LIVE BLOG: The Middle East as it happens

AFP:

France said Wednesday it backed a proposal by Ankara to create a safe zone along its border with Syria to ensure Turkey's security and host refugees fleeing an ongoing assault by Islamic State militants.

In a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Francois Hollande "gave his support to the idea... of creating a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people," the French presidency said in a statement.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem has told Lebanese OTV that the attack on the Lebanon-Israel border by the Shiite militant group was a "message" to Israel that it hadn't forgotten them.

"Even though we are busy in Syria and on the eastern front in Lebanon our eyes remain open and our resistance is ready to confront the Israeli enemy," Sheikh Naim Qassem told Lebanese OTV television late on Tuesday.

A shoulder-fired missile by an IS fighter shot down an Iraqi Bell 407 helicopter on Wednesday near the refinery town of Beiji in northern Ira, killing both pilots.

IS shot down an Mi-35 helicopter in the same area Oct. 3, also killing the pilots.

The US formally announced on Tuesday that they had been flying helicopter missions in Iraq since Sunday.

AFP:

Turkey detained dozens of Kurds who crossed the border from the besieged Syrian town of Kobane on suspicion of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), officials said Wednesday.

A local official in the Turkish border town of Suruc told AFP around 265 people were taken into custody for fingerprint identification after they crossed from the mainly Kurdish town under attack from IS.

"Their fingerprints will be identified entirely for security purposes. They could be members of the organisation," he said, referring to the PKK, as Turkey's government refrains from calling the group by its name.

He said they had not been placed under formal arrest.

According to Haaretz, only a few hours after a flyer was distributed by a group called 'Islamic State in Gaza' claiming responsibility for an explosion at a French culture centre last night, the same group have seemingly issued another statement denying responsibility for the attack.

The second statement, released at various media offices in Gaza, claims the group's mission is "to implement Sharia law in Islamic lands and murder the children of Zion."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will visit Turkey, meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

“At the meetings, a detailed exchange of views on growing instability in the Middle East, primarily Iraq and Syria, and current situation in Ukraine, as well as other principal issues on NATO’s agenda in light of the Wales Summit decisions are expected to take place,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a written statement Oct. 8.

The 9-day Jewish festival of Sukkot begins today, one of the Three Pilgrimages Festivals on which the Israelites would make a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

According to the website Judaism 101:

"The Festival of Sukkot begins on Tishri 15, the fifth day after Yom Kippur. It is quite a drastic transition, from one of the most solemn holidays in our year to one of the most joyous. Sukkot is so unreservedly joyful that it is commonly referred to in Jewish prayer and literature as Z'man Simchateinu , the Season of our Rejoicing.

"Sukkot is the last of the Shalosh R'galim (three pilgrimage festivals). Like Passover and Shavu'ot, Sukkot has a dual significance: historical and agricultural. Historically, Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest festival and is sometimes referred to as Chag Ha-Asif , the Festival of Ingathering.

"The word 'Sukkot' means 'booths,' and refers to the temporary dwellings that we are commanded to live in during this holiday in memory of the period of wandering. The Hebrew pronunciation of Sukkot is 'Sue COAT,' but is often pronounced as in Yiddish, to rhyme with 'BOOK us.' The name of the holiday is frequently translated 'Feast of Tabernacles,' which, like many translations of Jewish terms, isn't very useful. This translation is particularly misleading, because the word "tabernacle" in the Bible refers to the portable Sanctuary in the desert, a precursor to the Temple, called in Hebrew "mishkan." The Hebrew word 'sukkah' (plural: 'sukkot') refers to the temporary booths that people lived in, not to the Tabernacle.

"Sukkot lasts for seven days. The two days following the festival, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, are separate holidays but are related to Sukkot and are commonly thought of as part of Sukkot.

"The festival of Sukkot is instituted in Leviticus 23:33 et seq. No work is permitted on the first and second days of the holiday. (See Extra Day of Holidays for an explanation of why the Bible says one day but we observe two). Work is permitted on the remaining days. These intermediate days on which work is permitted are referred to as Chol Ha-Mo'ed, as are the intermediate days of Passover."

AFP:

Violent street clashes pitting hundreds of Kurds and Yazidis against radical Muslims in Germany left at least 23 people wounded overnight in two northern cities, police said Wednesday.

In the port city of Hamburg about 400 Kurds rallied Tuesday against the Islamic State (IS), whose fighters are besieging the Kurdish town of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border.

After the demonstrators gathered outside a Hamburg inner-city mosque, they were confronted by some 400 people described by police as mostly Salafist Muslims, and tensions escalated into violent clashes.

Riot police used batons, pepper spray and water cannon to separate the mostly young men who were armed with metal rods, sticks and machetes and hurled rocks and bottles, police and local media said.

The violence in Hamburg left 14 people wounded, four of them seriously, while 22 people were temporarily detained in the clashes that raged on into the early hours. They were later released. 

Tensions between hundreds of "highly emotional" Yazidi Kurds and mostly Chechen Muslim immigrants also escalated in the city of Celle in the northern state of Lower Saxony, local police said.

Riot police intervened against men armed with sticks, rocks and bottles, leaving four police and five protesters wounded in clashes which came a day after both groups had brawled elsewhere in the city.

Islamic State fighters in Deir Ezzor in Syria have reportedly released an 11 point guide for journalists working in areas under its control.

The rules are as follows:

1 Correspondents must swear allegiance to the Caliph [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi … they are subjects of the Islamic State and, as subjects, they are obliged to swear loyalty to their imam.

2 Their work will be under the exclusive supervision of the Isis media offices.

3 Journalists can work directly with international news agencies (such as Reuters, AFP and AP), but they are to avoid all international and local satellite TV channels. They are forbidden to provide any exclusive material or have any contact (sound or image) with them in any capacity.

4 Journalists are forbidden to work in any way with the TV channels placed on the blacklist of channels that fight against Islamic countries (such as Al-Arabiya, Al Jazeera and Orient). Violators will be held accountable.

5 Journalists are allowed to cover events in the governorate with either written or still images without having to refer back to the Isis media office. All published pieces and photos must carry the journalist’s and photographer’s names.

6 Journalists are not allowed to publish any reportage (print or broadcast) without referring to the Isis media office first.

7 Journalists may have their own social media accounts and blogs to disseminate news and pictures. However, the Isis media office must have the addresses and name handles of these accounts and pages.

8 Journalists must abide by the regulations when taking photos within Isis territory and avoid filming locations or security events where taking pictures is prohibited.

9 Isis media offices will follow up on the work of local journalists within Isis territory and in the state media. Any violation of the rules in place will lead to suspending the journalist from his work, and he will be held accountable.

10 The rules are not final and are subject to change at any time depending on the circumstances and the degree of cooperation between journalists and their commitment to their brothers in the Isis media offices.

11 Journalists are given a license to practice their work after submitting a license request at the Isis media office.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an explosion on Tuesday night at the French Cultural Center in Gaza City, according to an unverified flyer circulated Wednesday morning in the Gaza Strip

If verified, this would mark the first instance of an active IS presence in the Palestinian territories.

It has been pointed out, however, that the flyer lists the date of the operation as October 10.

IS said that it had placed 200 kilograms of explosives next to the building’s fuel tankers and electricity generator.

MEE contributor Mohammed Omer in Gaza, said that this “explained the massive damage” at the site.

The building in central Gaza city was set ablaze early Wednesday. Palestinian officials initially said that the fire, which ravaged the empty building, was caused by faulty fuel tanks.

Interior ministry spokesman Iyad al Bozum wrote on his Facebook page that a fire broke out at the French Cultural Centre "caused by faulty fuel tanks, the civil defence is trying to control it and an investigation into the circumstances is under way."

Eyewitnesses, however, told AFP that they heard two explosions that were followed by the flames. AFP journalists arriving at the scene overnight said that a fierce fire was in progress.

This is the first successful attack that Islamic State has carried out in Gaza, with the group now pledging to step up attacks.

No one was hurt in the blast. The building has been closed for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holidays.

The blast comes a day before the Palestinian unity government was scheduled to meet in Gaza for the first time.

Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to group IS and the Strip's current rulers Hamas together, IS have been hostile to Hamas, viewing the group as "apostate" and there have even been accounts of IS members burning the Palestinian flag in a demonstration of their opposition to the national liberation movement.