US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has rejected Israel’s offer to allow her to visit her Palestinian family in the West Bank after Tel Aviv barred her from entering the occupied territories.

Israel has decided to prevent two American congresswomen from traveling to the occupied territories over their support for a boycott of the Tel Aviv regime.

Nearly 250 new immigrants from the United States and Canada have arrived in the Israeli-occupied territories and been received by Israeli officials amid the sounds of shofar blasts and the cheering of hundreds of Jewish extremists, as opposed to the Tel Aviv regime’s controversial plan to expel thousands of African refugees.

Iraq has rejected any Israeli participation in a naval force led by the US to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, stressing that its involvement will only increase tensions in the region.

The Arab League has condemned Israel’s violent and brutal attack on al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem al-Quds following the Eid al-Adha prayers.

Israeli officials have approved plans for the construction of hundreds of new housing units in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds in defiance of international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime’s land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Saturday described the Hajj as a “model” demonstrating Islamic principles and uniting all Muslims together in the worship of God.

Bernd Erbel, who was recently appointed to head Europe’s trade mechanism with Iran, known as INSTEX, has been reportedly forced to resign after a German newspaper accused Germany's former ambassador to Tehran of supporting “anti-Semitism,” criticizing Israel and supporting Iran’s missile program.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said on Friday that possible Israeli presence in a US-led coalition in the Persian Gulf is a clear threat against Iran’s national security, stressing that Tehran reserves the right to counter the move.

Robert Fisk is The Independent’s multi-award-winning Middle East correspondent, based in Beirut. He has lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years, covering the war in Syria and Lebanon, five Israeli invasions, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Algerian civil war, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the 2011 Arab revolutions. In this piece written on Thursday 28 February 2019, he reflects on the escalation of tensions between neighboring India and Pakistan, highlighting the role played by Israeli supplied ammunition and aircraft in fanning the flames of conflict between these two countries.

The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the United States is not interested in waging war on Iran since it knows that any such confrontation would expose the Israeli regime to “full-scale threat.”

A senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has censured the United Nations for its failure to include Israel in its annual blacklist of armed forces that commit atrocities against youths, arguing that the world body’s falling short of recognizing Israeli crimes against Palestinian children is inexcusable.

An ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Riyadh has exchanged views with Tel Aviv on importing natural gas from the occupied territories, as the two regimes speed up normalization efforts.

Israeli has reportedly approved plans for the construction of 6,000 new settler units in the occupied West Bank, in flagrant defiance of international outcry over the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement expansion policies in the Palestinian territories.

Israel will build 6,000 new settler units for settlers in the occupied West Bank – a move Palestinian leaders decried as showing Israel’s “colonial mentality.”