Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • Live updates: Free at last! All 12 boys and their coach rescued from Thai cave


Live updates: Free at last! All 12 boys and their coach rescued from Thai cave

1 / 6
An ambulance leaves from the Tham Luang cave area as operations continue for those still trapped inside the cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park. (AFP)
Updated 10 July 2018
Arab News
Follow

Live updates: Free at last! All 12 boys and their coach rescued from Thai cave

  • Authorities in northern Chiang Rai province began the dangerous mission to bring out the 12 boys and their coach earlier on Sunday
  • “Wild Boars” team has been trapped inside the Tham Luang cave complex since June 23
Updated 10 July 2018
Arab News

MAE SAI: Thailand's navy SEALs say all 12 boys and their soccer coach have been rescued from a flooded cave in far northern Thailand, ending an ordeal that lasted more than two weeks.

They say the four boys and coach rescued Tuesday, after other rescues in the previous two days, are all safe.

The SEALs say they're still waiting for a medic and three Navy SEALs who stayed with the boys to emerge from the cave.

Elite divers on Sunday began the extremely dangerous operation to extract 12 boys and their football coach who have been trapped in a flooded cave complex in northern Thailand for more than two weeks, with some of the rescuers reaching the area where the team is sheltering.

The “Wild Boars” team has been stuck in a cramped chamber several kilometers (miles) inside the Tham Luang cave complex since June 23, when they went in after football practice and were hemmed in by rising waters.

Their plight has transfixed Thailand and the rest of the world, as authorities struggled to devise a plan to get the boys and their coach out through twisting, narrow and jagged passageways that in some places are completely flooded.

Premier League side Manchester United have invited the Wild Boars football team, like the Chilean miners rescued in 2010, to visit Old Trafford following their dramatic rescue on Tuesday. 

The dozen players — aged 11 to 16 — and the coach had already received an invitation from FIFA chief Gianni Infantino last week to attend the World Cup final on Sunday in Moscow — although after their traumatic experience they may not be up to the trip physically or mentally.

Rescue operation timeline

 

TUESDAY 12:00 GMT

Three ambulances, their lights flashing, have been seen leaving the site of the flooded Thai cave where rescuers are involved in an all-out effort to rescue members of a youth soccer team and their coach trapped deep within.
Earlier Tuesday, Thai navy SEALS said a ninth boy had been brought out of the cave on the third day of the rescue effort. The departure of the three ambulances suggests others also have been rescued, but there was no immediate official confirmation.
Rescuers hope to complete their mission Tuesday after rescuing four boys on each of the previous two days. That left four boys and their 25-year-old coach still in the cave.
The 12 boys and their coach were trapped by flooding in the cave more than two weeks ago.

TUESDAY 10:00 GMT

A local government official said that the tenth boy was rescued from the cave.

"The 10th is at the cave entrance on the way to the field hospital," a navy official told AFP requesting anonymity. A local government official confirmed the rescue while a police source, who also did not want to be named, said "the ninth and tenth were about 20 minutes apart."

TUESDAY 04:20 GMT

A Thai public health official says the eight boys rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand are in “high spirits” and have strong immune systems because they are soccer players.
Jesada Chokdumrongsuk, deputy director-general of the Public Health Ministry, said Tuesday that the first four boys rescued, aged 12 to 16, are now able to eat normal food.
He said two of them possibly have a lung infection but all eight are generally “healthy and smiling.”
He said, “the kids are footballers so they have high immune systems.”
The second group of four rescued on Monday are aged 12 to 14.
Family members have seen at least some of the boys from behind a glass barrier.
Four boys and their football coach remain in the cave.

MONDAY 12:20 GMT

An aide to the Thai Navy SEAL commander says four boys were brought out of the flooded cave in northern Thailand on Monday and the ongoing rescue operation is over for the day.
The aide, Sitthichai Klangpattana, didn't comment on the boys' health or say how well the operation has gone.
A total of eight of the 12 boys have now been brought out of the treacherous cave system by divers, including four who were brought out on Sunday, when the rescue operation began.

MONDAY 11:50 GMT

A total of four ambulances have left the area around the flooded cave in northern Thailand where members of a youth soccer team have been trapped for more than two weeks, suggesting eight of the 13 trapped people have now been extracted.
Thai officials have been tight-lipped about the rescue operation, and would not comment on how many people were removed Monday.

MONDAY 11:30 GMT

Two more ambulances have been seen leaving the site of a flooded cave in northern Thailand.
That brings to three the number of ambulances that have left the site Monday during the second day of a high-risk operation to bring the boys out of a labyrinth cave system made up of tight passageways and flooded chambers.

MONDAY 10:10 GMT

Thai authorities are being tight-lipped about who was inside an ambulance seen leaving the site of a flooded cave Monday, as they were the night before when four of the 13 people trapped inside the underground complex were rescued.
Multiple calls to senior government officials and military personnel leading the operation to rescue the members of the youth football team rang unanswered Monday evening.
On Sunday, officials waited until several hours after the rescued boys had been transported to hospitals to announce their rescue.

MONDAY 09:41 GMT

Thai public television has aired live video of a medivac helicopter landing close to a hospital in the city of Chiang Rai, near the site of the cave where a youth football team has been trapped for more than two weeks.
Medics appeared to remove one person on a stretcher but hid the person’s identity behind multiple white umbrellas. An ambulance was seen leaving the scene immediately afterward early Monday evening.
Less than an hour earlier, an ambulance with flashing lights had left the cave complex, hours after the start of the second phase of an operation to rescue the football team

MONDAY 08:25 GMT

Australia’s foreign minister says 19 Australian personnel are involved in the Thailand cave rescue operation including a doctor who’s played an essential part in assessing which boys can leave and in what order.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters in Australia that anesthetist and experienced cave diver Richard Harris is working with the Thai medical team inside the cave “to make the decisions about the order in which the boys were to be extracted.”

MONDAY 08:18 GMT

Thai authorities say they have resumed operations to rescue members of a boys’ football team trapped in a flooded cave after successfully getting four of the boys out Sunday.
The chief of the international mission on Monday said he was expecting “good news” shortly.
“All the equipment is ready. Oxygen bottles are ready... in next few hours we will have good news,” Narongsak Osottanakorn told reporters, after announcing the second phase of the rescue bid had begun.

MONDAY 08:07 GMT

Thai authorities say overnight rain did not change the water level in cave where the boys and their coach are trapped.
They said the second phase of the operation of the rescue mission will begin at 11 a.m
“We are using more personnel than yesterday,” said the chief of the rescue mission.

MONDAY 07:58 GMT

Thai authorities say the four boys rescued from the cave on Sunday are hungry but in good health. 
Officials said at a news conference that the parents of the rescued boys, whose names have not been released, have not yet been allowed to have physical contact with them, pending more extensive examination of their physical condition.
Eight boys are still inside the cave and along with the team coach. The operation to get them out was supposed to resume only after new oxygen tanks could be placed along their route of escape, which is partially underwater.

MONDAY 07:46 GMT

American tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has proposed a mini-submarine to save the boys trapped inside a flooded Thai cave, floating the idea on social media while linking it to his space exploration business.
After garnering headlines with initial ideas of installing a giant air tube inside the cave complex and using his firm’s penetrating radar to dig holes to reach the boys, Musk’s latest concept is the pod.
“Primary path is basically a tiny, kid-size submarine using the liquid oxygen transfer tube of Falcon rocket as hull,” Musk said in a tweet to his 22 million followers.
“Light enough to be carried by 2 divers, small enough to get through narrow gaps. Extremely robust.”

The mini-submarine is due to arrive in Thailand on Monday, Musk wrote.

MONDAY 07:26 GMT

Authorities are preparing to resume extractions of a youth football team from a flooded cave in Thailand a day after four boys were rescued.
There was a heavy but brief downpour Monday morning. New oxygen tanks were being placed in the cave before the second stage of the rescue effort began.
Thailand's interior minister says the same divers who took part in Sunday's rescue of four boys trapped in a flooded cave will also conduct the next operation as they know the cave conditions and what to do.
In comments released by the government, Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda said officials were meeting Monday morning about the next stage of the operation and how to extract the remaining nine people from the cave in the country's north.
Anupong said divers need to place more air canisters along the underwater route to where the boys and their coach have been trapped since June 23. He said that process can take several hours.
He said the boys rescued Sunday are strong and safe but need to undergo detailed medical checks.

SUNDAY 13:54 GMT

The head of the rescue operation has confirmed that the number of boys recued from the Thai cave were four, not six as previously reported by Reuters.
Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is heading the operation, said the first boy exited the cave at 17:40 local time, adding the four boys have been safely delivered to hospital in Chiang Rai.
“The operation went much better than expected,” Narongsak said at a news conference, adding that the healthiest were taken out first. He said the next phase of the operation would start in 10-20 hours.
He said 90 divers, including 50 foreigners and 40 Thais, are involved in the operation to remove the boys from the cave.
Just after 9 p.m., Thai navy SEALs posted on their Facebook page again, saying: “Have sweet dreams everyone. Good night. Hooyah.”

SUNDAY 12:50 GMT

Six boys have exited a flooded cave in northern Thailand where they have been trapped for more than two weeks, a senior member of rescue operation’s medical team said on Sunday.
Authorities in northern Chiang Rai province began the dangerous mission to bring out the 12 boys and their football coach earlier on Sunday.

SUNDAY 12:15 GMT

Four boys among a group of 13 trapped in a flooded Thai cave reached the rescue base camp inside the complex on Sunday and will walk out soon, the country’s defense ministry spokesman told AFP.
“Four boys have reached chamber three and will walk out of the cave shortly,” Lt. General Kongcheep Tantrawanit said, referring to the area where rescue workers had set up a base.

SUNDAY 11:49 GMT

The first two members of a Thai schoolboy football team have been rescued from the flooded cave where they had been trapped for more than two weeks, a local rescue official said on Sunday.
Authorities in northern Chiang Rai province began the dangerous mission to bring out the 12 boys and their coach earlier on Sunday.
“Two kids are out. They are currently at the field hospital near the cave,” said Tossathep Boonthong, chief of Chiang Rai’s health department and part of the rescue team.
“We are giving them a physical examination. They have not been moved to Chiang Rai hospital yet,” Tossathep told Reuters.

 

SUNDAY 11:15 GMT

Two ambulances have left from a cave in northern Thailand, hours after an operation began to rescue 12 youth football players and their coach.
The ambulances were seen Sunday evening, but it was unclear who was inside them.
Chiang Rai province acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is heading the operation, said earlier Sunday that 13 foreign and five Thai divers were taking part in the rescue and two divers will accompany each boy as they’re gradually extracted. He said the operation began at 10 a.m., and it will take at least 11 hours for the first person to be taken out of the cave.
The boys and their coach became stranded when they went exploring in the cave after a practice game June 23. Monsoon flooding cut off their escape and prevented rescuers from finding them for almost 10 days.

SUNDAY 10:50 GMT

Thai authorities say it is unknown when the first group of boys trapped in a flooded cave will begin their dive out of the cave, the key part of a rescue operation underway.
In a statement released late Sunday afternoon, Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn says "divers will work with medics in the cave to assess the boys' health before determining who will come out first."
He added: "They cannot decide how many of them will be able to come out for the first operation. Based on the complexity and difficulty of the cave environment it is unknown how long it might take and how many children would exit the cave."

SUNDAY 07:45 GMT

“Today is the D-day. The boys are ready to face any challenges,” rescue chief Narongsak Osottanakorn told reporters near the cave site as weather forecasters warned of more monsoon rains late on Sunday that would cause further flooding in the cave.
Narongsak said the first boy was expected to be brought out of the cave by around 9:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) after navigating the planned six-hour journey.


However another operation commander said the operation would take two to three days to complete, with the boys and their coach being brought out one-by-one, and that the weather conditions would play a role in determining how long it would take.
The boys, aged from 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach were found dishevelled and hungry by British cave diving specialists nine days after they ventured in.
But initial euphoria over finding the boys alive quickly turned into deep anxiety as rescuers raced to find a way to get them out, with Narongsak at one point dubbing the effort “Mission Impossible.”

 

(With AFP, Reuters and AP)

Topics: Thailand Thai cave soccer football

Related

World
Thai rescuers evacuate cave area, rescue bid for trapped boys seen imminent
Rescue efforts for boys trapped in Thai cave begin

Asian garment industry braces for higher US tariffs

Updated 8 sec ago
Reuters
Follow

Asian garment industry braces for higher US tariffs

  • High tariffs might force companies to shut down or move to countries that offer lower tariff rates
  • The US is negotiating a deal with India, while reciprocal tariff for Pakistan hasn’t been announced
Updated 8 sec ago
Reuters

Dhaka/Phnom Penh: Across Asia, unions and industry groups are raising alarms over the impact of higher tariffs by the United States on garment workers.

High tariffs might force companies to shut down or move to neighboring countries that offer lower tariff rates, resulting in a loss of jobs, they say.

“The potential loss of jobs will cut the income and ability for workers to sustain their daily lives,” said Ath Thorn, vice president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, which represents 80,000 workers across 40 factories.

Several countries in Asia have gotten notice of new tariff rates imposed by the United States to take effect August 1, after a 90-day pause on tariffs came to an end.

Manufacturing hubs such as Bangladesh and Cambodia will face high tariffs of 35 percent and 36 percent respectively, while neighboring countries are still negotiating with the US government.

US President Donald Trump announced new tariffs through official letters posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on July 8.

The US is the largest garment export destination for Bangladesh. The country’s exports to the US totaled $8.4 billion last year and of that, garments comprised $7.34 billion.

Also in 2024, Cambodia exported nearly $10 billion worth of goods to the US, which accounted for nearly 40 percent of the nation’s total exports, according to government customs statistics.

More than half of US imports from Cambodia were garments, footwear and travel goods such as luggage and handbags, a sector that makes up nearly half of the country’s export revenue and employs more than 900,000 workers.

Unions and industry groups warn that these workers could be hit hard with job losses if the high tariffs force companies to move to countries under lower tariff rates or shut down altogether.

While Cambodia is looking at a tariff rate reduction from 49 percent in April, anxiety permeates its garment industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people and is one of the developing nation’s key economic pillars.

Meanwhile, the US and Vietnam have struck a trade agreement that set 20 percent tariffs on Vietnamese goods.

With a neighbor next door with a significantly lower tariff, many companies may choose to leave Cambodia, said Yang Sophorn, president of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, which represents thousands of women who support their families as garment workers.

The fear is echoed by experts in Bangladesh, which faces a 35 percent tariff.

Selim Raihan, a professor of economics at the Dhaka University, said if tariff rates on Bangladesh’s competitors like India, Indonesia and Vietnam prove to be lower, Bangladesh would face a serious competitive disadvantage.

Such a disadvantage could make supply chain decision-making more difficult and erode the confidence of buyers and investors, Raihan said.

“As production costs rise and profit margins shrink due to the tariff, many garment factories may be forced to scale back operations or shut down entirely,” Raihan said.

In Bangladesh, the 35 percent tariff announced by the US is more than twice the current 15 percent rate on Bangladeshi goods.

“With more than doubling tariff rates, can you imagine how the cost of the products will rise?” asked Mohiuddun Rubel, a former director of Bangladesh’s garment manufacturers’ association BGMEA and now additional managing director at textile maker Denim Expert Ltd.

The question is what happens to the tariffs for main competitor countries like India and Pakistan, said Rubel.

The US is negotiating a trade deal with India, while reciprocal tariff rates for Pakistan have not been announced yet.

OUTSIZED EFFECT ON WOMEN

Potential layoffs within the garment industry will have an outsized effect on women workers, which Sophorn said would cripple entire families.

“If these women lose their jobs because high tariffs force factories to shut, it will not only impact Cambodia’s economy, but now children may not be able to go to school and aging parents may not be able to afford medicine,” Sophorn said.

“The situation for women garment workers is already bad, but it will get worse if these tariffs were to come into effect.”

Many of the women she represents have taken bank loans to support their families and work in the garment industry to pay off their debts.

“If they lose their job, it means they will lose everything,” Sophorn said.

Tariffs would directly affect a sizable chunk of the four million workers in Bangladesh’s garment industry, most of whom are women from low income and rural backgrounds, Raihan said.

Thorn suggested Cambodia continue negotiations to get the tariffs down or find other ways to export more products, generate more income and create more work.

“If not, we will face problems,” he said.

Topics: US Donald Trump tariffs TRUTH Social garment exports Bangladesh Cambodia

Kabul’s water crisis: How unsustainable foreign aid projects made it worse

Updated 21 sec ago
Modaser Islami 
Follow

Kabul’s water crisis: How unsustainable foreign aid projects made it worse

  • Afghan capital, a city of 6.5 million people, is expected to run out of water by 2030
  • Kabul has not had a comprehensive water management plan since 1978
Updated 21 sec ago
Modaser Islami 

KABUL: As Kabul makes global headlines for being on the brink of running out of water, experts say the crisis stems not only from natural and local causes, but also decades of unsustainable foreign projects and mismanagement of aid.

About one-third of Afghanistan’s population — around 12.5 million people — lack reliable access to water, according to the latest data from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

In the country’s capital, the situation is even worse, with the UN expecting that by 2030 its aquifers could dry up — a projection that has been in international media since last month, as that would make Kabul the first modern city to run out of water.

“Without urgent action, like bringing in surface water from other basins, Kabul risks facing a severe crisis, potentially a ‘Day Zero’ like Cape Town experienced a few years ago,” Obaidullah Rahimi, an Afghan scholar whose doctoral research at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau focuses on urban water management, told Arab News.

“The city’s groundwater can only cover about 44 million cubic meters — enough for just 2 million people at a modest per capita consumption of 50 liters per person per day.”

This means that less than 30 percent of Kabul’s 6.5 million residents have access to the WHO’s basic water requirement to ensure minimum essential needs for health, hygiene, and basic consumption.

Years of excessive and unregulated groundwater extraction, combined with prolonged drought, shrinking rainfall, and the thinning of the Hindu Kush snowpack — the primary natural source for the city’s rivers and aquifers —have pushed Kabul to the edge.

But these problems are not new and have only worsened as they have not been addressed over the two decades, when Afghanistan was occupied by foreign forces following the US invasion in 2001.

Despite the billions of dollars that entered the country in foreign development projects, Kabul’s water management systems were hardly touched.

“A significant portion of this aid was spent on short-term, small-scale projects without considering future impacts on the water balance of the Kabul basin and failed to establish large-scale water conservation infrastructure that could maintain and preserve this balance,” Rahimi said.

Dr. Ahmad Shah Frahmand, a geographic information systems and remote sensing expert specializing in mapping changes in water surface areas, said that also the way the projects were implemented, along with the lack of knowledge transfer, prevented them from having a lasting impact.

“International donors funded networks and pipelines across Kabul, often constructed by foreign contractors with little local involvement. But within just a few years, many of these systems fell into disrepair due to poor construction and a lack of oversight,” he told Arab News.

“One of the biggest failings was the focus on short-term fixes over long-term solutions. Aid money was frequently funneled into demonstration projects — temporary wells, pilot programs, or highly visible installations that offered quick results but little durability. Meanwhile, large-scale infrastructure like dams, reservoirs, and water treatment plants received far less attention and funding.”

According to Frahmand, less than 10 percent of the water sector budget was spent on training and maintaining local staff.

“Without skilled technicians, engineers, and maintenance crews, even well-built systems can crumble. And in Kabul, many already have,” he said.

A report published by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in 2020 — a year before the withdrawal of American-led forces from Afghanistan — estimated that at least 30 percent of reconstruction aid, or $19 billion, was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.

Additional audits by the oversight agency suggested the true figure may have been 40 percent due to corruption and mismanagement.

As foreign donors have left the country and international sanctions have been slapped on it since 2021, when the Taliban took over after the US forces withdrew, there are no funds for big infrastructure projects, especially as Afghanistan is already facing several other humanitarian crises.

“In a country desperate for stable infrastructure, these funds could have transformed lives. Instead, many projects stalled, failed, or were quietly abandoned,” Frahmand said, highlighting how urgent redesigning Kabul’s water systems has been, as the city has not seen a comprehensive water management plan since 1978.

“Kabul’s infrastructure was never built for the population it now serves. The existing water supply system, designed decades ago for a much smaller population, can no longer meet basic demand. Millions of Kabul residents now rely on tankers, private vendors, or unsafe wells to access water.”

By 2030, as many as 2 million people could be forced to leave Kabul in search of water, according to projections by the UN refugee agency. Water loss could lead to the extinction of local fish species and a collapse of biodiversity in the region.

“The agricultural sector is already under immense pressure. The Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts a 40 percent drop in crop yields across Kabul province by 2035. For a population already grappling with food insecurity, this decline could tip entire communities into hunger and poverty,” Frahmand said.

“If urgent action is not taken, the coming decade could bring irreversible social, environmental, and economic consequences that reshape the city and the lives of those who remain in it.”

Topics: water Afghanistan Kabul

Related

World
‘Serious problem’: Afghan capital losing race against water shortages
World
Kabul faces water crisis as drought, population strain supply

India marks inclusion of 12 Maratha forts on UNESCO World Heritage List

Visitors walk along the ruins of the Lohagad hill fort, near Lonavla in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. (File/AFP)
Updated 44 min 56 sec ago
Follow

India marks inclusion of 12 Maratha forts on UNESCO World Heritage List

  • Forts were once used by the Maratha Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries
  • India now ranks 6th globally and 2nd in Asia for the number of World Heritage Sites
Updated 44 min 56 sec ago
Sanjay Kumar

NEW DELHI: India’s Maratha Military Landscapes — a network of 12 strategic forts — have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, becoming the country’s 44th site to receive the designation.

The forts were used by the rulers of the Maratha Empire, who held power across parts of central, western and southern India between the late 17th century and the early 19th century.

Marathas rose to prominence after the decline of the Mughal Empire, following the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the last powerful Mughal ruler, who alone had controlled much of India for nearly 50 years.

The proposal to include the Maratha forts on the UNESCO list was submitted by India to the World Heritage Committee in January 2024.

The inscription, which took place during the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris on Friday, marked “a significant milestone in the global acknowledgment of India’s rich and diverse cultural heritage,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement.

The Maratha Military Landscapes of India were nominated under the criteria in recognition of “their exceptional testimony to a living cultural tradition, their architectural and technological significance, and their deep associations with historic events and traditions.”

The fortification network covers 11 forts in the state of Maharashtra — Salher, Shivneri, Lohagad, Khanderi, Raigad, Rajgad, Pratapgad, Suvarnadurg, Panhala, Vijaydurg, and Sindhudurg — and one, Gingee Fort, in Tamil Nadu.

With the newest addition, India now ranks sixth globally and second in the Asia-Pacific region for the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

“The fact that UNESCO selected 12 forts from the Maratha dynasty as World Heritage Sites is a matter of great pride for the history of the Marathas, Maharashtra and India,” Prof. Santosh Mahadevrao Ghuge, who heads the Department of History at the Fergusson College in Pune, one of the main cities of Maharashtra, told Arab News.

“The war strategy of the Marathas has unique significance in Indian and world history, and forts have an important place in this war strategy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Maratha military prowess and the use of forts in warfare enabled the Marathas to defeat the powerful Mughals.”

Topics: India Maratha forts UNESCO World Heritage List

Related

World
Dozens of sites vie for UNESCO world heritage list spot
Saudi Arabia
UNESCO official visits Saudi AI centers

New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy

Updated 41 min 20 sec ago
AFP
Follow

New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy

  • The Handala, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left the port of Syracuse shortly after 12:00 p.m.
  • The former Norwegian trawler will sail for about a week in the Mediterranean in the hope of reaching Gaza’s coast
Updated 41 min 20 sec ago
AFP

SYRACUSE, Italy: A Gaza-bound boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid left Sicily on Sunday, over a month after Israel detained and deported people aboard a previous vessel.

The Handala, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left the port of Syracuse shortly after 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT), an AFP journalist saw, carrying about fifteen activists.

Several dozen people, some holding Palestinian flags and others wearing keffiyeh scarves, gathered at the port to cheer the boat’s departure with cries of “Free Palestine.”

The former Norwegian trawler – loaded with medical supplies, food, children’s equipment and medicine – will sail for about a week in the Mediterranean, covering roughly 1,800 kilometers, in the hope of reaching Gaza’s coast.

In early March, Israel imposed a total aid blockade on Gaza amid an impasse in truce negotiations, only partially easing restrictions in late May.

The boat will make a stop at Gallipoli, in southeastern Italy, where two members of the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI) are expected to join.

The initiative comes six weeks after the departure of the Madleen, another ship that left Italy for Gaza transporting aid and activists, including Greta Thunberg.

Israel authorities intercepted the Madleen about 185 kilometers west of Gaza’s coast.

“This is a mission for the children in Gaza, to break the humanitarian blockade and to break the summer silence on the genocide,” said Gabrielle Cathala, one of the two France Unbowed party members set to board the boat on July 18.

“I hope we will reach Gaza but if not, it will be yet another violation of international law” by Israel, she added.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that led to 1,219 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says that at least 57,882 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military reprisals. The UN considers the figures reliable.

Topics: War on Gaza Gaza

Related

Middle-East
Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers
Middle-East
Gaza-bound aid boat with Greta Thunberg on board arrives in Israel after its seizure

Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital

Updated 25 min ago
Reuters
Follow

Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital

  • Mahathir Mohamad was leader of the Southeast Asian nation for more than two decades
  • He has been hospitalized repeatedly in recent years, most recently in October for a respiratory infection
Updated 25 min ago
Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been discharged from hospital, his office said on Sunday, after being admitted for fatigue following a picnic celebration for his 100th birthday.

Mahathir, leader of the Southeast Asian nation for more than two decades, has a history of heart problems and has undergone bypass surgeries. He has been hospitalized repeatedly in recent years, most recently in October for a respiratory infection.

He was under observation at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur for fatigue-related issues on Sunday, his office said. “Mahathir has been allowed home as of 4:45 p.m. (0845 GMT),” it said in a statement.

A physician who was a member of parliament until 2022, Mahathir drove himself on Sunday to the celebration, which also marked the 99th birthday of his wife, Hasmah Mohd Ali, a day earlier, local media reported.

The reports said he cycled for an hour before appearing tired. His birthday was on Thursday.

Mahathir was prime minister for 22 years until 2003. He returned as premier in 2018 after leading the opposition coalition to a historic win, but his government collapsed in less than two years due to infighting.

Topics: Mahathir Mohamad Malaysia

Related

World
Former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad hospitalized with respiratory infection
Pakistan
Mahathir Mohamad says India using Israel’s playbook in Kashmir as Pakistan observes Black Day

Latest updates

Asian garment industry braces for higher US tariffs
New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy
Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital
Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town
Imran Khan’s party says has launched 90-day ‘do-or-die’ movement against Pakistan government

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2025 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.