally against Israel's plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, on June 19, 2020. - Israel intends to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, as proposed by US President Donald Trump, with initial steps slated to begin from July 1. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP) (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

The Takeaway: Would Hamas complicate US plans for reset with Palestinians?

Also: the back story on the spat between Israel and Jordan; Gulf post-COVID economic trends; Turkey’s Kurds; Egypt and Somalia; and more!

Egypt sentences activist Sanaa Seif to 18 months in prison

Seif, who had been in pretrial detention since June, was convicted Wednesday of spreading false news and misusing social media.

Ukraine rejects Iran's final report on downed passenger plane

The Iranian government said last year's shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was the result of a human error.

A worker unloads a refrigerated truck carrying the first delivery of coronavirus vaccine via the United Nations Covax programme supporting poorer areas, to be kept at Palestinian Authority's storage facility in the West Bank city of Nablus, on March 17, 2021. - The Palestinian Authority said that vaccination would begin at the end of this week, primarily for those aged over 75, cancer patients and medical personnel.
Earlier, some 60,000 doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines allocated to the Palestinians

Palestinians receive first batch of vaccines through COVAX

More than 60,000 doses of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived in Ramallah on Wednesday.

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Tunisian president meets new Libyan unity government

Iran operating new advanced centrifuges, nuclear watchdog finds

A cameraman arrives at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),prior to a press conference at the agency's headquarters in Vienna on March 4, 2021. - European nations will not go ahead with a planned resolution criticising Iran at this week's meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog, diplomatic sources said on March 4, 2021. (Photo by ALEX HALADA / AFP) (Photo by ALEX HALADA/AFP via Getty Images)

Lawsuit filed to close pro-Kurdish party after lawmaker stripped of parliamentary seat

Turkish member of Parliament for the left wing political party Peoples' Democratic Party Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu (C) reacts as he is surrounded by MPs applauding and brandishing placards after he was dismissed following a vote at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, on March 17, 2021. (Photo by Adem ALTAN / AFP) (Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli and Emirati rugby teams to play each other for first time

United Arab Emirates

Turkish riot police detain a protester outside the Justice Palace in Istanbul March 31, 2015. A far-left Turkish group took an Istanbul prosecutor hostage on Tuesday and threatened to kill him, prompting special forces to enter the courthouse and police to evacuate the building. REUTERS/Osman Orsal - RTR4VM35

Media pressure increases after prosecutor's killing

A government investigation is opened into Turkish newspapers that published photos that kidnappers released of a prosecutor who was later killed.

Children who were internally displaced from Hama and Idlib, walk in a makeshift school playground within a refugee camp beside the Syrian-Turkish border in Qtma town, Idlib countryside December 18, 2014. Picture taken December 18, 2014.
REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi (SYRIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT) - RTR4IO28

The Islamic State's child soldiers

The Islamic State has been recruiting child soldiers for quite some time now, and the world is finally taking notice.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki (C) leaves the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague August 5, 2014. Al-Malki said on Tuesday after meeting prosecutors at the International Criminal Court that there was "clear evidence" that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. The visit took place shortly after Israeli and the Islamist Hamas movement entered a 72-hour truce mediated by Egypt in an effort to pave the way for an extended ceasefire. Israel and the Palestinians have traded allegations of w

Palestinians join ICC, but will they file complaints?

While joining the International Criminal Court is indeed a diplomatic achievement for the Palestinians, filing complaints against Israel could bring them countercomplaints and other punitive measures.

Palestinian protesters run from tear gas canisters launched by Israeli troops during clashes following a protest marking the Land Day, in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah March 28, 2015. Palestinians marks Land Day on March 30, the annual commemoration of protests in 1976 against Israel's appropriation of Arab-owned land in the Galilee. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTR4V9NG

PA official: Problem isn't Netanyahu, it's Israel

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral win, the Palestinians fear that they have no option left but a nonviolent intifada under the theme of liberating East Jerusalem.

A late night view of the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel during an extended round of Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, April 1, 2015. Major powers and Iran negotiated into the early hours of Thursday on Tehran's nuclear programme two days past their deadline, with diplomats saying prospects for a preliminary agreement were finely balanced between success and collapse. Picture taken April 1, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan Smialowski/Pool TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTR4VUES

Kerry, Zarif hold all-night Iran negotiations

After all-night talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif a preliminary agreement on a nuclear deal with Iran is still not finalized.

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New Ethiopian Knesset member prioritizes immigrant community

Likud's Avraham Negusie, newly sworn in to the Knesset, promises in an interview with Al-Monitor to fight for Jews from Ethiopia, saying, “There shouldn’t be economic considerations of who is more expensive than the other. That’s not the Zionist ideal.”

Palestinian workers clear the rubble of a school that witnesses said was destroyed by Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the east of Gaza City December 3, 2014. According to housing minister Mufeed al-Hasayna, Gaza needs 8,000 tonnes of cement a day to meet demand. A new system set up with the United Nations to comply with Israeli requirements lets through at most 2,000, he said. At that rate, reconstruction would take more than 30 years, said Hasayna, one of four

Will Qatar-Israel relations threaten PA’s relevance in Gaza?

Qatar’s engagement with Hamas and Israeli officials on Gaza reconstruction projects has provoked fears in the Palestinian Authority of a usurpation of its power.

An arms depot explodes at the Jabal Hadeed military compound in Yemen's southern port city of Aden March 28, 2015. Explosions rocked Aden's largest arms depot on Saturday, sending flames and smoke into the sky above the southern Yemeni city, witnesses said. A Reuters correspondent saw fire and explosions at the Jabal Hadeed compound, which is close to residential and commercial properties. There was no immediate word of casualties. REUTERS/Nabeel Quaiti TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTR4V93W

Saudi airstrikes against Yemen a first

The new Saudi king has united the Arabs against the Houthis, with Qatar and Egypt now on the same side.

A resident walks at the entrance of a cinema in Baghdad April 26, 2011. Iraq once had 82 cinemas, 64 of them located in the teeming capital, home to about 7 million of Iraq's 30 million people. One by one, they closed during the Saddam era, when the government controlled the selection and importation of films, until only five remained at the time of the invasion. The insurgency that followed and killed tens of thousands of people made Iraqis afraid of being in public places and crowds. They chose the relati

Iraqi cinema finds new direction

Iraq’s film industry has long been stunted by a lack of funding and governmental restrictions, but young and energetic directors and producers are working to turn it around.

Members of the Kurdish security forces take part in an intensive security deployment in Jalawla, Diyala province December 1, 2014. The blood of two militants killed during Islamic State's rout in the Iraqi town of Jalawla has yet to be washed away, but a turf war is already brewing between Kurdish and Shi'ite forces that jointly drove the insurgents out. The recapture of disputed territory and towns such as Jalawla is reopening rivalries over the boundary between areas of Kurdish control and those adminis

Iraqi residents denied return to town seized from IS

Some four months after being retaken from Islamic State fighters, Jalawla, in the Kurdistan region, remains uninhabited and divided among peshmerga, Shiite militias and Asayish, with residents awaiting resolution of who will ultimately control it.

An Israeli border policeman removes a Palestinian flag and a Fatah flag during a protest against what Palestinians say is land confiscations by Israel for Jewish settlements, near the West Bank town of Abu Dis near Jerusalem March 6, 2015. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4SCB7

Will PA focus on settlements at ICC?

Now that the Palestinian Authority is an official member of the International Criminal Court, the safer course for the Palestinian leadership will be to pursue Israel's settlements and not its transgressions in Gaza.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan arrive to a wreath-laying ceremony at the Ninos Heroes monument at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City February 12, 2015. Erdogan is in Mexico for an official visit. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido (MEXICO - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR4PCQH

The Erdogans' lavish lifestyle

Attempts to alter the image of lavish spending at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s palace backfired when the unprecedented high price of the white tea consumed at the palace was revealed.