BAGHDAD: Iran’s foreign minister, whose government supports Hamas and other Middle East militant groups, said on Thursday opening a “new front” against Israel would depend on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

LONDON: Tunisia has sent back €60 million ($63 million) to the EU, which was intended to help curb migrant crossings over the Mediterranean, and has accused the bloc of treating it like a vassal, The Times reported on Thursday

Tunisian Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar said the cash was wired back on Oct. 9, six days after it had been received, and added that his country’s national sovereignty was a source of “dignity and strength.”

He added: “We have not started wars and we have not plunged humanity into world wars, as you have done.”

MARRAKECH, Morocco: World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said she hoped the Israel-Hamas conflict could be ended quickly, warning it would have a “really big impact” on already weak global trade flows if it widened throughout the region.
Okonjo-Iweala, in Morocco for this week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, said Middle East violence could add to factors throttling trade growth, including higher interest rates, a strained Chinese property market and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

ROME: The UN World Food Programme or WFP has warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in the Gaza Strip after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.

“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” said Brian Lander, the deputy head of emergencies at WFP, which is based in Rome.

TEL AVIV/WASHINGTON: The United States said on Thursday that Iran would not gain access any time soon to $6 billion in Iranian funds parked in a Qatar bank last month as part of a prisoner exchange and that Washington retained the right to completely freeze the account.
The question of Iranian access to the funds has been in the spotlight since Iran-backed Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on Saturday, killing more than 1,300 people and taking scores of hostages back to the Palestinian Gaza Strip.