GAZA: Israel’s navy seized a boat on Tuesday that had left from a Gaza port with wounded Palestinians aboard in a bid to challenge the blockade of the Hamas-run enclave.
Hundreds of people had gathered to see off the boat carrying nine passengers, including four people said to have been wounded by Israeli soldiers along with students.
The passengers “with specific needs are prevented from traveling, receiving care and finishing their studies,” said organizer Raed Abu Dair.
“We are determined to break the blockade.”
Mahmud Abu Ataya, 25, who recently suffered a leg wound east of Gaza City, said: “I am leaving to be cared for abroad.”
But the boat was seized by Israel’s navy a short time after setting off.
“After the boat and the Palestinians on board are searched, the boat will be towed to the Israeli navy base in Ashdod,” Israel’s military said in a statement.
“The (military) assigned medical personnel to treat Palestinians on board requiring medical assistance.”
A similar attempt was made in May and also resulted in Israeli forces seizing the main protest boat several kilometers (miles) out to sea.
Israel’s blockade restricts Gazan boats to up to six nautical miles off the enclave.
Israel and Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, have fought three wars since 2008.
UN officials and rights activists have repeatedly called for Israel to lift the blockade, citing deteriorating humanitarian conditions.
Israel says it is necessary to stop Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza from obtaining weapons or materials that could be used to make them.
On Monday, Israel also closed its only goods crossing with the Gaza Strip in response to weeks of fires at farms caused by kites and balloons carrying firebombs from the Palestinian enclave.
A spokesman for Israel’s fire service says 750 fires have burned 2,600 hectares, putting the damage at millions of shekels (hundreds of thousands of dollars/euros).
Gazans began launching the kites as part of protests along the border calling for Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes now inside Israel.
Since protests and clashes broke out along the Gaza border on March 30, at least 139 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and more than 4,000 have been wounded by gunfire.
The majority were involved in protests and clashes, but others were seeking to breach or damage the border fence.
No Israelis have been killed.
Israel seizes boat from Gaza seeking to break blockade
Israel seizes boat from Gaza seeking to break blockade
- Israel’s blockade restricts Gazan boats to up to six nautical miles off the enclave
- Hundreds of people had gathered to see off the boat carrying nine passengers
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
