LONDON: On Friday, Sept. 29, Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who specializes in Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem, made the finishing touches to a research paper he had been commissioned to write by the Research & Studies Unit of Arab News.

The subject was the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the Haram Al-Sharif, known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount, which holds such significance for all three Abrahamic faiths, but where only Muslims may pray and other faiths may only visit.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Tuesday led global condemnations of the Israeli airstrike on a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.

The Kingdom condemned in the “strongest terms” an Israeli air strike that killed about 500 Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people on Tuesday.

“Saudi Arabia categorically rejects this brutal attack, which is a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, including international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministry said. 

JERUSALEM: Israel launched strikes overnight on Hezbollah “terrorist” targets in Lebanon, the Israeli army said in a statement early Tuesday.
“The Israeli army is striking military targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah on Lebanese territory,” it said.
Since the start of the war triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border have left around 10 people dead on the Lebanese side, mostly combatants but also a Reuters journalist and two civilians.

RIYADH: Russia’s UN envoy said the UN Security Council was a hostage to Western countries after Russia’s draft calling for humanitarian ceasefire was not adopted.

— More to follow.

NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia on Monday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, condemned the targeting of civilians, rejected calls for “the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza,” and said the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and its “repetitive and systematic” provocations against holy sites, have perpetuated the conflict.