Iraq protests swell with youth angry at slow pace of reform

University students hold a huge Iraqi flag during ongoing anti-government protests in Baghdad on Sunday, January 19, 2020. (Reuters)
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Updated 19 January 2020
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Iraq protests swell with youth angry at slow pace of reform

  • Protesters fear Iraq would be caught in the middle of the geopolitical storm
  • ‘We want to send a message to the government: Stop procrastinating! The people know what you’re doing’

BAGHDAD: Iraqi youth angry at their government’s glacial pace of reform ramped up their protests on Sunday, sealing streets with burning tires and threatening further escalation unless their demands are met.
The rallies demanding an overhaul of the ruling system have rocked Shiite-majority parts of Iraq since October, but had thinned out in recent weeks amid rising Iran-US tensions.
Protesters had feared Iraq would be caught in the middle of the geopolitical storm and last Monday gave the government one week to make progress on reform pledges.
A day before the deadline expires, hundreds of angry young people descended on the main protest camp in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square as well as nearby Tayaran Square.
They burned tires to block highways and bridges, turning back cars and causing traffic jams across the city.
At least 10 people including police officers were wounded when security forces tried to clear the sit-ins with tear gas and protesters responded by throwing rocks, medical and security sources said.
“This is only the first escalation,” one protester with a scarf wrapped around his face said, as smoke from the tires turned the sky behind him a charcoal grey.
“We want to send a message to the government: Stop procrastinating! The people know what you’re doing,” he said, adding ominously: “Tomorrow the deadline ends, and then things could get totally of control.”
Protesters are demanding early elections based on a reformed voting law, a new prime minister to replace current caretaker premier Adel Abdel Mahdi and that officials deemed corrupt be held to account.
Abdel Mahdi resigned nearly two months ago, but political parties have thus far failed to agree on a successor and he has continued to run the government as a caretaker.
Demonstrators have publicly rejected the names circulating as possible replacements and are furious that other sweeping reform measures have not been implemented.
“We began to escalate today because the government did not respond to our demands, notably forming an independent government that could save Iraq,” said Haydar Kadhim, a demonstrator in the southern protest hotspot of Nasiriyah.
“Last Monday, we gave them a deadline of seven days. That deadline ends tonight,” Kadhim said.
A fellow protester, 20-year-old university student Mohammad Kareem, said more escalation could come.
“We gave the government a timeframe to implement our demands, but it looks like it doesn’t care one bit,” he said.
“We will keep up our movement and keep escalating to confront this government, which continues to procrastinate,” Kareem said.
Rallies also swelled in the cities of Kut, Diwaniyah and Amara, where most government offices, schools and universities have been shuttered for months.
In the holy city of Najaf, youth wrapped in checkered black-and-white scarves and carrying Iraqi flags lit tires and began a sit-in on a main road leading to the capital.
Further the south in the oil-rich port city of Basra, students gathered in an ongoing strike in support of the rallies elsewhere.
The protests are the largest and bloodiest grassroots movement in Iraq in decades, with nearly 460 people dead and over 25,000 wounded since they erupted on October 1.
While the violence at the protests themselves has dropped slightly, activists say they face an escalating campaign of intimidation, kidnapping and assassination attempts.
Young protesters are also apprehensive about a rival protest on January 24 organized by firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr in order to pressure US forces to leave.
Last week, Sadr urged Iraqis to hold “a million-strong, peaceful, unified demonstration to condemn the American presence and its violations.”
Iraqi political figures have ramped up their calls for foreign forces — including some 5,200 US troops — to leave the country following a US drone strike that killed Iran’s revered Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani and top Iraqi military official Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.
Both were key brokers in Iraq’s political scene, which has been left reeling by their absence.
Iraq’s parliament voted on January 5 in favor of ousting foreign forces but the legal procedure for doing so remains murky.
Bases where US forces are stationed have been under a steady stream of rocket attacks for several months that have killed one American contractor and one Iraqi soldier.


Israeli missile hits Gaza children collecting water, IDF blames malfunction

Updated 1 min 28 sec ago
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Israeli missile hits Gaza children collecting water, IDF blames malfunction

JERUSALEM: At least eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water on Sunday, local officials said, in an Israeli strike which the military said missed its target.
The Israeli military said the missile had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but that a malfunction had caused it to fall “dozens of meters from the target.”
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians,” it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review.
The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital.
Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centers where they can fill up their plastic containers.
Hours later, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally, but says over half of those killed are women and children.
Talks stalled
Negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire appeared to be deadlocked, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend.
The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video he posted on Telegram on Sunday said Israel would not back down from its core demands — releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.
Netanyahu was expected to convene ministers later on Sunday to discuss the ceasefire talks.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, but Gazans say nowhere is safe in the coastal enclave.
Early on Sunday morning, a missile hit a house in Gaza City where a family had moved to after receiving an evacuation order from their home in the southern outskirts.
“My aunt, her husband and the children, are gone. What is the fault of the children who died in an ugly bloody massacre at dawn?” said Anas Matar, standing in the rubble of the building.
“They came here, and they were hit. There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

US-Palestinian man beaten to death by Israeli settlers buried in West Bank village

Updated 5 sec ago
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US-Palestinian man beaten to death by Israeli settlers buried in West Bank village

  • The family of Musalat, who was born and based in Florida, is demanding that the US administration launch an investigation into his death
  • Mohammed Rizq Hussein Al-Shalabi was shot by settlers on Friday and left to bleed for hours

LONDON: The body of a US-Palestinian man, who was beaten to death by Israeli extremist settlers on Friday evening, was buried in his family’s village of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank on Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of Saif Al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat, 20, and Mohammed Rizq Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, whose coffins were wrapped in Palestinian flags during the procession in Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya on Sunday. Al-Shalabi was shot by settlers on Friday and left to bleed for hours in Sinjil, a village near Ramallah.

The family of Musalat, who was born and based in Florida, is demanding that the US administration launch an investigation into his death. Musalat had been visiting the West Bank from the US since last June to spend time with relatives, according to a statement from his family and lawyer. He was beaten to death by settlers in Sinjil and his body was discovered on Friday evening.

Since October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank have killed at least 955 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

About 1 million Israeli settlers live in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Their attacks against Palestinians have escalated since 2023, with 820 attacks recorded by rights groups in the first half of 2025. In June, the UK, Australia, and Canada sanctioned two Israeli far-right ministers for inciting settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.


Jordan sends more aid to Gaza as death toll continues to rise

Updated 46 min 21 sec ago
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Jordan sends more aid to Gaza as death toll continues to rise

  • 50 trucks carried essential aid, food and clean water to vulnerable families in northern Gaza
  • A separate shipment of 3,000 blood units is set to be delivered to the Jordanian field hospital in enclave

LONDON: Jordan sent another 50 trucks of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Sunday after resuming the dispatch of relief convoys last week, following months of an Israeli blockade that hindered assistance from reaching the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization said the trucks carried essential aid, food and clean water to vulnerable families in northern Gaza. The initiative was in collaboration with the World Food Programme and the Jordanian Armed Forces.

It is part of the humanitarian aid bridge Amman launched since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023 to support Palestinians. The JHC said that aid distribution will occur through locally coordinated methods to ensure it reaches those in need.

A separate shipment of 3,000 blood units is set to be delivered to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza to support the healthcare sector. This initiative follows a nationwide blood donation campaign organized in collaboration with the Jordanian Medical Association and the Ministry of Health, the charity said.

Since late 2023, Jordan has delivered 7,815 aid trucks and 53 cargo planes through the Egyptian port of Arish, along with 102 helicopter sorties via the humanitarian air bridge, to support Palestinians in Gaza.

Jordan was among the first countries to conduct airlift missions in the early days of the war, delivering relief to Gaza. More than 58,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, which have been described as genocide by human rights groups and several heads of state.


Kuwaiti emir to attend Bastille Day, meet Macron during first official visit to France

Updated 13 July 2025
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Kuwaiti emir to attend Bastille Day, meet Macron during first official visit to France

  • Kuwaiti-French relations commited to improving cooperation and supporting regional and global stability
  • France was one of the first countries to support Kuwait’s independence in 1961

LONDON: Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah made his first official visit to France on Sunday since assuming power in December 2023.

The visit reflects the historical partnership between Paris and Kuwait, the Presidential Palace, the Elysee, said in a statement.

Sheikh Meshal will attend the official military parade to celebrate France’s national Bastille Day on July 14, alongside a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.

The two parties aim to strengthen ties by enhancing partnerships in sectors such as diplomacy, defense, economy, education, health, culture, and scientific research, the Kuwait Agency reported.

France was one of the first countries to support Kuwait’s independence in 1961 and played a significant role in 1991 in its liberation from Iraqi forces led by Saddam Hussein, the Elysee said.

Trade between Kuwait and France was worth €2.8 billion ($3.27 billion) in 2023, with French infrastructure, energy, and construction companies leading projects in Kuwait. More than 1,000 students benefited from the educational programs offered by the French Institute, while French healthcare institutions, such as the Gustave Roussy Institute, contributed to supporting the Kuwaiti healthcare sector through consultations and projects.

Kuwaiti-French relations display a strong partnership, with a commitment to improving cooperation and supporting regional and global stability, the Elysee added.

Minister of Defense Sheikh Abdullah Ali Al-Sabah, Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya, the chief of the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority and other high officials are accompanying the emir of Kuwait.


Syria wildfires contained after 10 days

Updated 13 July 2025
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Syria wildfires contained after 10 days

  • The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out amid an intense heatwave across the region
  • UN humanitarian agency says fires destroyed about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland

DAMASCUS: Syria’s civil defense agency on Sunday said wildfires in the country’s west, which have burned vast tracts of forest and farmland and forced evacuations, had been brought under control after 10 days.

In a statement on Facebook, the agency said that “with the spread of the fires halted and the fire hotspots brought under control on all fronts” on Saturday, teams on the ground were working to cool down the affected areas while monitoring any signs of reignition.

The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out amid an intense heatwave across the region.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said they destroyed about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland.

As the fires raged, Syrian emergency workers faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain and the danger of explosive war remnants.

This all comes in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis.

In a post on X, the Syrian minister for emergencies and disaster management, Raed Al-Saleh, said that with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi teams, firefighters had “managed to halt the spread of the fire on all fronts, which is the most important step toward containing the wildfires.”

The “situation is the best it has been in the past 10 days,” Saleh said late Saturday.

“There are still threats due to wind activity, but we are working to prevent any renewed expansion of the fires,” the minister added.

The civil defense agency said rescue teams were carrying out “operations to open pathways and firebreaks within the forests... in order to reduce the chances of fire spreading in case of reignition.”

Authorities have not reported any casualties, but several towns in Latakia province have been evacuated as a precaution.

Nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, Syria is still reeling from more than a decade of civil war that ravaged the country’s economy, infrastructure and public services.

With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.

In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”