LONDON: Turkey’s COVID-19 infection rates are rapidly rising after the country began easing restrictions at the start of March, raising fears that its tourism industry could be hampered in the summer.
Daily cases, which stood at 8,424 on March 1, have jumped to 21,030. Turkey has struggled to limit the spread of COVID-19 as it has looked to reopen the economy while maintaining some anti-virus measures.
Bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen at half-capacity in provinces with lower infection rates, but they have been full of customers as the rules prove nearly unenforceable.
“The decision on opening up for the tourism season is up to the success of the vaccination campaign. In order to obtain herd immunity, Turkey needs to vaccinate 70 percent of the population,” said Vedat Bulut, secretary-general of the Turkish Medical Association.
“The Aegean and Mediterranean coast currently have lower infection rates than the worst-affected areas, but when the weather gets warmer people will move there for holidays. There should be a lockdown for 14 days and then we can manage to decrease the daily cases to 100 to 200.”
The loss of tourism income during the pandemic has further hit Turkey’s weakening economy.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held mass political rallies, which epidemiologists have pointed to as super-spreader events. Thirty percent of the new cases are mutations, most of them the UK variant.
The double dose of vaccinations has been given to just 5.8 percent of the population. The country aims to have vaccinated 50 million people by autumn.
That figure will see 60 percent of the population inoculated, below the herd immunity levels experts have deemed necessary to allow for further easing of restrictions.
Tourism workers will be prioritized for vaccinations, according to Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy.
His ministry has produced hygiene protocols for tourism businesses as it gambles on reopening the hospitality sector ahead of the country’s herd immunity threshold being met.
Tourism to Turkey under threat due to rising coronavirus cases
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Tourism to Turkey under threat due to rising coronavirus cases
- Bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen at half-capacity in provinces with lower infection rates
- They have been full of customers as the rules prove nearly unenforceable.
Israel restarts Gaza ground operations, issues ‘last warning’ to Palestinians
- Israel resumed ground operations in Gaza on Wednesday and issued what it called a “last warning” for Palestinians to return hostages and remove Hamas from power
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israel bombarded Gaza and pressed its ground operations on Thursday after issuing what it called a “last warning” for Palestinians to return hostages and remove Hamas from power.
The renewed offensive shattered a relative calm that had pervaded since truce took hold mid-January.
Heavy air strikes began strafing Gaza early Tuesday, killing more than 400 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Gaza rescuers said at least 10 more people were killed in a pre-dawn bombing near Khan Yunis Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced it had resumed ground operations “in the central and southern Gaza Strip to expand the security perimeter and create a partial buffer between the north and south.”
As Israel defied calls from foreign governments to preserve the ceasefire, Gazans were left to once again comb through rubble to find the bodies of their loved ones.
“We’re digging with our bare hands,” said a man trying to dislodge a child’s body from a heap of concrete in Gaza City.
After Israel urged civilians to leave areas it described as “combat zones,” families with young children filled the roads leading out of northern Gaza.
Fred Oola, senior medical officer at the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah, said the renewed strikes shattered the relative calm of the past two months.
“Now, we can feel the panic in the air... and we can see the pain and devastation in the faces of those we are helping,” he said.
Addressing the “residents of Gaza” – governed by Hamas since 2007 – Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a video: “This is the last warning.”
“Take the advice of the president of the United States. Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you – including the possibility of leaving for other places in the world for those who want to.”
He was referring to a warning earlier this month by US President Donald Trump, who said: “To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD!”
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, 58 are still held by Gaza militants, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas says it is willing to negotiate and has called on the international community to act to bring the war to an end.
An official from the group rejected, however, Israeli demands to renegotiate the three-stage deal agreed with Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators.
“Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher Al-Nunu said.
Talks have stalled over how to proceed with the ceasefire, after the first phase expired in early March.
Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the deal by extending phase one.
Hamas wants negotiations for phase two, meant to establish a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza while the remaining hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
“Moving to the second phase seems to be a non-option for Israel,” said Ghassan Khatib, a political analyst and former Palestinian Authority minister.
“They don’t like the second phase because it involves ending the war without necessarily achieving their objective of ending Hamas.”
Israel and Washington have portrayed Hamas’s rejection of a phase one extension as a refusal to release more hostages.
The renewed Israeli bombardment sent a stream of new casualties to the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza.
A UN Office for Project Services employee was killed and at least five other people wounded when a UN building in the central city of Deir El-Balah was hit by “explosive ordnance,” the agency said.
“This was not an accident,” UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said, adding that “attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law.”
At least 280 UN employees have been killed since the start of the war, according to the UN chief.
UK foreign minister David Lammy said on X he was “appalled” by the incident, which the NGO Mines Advisory Group said injured a British aid worker.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory blamed Israel, which denied striking the compound and later said the circumstances were being investigated.
Thousands of Israeli protesters massed in Jerusalem, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of resuming strikes on Gaza without regard for the safety of the remaining hostages.
“We want him to know that the most important issue is to get the hostages back,” said 67-year-old Nehama Krysler.
The war began with Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
The Gaza civil defense agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Wednesday that at least 470 people had been killed in the territory since Israel resumed large-scale air strikes overnight from Monday to Tuesday.
The agency reported 14 members of the same family killed in an Israeli strike in the north.
As of Monday, before the intense strikes resumed, the overall death toll in Gaza since the start of the war stood at more than 48,570, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Israel launches a ground operation to retake part of a key corridor in northern Gaza
- Israel used the Netzarim corridor as a military zone which bisected northern Gaza from the south.
DEIR AL-BALAH: Israel said Wednesday it launched a “limited ground operation” in northern Gaza to retake part of a corridor that bisects the territory, and the country’s defense minister warned that the army plans to step up the attacks that shattered a two-month ceasefire “with an intensity that you have not seen.”
The military said it had retaken part of the Netzarim corridor, which bisects northern Gaza from the south and from where it had withdrawn as part of the ceasefire with Hamas that began in January.
Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Palestinians in Gaza that the army would again order evacuations from combat zones soon, and that its attacks against Hamas would become more fierce if dozens of hostages held for more than 17 months weren’t freed.
The move appeared to deepen a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza, which shattered a ceasefire with Hamas.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the strikes early Tuesday. It said another 678 people have been wounded.
The military says it only strikes militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. Gaza’s Health Ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The military said in a statement that as part of the new offensive, it struck dozens of militants and militant sites on Wednesday, including the command center of a Hamas battalion.
The war in Gaza, which was paused in January by an internationally-mediated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, has been among the deadliest conflicts ever for humanitarian workers, according to the UN.
The resumption of fighting launched by Israel early Tuesday risks plunging the region back into all-out war. It came weeks after the end of the first phase of the ceasefire, during which Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages for prisoners and were set to negotiate an extension to the truce that was meant to bring about an eventual end to the war.
But those negotiations never got off the ground. Hamas has demanded that Israel stick to the terms of the initial ceasefire deal, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. Israel, which has vowed to defeat Hamas, has put forward a new proposal that would extend the truce and free more hostages held by Hamas, without a commitment to end the war.
Israel says it intercepted missile launched from Yemen
Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen early on Thursday as hostilities with the Houthis intensified, amid US President Donald Trump’s threats to punish Iran over its perceived support for the Yemeni militant group.
Sirens sounded across several areas in Israel after the projectile was fired, the military said. The Israeli police said sirens were heard in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“A missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF prior to crossing into Israeli territory. Sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol,” the Israeli military said in a statement, referring to its air force.
Israel’s ambulance service said no serious injuries were reported.
Yemen’s Houthi militants, undeterred by waves of US strikes since Saturday, fired a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesperson said in a televised statement.
The group has recently vowed to escalate their attacks, including those targeting Israel, in response to the US campaign.
US strikes which began on Saturday over the Houthis’ attacks against Red Sea shipping are the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. The US attacks have killed at least 31 people.
Trump also threatened on Monday to hold Iran accountable for any future Houthi attacks, warning of severe consequences. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the Houthis were independent and took their own strategic and operational decisions.
On Tuesday, the Houthis said they had fired a ballistic missile toward Israel and would expand their range of targets in that country in coming days in retaliation for renewed Israeli airstrikes in Gaza after weeks of relative calm.
The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
The Houthis are part of what has been called the “Axis of Resistance” — an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all backed by Iran.
UK demands transparent probe of Israel strike on Gaza UN building
- “Appalled a UN compound in Gaza was hit this morning,” Lammy wrote on X
LONDON: Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy on Wednesday called for a transparent investigation into an Israeli air strike on a UN building in Gaza.
“Appalled a UN compound in Gaza was hit this morning,” Lammy wrote on X. “This incident must be investigated transparently and those responsible held to account.”
Thousands join anti-government rally in Jerusalem
- Relatives of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza joined the rally outside the parliament in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: Thousands of protesters massed in Jerusalem on Wednesday, chanting slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who they accuse of undermining democracy and resuming Gaza strikes without regard for hostages.
Protesters shouted “You are the head, and you’re to blame” as well as “The blood is on your hands” at the demonstration near parliament, the largest to take place in Jerusalem for months.
The demonstration was organized by anti-Netanyahu opposition groups protesting the premier’s move to sack Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency.
Following Netanyahu’s announcement to dismiss Bar, which threatened to trigger political crisis, Israel launched a wave of overnight strikes on Gaza, by far the deadliest since the start of a fragile ceasefire in January.
Relatives of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza joined the rally outside the parliament in Jerusalem.
“We hope all people from Israel will join this movement and we will not stop until we restore democracy and freedom for the hostages,” said Zeev Berar, 68, from Tel Aviv.
“At this rate we won’t have a country left, not a democratic one. It will be a dictatorship,” student Roni Sharon, 18, told AFP.
Some in the crowd brandished banners reading: “We are all hostages.”
Relatives of the hostages in the Gaza Strip have said the decision to resume strikes could “sacrifice” their loved ones.
Of the 251 hostages seized during the unprecedented October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The demonstrators in Jerusalem also accuse Netanyahu of using the war against Hamas to distract from domestic political concerns.
The prime minister has so far refused to set up a national commission of inquiry into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, while his bid to dismiss Bar threatened to plunge Israel back into deep political crisis.
Netanyahu’s government recently also moved to oust Israel’s attorney general and government judiciary adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, a fierce defendant of the judiciary’s independence.
A 2023 judicial reform project aimed at curbing the supreme court’s powers fractured the country and sparked major protests — before coming to an abrupt halt with Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“The last two years have been a nightmare for us,” said Yael Baron, 55, from the city of Modiin.
“I feel as though we are in the 99th minute and time is running out to save the country, the oxygen is running out for us, like democracy is running out.”
