Middle Orient

NABLUS (Reuters) — Israeli undercover forces killed a Palestinian shopkeeper and wounded his brother on Saturday during an apparent attempt to shoot two gunmen in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian security officials said.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local Al Qaeda leader in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Saturday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions undermined the insurgency.

BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora repeated a warning on Saturday to Islamist gunmen holed up in a northern refugee camp that they must surrender or be crushed, as intense fighting continued to rage.

The Lebanese army has continued to shell the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as Fatah al-Islam fighters hiding inside vow to fight to the last man.  

In Israel, there is “no effective barrier – not legal and certainly not ethical – that stands in the way of using torture,” concluded a recent report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).

Lebanon’s prime minister has issued a new warning to Islamist militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp, after a day of intense fighting with troops.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt has asked rival Palestinian factions for written proposals on how to stop internal fighting in the Gaza Strip, to be discussed in Cairo in July, a source close to Hamas said.

Cairo vehemently objects to stationing international forces along its border with the Gaza Strip, an idea recently floated in Jerusalem, the head of the Egyptian security team in the Gaza Strip said on Saturday.

At least 19 people have been killed, including three soldiers, after the fiercest fighting in two weeks at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The Lebanese army advanced its troops on Friday and carried out intense shelling against Fatah al-Islam fighters within the camp.

On Friday, June 1, the first video of BBC reporter Alan Johnston was released, since he was kidnapped 80 days ago. Palestinian government and his family made pleas for his immediate release. “First of all, my captors have treated me very well,” said a pale Johnston, wearing a red sweatshirt …