URIF: A rusty barbed wire fence towers above the students entering Urif high school in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where spiralling violence since October 7 has struck fear into Palestinians.
“We tell the students ... to come to school together and not on their own, because we do not know when their (settlers) attack will be,” said Mazin Shehadeh, vice-principal for the high school located in a village south of the city of Nablus.
On the hill above the village sits the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar, from where Palestinians say settlers descend to attack them.
“Every day when we arrive, we inspect the area around the school for fear that there might be explosive devices,” said the educator, whose office floor was charred black by what he said was an arson attack.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and now some 490,000 Israelis live across the Palestinian territory in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.
Palestinians have long faced harassment by settlers.
Recalling an attack on the school, one 15-year-old student said, “We were in class, and the settlers attacked us from the back of the school. They threw stones at the windows.”
“The (Israeli) soldiers were standing above, near the water tank, firing tear gas and stun grenades toward the school.”
Now the pupils fear an attack at any moment.
“At the slightest noise, at the slightest gunshot or at the slightest explosion near the town, we say to ourselves that the (Israeli) army or the settlers have attacked the school,” said Qais.
Since October 7, 519 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.
More checkpoints and other Israeli military installations have been erected since the start of the war, complicating the journey to school.
“Sometimes the army harasses us, sends us tear gas bombs and sound bombs and prevents us from going to school,” said a 12-year-old student.
The school year, which ended on Wednesday, turned into “a nightmare” for Palestinian students, the United Nation’s children’s agency UNICEF has said.
Some 27.5 percent of elementary school students do not feel safe at school, according to a study by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Between October 7 and May 7, 60 children were killed in the West Bank, 345 injured and 68 schools targeted by acts of vandalism, according to the Palestinian education ministry.
It said another 125 students have been detained by the Israeli military, who when asked by AFP about the arrests said they were part of their “counter-terrorism activities“
Last week, a 15-year-old boy was shot dead while evacuating from his school by bicycle during an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
Even before the war, violence between communities in the West Bank near the school reached a record high.
In June 2023 two residents of Urif village, members of the armed group Hamas, killed four Israelis in an attack to the south.
In response, dozens of masked settlers could be seen in footage reviewed by AFP setting fire to a school and trees, and throwing stones at homes in the village.
In response to repeated attacks by settlers, school administrators in Urif said they had spent the equivalent of 62,500 euros on a tarpaulin to catch thrown stones and they have also installed barbed wire.
In the classrooms, thick purple curtains are drawn over barred windows, and staff run regular evacuation drills.
The violence and consequent fortifications have made students feel like they are trapped and “entering a prison,” said Shehadeh.
The school has had many of its “most hardworking and brilliant students” drop out, he added.
Others have left to help their parents, who have been without an income since Israel placed increased restrictions on Palestinians working in Israel.
Those pupils who remain only attend in-person classes three days a week and do the rest remotely due to the security concerns and the Palestinian Authority not paying teachers their full salaries.
However, not all students have the electronic devices or Internet connections needed to learn remotely, said Refat Sabbah, founder of the Teacher Creativity Center, a charity.
“In such a context, when students feel at risk at every moment, how can they learn? The psychological impact is huge on the students and the teachers,” he added.
Rising violence strikes fear into West Bank school
Rising violence strikes fear into West Bank school
Sudan refugees face deepening hunger as funds dry up: UN
Since April 2023, war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people displaced inside the country.
Another four million have fled across borders, mainly to Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
“This is a full-blown regional crisis that’s playing out in countries that already have extreme levels of food insecurity and high levels of conflict,” said Shaun Hughes, WFP’s emergency coordinator for the Sudan regional crisis.
The United Nations says its humanitarian response plan for Sudan — also the world’s largest hunger crisis — is only 14.4 percent funded.
A UN conference in Spain this week aims to rally international donors, following deep funding shortfalls that have affected relief operations globally.
The WFP warned support to Sudanese refugees in Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and the Central African Republic “may grind to a halt in the coming months as resources run dry.”
In Egypt, which hosts around 1.5 million people who fled Sudan, food aid for 85,000 refugees — 36 percent of those previously supported — had already been cut.
Without new funding, the WFP warned, all assistance to the most vulnerable refugees would be suspended by August.
In Chad, where more than 850,000 people have fled but find little help in overwhelmed camps, the WFP said food rations would be reduced even further.
Around 1,000 refugees continue to arrive in Chad each day from Sudan’s western Darfur region, where famine has already been declared and displacement camps regularly come under attack.
“Refugees from Sudan are fleeing for their lives and yet are being met with more hunger, despair, and limited resources on the other side of the border,” said Hughes.
“Food assistance is a lifeline for vulnerable refugee families with nowhere else to turn.”
Inside Sudan, more than eight million people are estimated to be on the brink of famine, with nearly 25 million suffering dire food insecurity.
Firefighters in Turkiye battle to contain wildfires for second day
- Helicopters, fire extinguishing aircrafts and other vehicles, and more than a thousand people were trying to extinguish the fires
ISTANBUL: Firefighters in Turkiye are battling wildfires for a second day raging in the western province of Izmir fanned by strong winds, the forestry minister and local media said on Monday
Wildfires in Kuyucak and Doganbey areas of Izmir were fanned overnight by winds reaching 40-50 kph (25-30 mph) and four villages and two neighborhoods had been evacuated, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said.
Helicopters, fire extinguishing aircrafts and other vehicles, and more than a thousand people were trying to extinguish the fires, Yumakli told reporters in Izmir.
Media footage showed teams using tractors with water trailers and helicopters carrying water, as smoke billowed over hills marked with charred trees.
Turkiye’s coastal regions have in recent years been ravaged by wildfires, as summers have become hotter and drier, which scientists relate to climate change.
Heatwave leaves Moroccan cities sweltering in record-breaking temperatures
- In the coastal city of Casablanca, the mercury reached 39.5C (103 Fahrenheit), breaching the previous record of 38.6C set in June 2011
RABAT: Monthly temperature records have been broken across Morocco, sometimes topping seasonal norms by as much as 20 degrees Celsius, the national meteorological office said Sunday, as the North African kingdom was gripped by a heatwave.
“Our country has experienced, between Friday 27 and Saturday 28 of June, a ‘chegui’ type heatwave characterised by its intensity and geographical reach,” the meteorological office (DGM) said in a report shared with AFP.
The heatwave, which has also struck across the Strait of Gibraltar in southern Europe, has affected numerous regions in Morocco.
According to the DGM, the most significant temperature anomalies have been on the Atlantic plains and interior plateaus.
In the coastal city of Casablanca, the mercury reached 39.5C (103 Fahrenheit), breaching the previous record of 38.6C set in June 2011.
In Larache, 250 kilometers (150 miles) up the coast, a peak temperature of 43.8C was recorded, 0.9C above the previous June high, set in 2017.
And in central Morocco’s Ben Guerir, the thermometers hit 46.4C, besting the two-year-old record by 1.1C.
In total, more than 17 regions sweltered under temperatures above 40C, the DGM said, with Atlantic areas bearing the brunt.
“Coastal cities like Essaouira recorded temperatures 10C or 20C above their usual averages” for June, the DGM said.
Inland cities such as Marrakech, Fez, Meknes and Beni Mellal experienced heat 8C to 15C above the norm, with Tangier in the far north at the bottom end of that scale.
The forecast for the days ahead indicates continuing heat in the interior of Morocco due to a so-called Saharan thermal depression, an intense dome of heat over the desert.
Netanyahu sees ‘opportunities’ to free Gaza hostages
- Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his country’s “victory” over Iran in their 12-day war had created “opportunities,” including for freeing hostages held in Gaza.
“Many opportunities have opened up now following this victory. First of all, to rescue the hostages,” Netanyahu said in an address to officers of the security services.
“Of course, we will also have to solve the Gaza issue, to defeat Hamas, but I estimate that we will achieve both goals,” he added, referring to his country’s campaign to crush the Palestinian militant group.
In a statement late Sunday, the main group representing hostages’ families welcomed “the fact that after 20 months, the return of the hostages has finally been designated as the top priority by the prime minister.”
“This is a very important statement that must translate into a single comprehensive deal to bring back all 50 hostages and end the fighting in Gaza,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Of these, 49 are still believed to be held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas also holds the body of an Israeli soldier killed there in 2014.
The forum called for the hostages’ “release, not rescue.”
“The only way to free them all is through a comprehensive deal and an end to the fighting, without rescue operations that endanger both the hostages and (Israeli) soldiers.”
Partial collapse of Sudan gold mine kills 11
- Africa’s third-largest country is one of the continent’s top gold producers, but artisanal and small-scale gold mining accounts for the majority of gold extracted
KHARTOUM: A partial collapse of a traditional gold mine has killed 11 miners and wounded seven others in war-torn Sudan’s northeast, the state mining company said on Sunday.
Since war erupted between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, Sudan’s gold industry has largely funded both sides’ war efforts.
In a statement, the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, or SMRC, said that the collapse occurred in an “artisanal shaft in the Kirsh Al-Fil mine” in the remote desert area of Howeid, located between the army-controlled cities of Atbara and Haiya in Sudan’s northeastern Red Sea state.
It did not mention when the collapse took place.
The war, now in its third year, has shattered Sudan’s already-fragile economy, yet the army-backed government announced record gold production of 64 tonnes in 2024.
Africa’s third-largest country is one of the continent’s top gold producers, but artisanal and small-scale gold mining accounts for the majority of gold extracted.
In contrast to larger industrial facilities, these mines lack safety measures and use hazardous chemicals that often cause widespread diseases in nearby areas.
SMRC said it had previously suspended work in the mine and “warned against its continuing activity due to its posing a great risk to life.”
Before the war, which has pushed 25 million people into dire food insecurity, artisanal mining employed more than 2 million people, according to the industry.
Today, according to mining industry sources and experts, much of the gold produced by both sides is smuggled to Chad, South Sudan, and Egypt, before reaching the industrialists.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan, where over 10 million people are currently displaced in the world’s largest displacement crisis.
A further 4 million have fled across borders.
