Middle East

By Dov Lieber Jonathan Spyer had been behind enemy lines many times before, carefully guarding his dangerous secret. But on a fine Spring day in Aleppo this year, in an area controlled by the Syrian regime, he thought his cover might have finally been blown — not by government intelligence agents or Islamist rebels, but

By TOI staff American and Israeli officials on Saturday night quickly dismissed an Israeli TV report that claimed the Trump administration is ready to recognize a Palestinian state as a central element of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, that the US will not insist on the evacuation of any settlements or settlers under a permanent accord,

Representatives of Morocco’s religious minorities on Saturday urged the government to clarify the law on freedom of worship in Morocco, where Islam is the state religion. Their statement came after an unprecedented meeting in the capital Rabat. “The Moroccan state still places barriers when it comes to legal reforms concerning minorities,” Jawad el Hamidi, the

By TOI staff Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be questioned Sunday for a sixth time in a pair of criminal investigations involving suspicions he received illegal gifts and favors from businessman for advancing their business interests. Netanyahu will be confronted with fresh testimony garnered by police, Hadashot news (formerly channel 2 TV) reported Saturday. Last

By TOI staff Yigal Amir, who is serving a life sentence for the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, is preparing to request a retrial, his wife said on Saturday. Larissa Trimbobler announced in a Facebook post that a legal defense team was being set up in preparation for filing the request. She

By TOI staff Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday urged moderate Arab nations to make peace with Israel in order to better confront the threat posed by Iran. “After Daesh, Iran,” Liberman tweeted on Saturday, referring to the Islamic State by its Arabic name. “[Late Egyptian President] Anwar Sadat was a brave leader, who went

Egypt opened its largely sealed border with Gaza on Saturday for the first time since a reconciliation agreement saw the Palestinian Authority take control of the crossing from Hamas. A Palestinian official at the Rafah crossing said it had opened at 0700 GMT and was expected to stay open for three days. “Egypt will open

Its “caliphate” has imploded, its de facto capitals in Iraq and Syria have fallen, and hundreds of its fighters have either surrendered or fled. The Islamic State jihadist group may not be dead yet but its dream of statehood has already been buried, analysts say. No one in IS “will now think of imposing ‘the

By TOI staff Israeli security forces on Saturday raided the home of a 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist who carried out a car-ramming attack in the central West Bank a day earlier, Hadashot news (formerly Channel 2) reported. Forces searched the home of the attacker who rammed his car into two people in Gush Etzion south of