Palestinian politicians in Israel have found an unexpected ally inside the government against a new bill banning mosques from using loudspeakers to broadcast the call to prayer. 　　The so-called Muezzin Bill - named after the person who calls Muslims to prayer - was approved by a ministerial committee on Sunday,... More

　　As Syria's regime presses a fierce assault on eastern Aleppo, its siege is making life ever harder for civilians who are being forced to sift through garbage for food and scavenge firewood from bombed-out buildings. 　　With winter setting in, shortages of food, medicine and fuel coupled with intense air strikes... More

　　Serag Tafesh and Hassan el-Qaied are at risk of dying if the power goes off. Both are two-month-old babies in an intensive care unit at Al Dura, a children's hospital in Gaza, and their life-saving medical equipment stops working when the electricity goes off. 　　The two babies were born with... More

　　When surgeon Mounir Hakimi operated on five-month-old Maram in the Syrian province of Idlib last week, the horrific extent of her injuries quickly became clear. 　　"She lost both her parents in an air strike, has multiple fractures, a wound in her abdomen, and has lost lots of skin," Hakimi told... More

　　Israeli forces have killed more Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem in 2016 than any other year in the last decade, rights group Defense for Children International (DCI) has said. 　　The organization’s chapter in the occupied Palestinian territories recorded the killings of 32 Palestinian children (under 18),... More

　　As many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian prison near Damascus, Amnesty International has said, accusing the regime of a "policy of extermination". 　　Titled "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison," Amnesty's damning report, released on Tuesday, is based on interviews with... More

　　A recent article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has confirmed the extent to which Shin Bet interrogators subject their prisoners to torture. 　　Methods include slapping the head "to hurt sensitive organs like the nose, ears, brow and lips", forcing a handcuffed individual to squat against a wall for long... More

　　In Aleppo's Jibreen shelter, home to refugees who have been unable or unwilling to return to their houses or flee further afield, the inhabitants of Qalayah, one of the villages from that area, swear they will one day recover their land. 　　"We raised sheep and had land. We sold everything... More

　　The walls of Izzeldin Abuelaish's office at the University of Toronto are covered in photographs, but one, in particular, stands out. 　　Three of his daughters, Bessan, Mayar and Aya, sit on a beach in the Gaza Strip. The tide is out, and the girls - aged 13, 15 and 20... More

　　Torkham is a maze of chain-link fences and razor wire. Stern-faced Pakistani guards, their rifles loaded and at the ready, watch on as Afghan visitors quietly circumnavigate the multiple checks of their papers at the main border crossing between the two South Asian countries. 　　Nearby, a group of about two... More

　　Child deaths increased 20 percent in civil war-torn Syria in 2016, making it the “worst year” since 2014, according to the United Nation’s children agency Monday. 　　UNICEF said in a statement that at least 652 children were killed in Syria in 2016 -- 255 of them in or near schools.... More

　　When Israeli opposition leader and Labour Party chairman Isaac Herzog published a plan for kick-starting the peace process last month, one of his stated goals was to "save the settlement blocs" - areas of the West Bank where Israel has built clusters of settlements, including larger towns. 　　Settlement blocs are... More

　　Syria's vital Tabqa Dam, the country's biggest, has become a major part of a Kurdish-Arab assault to cut off ISIL stronghold of Raqa. 　　Located in Raqa province, the dam is built on the 2,800-kilometre-long (more than 1,700-mile-long) Euphrates River, which flows from Turkey through northern Syria and east into Iraq.... More