DUBAI: A “limited fire” broke out on Monday at the Kuwait Oil Co’s Greater Burgan field, injuring two workers but with no impact on production, the state news agency KUNA reported, citing a company statement.
The fire was quickly brought under control, it said.
Greater Burgan is Kuwait’s biggest and one of the world’s largest producing fields, according to Wood Mackenzie.
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Kuwait Oil reports ‘limited fire’ at Burgan field
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Kuwait Oil reports ‘limited fire’ at Burgan field
- Production was not impacted
Emir of Qatar discusses ties in phone call with India PM Modi
- The leaders shared perspectives on regional and international developments of mutual concern
LONDON: The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani discussed ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a phone call on Tuesday.
The leaders discussed ways to strengthen the relationship between Doha and New Delhi. They also shared perspectives on regional and international developments of mutual concern, according to the Qatar News Agency.
Sheikh Tamim visited India last February to enhance bilateral collaboration between the two countries in areas such as trade, investment, energy, and finance.
Attack on MSF hospital in South Sudan was deliberate, UN rights commission says
- “This was not a tragic accident. It was a calculated, unlawful attack on a protected medical facility,” Sooka
- “The aerial bombing of the MSF hospital in Old Fangak is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”
NAIROBI: A bombing attack on a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital and pharmacy in South Sudan over the weekend was deliberate and may amount to a war crime, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said on Tuesday.
MSF said on Saturday that at least seven people had been killed and 20 wounded in South Sudan’s Fangak county when a bomb was dropped on the pharmacy, burning it to the ground and damaging the hospital, followed by another drone attack on Old Fangak, a town in the Greater Upper Nile region.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the heels of air strikes and heavy clashes in the region in recent months between national forces and an ethnic militia allegedly allied with First Vice President Riek Machar.
“This was not a tragic accident. It was a calculated, unlawful attack on a protected medical facility,” Yasmin Sooka, chair of the commission, said in a statement.
“The aerial bombing of the MSF hospital in Old Fangak is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime ...
“Targeting medical facilities and services violates the Geneva Conventions and represents a direct assault on foundations of humanitarian action that are intended to protect civilians in conflict zones.”
Information Minister Michael Makuei did not respond to requests for comment.
South Sudan has officially been at peace since a deal in 2018 ended a five-year civil war between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and fighters loyal to Machar.
But the house arrest of Machar in March on accusations of trying to start a rebellion has sparked international concern that conflict could reignite.
Druze near Damascus resist demand to turn in arms as tensions boil
- Such violence threatens the new government’s control of Syria
- Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas
JARAMANA, Syria: Druze residents near Syrian Arab Republic’s capital are resisting a demand by the Islamist-led government to hand in their light weapons, saying authorities have yet to address fears of new attacks by Sunni Muslim militants after days of sectarian violence.
Clashes last week pitted Sunni fighters against armed Druze residents of the town of Jaramana southeast of Damascus, later spreading to another district near the capital and then south to the predominantly Druze province of Sweida.
Such violence threatens the new government’s control of Syria, where armed gangs are attacking religious minorities and Israel is stepping up its military intervention under the banner of protecting the Druze community.
Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas as enlisted members of Syria’s security forces, but this week asked that all weapons held by residents of these areas be turned in to the state.
“We told them, as soon as there is a state capable of regulating its forces, we’ll have no problem handing in our weapons,” said Makram Obeid, a member of the Jaramana committee that is negotiating with the Syrian government.
Obeid said his committee had told government officials it would be better for them to focus on disarming the gangs now harassing minorities.
“It’s our right to be scared, because we saw what happened in other areas,” he told Reuters, an apparent reference to killings in March of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority to which former President Bashar Assad belongs.
It was the deadliest episode of sectarian violence in years in Syria, where a 14-year war ended last December when rebels toppled Assad, who fled to Russia.
“People want to feel safe. It’s enough to have (more than) 11 years of killing, strikes, and worries,” Obeid said. “And we’re coming to another phase that we thought, with the collapse of the regime, would leave us in a much better place. But until now, we don’t feel reassured.”
Fahad Haydar, a resident of Jaramana, echoed those fears.
“These weapons that are turned against us — that’s what we’re afraid of. If those weapons get handed in, then we’ll hand in ours,” he told Reuters.
SEEKING GUARANTEES
Mowaffaq Abu Shash, a Druze cleric in Jaramana, said the Druze had already compromised enough.
“We take one step, they ask for a second. We take the second step, they ask for a third,” he said. “We ask for a guarantee that what happened on the coast will not happen to us.”
One influential Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hajjri, has called for international intervention to protect his community from Syria’s leaders, whom he has branded “terrorists.”
The Druze, an Arab minority sect who practice a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel has vowed to protect Syria’s Druze militarily if they face threats.
Last week’s violence was ignited by a voice recording purportedly cursing the Prophet Muhammad, which Sunni militants suspect was made by a Druze. More than a dozen people were killed in Jaramana before the violence spread west and south.
It also drew in Israel, which carried out a drone strike on what it said were fighters preparing to attack Druze in the town of Sahnaya, west of Jaramana. A Syrian security source told Reuters one member of the security forces was killed in the strike.
As the clashes reached Sweida province, Israel bombed near the presidential palace in Damascus — the clearest sign yet of its hostility toward Syria’s new leaders.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa once headed a branch of Al-Qaeda before renouncing ties to the group in 2016.
Israeli strikes hit Yemeni capital Sanaa
- “We urge you to immediately evacuate the area of the airport,” Adraee wrote
- Israel’s military targeted Hodeida on Monday with airstrikes
JERUSALEM: The Houthi group in Yemen said Tuesday that Israeli strikes had hit the capital, Sanaa, shortly after Israel’s military issued a warning for people to evacuate the area of Yemen’s international airport.
There was no immediate information on any casualties.
The Houthis’ satellite news channel said the strikes had hit Sanaa International Airport. They came a day after Israel launched airstrikes Monday night in retaliation for a missile strike the previous day on Israel’s international airport.
“We urge you to immediately evacuate the area of the airport and to warn anyone nearby to distance themselves immediately,” spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on social media, attaching a map of Sanaa International Airport. “Failure to evacuate the area endangers your lives.”
#عاجل للمرة الثانية خلال يوم واحد: سلاح الجو يهاجم أهدافًا إرهابية لنظام #الحوثي الارهابي في اليمن
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) May 6, 2025
هاجم سلاح الجو قبل قليل ودمر بنى تحتية تابعة لنظام الحوثي الإرهابي في المطار المركزي في صنعاء والذي سبّب في تعطيل عمل المطار بشكل كامل وذلك في أعقاب قيام تنظيم الحوثي الارهابي…
On Monday night, Israel targeted the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen’s Red Sea province of Hodeida, killing at least one person and wounding 35. The Houthis’ media office said at least six strikes hit the crucial Hodeida port. Others hit a cement factory in the district of Bajil, 55 kilometers (34 miles) northeast of Hodeida, the Houthis said.
The Houthis on Sunday launched a missile that struck an access road near Israel’s main airport near Tel Aviv, briefly halting flights and commuter traffic. Four people were lightly injured.
It was the first time a missile struck the grounds of Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion, since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza. It prompted a flurry of flight cancelations.
The Houthis have targeted Israel throughout the war in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, raising their profile as the last member of Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” capable of launching regular attacks on Israel.
The US military under President Donald Trump has launched an intensified campaign of airstrikes targeting the Houthis since March 15.
While most missiles launched by the Houthis have been intercepted, some have penetrated Israel’s missile defense systems, causing damage.
Israel has repeatedly struck against the Houthis in Yemen.
It struck Hodeida and its oil infrastructure in July after a Houthi drone attack killed one person and wounded 10 in Tel Aviv. In September, Israel struck Hodeida again, killing at least four people after a missile targeted Ben Gurion airport as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was returning to the country. In December, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in Hodeida.
Gazans desperately need food, water — ‘they’re getting bombs’: UN
GENEVA: The UN on Tuesday accused Israel of trying to “weaponize” the flow of aid into Gaza, leaving the population desperate for food and water while delivering them “bombs” instead.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA decried the worsening situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory after nearly nine weeks of a total Israeli blockade on Gaza.
“The bottom line is that there’s no aid to distribute anymore because the aid operation has been strangled... There’s no more to give,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva.
In Gaza, “there’s a desperate need for food getting in; they’re getting bombs,” he said.
“They need water; they’re getting bombs. They need health care; they’re getting bombs.”
He voiced outrage at Israel’s recent verbal update to representatives of a grouping of around 15 UN agencies and 200 NGOs indicating plans to “shut down the existing aid distribution system” that the organizations run in Gaza.
“The Israelis have asked them to instead deliver supplies through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military,” Laerke said.
The UN had flatly rejected that proposal, he said, stressing that such a plan would “not live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independent delivery of aid.”
Aid, he insisted, must be given “based on needs and nothing else.”
“It appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid,” he said, adding that the proposed system seemed “designed to further control and restrict supplies, which is the opposite of what is needed.”
Instead, what was required to alleviate the suffering was for Israel to allow border crossings to reopen and for life-saving aid to go through, said Laerke.
“We have aid pre-positioned outside of Gaza, ready to go in,” he added.
Colleagues on the ground were describing people “rummaging through garbage trying to find something edible,” he said, slamming the “harsh, brutal, inhuman reality” in the territory.
He said that despite the towering challenges in Gaza since the war erupted 18 months ago, the UN and its partners have largely managed to deliver aid, provide health care, and roll out vaccination campaigns.
“The great frustration of all this is that it is possible, and it can be done,” he said.
Laerke’s comments came a day after Israel’s military said expanded operations in Gaza would include displacing “most” of its residents, after the country’s security cabinet approved a plan that an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s inhabitants have already been displaced, often multiple times, since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“Forced relocations of people: they’re not helpful, obviously,” Laerke said.
“You need to know where people are in order to be able to provide aid to them... it’s another blow.”
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