Mena Today

The global narrative surrounding the Middle East often centers on one storyline, but rarely acknowledges another equally important and long-overlooked chapter. It is the untold story of nearly 850,000 Jews who were expelled or forced to flee from Arab and Muslim-majority countries in the mid-20th century. 

Israel put a planned strike on a village in southern Lebanon on hold on Saturday after the Lebanese army requested access to the site to "address a breach" of a ceasefire agreement, an Israeli military spokesperson said.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, at the Élysée Palace this Monday, the French presidency announced on Saturday. 

Activists and opposition figures from across Tunisia's political spectrum took to the streets on Saturday in a rare show of unity against President Kais Saied, demanding an end to one-man rule and the restoration of democracy.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko freed 123 prisoners on Saturday including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava in a deal brokered by an envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump.

Two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria on Saturday by a suspected Islamic State attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, the U.S. military said.

The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saed, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Saturday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, fresh from a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin, said he hopes to discuss a Ukraine-Russia peace plan with U.S. President Donald Trump, adding that "peace is not far away".

Iranian authorities detained 18 crew members of a foreign tanker seized in the Gulf of Oman on Friday that they said was carrying 6 million litres of smuggled fuel, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing the Hormozgan province judiciary.

International human rights groups on Saturday condemned the reported re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on the Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.

International troops could be deployed in the Gaza Strip as early as next month to form a U.N.-authorized stabilization force, two U.S. officials told Reuters, but it remains unclear how Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be disarmed.

A joint Saudi-Emirati military delegation arrived in Aden to discuss measures aimed at defusing tensions in southern Yemen, days after the country’s main southern separatist group claimed broad control across the south, a government source told Reuters on Friday.