Morocco bid to free Rayan, 5, from well reaches nerve-wracking final stages

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Updated 06 February 2022
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Morocco bid to free Rayan, 5, from well reaches nerve-wracking final stages

  • Little Rayan fell down the well on Tuesday evening
  • As rescuers dig, Rayan is being supplied with food and oxygen

DUBAI: Moroccan rescuers were only meters away Saturday in their nerve-wracking but increasingly urgent effort to rescue Rayan, a five-year-old boy trapped underground whom they hope to find alive.

For five days the complex and risky earth-moving operation has gripped residents of the North African kingdom and even sparked sympathy in neighboring Algeria, a regional rival.

Abdelhadi Tamrani, an official in charge of the operation, said he had “big hopes” of pulling the boy out alive from the well.

But the more time that passes, the more fears arise over his condition.

Rayan accidentally fell about 32 meters (35 yards) down the tight, empty shaft near his home in the remote village of Ighrane in Chefchaouen province on Tuesday afternoon.




Moroccan authorities and Moroccan civil defense members work to rescue five-year-old child Rayan trapped in a deep well for over two days in the northern province of Chefchaouen near Bab Berred on February 3, 2022. (File/AFP)

Rescue crews, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, excavated the surrounding red earth down to the level where the boy is trapped and are now digging horizontally toward him.

They face a risk of landslides, and on Saturday they had to maneuver around a large rock.

In darkness, crews moved a heavy pipe into position in the area. One rescuer lugged what appeared to be a jackhammer.

“We’re almost there,” said one of the operation’s leaders, Abdesalam Makoudi, adding “tiredness is kicking in, but the whole rescue team is hanging on.”




Little Rayan fell down the well on Tuesday evening. (Twitter user)

According to Al Arabiya news channel the only way to reach the boy is by digging a hole and pulling him from the opposite side of the well through which he fell.  

Abdel Hadi Tamrani, head of Civil Protection on site, told Arab News that due to the crumbling of the earth around the shaft, teams are forced to take a break from time to time.

“The more we dig the greater the risk of crumbling, so to ensure the safety of the excavator operators, we have to take breaks at times,” he said.

“It is a very sensitive operation, we are in the process of securing the lower part of the cavity before sending a special team which will aim to dig a hole about 4 meters horizontally, to reach the location where Rayan is.

“The main challenge we have now is not to put the lives of our teams at risk.”




Teams using machinery to excavate the ground in order to free the boy. (Reuters via Al3omk.com)

When asked about his condition, Tamrani said Rayan was not eatring or drinking and might have fallen into a coma, but “still had hope he is alive,” adding that a Royal Armed Forces helicopter was available to transport the child as quickly as possible to the nearest medical unit.

Recalling the events of Tuesday evening, Rayan’s mother told local media she had looked for him everywhere after his disappearance. 

“When I did not find him, I understood that he had fallen into the well located near the house,” she said.

The young child's father told Al-Arabiya that the last time he saw Rayan through surveillance cameras was Thursday afternoon.

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People have taken to social media platforms expressing their support.

Moroccan footballer and PSG star Achraf Hakimi posted his support, alongside emojis of a broken heart and hands together in prayer.

“I want everyone to pray for this little five-year-old boy who fell into a very deep well and is still fighting to stay alive for 48 hours. Our heart is with him,” a twitter user said.

Another twitter user said: “Don’t worry Rayan. Angels is with you and Allah with you and all the world is with you. We love you we waiting to see you.”

Rescue worker Imad Fahmi told local media that he was able to go down 25 meters into the well but could not continue. 

“As for little Ryan, I tried to talk to him to get his reaction, but I only heard his breathing and his cries of distress, as if he was suffering from an injury. He was 10-12 meters from me, but the space was very tight. I tried to dig with my feet to reach it, but to no avail. At one point I couldn’t go any further,” he added.

Lead rescuer Abdelhabi Temrani told Al Oula television that the diameter of the well was less than 45 centimeters.

Baitas said the nature of the soil meant it was too dangerous to try to widen the hole, meaning major excavations around it were the only solution.


Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

Updated 39 sec ago
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Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

VIENNA: UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a “concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life.”
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.
“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.
“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,” she added.
The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.
Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.
When the commission’s last report in March found Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.
In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.
“Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” it said.
The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.
“Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,” it said.
“Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,” the commission added.

Five French activists from Gaza-bound boat to face Israeli justice: France

Updated 4 sec ago
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Five French activists from Gaza-bound boat to face Israeli justice: France

PARIS: Five French activists aboard a boat carrying aid bound for Gaza that was intercepted by Israeli security forces were set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. “One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”


Israeli navy strikes Yemen’s port of Hodeidah, army radio says

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israeli navy strikes Yemen’s port of Hodeidah, army radio says

DUBAI: The Israeli navy carried out attacks on Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Israeli army radio said on Tuesday, in an ongoing campaign that usually involves airstrikes.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said Israel targeted the docks of Al Hodeidah port with two strikes.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The strikes come after the Israeli military on Monday urged the evacuation of the Houthi-controlled ports of Ras Isa, Hodeidah, and Salif.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
Israel has severely weakened other allies of Iran in the region — Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Tehran-backed Houthis and pro-Iranian armed groups in Iraq are still standing. 


Trump must tell Netanyahu ‘enough is enough’: ex-Israeli PM

Updated 10 June 2025
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Trump must tell Netanyahu ‘enough is enough’: ex-Israeli PM

  • US President Donald Trump should tell Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu “enough is enough,” a former Israeli prime minister told AFP,

PARIS: US President Donald Trump should tell Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu “enough is enough,” a former Israeli prime minister told AFP, denouncing the continuation of the war in Gaza as a “crime” and insisting a two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict.
Ehud Olmert, prime minister between 2006-2009, said in an interview in Paris that the United States has more influence on the Israeli government “than all the other powers put together” and that Trump can “make a difference.”
He said Netanyahu “failed completely” as a leader by not preventing the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the war.
He said while the international community accepted Israel’s right to self-defense after October 7, this changed when Netanyahu spurned chances to end the war in March and instead ramped up operations.
Netanyahu “has his personal interests which are prioritized over what may be the national interests,” Olmert charged.
Analysts say Netanyahu fears that if he halts the war, hard-line members of his coalition will walk out, collapsing the government and forcing elections he could lose.
“If there is a war which is not going to save hostages, which cannot really eradicate more of what they did already against Hamas and if, as a result of this, soldiers are getting killed, hostages maybe get killed and innocent Palestinians are killed, then to my mind this is a crime,” said Olmert.
“And this is something that should be condemned and not accepted,” he said.
Trump should summon Netanyahu to the White House Oval Office and facing cameras, tell the Israeli leader: “’Bibi: enough is enough’,” Olmert said, using the premier’s nickname.
“This is it. I hope he (Trump) will do it. There is nothing that cannot happen with Trump. I don’t know if this will happen. We have to hope and we have to encourage him,” said Olmert.
Despite occasional expressions of concern about the situation in Gaza, the US remains Israel’s key ally, using its veto at the UN Security Council and approving billions of dollars in arms sales.


Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants abducted 251 hostages, 54 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 54,880 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
Along with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al-Qidwa, Olmert is promoting a plan to end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to create a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Both sides would swap 4.4 percent of each other’s land to the other, according to the plan, with Israel receiving some West Bank territory occupied by Israeli settlers and a future Palestinian state territory that is currently part of Israel.
Ahead of a meeting this month in New York co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state, Olmert said that such a plan is “practical, is doable, is relevant, is valid and is real.”
Olmert spent over a year in prison from 2016-2017 after being convicted in corruption scandals that ended his political career and efforts to forge peace.
A longtime political rival of Netanyahu even though they both emerged from the same Likud right-wing party, he also faces an uphill struggle to convince Israeli society where support for a Palestinian state, let alone land swaps, is at a low ebb after October 7.
“It requires a leadership on both sides,” said Olmert. “We are trying to raise international awareness and the awareness of our own societies that this is not something lost but offers a future of hope.”
Al-Qidwa, who is due to promote the plan alongside Olmert at a conference organized by the Jean-Jaures Foundation think tank in Paris on Tuesday, told AFP the blueprint was the “only game in town and the only doable solution.”
But he said societies in Israel and the Palestinian territories still had to be convinced, partly due to the continuation of the war.
“The moment the war comes to an end we will see a different kind of thinking. We have to go forward with acceptance of the co-existence of the two sides.”
But he added there could be no hope of “serious progress with the current Israeli government and current Palestinian leadership” under the aging president Mahmud Abbas, in office now for two decades.
“You have to get rid of both. And that is going to happen,” he said, labelling the Palestinian leadership as “corrupt and inept.”


UN says most flour delivered in Gaza looted or taken by starving people

Updated 10 June 2025
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UN says most flour delivered in Gaza looted or taken by starving people

  • Experts warn Gaza is at risk of famine, with the rate of young children suffering acute malnutrition nearly tripling
  • According to World Food Programme guidelines, 4,600 metric tons of flour would provide roughly eight days’ worth of bread for Gaza’s 2 million residents, based on a standard daily ration of 300 grams per person

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said on Monday that it has only been able to bring minimal flour into Gaza since Israel lifted an aid blockade three weeks ago and that has mostly been looted by armed gangs or taken by starving Palestinians.
The organization has transported 4,600 metric tons of wheat flour into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, the only entry point Israel allows it to use, Deputy UN spokesperson Fahan Haq told reporters.
Haq said aid groups in Gaza estimate that between 8,000 and 10,000 metric tons of wheat flour were needed to give each family in Gaza a bag of flour and “ease the pressure on markets and reduce desperation.”

HIGHLIGHTS

• US-backed GHF says has given out total 11.4 million meals

• UN calls for more supplies to be let into Gaza

• Gazans at risk of famine

“Most of it was taken by desperate, starving people before the supplies reached their destinations. In some cases, the supplies were looted by armed gangs,” Haq said.
According to World Food Programme guidelines, 4,600 metric tons of flour would provide roughly eight days’ worth of bread for Gaza’s 2 million residents, based on a standard daily ration of 300 grams per person.
Haq called for Israel to let in far more aid via multiple crossings and routes.
The UN has mostly delivered flour along with limited medical and nutrition items since Israel lifted the 11-week blockade in mid-May. Experts warn Gaza is at risk of famine, with the rate of young children suffering acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Israel and the United States want the UN to work through the controversial new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but the UN has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement.
Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of stealing aid from the UN-led operations, which the militants deny.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics firms to operate. It began operations in Gaza on May 26 and said on Monday so far it has given out 11.4 million meals.
Israel makes the UN offload aid on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, where it then has to be picked by the UN and aid groups already in Gaza. The UN has accused Israel of regularly denying access requests.