ANKARA, Turkey: A new 6.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday killed three people and injured more than 200 in parts of Turkey laid waste two weeks ago by a massive quake that killed tens of thousands, authorities said. More buildings collapsed, trapping some people, while scores of injuries were recorded in neighboring Syria too.
Monday's earthquake was centered in the town of Defne, in Turkey's Hatay province, one the worst-hit regions in the magnitude 7.8 quake that struck on Feb. 6. It was felt in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel and as far away as Egypt, and followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 temblor.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and 213 injured. Search and rescue efforts were underway in three collapsed buildings where six people were believed trapped.
In Hatay, police rescued one person trapped inside a three-story building and were trying to reach three others inside, HaberTurk television reported. It said those trapped included movers helping people shift furniture and other belongings from the building that was damaged in the massive quake.
Syria's state news agency, SANA, reported that six people were injured in Aleppo by falling debris. The White Helmets, northwest Syria’s civil defense organization, reported more than 130 injuries, most of them non-life threatening, including fractures and cases of people fainting from fear, while a number of buildings in areas already damaged by the quake collapsed.
The Feb. 6 quake killed nearly 45,000 people in both countries — the vast majority of them in Turkey, where more than a million and a half people are in temporary shelters. Turkish authorities have recorded more than 6,000 aftershocks since.
HaberTurk journalists reporting from Hatay said they were jolted violently by Monday's quake and held onto to each other to avoid falling.
In the Turkish city of Adana, eyewitness Alejandro Malaver said people left homes for the streets, carrying blankets into their cars. Malaver said everyone is really scared and “no one wants to get back into their houses.”
Mehmet Salhaoglullari, from a village near Samandag, said he was eating at a restaurant when the building began to shake.
“We all threw ourselves outside and we continued to shake outside,” he said.
In the Syrian city of Idlib, frightened residents were preparing to sleep in parks and other public places, while fuel lines formed at gas stations as people attempted to get as far as possible from any buildings that might collapse.
The Syrian American Medical Society, which runs hospitals in northern Syria, said it had treated a number of patients — including a 7-year-old boy — who suffered heart attacks brought on by fear following the new quake.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Hatay earlier on Monday, and said his government would begin constructing close to 200,000 new homes in the quake-devastated region as early as next month.
Erdogan said the new buildings will be no taller than three or four stories, built on firmer ground and to higher standards and in consultation with “geophysics, geotechnical, geology and seismology professors” and other experts.
The Turkish leader said destroyed cultural monuments would be rebuilt in accordance with their “historic and cultural texture.”
Erdogan said around 1.6 million people are currently being housed in temporary shelters.
The Turkish disaster management agency AFAD on Monday raised the number of confirmed fatalities from the Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey to 41,156. That increased the overall death toll in both Turkey and Syria to 44,844.
Search and rescue operations for survivors have been called off in most of the quake zone, but AFAD chief Yunus Sezer said earlier that search teams were continuing their efforts in more than a dozen collapsed buildings — mostly in Hatay province.
There were no signs of anyone being alive under the rubble since three members of one family — a mother, father and 12-year-old boy — were extracted from a collapsed building in Hatay on Saturday. The boy later died.
Authorities said more than 110,000 buildings across 11 quake-hit Turkish provinces were either destroyed or so severely damaged by the Feb. 6 quake that they need to be torn down.
The European Union’s health agency warned Monday of the risk of disease outbreaks in the coming weeks. The Centre for Disease Prevention and Controls said that “food and water-borne diseases, respiratory infections and vaccine-preventable infections are a risk in the upcoming period, with the potential to cause outbreaks, particularly as survivors are moving to temporary shelters.”
“A surge of cholera cases in the affected areas is a significant possibility in the coming weeks,” it said, noting that authorities in northwestern Syria have reported thousands of cases of the disease since last September and a planned vaccination campaign was delayed due to the quake.
New quake hits battered Turkiye, Syria, three dead, hundreds hurt
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New quake hits battered Turkiye, Syria, three dead, hundreds hurt
- Monday’s quake, with magnitude of 6.3, was centered near southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon
- The Feb. 6 quake killed nearly 45,000 people in both countries, more than a million and a half people in Turkey in temporary shelters
Turkiye sacks 3 pro-Kurdish mayors for ‘terror ties’
ISTANBUL: Turkiye on Monday sacked three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeast on alleged “terrorism” charges, despite Ankara’s apparent desire to seek a rapprochement with the Kurdish community.
In a sweep, the mayors of the cities of Mardin and Batman as well as the Halfeti district in Sanliurfa province were all removed and replaced with government-appointed trustees, the Interior Ministry said.
All three belong to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party, and were elected in March’s local elections, when opposition candidates won in numerous towns and cities, including Istanbul.
Among those removed were Ahmet Turk, Mardin’s 82-year- old mayor, along with Batman mayor Gulistan Sonuk and Mehmet Karayilan in Halfeti.
The ministry outlined a string of allegations against them, frommembershipinanarmed group to disseminating propaganda for the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as PKK.
Since 1984, the PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state in which more than 40,000 people have died. It is blacklisted as a “terror” group by Turkiye and its Western allies.
Kurds make up around 20 percent of Turkiye’s overall population.
DEM swiftly denounced the moveas“amajorattackonthe Kurdish people’s right to vote and be elected.”
Red Cross launches international emergency appeal urging donors to provide resources for Lebanon
BEIRUT: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday launched an international emergency appeal asking donors to provide resources for Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
IFRC also called on all parties to protect paramedics in the conflict that has left thousands of people dead and wounded, many of them over the past six weeks.
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told The Associated Press in Beirut that “needs are just growing so fast.” He met with officials and toured shelters housing people displaced by the conflict.
The IFRC said its emergency appeal for 100 million Swiss Francs ($115.8 million) is aimed at helping Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross through the ongoing conflict.
The 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed more than 3,000 people, wounded over 13,000 in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of the displaced are staying in shelters around the small nation that is passing through a historic economic crisis.
In northern Israel, 68 soldiers and 41 civilians have been killed since October 2023, according to the prime minister’s office. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23, with intense Israeli airstrikes on south and east Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, leaving hundreds dead and leading to the displacement of nearly 1.2 million people.
Chapagain said people staying in community centers around the country need hygiene kits, non-food items, blankets and heaters as winter approaches. He added that even if the hostilities stop, it will take time for things to go back to normal and that is one of the reasons why the IFRC’s emergency appeal goes for two years.
“The global community needs to come together to find a political solution to the challenges this region has been facing for decades,” Chapagain said.
He said that more than 30 staff and volunteers globally have already been killed this year and dozens injured adding that many other organizations have also lost members of their staff.
“This is something unheard of many years ago,” he said about the 30 deaths, adding that among the countries where paramedics suffered most are Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Sudan.
In Lebanon, 17 members of the Lebanese Red Cross have been wounded since the conflict began while carrying out their rescue duties in different parts of Lebanon. Three of the 17 paramedics were wounded twice, according to IFRC.
“The Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems are protected,” said Chapagain.
Israeli military says sirens sounded in Eilat
- The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted a “vital target” in Eilat
BAGHDAD: Israeli military said on Tuesday that sirens were sounded in the Red Sea port city of Eilat.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted a “vital target” in Eilat by drones.
The Iraqi pro-Iran group has been launching attacks on Israel since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
UK humanitarian agency report exposes systematic life-threatening conditions for Palestinians in Gaza
- Findings underscore severe challenges facing Palestinian civilians during Israel’s war with Hamas
LONDON: A report released on Tuesday from Action for Humanity International, one of the UK’s leading humanitarian agencies operating in Gaza, reveals the conditions faced by internally displaced people after Israel’s displacement orders to Palestinian civilians.
The report claims that these orders, along with conditions in designated “humanitarian zones,” are creating life-threatening environments that amount to “systematic erasure.”
The findings underscore the severe challenges facing Palestinian civilians during Israel’s war with Hamas.
According to the survey, 15 percent of respondents were unable to evacuate due to disability or caregiving responsibilities, a reality compounded by the fact that 35 percent of people received less than an hour’s notice of evacuation orders.
The survey also found that 98 percent of respondents had been displaced several times, with nearly a quarter having been displaced 10 or more times in the past year.
In humanitarian zones conditions are reportedly dire.
According to the report, 73 percent of respondents described them as “poor” or “very poor,” with four out of five lacking sufficient access to food, and two-thirds unable to obtain clean drinking water. Additionally, 80 percent of respondents reported no access to adequate medical care.
Charles Lawley, director of communications and advocacy at AFH, criticized the treatment of Gaza’s civilians, saying that, in his view, the situation in Gaza amounted to “erasure in plain sight.”
“This report shows that Gaza is being erased in plain sight,” he said. “The so-called ‘evacuation orders’ — and I hesitate to call them that, as that is the language used by the Israeli military and implies it is doing the people of Gaza a favor by giving them a warning before bombing their homes — inflict terrors, are ambiguous and difficult to comply with, on the occasions they are given.”
Lawley further condemned the conditions in the so-called humanitarian zones.
“The conditions are not fit for humans ... with such damage to infrastructure, the bombing of Gaza, even with so-called evacuation orders, puts people who cannot afford the transport to escape and those with caregiving or physical barriers to escape — such as pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities — at a heightened risk of being killed, as escaping is even more difficult for them.”
In a strong rebuke of the ongoing military action, Lawley argued that the pattern of bombardment, ground incursions, and deprivation of basic resources suggested a coordinated strategy that “aligns with acts of extermination and genocide.”
He further suggested that recent reports indicating Israeli government intentions to annex Gaza raised additional concerns, noting that “these plans ... appear designed to inflict conditions of life aimed at the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part ... as a strategic tool in broader aims for territorial annexation.”
The full report is available to read here.
Israel’s Netanyahu dismisses defense minister in surprise announcement
- Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds throughout the war in Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the men in his Tuesday evening announcement.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defense minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defense minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel’s leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But as the war dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged. While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for a diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
Gallant, a former general who has gained public respect with a gruff, no-nonsense personality, said in a statement: “The security of the state of Israel always was, and will always remain, my life’s mission.”
Gallant has worn a simple, black buttoned shirt throughout the war in a sign of sorrow over the Oct. 7 attack and developed a strong relationship with his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
A previous attempt by Netanyahu to fire Gallant in March 2023 sparked widespread street protests against Netanyahu. He also flirted with the idea of dismissing Gallant over the summer but held off until Tuesday’s announcement.
Gallant will be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister who was a junior officer in the military. Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu rival who recently rejoined the government, will take the foreign affairs post.
Netanyahu has a long history of neutralizing his rivals. In his statement, he claimed he had made “many attempts” to bridge the gaps with Gallant.
“But they kept getting wider. They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy — our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it,” he said.
