Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • Gaza Christians face Christmas travel ban


Gaza Christians face Christmas travel ban

Orthodox Christian worshippers hold candles during the Easter Eve service at the St. Porphyrios church in Gaza City. (AP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/juye6

Updated 16 December 2019
HAZEM BALOUSHA
Follow

Gaza Christians face Christmas travel ban

  • ‘West Bank is part of Palestine, there is no logical reason to prevent Christians from traveling and even staying there’
Updated 16 December 2019
HAZEM BALOUSHA

GAZA CITY: Hatem Al-Far, 51, and his family seem nervous. They are awaiting the issuance of Israeli permits to visit the rest of his family and the holy places in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Al-Far lives in Gaza, but he has not been able to visit Bethlehem for four years, while Israel sometimes allows his wife and one of his children to travel to the West Bank during the Christmas and Easter.

Israel announced earlier that Christians in Gaza would not be allowed to visit the holy places for the first time, while 100 Palestinians would be allowed out of the Gaza Strip to Jordan.

The announcement has affected Al-Far, his family and Christians in Gaza who will not be able to go to the West Bank.

“I don’t trust anything until I get the permit in my hands, or at least my wife and children get the permits to travel and meet my daughter and son who are currently living in the West Bank.” Al-Far said.

He added: “Christmas is the most prominent opportunity for us as a family to meet. I do not know what is the reason for preventing me from obtaining a permit to visit the Church of the Nativity and do prayers there. The West Bank is part of Palestine, there is no logical reason to prevent any Christian from traveling and even staying there if he wishes.”

Israel tightly restricts movements out of the Gaza Strip, a territory controlled by the extremist group Hamas since 2007.

Gaza has only around 1,000 Christians — most of them Greek Orthodox — among a population of 2 million in the narrow coastal strip.

Driven by the shattered economic situation, the siege, and the Israeli wars, the number of Christians in Gaza has shrunk in recent years, some of whom have moved to live in the West Bank or emigrate abroad.

I do not know what is the reason for preventing me from obtaining a permit to visit the Church of the Nativity and do prayers there.

Hatem Al-Far, Palestinian Christian

A number of Christians in Gaza mentioned that when Israel grants permits it does not grant them to all family members, which makes traveling difficult in the holiday season.

Hani Farah, secretary-general of the YMCA in Gaza, said: “Israel practices all forms of repression and violations against the Palestinians, regardless of their religion or gender.”

He added: “Just as Israeli bombs and missiles do not differentiate between the Palestinians, the blockade of Israel and its repressive measures do not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian. We are all trapped in Gaza and we share pain and suffering.”

Like hundreds of other Christian Gazans who had applied for permits, Farah — who is a lay member of the Greek Orthodox community — had not received one for himself, his wife or their four children.

With the exception of the holiday seasons, Christians suffer from severe restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of Gazans to the West Bank, according to Farah.

The number of Christians in Gaza is shrinking due to several factors, according to Farah, the most important of which are economic conditions.

“When young people do not find work they are forced to travel abroad. The same is true for girls when they want to be associated with a husband but do not find someone to approach them, so they travel in order to marry.”

Gisha, the Israeli legal center for freedom of movement, said: “The decrease in the number of holiday permits issued to Christians in Gaza over the years, and the fact that this Christmas Israel has not allocated any permits for Christians to travel between Gaza and the West Bank, point to the intensifying of access restrictions between the two parts of the Palestinian territory, a deepening of Israel’s separation policy.”

Topics: Gaza Israel Christians Christmas Travel ban West Bank

Yemen’s Houthi militants linked to ship attacks in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

Yemen’s Houthi militants linked to ship attacks in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

Updated 5 sec ago
DUBAI: Suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants targeted a Panama-flagged bulk carrier traveling through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, though no damage or injuries were reported, authorities said Monday.
The attacks come as the the militant group continue their months long assault targeting shipping through a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon.
The bulk carrier Anadolu S first had been contacted over VHF radio by someone claiming to be authorities in Yemen, demanding the ship turn around, said the Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational task force overseen by the US
“The vessel did not comply with the order and continued its transit,” the center said.
The ship’s captain later saw that “a missile splashed in close proximity to the vessel” as it traveled in the southern Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting to the Gulf of Aden in the first attack late Sunday night, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in an alert. The attack happened some 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Yemen port city of Mocha.
On Monday, another attack some 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Aden in the Gulf of Aden similarly saw a missile splash down close to the vessel, the UKMTO said.
“The vessel and crew are safe and proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO added.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attacks. However, it can take the group hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign, which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The Houthis maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The Joint Maritime Information Center said the Anadolu S had an “indirect association to Israel.” However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well.
In their last attack on Nov. 11, two US Navy warships targeted with multiple drones and missiles as they were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful.

Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say

Updated 11 min 27 sec ago
Reuters
Follow

Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say

  • This is one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the besieged enclave
  • 98 of 109 trucks in convoy were raided and some transporters were injured
Updated 11 min 27 sec ago
Reuters

GENEVA/CAIRO: Nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the enclave, where hunger is deepening, two UN agencies told Reuters on Monday.
The convoy transporting food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Programme was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Kerem Shalom border crossing, said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer.
Ninety-eight of the 109 trucks in the convoy were raided and some of the transporters were injured during the incident, she said, without detailing who carried out the ambush.
“This ... highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” she told Reuters.
“⁠The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.”
The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying that over 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in coordination with tribal committees.
It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist.”
A WFP spokesperson confirmed the looting and said that many routes in Gaza were currently impassable due to security issues.
An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was UN distribution challenges.
A UN aid official said on Friday that access for aid to Gaza had reached a low point, with deliveries to parts of the Israeli-besieged north of the enclave all but impossible. Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza was triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. 

 

Topics: Gaza Israel

UNESCO ‘enhanced protection’ for 34 Lebanon heritage sites

Updated 21 min 41 sec ago
AFP
Follow

UNESCO ‘enhanced protection’ for 34 Lebanon heritage sites

  • Baalbek and Tyre ‘will receive technical and financial assistance from UNESCO’
Updated 21 min 41 sec ago
AFP

PARIS: Dozens of heritage sites in Lebanon were granted “provisional enhanced protection” by UNESCO on Monday, offering a higher level of legal shielding as fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
The 34 cultural properties affected “now benefit from the highest level of immunity against attack and use for military purposes,” the United Nations cultural body said in a statement.
Several Israeli strikes in recent weeks on Baalbek in the east and Tyre in the south — both strongholds of Iran-backed Hezbollah — hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated as World Heritage sites.
UNESCO said the decision “helps send a signal to the entire international community of the urgent need to protect these sites.”
“Non-compliance with these clauses would constitute ‘serious violations’ of the 1954 Hague Convention and... potential grounds for prosecution,” it added.
Hezbollah and Israel have been at war since late September, when Israel broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war plows on.
UNESCO’s move followed an appeal Sunday by hundreds of cultural professionals, including archaeologists and academics, to activate the enhanced protection.
Baalbek and Tyre “will receive technical and financial assistance from UNESCO to reinforce their legal protections, improve risk anticipation and management measures, and provide further training for site managers,” the body said.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon UNESCO Israel Hezbollah

Related

Saudi Arabia
Saudi pavilion at UNESCO Arab Week in Paris celebrates Kingdom’s camel culture
Art & Culture
Arab Week at UNESCO to showcase rich culture, heritage

Refugees who escaped from war-torn Tuti Island speak of hunger, disease

A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman on November 2, 2024.
Updated 30 min 32 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Refugees who escaped from war-torn Tuti Island speak of hunger, disease

  • Charity kitchens have been forced to close in Tuti and elsewhere in the capital Khartoum due to lack of funding and supplies, and high prices
Updated 30 min 32 sec ago
AFP

JUBA: Mohammed Awad and his family are among dozens who escaped Sudan’s Tuti Island earlier this year amid a siege by the Rapid Support Forces, finding refuge at a shelter after surviving for months on scant food and the risk of disease.
The island in the middle of the Nile serves as a microcosm for the devastation unleashed by a war that began in April 2023.
More than 61,000 people are estimated to have died in Khartoum state during the first 14 months of Sudan’s war, significantly more than previously recorded, according to a new report.
Activists report that the Rapid Support Forces charged people large sums to evacuate them.

HIGHLIGHT

More than 61,000 people are estimated to have died in Khartoum state during the first 14 months of Sudan’s war.

“There is no good food, and there’s a lot of diseases, there is no sleep, no safety,” Awad said, holding one of his children at the shelter for displaced residents in Omdurman, an army-controlled refuge. The island is one of 14 places across Sudan at risk of famine, according to experts. Dengue fever has ravaged Tuti, a close-knit farming community.
Sarah Siraj, a mother who left with her two children, said six or seven people were dying daily, and that she was only able to have her children treated for dengue, a mosquito-borne disease, once she reached Omdurman.
Charity kitchens have been forced to close in Tuti and elsewhere in the capital Khartoum due to lack of funding and supplies, and high prices.
Rabeea Abdel Gader, a nutrition guide, has been treating newly arrived families at a city shelter.
“We ask the mother about what they eat ... Sometimes the mother responds with her tears,” she said.
Meanwhile, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Monday calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Sudan.

 

Topics: Sudan Unrest Sudan

Related

Middle-East
Majority of South Sudanese will be food insecure next year: UN
Middle-East
UK doubles aid to war-torn Sudan

Lebanon says Israeli strike on central Beirut kills four

Emergency teams work at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted Zuqaq Al-Blat neighbourhood in Beirut, on November 18, 2024.
Updated 49 min 22 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Lebanon says Israeli strike on central Beirut kills four

  • “A hostile drone targeted a residential apartment behind the Husseiniya of Zuqaq Al-Blat in the capital Beirut, causing great damage,” the NNA said
  • The densely populated working class district of Zuqaq Al-Blat has welcomed many displaced people who fled Israeli strikes on south and east Lebanon
Updated 49 min 22 sec ago
AFP

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said Israel struck a densely packed Beirut neighborhood on Monday, killing at least four people, in the third attack in two days on the city’s central districts.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Zuqaq Al-Blat in Beirut killed four people and injured 18,” a ministry statement said in preliminary toll.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said an apartment near a Shiite Muslim place of worship had been targeted.
“A hostile drone targeted a residential apartment behind the Husseiniya of Zuqaq Al-Blat in the capital Beirut, causing great damage,” the NNA said.
An AFP correspondent in the area heard two blasts, and said the raid badly damaged the ground floor of a building.
Reporters elsewhere in the city heard ambulance sirens.
The densely populated working class district of Zuqaq Al-Blat has welcomed many displaced people who fled Israeli strikes on south and east Lebanon, as well as south Beirut — areas where the Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway.
The strike hit near a building housing many displaced Lebanese, the AFP correspondent said.
It was cordoned off by security forces as residents rushed to help in the rescue efforts, he added.
Several hundreds of meters (yards) away was the site of a similar strike on Sunday, in the Mar Elias neighborhood, which the Lebanese health ministry said killed three people including a woman.
Israel has not commented on Monday’s and Sunday’s strikes in central Beirut, but confirmed one air raid in the area the killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
The strike, also on Sunday, hit the Lebanese office of the Syrian Baath party, killing Afif and four other members of his media team, Hezbollah said, with the health ministry saying seven people had been killed in total.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since Hezbollah-Israel clashes began in October last year, with most casualties recorded since war erupted in September.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Beirut

Related

Middle-East
Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike
Middle-East
Lebanon says Israeli strike on central Beirut kills two

Latest updates

Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say
Imran Khan’s party doubles down on Islamabad protest as administration bans public gatherings
Seven policemen abducted by armed gunmen in northwest Pakistan amid militancy surge 
OYO launches premium hotel brand ‘Sunday’ in KSA
New Continental GT Speed redefines grand touring

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.