Ancient terrace farming technique shapes Asir’s agricultural heritage
- Together, the thumalah and mughayyid systems stand as a testament to early innovation sustaining life in one of Saudi Arabia’s most challenging landscapes
RIYADH: For centuries, the people of Saudi Arabia’s Asir region have cultivated food on steep mountain slopes using stone terracing systems.
They began with the construction of stone retaining walls known locally as “thamayil,” the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Each individual wall, called “thumalah,” is anchored into bedrock and can rise two to six meters in height.
They serve as critical infrastructure for mountain agriculture by creating level growing surfaces on otherwise impossible terrain.
“The thumalah represents a stone containment system designed to capture sloping mountain terrain,” Ahmed Al-Bariqi, an architectural heritage researcher, said in an interview with the SPA. “After building the stone barrier, the enclosed space is filled with a mixture of clay, soil and rocks to create a flat, arable surface suitable for both farming and habitation.”
Local builders adapted to their surroundings, often reinforcing these structures with juniper and sidr tree trunks, as well as massive stones to withstand the pressure of heavy seasonal rains.
Water management is equally sophisticated. The “mughayyid” regulates irrigation and controls flooding by channeling water flow between terraced fields.
“Ancient builders displayed remarkable engineering precision in the mughayyid’s construction,” Al-Bariqi has said in his book “Antiquities and Heritage in Bariq Governorate.”
He added: “Square or elongated stones formed the base structure, while carefully polished flat stones were placed at the top, precisely leveled to allow water to flow at calculated rates between terraces.”
Positioned at strategic elevations, the mughayyid retains optimal water volumes while preventing destructive flooding that could compromise the entire terrace system.
These terraces do more than support agriculture. According to Dr. Ghaithan bin Jurais of King Khalid University, they reflect a deep-rooted civilization in Asir dating back thousands of years.
“These structures preserve soil resources, establish clear property boundaries between neighboring farms, and historically served as recognized markers of family and tribal land ownership,” he said.
Together, the thumalah and mughayyid systems stand as a testament to early innovation sustaining life in one of Saudi Arabia’s most challenging landscapes.
Arnold eager to steer Iraq to 2026 FIFA World Cup
- Iraq's only appearance at the tournament was in 1986
- “What is important is we all believe we can win the next two games,” Arnold said
BAGHDAD: Graham Arnold is confident he can help Iraq qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time in 40 years after he was appointed as the country's national coach on Friday.
Asked whether Iraq can make the cut for the 2026 tournament which will be co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the U.S., the Australian told the federation’s website: "That’s my goal.
“That’s what I want to do. I haven’t come here to not be successful, and everyone in this room has to believe that. We can do it.
Iraq's only appearance at the tournament was in 1986, when they were eliminated after the group phase.
Arnold replaced Spaniard Jesus Casas whose contract was terminated by the local soccer governing body in the wake of a 2-1 loss to Palestine in March.
That result left the Iraqis in third place in the standings in Group B, four points adrift of leaders South Korea and one behind Jordan with two games left.
The top two nations in each of Asia's three qualifying groups advance automatically for the World Cup while the teams in third and fourth progress to another round of preliminaries.
“What is important is we all believe we can win the next two games, that is my first objective for Iraq,” he said.
Arnold's first game in charge will be against South Korea in Basra on June 5. They then face Jordan in Amman five days later.
Why Israel’s Gaza reoccupation threat is fueling fears of regional spillover
- Analysts warn of slide toward ethnic cleansing as Israel signals plans for indefinite military control over enclave
- Palestinian plight worsens as far-right voices increasingly influence Israeli war aims ahead of Trump’s Gulf tour
LONDON: For the people of Gaza, the threat of destruction, displacement and death at the hands of the Israeli military is nothing new.
But for the next week they will living with a countdown to a threatened operation that would be unprecedented: the complete and indefinite occupation of Gaza by Israel, and the forcing of its Palestinian population into a tiny area in the south of the strip.
If such an unthinkable end-game exercise were to go ahead — and reports that tens of thousands of Israeli reservists are being called up suggests it might — critics of the plan say Israel appears to have forgotten the lessons of the events that led to its own creation in 1948.
According to sources inside the Israeli government, the only thing standing between the Palestinians of Gaza and this 21st-century Nakba is next week’s visit to the region by US President Donald Trump, who is due to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE between Tuesday and Friday.
On Tuesday this week an unnamed Israeli defense official told AP that the operation would not be launched before Trump had left the region, adding there was a “window of opportunity” for a ceasefire and a hostage deal during the president’s visit.
And so, the countdown to the military operation began. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his security cabinet had approved an “intensive” renewed offensive against Hamas in Gaza, and that Palestinians would be moved “for their own safety.”
“Last night we stayed up late in the cabinet and decided on an intensive operation in Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
A US-backed truce between Israel and Hamas ended in March, after only two months, when Israel resumed its attacks.
It was, Netanyahu added, seeming to tether a scapegoat to the decision, “the chief of staff’s recommendation to proceed, as he put it, toward the defeat of Hamas — and along the way, he believes this will also help us rescue the hostages.”
News of the plan triggered immediate protests outside Israel’s parliament by families of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. Few among them believe the plan has anything to do with a genuine desire to see their loved ones freed.
The chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces is retired Major-General Eyal Zamir, a favorite of the far-right members of Israel’s government, who was appointed only last month. His predecessor resigned, after taking responsibility for Israel’s military failings during the Hamas attack in October 2023.
“I’m pretty sure Zamir is praying that he will not have to execute this plan,” Ahron Bregman, a UK-based Israeli historian and senior teaching fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and a former IDF officer, told Arab News. “He’s experienced enough to know that the operation might well kill the remaining Israeli hostages, or lead to a situation where the hostages are left to die in the tunnels without water or food, never to be found.
“As I have always maintained, Israel cannot destroy Hamas. Hamas, weak, bleeding and exhausted, will still be in the Gaza Strip when this hopeless war is over,” he added.
Israeli troops, who have evicted Palestinians from so-called security zones, already occupy about one-third of Gaza. If implemented, the new plan would see the seizure of the entire territory, with Gaza’s remaining two million Palestinians forced toward the south.
The UN has already expressed alarm at Israel’s plan to expand its operation in Gaza. “This will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday. “What’s imperative now is an end to the violence, not more civilian deaths and destruction.”
He added: “Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s security cabinet has voted to end distribution of aid by international NGOs and UN bodies, and to give the job to as-yet unnamed private companies. At the beginning of the month, the UN condemned Israel’s decision two months ago to halt humanitarian aid as a “cruel collective punishment” of the Palestinian population.
On Friday, Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said a US-backed mechanism for distributing aid into Gaza should take effect soon but he gave few details. Israel and the US have both indicated in recent days that they were preparing to restore aid through mechanisms that would bypass Hamas.
“The Israeli military plan for Gaza is mainly aimed at satisfying the far-right elements in Netanyahu’s government,” said Bregman. “The new idea here is seizing chunks of the Gaza Strip and staying there, not getting out, as used to be the case.”
Right-wing, pro-settler members of the Israeli Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Givr, “hope that staying inside will eventually lead to the resettling of the Gaza Strip by Jewish settlers who will resort to the tactics they employ on the West Bank, building settlements even if ‘official Israel’ opposes it,” he added. “They also trust far-right elements in the IDF — and the IDF is packed with them, especially in the ground forces — to turn a blind eye and enable the resettling of the Strip.”
But, he warned, “if ordered to implement the Gaza plan, Israeli troops must refuse to carry out the orders, lest they turn themselves into war criminals.”
On Tuesday, the day after Netanyahu’s announcement, Smotrich told a settlements conference in the West Bank that Gaza would soon be “totally destroyed,” and that its entire population would be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land along the Egyptian border, which he euphemistically described as a “humanitarian zone.”
Here, he added, ”they will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”
Sir John Jenkins, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, and British consul-general in Jerusalem, told Arab News: “There are clearly elements within the Israeli Cabinet who want to reoccupy some or even all of Gaza and there are others who want to establish settlements. What is unclear is how extensive or long-term such plans are — and whether they have Netanyahu’s full support.
“He has clearly got his own tactical reasons for going along with some of the wilder claims: he needs to keep Smotrich and Ben Gvir inside the tent in order to maintain his government. He also probably genuinely believes — as, quite rightly, do most Israelis and a lot of outsiders — that Hamas cannot be allowed to retain political control of Gaza when the fighting stops.
“But he must also know that without a long-term political plan, this won’t work. Israel needs its neighbors to support it in its quest for security. And they will do so only if they have an answer to the question: How do we collectively make Israeli security compatible with Palestinian self-determination?”
Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute, said it remains unclear whether Israel’s threat of reoccupation is “a form of deterrence, a credible threat, or a last-ditch effort to (force) Hamas’ hand.”
However, “the fear of abandoning the Israeli hostages to a terrible fate is too much to bear for the majority of the Israeli polity, and this would inevitably have consequences for the current Israeli government,” he told Arab News.
President Trump’s upcoming visit may also change the script. “It is rumored that Trump is not on board with Israel’s escalation of the war in Gaza, especially ahead of his visit to the Gulf next week,” said Ozcelik. “The White House has been pressing for a deal to announce as a triumph and a hostage-release announcement would be a crucial win for (US special envoy to the Middle East) Steve Witkoff, but so far it has been elusive.”
Furthermore, “under the threat of a looming ‘forever’ Israeli reoccupation of Gaza, Saudi Arabia cannot be expected to agree to any deal with the US that is conditional on normalization with Israel. So, this, in a counterintuitive way, throws open a path for US-Saudi security cooperation,” Ozcelik added.
Doubts also surround the announcement by Witkoff that the US will set up a private foundation to deliver aid to Gaza, without involving the IDF or the US government.
“The UN and key international humanitarian agencies have already rejected both the US and Israeli aid proposals, labelling them highly unworkable,” Kelly Petillo, program manager, MENA, at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Arab News.
“And in the context of Israel’s campaign of starvation by stopping humanitarian aid since March and the targeting of civilians, hospitals, schools and so on, and of the new US administration’s rhetoric around the Gaza war and overall positioning, there are clearly doubts over the lack of good will by the delivering authorities, which means that Palestinians will be starved and eventually be forced to leave.
“This would amount to ethnic cleansing and also corresponds to weaponizing aid and using starvation as a weapon of war. It will mean that considerations over how many people will receive aid, or where distribution will occur, would be based on strategic or military considerations, rather than humanitarian ones.”
Israel’s apparent ambition to force Palestinians out of Gaza can only further stoke regional tensions, added Petillo.
“Regional actors, (most) of all Egypt and Jordan, have been very clear in their total rejection of any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and of the possibility of them receiving these refugees. In particular, Egypt has come up with a proposal to address aid and other issues as a way to counter this scenario.
“But the potential displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is nothing less than an existential threat for these countries which are also receiving so many other refugees — from Syria to Sudan and more. Syria and Lebanon have also been floated as possible destinations for Gazans, but this would be a major red line for these countries too.”
Echoing Petillo’s concerns, Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East North Africa Program at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the Israeli plan to capture and indefinitely occupy Gaza “carries grave policy implications at multiple layers and levels for Israel, Palestinians and the region.”
Vakil said: “Beyond deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis, it risks entrenching violent resistance, destabilizing neighboring states and triggering large-scale displacement that may be viewed internationally as ethnic cleansing — particularly in light of right-wing Israeli rhetoric and emboldening signals from past US policies.
“While Israel consistently sees Gaza as an existential security crisis that needs a military solution, it needs to take a step back and consider the larger and longer implications for its isolation, integration and values as a democracy,” she added. “Today, Arab states are watching Israel’s response in a fearful rather than (admiring) way.”
Caroline Rose, director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at the Washington think-tank New Lines Institute, said the expansion in Israel’s war plan for the Gaza Strip “signals Netanyahu’s imperative to continue the conflict as a mechanism of political survival, despite the strain on Israel’s economy, IDF personnel and reserves, and reduced chances for a hostage agreement.”
She told Arab News: “It’s likely also that Netanyahu and his cabinet are seeking to expand operations as a negotiation tool with the US and its regional counterparts, particularly following disappointment with the US for exploring negotiation opportunities with Iran over their nuclear program.”
But “by design, this war plan will have serious implications for the civilian population of Gaza, as there are very few places left for them to go. It is a direct reflection of Netanyahu’s broader objective not only to eradicate Hamas, but also to seriously fragment the Palestinian cause and identity.”
In the past, said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer whose NGO, Terrestrial Jerusalem, tracks developments in the city that threaten to spark violence or create humanitarian crises, “ethnic cleansing would have been unthinkable. But today the unthinkable has become thinkable and is unfolding in Gaza.”
The Israeli government is “willing hostage to the messianic right” and is led by “a prime minister who will not only do anything to remain in power but is also a genuine believer in a world governed by war and brute force.”
More and more Israelis, he added, “are using the terms ‘genocide,’ ‘war crimes’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in decrying our actions in Gaza. Retired generals and former heads of the intelligence community are prominent among them.”
However, he said, “this trend is not visible in the partisan politics of the Knesset. With the exception of the Arab members, they remain spineless.”
France in talks with Britain, Ukraine about potential troops, Macron tells paper
- “We’re working on the presence and strategic footprint of the partner countries,” Macron said
- “The key is to have troops in Ukraine“
PARIS: France is consulting with partners on how to potentially support Ukraine in its struggle with Russia with troops, French President Emmanuel Macron told newspaper Le Parisien on Saturday, without elaborating on what such a presence could include.
“We are working on the presence and strategic footprint of the partner countries. There have been several exchanges between our British, French and Ukrainian chiefs of staff, who have coordinated the work with all their partners, and all this is becoming clearer and making progress,” Macron was cited in the article.
“The key is to have troops in Ukraine,” he added.
Major European powers including France threw their weight behind an unconditional 30-day Ukraine ceasefire, with the backing of US President Donald Trump.
Macron joined the leaders of Britain, Germany and Poland on a visit to Kyiv on Saturday during which they held a phone call with Trump.
Where We Are Going Today: La Dedos
One of the recent additions to Jeddah’s street food scene is La Dedos, a grab-and-go destination for Dutch-style “Holland fries” with a flavorful local twist.
Situated on Kayal Street in Rawdah district, you might find long lines with the aroma of fresh fries filling the air.
They offer fries with truffle mayo sauce along with a variety of sauces inspired by Saudi flavours, including homar (tamarind), green or red hot chilli, garlic, cheddar cheese, ketchup and their signature house sauce.
You can also add chilli flakes or feta cheese as toppings.
The homemade fries are made to order and have a balanced texture that is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
You can choose your fries in two sizes with or without sauces and opt for finger fries, thick-cut cubes, chips or go for La Dedos Mix.
They also offer a refreshing variety of juices, including mango, cinnamon berry and hibiscus.
I tried the truffle mayo sauce, ketchup and regular hot sauce, washing it all down with a glass of their refreshing and fruity G Juice. It made for a tasty and satisfying summer snack, especially after a long day.
Prices are reasonable, though service can be a bit slow during peak times.
For more information, check their Instagram @ladedos.sa
