Author: Gulf News Week
Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated dramatically since the start of the war on Gaza.Two Palestinian teenage boys have been killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency, in the latest deadly violence in the territory continuing in tandem with Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The bodies of 15-year-old Ahmad Ali Asaad Ashira al-Salah and 17-year-old Muhammad Khaled Alian Issa, who were killed at dawn, were withheld by the Israeli army, the report said, adding that two more children were also injured…
They bombed our classrooms, our wards, even our patients – but I refuse to stop treating the injured.Before this catastrophe began, I was living the happiest days of my life, surrounded by the warmth of my family, the affection of my friends, and dreams that felt within reach. I spent most of 2023 preparing for my graduation and getting ready to move from lecture halls to practical training fields, rotating between the laboratories of the Islamic University in Gaza and the eye hospitals spread across the Gaza Strip. On the evening of October 6, I was organising my books, tools…
‘We are starved by the Israeli occupation,’ says Taqwa al-Wawi in Gaza, where all she thinks about is how hungry she is.This is not a warning. Famine has already arrived in Gaza. It is not a metaphor, nor is it a prediction. It is daily. It is the child who wakes up asking for biscuits that no longer exist. The student who studies for exams while faint from hunger. It is the mother who cannot explain to her son why there is no bread. And it is the silence of the world that makes this horror possible. Children of the…
Iranian state media describe the confrontation as ‘tense’, while US military says the encounter was ‘professional’.Iran has said it warned a United States Navy destroyer to change course as it approached Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, but the US has claimed the confrontation was “professional” and had “no impact” on its naval mission. Iranian state media published video and images of Wednesday’s incident – the first direct encounter reported between Iranian and US forces since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June – taken from a helicopter dispatched to confront the USS Fitzgerald guided missile…
Local media report that 24 firefighters and rescuers were trapped by the wildfire, and that victims were ‘burned alive’.At least 10 firefighters and rescue workers were killed and 14 others injured while battling a wildfire in Turkiye’s northwestern Eskisehir province, authorities said, as several fires rage in central and western areas of the country where temperatures are soaring. Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Ibrahim Yumakli said on Wednesday that five forestry workers and five rescuers trying to tackle the blaze were killed when 24 firefighters became trapped in the wildfire earlier in the day. Winds whipped up by the…
Aid groups warn of ‘mass starvation’ in Gaza amid a blockade, while Israeli attacks kill dozens of others across the enclave.At least 10 more Palestinians have starved to death in the besieged Gaza Strip, health officials say, as a wave of hunger crashes over the enclave. The latest starvation deaths bring the death toll from malnutrition since Israel’s war began in October 2023 to 111, most of them in recent weeks. At least 100 other Palestinians, including 34 aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday. The World Health…
Knesset lawmakers vote 71-13 in favour of annexation, raising questions about the future of a Palestinian state.Israel’s parliament has approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favour of the motion on Wednesday, a non-binding vote which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” – the Israeli terms for the area. It said that annexing the West Bank “will strengthen the state of Israel, its security and prevent any questioning of the fundamental right of the Jewish people to peace and security in their homeland”.…
Both the army-backed government and RSF-backed alliance are increasingly rewarding loyal armed groups on the ground.In June, the Sudanese Armed Forces appointed Prime Minister Kamil Idris to lead the civilian cabinet in Port Sudan, the wartime capital on the Red Sea coast. Idris wanted an overhaul, to appoint a team of technocrats to run the new government. But Gebreil Ibrahim and Mini Arko Minawi – leaders of two powerful armed groups from Darfur – refused to leave their posts, and army leader Abdelfattah al-Burhan overruled Idris to keep them there. “Burhan’s concession to Ibrahim and Minawi allows them to keep…
In his latest column for the NYT, Bret Stephens tries to excuse a uniquely horrific crime with uniquely horrific journalism.The Israelis certainly owe Bret Stephens a favour. Yesterday, The New York Times opinion columnist took to the pages of the United States newspaper of record to promote his latest deranged argument, headlined: “No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza”. Never mind that numerous global institutions, ranging from various United Nations bodies to Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing just that. These are organisations that hardly throw the G-word around lightly, but Stephens knows better. And he will…
As Europe fortifies its borders, growing numbers of North Africans are moving southwards into other African countries.Cairo, Egypt – When Ahmed Ginah first left his village in Egypt’s northern delta for the Tanzanian capital in 2017, it was with little more than a dream. Four years later, he named his company after that dream. “When I first came to Tanzania at 28, no one imagined why I would head south,” Ginah, who is lightheartedly called the “Mayor of Egyptians in Dar-es-Salaam”, told media, saying that in the minds of many of his friends and family back home, countries in sub-Saharan…