Israel (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 1st Rocket Fired from Gaza Since November's War

Syria Live Coverage: Insurgent Attacks in Damascus
Monday's Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Israel Looks for Calm after Death of Palestinian Detainee

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2111 GMT: Saudi Arabia. Claimed footage from a sit-in protest by women and children of political detainees in Buraidah, burning the picture of the Minister of Interior:

2056 GMT: Bahrain. Protests are continuing over the refusal of authorities to release the body of Mahmood Aljazeeri --- who died last week from wounds suffered when he was hit by a tear gas canister fired by police --- to his family.

The family wants to bury AlJazeeri in AlDaih village, but officials are worried that this is too close to Pearl Roundabout, the centre of the February 2011 demonstrations against the regime.

1629 GMT: Bahrain. The courts have upheld an appeals court decision from December and have acquitted two policemen charged with shooting protesters two years ago:

A Bahraini court on Tuesday acquitted two policemen who were charged with shooting dead a Shiite protester two years ago, lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi wrote on his Twitter account.

The Higher Criminal Court said that "as interior ministry employees, the two policemen fired shotguns at the victim Fadhel Matruk without intending to kill him," wrote Jishi, who represented the protester's family in the case.

1618 GMT: Tunisia. This morning we reported that, according to "police sources," the killed of opposition leader Chokri Belaid had been arrested (see update 0710). It turns out that he has been identified, not arrested, and a manhunt is underway to find the radical Salafist.

A security source said on Monday a Salafi had been arrested in connection with the killing, while Tunisia's Express FM radio cited a senior security official as saying police had arrested three Salafis, including a police officer, over the murder.

"Now we have identified the killer of Belaid and he is on the run. The police are looking for him," Larayedh said.

One of the arrested suspects had accompanied the gunman who shot Belaid outside his home before escaping on a motorcycle, he said, adding that the group had mounted surveillance of Belaid's home and a nearby square for several days before the attack.

0918 GMT: Bahrain. Haaretz reports that Israeli authorities has "voluntarily" returned at least 1,000 people to Sudan, which has vowed to punish any of its citizens who ever set foot in Israel.

The repatriation was done secretly, via a third country, over the last few months, without the knowledge of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Israel claims the people's return was voluntary, but the claim is rejected by UNHCR, which says there is no "free will from inside a prison".

Under a recent amendment to Israel's infiltration law, asylum seekers can be detained for years without trial. Testimony from within prisons indicates that detainees have been denied access to UNHCR, in violation of the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, which Israel has signed.

An official source said Israel paid for the plane tickets of those repatriated.

For background on the situation of African immigrants in Israel, see Joanna Paraszchuk's article in the Jerusalem Post last May, "Why Did They Smash Our Businesses? We’re Scared."

0718 GMT: Bahrain. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has thanked the UAE for denying entry to British-based academic Kristian Coates Ulrichsen to give a paper at an academic conference in the Emirates on Sunday.

Ulrichmen, a specialist on the Gulf States, was scheduled to speak about the Bahraini situation at the conference, organised by the American University of Sharjah and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was stopped by Immigration at the airport in Dubai and put on a flight back to London.

The LSE, where Ulrichsen is a member of staff, subsequently pulled out of the conference.

The Bahraini Ministry, claiming Ulrichsen would "promote false and incorrect views of the situation in Bahrain", said of the UAE's action, "[We see] in this position a true reflection of the strong bonds of between the two countries and takes that the this honorable stand is a title of the Gulf solidarity in confronting such malice [sic] acts."

0710 GMT: Tunisia. Police sources said last night that the suspected killer of opposition politician Chokri Belaid, whose assassination sparked a political crisis and led to Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali's resignation, has been arrested.

The police said the suspect and an alleged accomplice are both members of the conservative Islamic Salafist movement.

0700 GMT: Israel and Palestine. A rocket, the first fired from Gaza since last November's Israeli attack on the Palestinian area, has exploded on a road near Ashkelon in southern Israel.

No injuries were reported.

The eight-day war last autumn was ended by a cease-fire agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas, which is in control of Gaza. There have been informal talks between West Jerusalem and Hamas over measures such as an easing of the Israeli restrictions on goods entering Gaza, but no substantial movement.

Meanwhile, Palestinians gathered on Monday for the funeral of Arafat Jarakat, the detainee who died in Israeli custody on Saturday, and there were protests elsewhere in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority that oversees the West Bank,  met Monday evening with security chiefs in Ramallah and instructed them to "preserve the general security within the Palestinian Authority's territories and avoid being dragged into the cycle of violence and chaos that is being perpetrated by Israel".

Twenty-six Palestinians were injured on Sunday in clashes with the Israeli military and Jewish settlers.