Malaysia Deports 4 Muslim Brotherhood Affiliates to Egypt

Mohammed Abdel Hafiz. Twitter
Mohammed Abdel Hafiz. Twitter
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Malaysia Deports 4 Muslim Brotherhood Affiliates to Egypt

Mohammed Abdel Hafiz. Twitter
Mohammed Abdel Hafiz. Twitter

After the deportation of an Egyptian political asylum seeker and member of the Muslim Brotherhood from Turkey last month, Malaysian authorities decided to deport four Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members on Wednesday.

The Malaysian government found that the four Egyptians they were sentenced to life imprisonment in serious cases in their country, expert on fundamentalist movements in Egypt Amr Abdel Moneim told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Muslim Brotherhood activists launched campaigns on social media to exert pressure on Malaysian authorities to stop the deportation process of the Egyptians, who have been residing in Malaysia for four years now.

The defendants were identified as Abdullah Mohamed Hashim and Abdul Rahman Abdul Aziz, who are students in the International Islamic University, and Mohamed Fathi Eid and Azmi Mohamed, who were teachers.

Mohammed Abdel Hafiz, who has been sentenced to death in Egypt on charges of targeting former Egyptian Attorney General Hisham Barakat, was forced onto a plane to Cairo on January 18 after he landed at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.

After his deportation, a state of terror prevailed among Muslim Brotherhood members, fearing they face Abdel Hafiz’s fate.

Muslim Brotherhood members in Turkey also broadcast videos on social media, in which they launched an attack on the organization, claiming that its leaders had “abandoned” them in Turkey.

“Reasons behind deporting four young Brotherhood members from Malaysia were their attempt to incite against Egypt and recent death sentences its courts have issued,” said Abdel Moneim.

They launched a campaign against Egypt in the Malaysian parliament and government, he added, noting that they failed to notice the agreement between Egypt and Malaysia to extradite those convicted of violence and sentenced to prison terms.

Egyptian interior ministry has earlier executed nine prisoners, who were convicted over the 2015 killing of Egypt’s former public prosecutor.

This has pushed leaders of the organization fleeing abroad to question the verdicts of the judiciary.



Israeli Strikes Across Gaza Kill at Least 66 People, Hospitals and Medics Say

A picture taken from a position at the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing due to Israeli bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from a position at the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing due to Israeli bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Strikes Across Gaza Kill at Least 66 People, Hospitals and Medics Say

A picture taken from a position at the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing due to Israeli bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from a position at the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing due to Israeli bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 18, 2025. (AFP)

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 66 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics in the battered enclave said as Israel launches an escalation of its war in the territory, which it says is meant to ramp up pressure on Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced families in the Muwasi area.

In northern Gaza, at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense.

The dead included nine people from a single family who were killed when an airstrike hit their house in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, according to the health ministry’s emergency services.

Another strike hit the house of the Berawi family, also in Jabaliya, killing 10 people including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.

In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said.