KHAN YOUNIS: Israel closed the main commercial crossing in the Gaza Strip, effectively banning exports from the coastal territory after saying it had uncovered explosives in a shipment of clothes to the occupied West Bank. Gaza’s fishermen, with their perishable exports, were among the first to feel the pain.
The new restrictions choke off the territory’s already ailing economy. They come on top of the punishing 16-year blockade that Israel and Egypt have maintained since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the enclave in 2007.
The blockade, which Israel says is needed to prevent Hamas from arming, severely limits the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza.
Israel closed the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing late on Monday after saying it had discovered explosives hidden in a shipment of Zara jeans and other clothing bound for the West Bank — one of the main markets for Gaza’s tiny export sector. Israeli officials fear the explosives were bound for Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Israel has not said when the crossing will reopen.
Palestinian fishermen, businessmen and rights advocates condemned Israel’s latest measure as a form of collective punishment against Gaza’s 2 million people, including tens of thousands of laborers who heavily depend on exports to Israel and the West Bank to stay afloat. Nearly all the goods that enter and exit Gaza pass through Kerem Shalom.
Gaza’s 4,000 fishermen, with their perishable exports, condemned the ban.
“Now I can’t make a living,” said Khalid Al-Laham, 35, from his bare home in the southern town of Khan Younis as his five children scurried around him. “I have to borrow food from the shops.”
The struggle also has reached Gaza’s wealthiest traders.
“Fish are completely different from any product, it’s sensitive,” said Mohammed Abu Hasira, a 38-year-old owner of a popular Gazan fish restaurant near the Mediterranean. “They should punish those who are at fault. Why are we being punished with them?”
Abu Hasira’s plans to export truckloads of seafood on Thursday were thwarted by the Israeli decision, he said. Within moments, his profits evaporated and costs skyrocketed.
Overall, the measure has caused 26 tons of fish to rot and resulted in $300,000 in weekly losses, Gaza’s main fishermen’s union said.
The restrictions represented a reversal of recent Israeli military moves to ease the blockade to relieve economic pressure on Gaza to prevent tensions from boiling over into another bloody conflict.
Israel now allows some 21,000 Gazan laborers to enter Israel for work, and in July, Israel issued hundreds more permits. Over 90 percent more people left the strip than during the same time last year, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.
But now Gaza’s 4,000 fishermen and others affected by the Israeli measure said they’ve again been subsumed into a larger political struggle that has nothing to do with them.
Israel says the closure was intended to deter militants from sneaking explosives through the crossing and to press the strip’s Hamas rules to crack down on the smuggling.
“The defense establishment will not allow terror organizations to take advantage of civilian and humanitarian facilities,” Israel’s defense ministry said.
But the move, rights groups said, also laid bare Israel’s inability to provide an effective answer to the security incidents and to address Gaza’s underlying problems.
“Instead of finding proportionate and reasonable measures, it just imposes sweeping measures and punitive closings,” said Miriam Marmur, a spokeswoman for Gisha, an Israeli human rights group.
Under the blockade, Gaza’s businessmen have grappled with what they describe as exasperating bureaucratic controls and routine indignities.
Fishermen say their struggle reflects how the blockade has damaged a vital part of Gaza’s economy. In July, fish accounted for 6 percent of all exports, according to the UN
The restrictions have prevented them from importing engines, fiberglass, and other materials needed to repair their dilapidated boats. The naval blockade limits how far out into the Mediterranean Sea the fishermen can go – and how much and what type of fish they can catch. If they drift too close to the boundaries, they risk being shot at or having their boats seized by the Israeli navy.
In an upscale tower just blocks away from the seaport, Muhammad Al-Ghussein, an engineer and spokesperson for the Palestinian Businessmen Association, said all merchants in Gaza shared the fishermen’s concerns.
“Halting exports is like dealing a fatal blow to a sector that’s already dying,” he said.
Palestinian fishermen decry Israel’s ban on Gaza exports as collective punishment
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Palestinian fishermen decry Israel’s ban on Gaza exports as collective punishment
- New restrictions choke off the territory’s already ailing economy
- Come on top of punishing 16-year blockade Israel, Egypt have maintained since Hamas seized control
Israel strikes south Lebanon, army says Hezbollah fighter killed
The “urgent warning” was accompanied by a map showing a structure and the 500-meter radius around it marked in red
BEIRUT: Lebanese state media said an Israeli air strike hit a building in southern Lebanon on Thursday after Israel’s military issued an evacuation call warning of imminent action against Hezbollah militants.
Israel has kept up its air strikes in neighboring Lebanon despite a November truce aimed at halting more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah that included two months of full-blown war.
Without confirming the reported attack on the southern town of Toul, the Israeli military said its forces had carried out several strikes targeting Hezbollah sites and killed one militant.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said that “the Israeli enemy” struck a building in Toul, where the army had warned residents to evacuate the area around a building it said was used by Hezbollah militants.
The “urgent warning” was accompanied by a map showing a structure and the 500-meter (0.3-mile) radius around it marked in red.
“You are located near facilities belonging to the terrorist (group) Hezbollah,” the statement said in Arabic, urging people “to evacuate these buildings immediately and move away from them.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Toul.
In a separate statement, the military said it had “struck and eliminated a Hezbollah Radwan Force terrorist in the area of Rab El Thalathine,” about 17 kilometers (10 miles) to the southeast.
The NNA reported a “martyr” in an air strike in the same area, without identifying them.
The Israeli military said its forces also “struck a Hezbollah military site containing rocket launchers and weapons” in the Bekaa Valley as well as “terrorist infrastructure sites and rocket launchers belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization... in southern Lebanon.”
A military statement said that “the presence of weapons in the area and Hezbollah activities at the site constitute blatant violations of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon” under the November ceasefire agreement.
Israel will “continue to operate to remove any threat... and will prevent any attempt by Hezbollah to re-establish its terror capabilities,” it said.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah fighters were to pull back north of the Litani River and dismantle military infrastructure south of it.
Israel was to withdraw all forces from Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five areas that it deems “strategic.”
The Lebanese army has deployed in the south and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure.
The truce was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Egyptian president, UK prime minister discuss Gaza ceasefire, humanitarian aid
- Leaders discussed Egyptian, Qatari, and US efforts to enforce ceasefire in the Palestinian coastal enclave
- Abdul Fatah El-Sisi praised ‘positive’ UK position on Gaza, agreed with Sir Keir Starmer on continuing coordination
LONDON: Egyptian President Abdul Fatah El-Sisi praised the UK’s “positive position” on developments in Gaza during a phone call with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday.
The Egyptian Presidency said El-Sisi and Sir Keir discussed strengthening cooperation in the economic, trade, and investment sectors while continuing political consultations on various topics.
Ambassador Mohamed El-Shennawy, the presidential spokesman, said the two leaders discussed the situation in the Gaza Strip and Egyptian, Qatari, and US efforts to enforce a ceasefire in the Palestinian coastal enclave and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid.
The Egyptian president emphasized Cairo’s rejection of displacing Palestinians and expressed support for the Arab-Islamic plan to rebuild Gaza following a ceasefire.
El-Sisi praised the “positive” UK position regarding the situation in Gaza and agreed with the prime minister on continuing coordination to address regional and international developments.
The UK announced on Tuesday that it will stop free-trade negotiations with Israel and has summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office in response to Tel Aviv’s expansion of military operations in Gaza.
Settler attacks push Palestinians to abandon West Bank village, residents say
- The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians
- The Israeli military said it was “looking into” the legality of the outpost at Maghayer Al-Deir
MAGHAYER AL-DEIR, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian residents of Maghayer Al-Deir in the occupied West Bank told AFP on Thursday that they had begun packing their belonging and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.
Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP his community had decided to leave because its members felt powerless in the face of the settler violence.
“No one provides us with protection at all,” he said, a keffiyeh scarf protecting his head from the sun as he loaded a pickup truck with chain-link fencing previously used to pen up sheep and goats.
“They demolished the houses and threatened us with expulsion and killing,” he said, as a group of settlers looked on from a new outpost a few hundred meters away.
The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.
Settlement outposts, built informally and sometimes overnight, are considered illegal under Israeli law too, although enforcement is relatively rare.
The Israeli military told AFP it was “looking into” the legality of the outpost at Maghayer Al-Deir.
“It’s very sad, what’s happening now... even for an outpost,” said Itamar Greenberg, an Israeli peace activist present at Maghayer Al-Deir on Thursday.
“It’s a new outpost 60 meters from the last house of the community, and on Sunday one settler told me that in one month, the Bedouins will not be here, but it (happened much) more quickly,” he told AFP.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission denounced Maghayer Al-Deir’s displacement, describing it as being the result of the “terrorism of the settler militias.”
It said in a statement that a similar fate had befallen 29 other Bedouin communities, whose small size and isolation in rural areas make them more vulnerable.
In the area east of Ramallah, where hills slope down toward the Jordan Valley, Maghayer Al-Deir was one of the last remaining communities after the residents of several others were recently displaced.
Its 124 residents will now be dispersed to other nearby areas.
Malihat told AFP some would go to the Christian village of Taybeh just over 10 kilometers (six miles) away, and others to Ramallah.
Uncertain they would be able to return, the families loaded all they could fit in their trucks, including furniture, irrigation pipes and bales of hay.
WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza
- “A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza have resumed bread production,” WFP said
ROME: The UN’s World Food Programme said Thursday a “handful of bakeries” in Gaza had begun making and distributing bread again after Israel allowed aid trucks into the Strip.
“A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza... have resumed bread production after dozens of trucks were finally able to collect cargo from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and deliver it overnight,” the WFP said in a statement.
“These bakeries are now operational distributing bread via hot meal kitchens,” it said.
Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026
- Six years of drought reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year
- The government also includes aid to farmers
RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 6.2 billion dirhams ($670 mln) on a 2025-2026 program to replenish its livestock herd, which has been reduced following years of prolonged drought, agriculture minister Ahmed El Bouari said on Thursday.
Six years of drought caused mass job losses in the farming sector and reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year, compared to the last census nine years ago.
Under the recovery program, 3 billion dirhams will be allocated in 2025 and 3.2 billion next year to measures including debt relief and restructuring for livestock farmers, as well as feed subsidies, Bouari told reporters.
The government also includes aid to farmers who retain breeding female livestock, along with veterinary campaigns, genetic improvement and artificial insemination, he said.
In February, authorities asked citizens to forgo the ritual of slaughtering sheep on the Eid Adha this year, to help restore the sheep herd.
