JEDDAH: Saudi municipalities have ramped up efforts to monitor compliance with anti-COVID-19 health and safety measures.
The municipality of Jeddah carried out 9,890 inspection tours of commercial centers and facilities, identifying 94 violations. Authorities closed 68 commercial outlets for breaching protocols.
The Eastern Province municipality also carried out 9,778 inspection tours in shopping malls, commercial centers and stores. It issued penalties to 555 businesses.
The violations included noncompliance with social distancing and mask-wearing, leniency in measuring the temperature of customers, overcrowding issues, and a failure to effectively use the Tawakkalna app.
The app was launched last year to help track COVID-19 cases and has been updated to show vaccination information, including an individual’s status, such as vaccinated or infected. It now functions as a “COVID-19 passport.”
Municipalities urged all commercial facilities to abide by regulations to ensure public safety and prevent the spread of the disease. Authorities have urged members of the public to report any suspected health breaches by phoning the 940 call center number or by contacting authorities through the Balady app.
COVID-19 protocol violations: 68 outlets shut in Jeddah, 555 shops fined in Eastern Province
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COVID-19 protocol violations: 68 outlets shut in Jeddah, 555 shops fined in Eastern Province
- The violations included noncompliance with social distancing and mask-wearing, leniency in measuring the temperature of customers, overcrowding issues, and a failure to effectively use the Tawakkalna app
Orthodox Christians mark a somber Christmas in Gaza
- In the courtyard of the church, which was partially destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, the destruction that has devastated much of Gaza is clear in the surrounding bombed-out buildings
GAZA CITY: Orthodox Christians marked a somber Christmas on Tuesday in the war-torn Gaza Strip, with worshippers saying there would be no gifts for children and no joy during this year’s holiday.
In the richly decorated Church of Saint Porphyrius in the heart of Gaza City, as fighting raged across the Palestinian territory, around a dozen members of the Orthodox Christian community gathered for the annual morning service.
Sitting in the wooden pews, older men and women joined Archbishop Alexios of Tiberias in lighting candles and praying for friends and family and for an end to the now 15-month-old war.
Around 1,100 Christians from various denominations remain in Gaza amid the fighting, sparked by militant Palestinian group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Holidays are limited to prayers only, with no gifts for children, no joy or any signs of joy for children on this holiday,” Ramez Al-Suri told AFP.
“We hope and ask all countries to help bring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
“We have been at war for 15 months and we in the Christian community always ask for peace and all our prayers are for love and peace for all and for the war to end as soon as possible,”
he said.
In the courtyard of the church, which was partially destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, the destruction that has devastated much of Gaza is
clear in the surrounding bombed-out buildings.
Standing outside the church, Fuad Ayyad said “we wake up every minute to bombing, massacres, genocide or the martyrdom of a citizen.”
In the 2023 strike that hit the church, 18 Palestinian Christians were killed, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
“Today we welcome the holiday with joy, but a diminished joy as Christians,” Ayyad said, adding, “sadness remains present and dominant within the Western and Eastern churches and within the Palestinian community whether Muslim or Christian.”
On Dec. 25, when the Catholic and other churches celebrated Christmas, Pope Francis called in his annual address for “arms to be silenced” around the world and appealed for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.
He also denounced the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli data.
Since then, Israel’s military offensive has killed 45,885 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Gaza officials say children killed as Israel hits Khan Yunis
- Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area
- Two people were killed when a strike hit a car in Khan Yunis
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza health officials said a wave of Israeli strikes hit the territory’s southern district of Khan Yunis on Tuesday evening, killing a dozen people, seven of them children.
At least five strikes targeted parts of Khan Yunis, including one in the Al-Mawasi area where thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in tents along the coast.
Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry reported.
A witness told AFP that several tents caught fire from the strike, which also wounded more than 20 people.
Five people, including three children, were killed and several wounded in a strike on a house in Khan Yunis, Gaza’s civil defense agency said.
Two people were killed when a strike hit a car in Khan Yunis, while another two were killed when an apartment was hit.
There was no immediate comment from the military about the latest strikes.
They came as mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States brokered negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Doha on a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
In recent months, the Israeli military has focused its offensive on northern districts of Gaza, particularly the town of Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp.
“We won’t stop. We will bring them (Hamas) to the point where they understand that they must return all hostages,” Israel’s army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told troops during a visit to Jabalia late on Monday.
“They see, every single day, what you are doing to them, and they understand that this is becoming unbearable,” he said, according to a statement released by the military.
During their October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the war, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 45,885 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Harris will travel to Asia, Mideast and Europe during her final week in office
- Harris plans to visit Changi Naval Base in Singapore and meet with leaders of the city-state
- The next stop is Bahrain, where Harris will visit the headquarters of the US 5th Fleet
WASHINGTON: Vice President Kamala Harris plans to close out her term with an around-the-world trip making stops in Singapore, Bahrain and Germany, her office said.
The trip, which is scheduled to last from Jan. 13 to Jan. 17, will be a final opportunity for Harris to address US foreign policy challenges before Donald Trump takes office. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is expected to join the vice president.
Although she has not disclosed her next steps after losing the presidential election, the expansive travel suggests that Harris might want to continue playing a role on the global stage. There’s also speculation that Harris could run for governor of her home state of California.
Dean Lieberman, Harris’ deputy national security adviser, said in a written statement that “the vice president felt it important to spend some of her final days in office thanking and engaging directly with US servicemembers deployed overseas, which as she has said, has been one of her greatest privileges as vice president.”
There are US troops based at all three of Harris’ stops.
Harris plans to visit Changi Naval Base in Singapore and meet with leaders of the city-state. Singapore’s location in the Indo-Pacific region makes it a key partner for addressing issues involving China, including freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
The next stop is Bahrain, where Harris will visit the headquarters of the US 5th Fleet. The fleet has been engaged in efforts to protect Israel from Iranian attacks and regional shipping activity from the Houthis in Yemen.
Harris’ final stop will be Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, home to a deployment of US Air Force fighter jets. She plans to talk about the importance of NATO in deterring Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Harris has previously visited Germany and Singapore. Bahrain will be the 22nd country she’s visited during her term.
“The vice president continues to believe in a strong US global leadership role because it benefits the security and prosperity of the American people, and she will reaffirm this throughout her trip,” Lieberman said.
Israeli forces kill 31 Palestinians in Gaza onslaught, 3 in West Bank
- Qatar confirms ‘technical meetings’ on ceasefire ongoing
CAIRO, DOHA: The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that 31 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 45,885 as the war entered its 16th month.
The ministry also said that at least 109,196 people had been wounded in the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian group’s Oct, 7, 2023 attack.
Separately, Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in stepped-up operations across the occupied West Bank following the killing of three Israelis near a Jewish settlement. The Palestinian Health Ministry said an 18-year-old was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Tamun, a town northeast of Nablus city, while a 40-year-old was shot dead in the nearby village of Taluza.
FASTFACT
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45,885 Palestinians and wounded 109,196 since Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli military said that after a clash with militants in the Tamun area, its war planes struck and killed two fighters. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA also reported a second Palestinian killed in a strike in Tamun.
The Israeli military said a third militant was killed in a firefight in Taluza and several were arrested in various incidents. Hamas’s armed Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the man killed in Taluza was one of its fighters.
WAFA meanwhile reported revenge attacks by Jewish settlers, who it said had set fire to a vehicle overnight and attacked a Palestinian village.
It said the Israeli military was setting up more checkpoints and road closures, and conducting increased incursions and raids.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities renewed a closure order for Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the West Bank.
Israeli soldiers posted the extension order on the entrance of the building housing Al Jazeera’s offices in central Ramallah.
The extension applies from Dec. 22 and lasts 45 days. In September, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah office and issued an initial 45-day closure order.
Talks aimed at cementing a truce in Gaza are ongoing, with “technical meetings” taking place between the parties, mediator Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said.
“The technical meetings are still happening between both sides,” ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said, referring to meetings with lower-level officials on the details of an agreement. “There are no principal meetings taking place at the moment.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end the devastating conflict in Gaza.
Ansari said there were “a lot of issues that are being discussed” in the ongoing meetings, but refused to go into details “to protect the integrity of the negotiations.”
Hamas said at the end of last week that indirect negotiations in Doha had resumed, while Israel said it had authorized negotiators to continue the talks in the Qatari capital.
A previous round of mediation in December ended with both sides blaming the other for the impasse.
Bangladesh’s ailing former premier Khaleda Zia leaves country for treatment in London
- Her ailments include liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems, her physician says
- Khaleda Zia was sentenced to 17 years in jail under Hasina’s rule following two corruption cases
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia left the nation’s capital for London on Tuesday for medical treatment, said one of her advisers.
Zahiruddin Swapan, an adviser to Zia, told The Associated Press by phone that the three-time former premier and head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport late Tuesday on an air ambulance.
“Our senior leaders left the airport seeing her off,” Swapan said.
Her ailments include liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems, according to her physician.
Zia left behind a South Asian nation grappling with uncertainty over its political future after her archrival, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was ousted in a student-led mass uprising in August. Zia and Hasina are the most influential political leaders in Bangladesh.
An interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is running the country and plans to hold elections in December this year or in the first half of 2026.
Zia was sentenced to 17 years in jail under Hasina’s rule following two corruption cases stemming from 2001-2006 when she was prime minister. Her supporters say the charges against her were politically motivated, an allegation Hasina’s administration denied. Under Yunus, Zia was acquitted in one of the cases in November and an appeal in the second case was being heard on Tuesday.
Zia, 79, was freed from prison on bail under Hasina through a government order and had been undergoing medical treatment in Bangladesh. But Hasina’s administration did not allow her to travel abroad for treatment despite requests seeking approval.
The special air ambulance was sent by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Hundreds of her supporters gathered outside her residence in the city’s upscale Gulshan area to see her off.
Zia’s motorcade took nearly three hours to cross about a 10-kilometer (6-mile) stretch of road to get to the airport from her residence in Dhaka’s Gulshan area as thousands of her desperate supporters greeted her on the way, creating traffic chaos. Her hours-long journey to the airport was broadcast live by television stations.
Enamul Haque Chowdhury, a close aide of Zia, told reporters that the air ambulance had arrived from Doha to take her to London, where her eldest son and heir apparent Tarique Rahman has been in exile since 2007. Rahman is the acting chairman of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and is expected to lead the party toward the election. The country’s dynastic politics have long focused on the families of Hasina and Zia.
Zia is the wife of late President Ziaur Rahman, a former military chief who rose to prominence during years of tumultuous politics after Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader, was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975. Zia’s husband was also killed in 1981 in another military coup after he formed his political party and ruled the country as president for three years. Hasina’s father led Bangladesh’s independence war against Pakistan, aided by India, in 1971.
Zia’s personal physician, A.Z.M. Zahid Hossain, said Qatar’s emir arranged the special aircraft with medical facilities for the former prime minister, whose ailments include liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems.
Her departure follows dramatic political developments since last August, when Hasina’s 15-year rule ended. Hasina fled into exile in India as she and her close aides faced charges of killing hundreds of protesters during a mass protest movement that began in July.
Zia’s departure could create a symbolic vacuum in the country’s politics amid efforts by a student group that led the anti-Hasina protest to form a new political party. In the absence of Hasina and her secular Bangladesh Awami League party, the rise of Islamist political parties and other Islamist groups has been visible in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.
Zia’s party has been bargaining with the Yunus-led government for an election sometime this year. Yunus said his government wants to make some major reforms before the election.
