DOHA: A Nepalese laborer who died working at a World Cup stadium in Qatar fell to his death, one of the main contractors at the site said.
The 23-year-old scaffolder died on August 14 at the $680 million (590 million euros) Al Wakrah stadium, one of the proposed venues for the controversial 2022 tournament.
“We can confirm this worker lost his life. He was performing access platform related work for one of the sub-contractors on site,” said a spokeswoman for Belgian construction giant Besix, one of Al Wakrah’s main contractors.
Asked if that meant he had fallen to his death, the spokeswoman replied: “Yes.”
This has been independently confirmed by three other sources.
Besix, which operates in the Gulf through its subsidiary, Six Construct, works as part of a joint venture at Al Wakrah with Qatari company Midmac and Austrian firm Porr.
Qatar’s World Cup organizing body, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, is carrying out an ongoing investigation into the death. Besix has provided evidence to the probe.
A committee spokesman told AFP the worker’s body had been repatriated and that an “end of service payment had been made in a timely and respectful manner” to the worker’s family.
The worker who died was believed to be supporting a wife and a four-year-old child back home in Nepal.
His brother-in-law also works in Qatar.
The investigation team examining the circumstances around the tragedy also includes — for the first time — a member from the international trade union, the BWI.
On its website, the union said the investigation would examine “the nature and cause of the accident.”
In 2016, the BWI and the Supreme Committee signed an agreement to carry out joint inspections at World Cup stadiums.
Al Wakrah, located around 20 kilometers south of the capital Doha, is one of eight stadiums proposed for the Qatar World Cup.
The incident is believed to be the first reported death at a tournament venue since British construction worker Zac Cox plunged to his death at the refurbished Khalifa International Stadium in January 2017.
A subsequent inquest by a British coroner accused managers of providing the 40-year-old with sub-standard equipment and said the working environment was “downright dangerous.”
Six Construct and Midmac were also among the main contractors at Khalifa.
Another Nepalese laborer, 29-year-old Anil Kumar Pasman, died at Al Wakrah after being struck by a lorry in October 2016.
Qatar’s World Cup has long been dogged by allegations of mistreatment of workers, with one union claiming 1,200 people had been killed working on projects for the 2022 tournament, a claim vehemently denied by officials in Doha.
Qatar World Cup worker fell to his death
Qatar World Cup worker fell to his death
- The worker who died was believed to be supporting a wife and a four-year-old child back home in Nepal
- The incident is believed to be the first reported death at a tournament venue since British construction worker Zac Cox plunged to his death
Israel vows to prevent an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that Israel wouldn’t allow anyone to break its naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, which he said was aimed at preventing Hamas from importing arms.
Thunberg, a climate campaigner is among 12 activists aboard the Madleen, which is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The vessel departed Sicily last Sunday on a mission that aims to break the sea blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, while raising awareness over the growing humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave.
The activists had said they planned to reach Gaza’s territorial waters as early as Sunday.
Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, is among the others onboard. She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
After a three-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month, but humanitarian workers have warned of famine unless the blockade and the war end.
An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of the group’s vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta. The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship.
Palestinians say 5 killed by Israeli fire near aid sites. Israel says it fired warning shots
- Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials
DEIR AL BALAH: Palestinian health officials and witnesses say at least five people were killed and others were wounded by Israeli fire as they headed toward two aid distribution points in the Gaza Strip run by an Israeli and US-backed group. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots at people who approached its forces.
Four bodies were brought to Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. Palestinian witnesses there said Israeli forces had fired on them at a roundabout that is around a kilometer (half-mile) from a site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the nearby city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said it fired warning shots at people it said were suspects who had advanced toward its forces and ignored warnings to turn away. It said the shooting occurred in an area in southern Gaza that is considered an active combat zone at night.
Meanwhile, Al-Awda Hospital said in a statement that it received the body of a 42-year-old man and 29 people who were wounded near another GHF aid distribution point, in central Gaza. The military said it fired warning shots in the area at around 6:40 a.m. but did not see any casualties.
A GHF spokesperson said there was no violence in or around its distribution sites, all three of which delivered aid on Sunday. The group had closed them temporarily last week to discuss safety measures with the Israeli military and has warned people to stay on designated access routes. The spokesperson spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Deadly shootings near new aid hubs
The past two weeks have seen frequent shootings near the new hubs where thousands of desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials. Israel’s military has said it fired warning shots or, in some instances, near individuals approaching its forces.
Witnesses said Sunday’s shooting in southern Gaza occurred at around 6 a.m., when they were told the site would open. Many had headed toward it early to try and get desperately needed food before the crowds.
Adham Dahman, 30, who was at Nasser Hospital with a bandage on his chin, said a tank had fired toward them. “We didn’t know how to escape,” he said. “This is trap for us, not aid.”
Zahed Ben Hassan, another witness, said someone next to him was shot in the head. He said that he and others pulled the body from the scene and managed to flee to the hospital.
“They said it was a safe area from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. ... So why did they start shooting at us?” he said. “There was light out, and they have their cameras and can clearly see us.”
The military had announced on Friday that the sites would be open during those hours, and that the area would be a closed military zone from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m.
Risk of famine
The hubs are set up inside Israeli military zones — where independent media have no access — and are run by GHF, a new group of mainly American contractors. Israel wants it to replace a system coordinated by the United Nations and international aid groups.
Israel and the United States accuse the militant Hamas group of stealing aid, while the UN denies there is any systematic diversion. The UN says the new system is unable to meet mounting needs and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon by determining who can receive it and forcing people to relocate to where the aid sites are positioned.
The UN system has meanwhile struggled to deliver aid — even after Israel eased its complete blockade of Gaza last month. UN officials say their efforts are hindered by Israeli military restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting.
Experts warned earlier this year that Gaza was at critical risk of famine if Israel did not lift its blockade and halt its military campaign, which Israeli officials have said will continue until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and sent into exile.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have been deadlocked for months.
Israel says a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense is a Hamas member
In a separate development, the Israeli military accused a spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense of being an active Hamas member, according to documents it said were recovered during operations inside Gaza.
The Associated Press was not able to independently verify the documents, which purport to show that Mahmoud Bassal joined Hamas in 2005. Bassal did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Civil Defense are first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government and often are first to arrive at the scenes of Israeli strikes.
Hamas started the war with its massive attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinians militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 people hostage. They are still holding 55 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel has recovered dozens of bodies, including three in recent days, and rescued eight living hostages over the course of the war.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It has said women and children make up most of the dead but does not say how many civilians or combatants were killed. Israel says it has killed over 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population. The territory’s roughly 2 million Palestinians are almost completely reliant on international aid because nearly all of Gaza’s food production capabilities have been destroyed.
Israeli military hits Hamas member in southern Syria
- Israel and Syria have recently engaged in direct talks to calm tensions
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it struck a member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Syria’s Mazraat Beit Jin, days after Israel carried out its first airstrikes in the country in nearly a month.
Hamas did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel said on Tuesday it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles toward Israel for the first time under the country’s new leadership. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz held Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa accountable.
Damascus in response said reports of the shelling were unverified, reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party.
A little known group named “Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades,” an apparent reference to Hamas’ military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024, reportedly claimed responsibility for the shelling. Reuters, however, could not independently verify the claim.
Israel and Syria have recently engaged in direct talks to calm tensions, marking a significant development in ties between states that have been on opposite sides of conflict in the Middle East for decade.
Why were so many Thai farmers among the hostages held by Hamas?
- Before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, Israel had 30,000 Thai laborers, primarily working on farms
- 31 Thais were taken hostages. Thailand’s foreign ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war
BANGKOK: Israel says it has retrieved the body of a 35-year-old Thai hostage who was abducted into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Nattapong Pinta was among 31 Thais taken by the Hamas militant group. Thailand’s foreign ministry in a statement Saturday confirmed that Pinta, the last Thai hostage in Gaza, was confirmed dead. It said the bodies of two others have yet to be retrieved.
The ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas. They were among tens of thousands of Thai workers in Israel. Here’s a look at what they were doing.
Why are there so many Thais in Israel?
Israel once relied heavily on Palestinian workers, but it started bringing in large numbers of migrant workers after the 1987-93 Palestinian revolt, known as the first Intifada.
Most came from Thailand, and Thais remain the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in Israel today, earning considerably more than they can at home.
Thailand and Israel implemented a bilateral agreement a decade ago to ease the way for workers in the agriculture sector.
Israel has come under criticism for the conditions under which the Thai farm laborers work. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 said they often were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation and “were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied their right to change employers.”
A watchdog group found more recently that most were still paid below the legal minimum wage.
How many Thai nationals work in Israel?
There were about 30,000 Thai workers, primarily working on farms, in Israel prior to the attack by Hamas.
In the wake of the attack, some 7,000 returned home, primarily on government evacuation flights, but higher wages than those available at home have continued to attract new arrivals.
The Thai ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, recently said there are now more than 38,000 Thai workers in the country.
What happened after some left?
Faced with a labor shortage in the wake of the exodus, Israel’s Agriculture Ministry announced incentives to try to attract foreign workers back to evacuated areas.
Among other things, it offered to extend work visas and to pay bonuses of about $500 a month.
Thailand’s Labor Ministry granted 3,966 Thai workers permission to work in Israel in 2024, keeping Israel in the top four destinations for Thais working abroad last year.
Thai migrant workers generally come from poorer regions of the country, especially the northeast, and even before the bonuses, the jobs in Israel paid many times what they could make at home.
Israel backs an anti-Hamas armed group known for looting aid in Gaza. Here’s what we know
IJERUSALEM: Israel is supporting armed groups of Palestinians in Gaza in what it says is a move to counter Hamas. But officials from the UN and aid organizations say the military is allowing them to loot food and other supplies from their trucks.
One self-styled militia, which calls itself the Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, says it is guarding newly created, Israeli-backed food distribution centers in southern Gaza. Aid workers say it has a long history of looting UN trucks.
Gaza’s armed groups have ties to powerful clans or extended families and often operate as criminal gangs. Aid workers allege Israel’s backing of the groups is part of a wider effort to control all aid operations in the strip.
Israel denies allowing looters to operate in areas it controls.
Here’s what we know about anti-Hamas armed groups in Gaza:
Who are these groups?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a social media video Thursday that Israel had “activated” clans in Gaza to oppose Hamas.
He didn’t elaborate how Israel is supporting them or what role Israel wants them to play. Netanyahu’s comments were in response to a political opponent accusing him of arming “crime families” in Gaza.
Clans, tribes and extended families have strong influence in Gaza, where their leaders often help mediate disputes. Some have long been armed to protect their group’s interests, and some have morphed into gangs involved in smuggling drugs or running protection rackets.
After seizing power in 2007, Hamas clamped down on Gaza’s gangs — sometimes with brute force and sometimes by steering perks their way.
But with Hamas’ weakening power after 20 months of war with Israel, gangs have regained freedom to act. The leadership of a number of clans — including the clan from which the Abu Shabab group’s members hail — have issued statements denouncing looting and cooperation with Israel.
A self-proclaimed ‘nationalist force’
Besides the Abu Shabab group, it is not known how many armed groups Israel is supporting.
The Abu Shabab group went public in early May, declaring itself a “nationalist force.” It said it was protecting aid, including around the food distribution hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a mainly American private contractor that Israel intends to replace the UN-led aid network. Aid workers and Palestinians who know the group estimate it has several hundred fighters.
The Abu Shabab group’s media office told The Associated Press it was collaborating with GHF “to ensure that the food and medicine reaches its beneficiaries.” It said it was not involved in distribution, but that its fighters secured the surroundings of distribution centers run by GHF inside military-controlled zones in the Rafah area.
A spokesperson with GHF said it had “no collaboration” with Abu Shabab.
“We do have local Palestinian workers we are very proud of, but none is armed, and they do not belong to Abu Shabab’s organization,” the spokesperson said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the group’s rules.
Before the war, Yasser Abu Shabab was involved in smuggling cigarettes and drugs from Egypt and Israel into Gaza through crossings and tunnels, according to two members of his extended family, one of whom was once part of his group. Hamas arrested Abu Shabab but freed him from prison along with most other inmates when the war began in October 2023, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Abu Shabab’s media office said he was summoned by police before the war but wasn’t officially accused or tried. It also said claims the group was involved in attacking aid trucks were “exaggerated,” saying its fighters “took the minimum amount of food and water necessary.”
Aid workers say it is notorious for looting
The head of the association in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups said their members’ vehicles have been attacked many times by Abu Shabab’s fighters.
Nahed Sheheiber said the group has been active in Israeli-controlled eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, targeting trucks as they enter Gaza from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. Troops nearby “did nothing” to stop attacks, he said.
Sheheiber said that when Hamas policemen have tried to confront gangs or guard truck convoys, they were attacked by Israeli troops.
One driver, Issam Abu Awda, told the AP he was attacked by Abu Shabab fighters last July. The fighters stopped his truck, blindfolded and handcuffed him and his assistant, then loaded the supplies off the vehicle, he said. Abu Awda said nearby Israeli troops didn’t intervene.
These kinds of attacks are still happening and highlight “a disturbing pattern,” according to Jonathan Whittall, from the UN humanitarian coordinator, OCHA.
“Those who have blocked and violently ransacked aid trucks seem to have been protected” by Israeli forces, said Whittall, head of OCHA’s office for the occupied Palestinian territories. And, he added, they have now become the “protectors of the goods being distributed through Israel’s new militarized hubs,” referring to the GHF-run sites.
The Israeli military did not reply when asked for comment on allegations it has allowed armed groups to loot trucks. But the Israeli prime minister’s office called the accusations “fake news,” saying, “Israel didn’t allow looters to operate in Israeli controlled areas.”
Israel often accuses Hamas of stealing from trucks.
What does all this have to do with aid?
Muhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza who is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said he doesn’t believe Israel’s support for armed groups is aimed at directly fighting Hamas. So far there has been no attempt to deploy the groups against the militants.
Instead, he said, Israel is using the gangs and the looting to present GHF “as the only alternative to provide food to Palestinians,” since its supplies get in while the UN’s don’t.
Israel wants the GHF to replace the UN-led aid system because it claims Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies. The UN denies that significant amounts have been taken by Hamas. Israel has also said it aims to move all Palestinians in Gaza to a “sterile zone” in the south, around the food hubs, while it fights Hamas elsewhere.
The UN and aid groups have rejected that as using food as a tool for forced displacement. The Abu Shabab group has issued videos online urging Palestinians to move to tent camps in Rafah.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for 2 ½ months , pending the start of GHF – a blockade that has brought the population to the brink of famine. GHF started distributing food boxes on May 26 at three hubs guarded by private contractors inside Israeli military zones.
Israel has let in some trucks of aid for the UN to distribute. But the UN says it has been able to get little of it into the hands of Palestinians because of Israeli military restrictions, including requiring its trucks to use roads where looters are known to operate.
“It’s Israel’s way of telling the UN, if you want to try to bring aid into Gaza, good luck with this,” said Shehada. “We will force you to go through a road where everything you brought will be looted.”
