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Middle East countries impose strict measures during Eid to prevent coronavirus spread

An aerial view shows deserted streets in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah on April 21, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic crisis. (File/AFP)
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Updated 26 May 2020
Arab News
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Middle East countries impose strict measures during Eid to prevent coronavirus spread

Updated 26 May 2020
Arab News

DUBAI: Countries in the Middle East have issued strict rules during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday with an aim to prevent further spread of coronavirus.

Saudi Arabia celebrated the first day of Eid al-Fitr in a state of 24-hour lockdown, imposed last week to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Earlier King Salman thanked people in Saudi Arabia for abiding by the curfew.

In Egypt, a video of a man wearing Al-Azhar University’s uniform being chased by police was posted by social media users on Sunday. The incident happened after the country cancelled Eid prayers in mosque grounds.

May 25, 2020, Monday (All times in GMT)

19:30 - Britain will reopen thousands of high street shops, department stores and shopping centers next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, setting out a timetable for businesses as part of moves to ease the coronavirus lockdown. READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

18:28 - Kuwait will not extend its 24-hour curfew beyond May 30, the interior minister said, adding that the cabinet will announce on Thursday the details of a partial curfew and a plan for public life to return to normal gradually.
Kuwait had imposed a full-time curfew from May 10 to May 30 to help to curb the spread of coronavirus.

18:11 - Saudi Arabia's health minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said "the early measures taken by the Kingdom helped us take control of the pandemic," adding that the lockdown will ease in phases starting from Thursday, and will be extended depending on reported cases.

17:06 - Dubai will allow free movement and business activity to restart during the day from Wednesday, Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed said.
Restrictions will remain in place however from between 11.00 p.m. and 6.00 a.m., the Dubai Media Office said in a press release.

18:14 - Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Britain could reopen all non-essential retail stores on June 15 if the coronavirus remains contained.
“On June 15, we intend to allow all non-essential retail, ranging from department stores to small independent shops, to reopen,” Johnson told reporters, stressing that this “will be contingent upon progress against” the disease.

16:02 - Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 92, against 50 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases dropped to just 300 from 531 on Sunday.
The number of confirmed cases amounts to 230,158, the sixth highest global tally behind those of the US, Russia, Spain, Britain and Brazil.

15:48 - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's special adviser Dominic Cummings said he feels that the rules allowed him to exercise his judgment.

12:50 - Saudi Arabia reported nine new deaths from coronavirus, bringing the total to 399, the health ministry said.

It also reported 2,235 new cases and 2,148 cases have recovered, bringing the total to 45,668.

12:15 - War-torn Syria has reported 20 new cases of coronavirus, the largest single-day increase to date in the country, the health ministry said.

12:01 - Lebanon has reported five new coronavirus cases, raising total to 1,119.

11:59 - German government said it aims to extend social distancing rules to July 5 according to a policy draft

11:32 - Qatar has recorded 1,751 new coronavirus infected cases.

11:30 - Ethiopia has registered 73 new coronavirus cases, bringing total to 601.

10:22 - Morocco has reported 62 new coronavirus cases, raising total to 7,495.

10:06 - Iran has confirmed 34 new coronavirus deaths, raising total number of fatalities to 7,451. It also registered 2023 new cases, bringing the total to 137,724.

10:05 - Kuwait has recorded 665 new coronavirus cases.

09:46 - A total of 172 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Malaysia, raising the total number of infected patients to 7,417.

09:15 - Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has lifted coronavirus state of emergency.

09:05 - Scientists in Thailand have joined the race to find a vaccine for coronavirus, after a successful first phase they are now testing their hoped cure on monkeys.

08:15 - A cafe in South Korea has taken social distancing to a whole new level witn the introduction of a robot barista.

05:38 - Legendary Egyptian actress Ragaa El-Gedawy has tested positive for coronavirus, ET Bilarabi reported.

04:48 - Thailand has recorded two new coronavirus cases and one death.

04:47 - Germany has reported 178,570 confirmed coronavirus cases and 8,257 deaths according to Robert Koch Institute.

May 24, 2020, Sunday

23:00 - Yemen’s Marib has imposed an 11-hour coronavirus curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Sunday until further notice.

18:07 - Jordan launched a website to help in the implementation of the country’s third phase of repatriation for citizens wanting to return to the Kingdom, state news agency Petra reported citing the Director of the Coronavirus Crisis Cell Brig. Gen. Mazen Al-Faraya.

13:16 - The UAE recorded 781 new coronavirus cases overnight after conducting an additional 35,000 tests, bringing the country’s total number of known infections to 29,485, the health ministry said. 

 

Topics: Coronavirus

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Lebanon state media says Israel blows up houses in 3 border villages

Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
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Lebanon state media says Israel blows up houses in 3 border villages

  • ‘Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area’
Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanon state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hezbollah war.
“Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there,” the official National News Agency said, the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the flashpoint border area.

Suffering in Gaza ‘almost unparalleled’: Humanitarian chief

Updated 13 min 37 sec ago
Arab News
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Suffering in Gaza ‘almost unparalleled’: Humanitarian chief

  • Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general: Palestinians pushed ‘beyond breaking point’
  • Jan Egeland: Gaza rendered ‘uninhabitable’ due Israel’s policies
Updated 13 min 37 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are experiencing “almost unparalleled” suffering, one of the world’s foremost humanitarian officials has warned following a visit to the enclave, The Guardian reported on Friday.

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, traveled to Gaza this week, reporting that families, widows and children have been pushed “beyond breaking point” by Israel’s year-long war.

He witnessed “scene after scene of absolute despair” as Palestinian families had been torn apart by attacks, with survivors unable to bury their dead relatives.

Gaza has been rendered “uninhabitable” as a result of Israel’s policies, supported by Western-supplied weaponry, Egeland said.

“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he added.

“The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled to anywhere in recent history. There is no possible justification for continued war and destruction.”

Since last year, families across the enclave have been repeatedly forced to move from one area to another as a result of Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover 80 percent of Gaza.

The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, where a month-long Israeli offensive and siege have cut off an estimated 100,000 people from humanitarian aid.

An Israeli brigadier general said this week that there is no intention of allowing the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza.

Such a policy of forcible transfer would amount to war crimes, humanitarian law experts have said.

As aid continues to be cut off from the Palestinian population, the UN has condemned “unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement.”

Egeland warned of the “catastrophic impact of strangled aid flows” on the Palestinian population, with people left unable to access food or water for days at a time.

The former Norwegian foreign minister and diplomat said: “There has not been a single week since the start of this war when sufficient aid was delivered in Gaza.”

Despite the acute shortage of humanitarian aid, Israel’s parliament this week passed bills banning the UN Relief & Works Agency from operating in the Occupied Territories, designating it as a terrorist organization.

Egeland called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to prevent the “deadly” situation from worsening, adding: “Those in power on all sides act with impunity, while millions across Gaza and the region pay a terrible price.

“Humanitarians can speak out on what we are seeing, but only those in power can end this nightmare.”

Topics: War on Gaza

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Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

Updated 59 min 35 sec ago
AP
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Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

  • Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues
Updated 59 min 35 sec ago
AP

ATHENS, Greece: Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived Friday in Athens for meetings with his Greek counterpart as part of efforts to ease tension between the two neighbors and regional rivals.
Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues, including volatile maritime boundary disputes that have twice led them to the brink of war. The two have renewed a diplomatic push for over a year to improve ties.
“Step by step, we have achieved a level of trust so that we can discuss issues with sincerity and prevent crises,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said in an interview with Turkiye’s Hurriyet newspaper published Thursday.
The meeting between the two foreign ministers follows a series of high-profile talks between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of a relation-mending initiative launched in 2023.
Officials in Athens are expected to raise concerns about rising illegal migration, as Greece has seen an uptick in arrivals. And, despite deep disagreements on Israel and fighting in the Middle East, both foreign ministers are also expected to explore ways to improve regional stability.
The talks will help set the stage for a Greece-Turkiye high-level cooperation council planned for early 2025 in Ankara, Turkiye.

Topics: Turkiye Greece Hakan Fidan

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Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war

Updated 08 November 2024
Reuters
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Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war

Updated 08 November 2024
Reuters

ANKARA: Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he hoped US President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to “stop” its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting US arms support to Israel.
“Trump has made promises to end conflicts... We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop’,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.
“Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” he was cited as saying.
Turkiye has fiercely criticized Israel’s offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan said, adding that pursuing current US policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict.

Topics: Erdogan Trump Turkiye

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Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

Updated 08 November 2024
AFP
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Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

  • UN Human Rights Office: Systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law
  • The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman
Updated 08 November 2024
AFP

GENEVA:

The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, the United Nations human rights office detailed the “horrific reality” that has unfolded for civilians in both Gaza and Israel since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
It detailed a vast array of violations of international law, warning that many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide.”
“The report shows how civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
It also pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
“This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” it continued.
“Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians.”
The report took on the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians figuring among the now nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Due to a lack of access, UN agencies have since the beginning of the Gaza war relied on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.
This has sparked accusations from Israel of “parroting... Hamas’s propaganda messages” but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.

Youngest victim aged one day
The rights office said it had now managed to verify 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza, finding “close to 70 percent to be children and women.”
This, it said, indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”
Of the verified fatalities, 3,588 of them were children and 2,036 were women, the report said.
“We do believe this is representative of the breakdown of total fatalities — similar proportion to what Gaza authorities have,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”
His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.
The main victims of Israeli strikes on residential buildings, it said, were children between the ages of five and nine, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman.
The report said that the large proportion of verified deaths in residential buildings could be partially explained by the rights office’s “verification methodology, which requires at least three independent sources.”
It also pointed to continuing “challenges in collecting and verifying information of killings in other circumstances.”
Gaza authorities have long said that women and children made up a significant majority of those killed in the war, but with lacking access for full UN verification, the issue has remained highly contentious.
Israel has insisted that its operations in Gaza are targeting militants.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely mirrored the demographic makeup of the population at large in Gaza, rather than the known demographic of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Topics: War on Gaza Gaza Israel UN

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