KUWAIT CITY: Hundreds of workers at Kuwait’s international airport held a one-hour strike Monday to demand better working conditions, threatening to stage longer walkouts in the coming days.
Ahmed Mohammed Al-Kandari, a union representative, said workers were calling for improved treatment and to be compensated for daily exposure to pollution and noise.
Monday’s strike by Kuwaiti staff did not affect flights, officials said.
The right to strike is guaranteed for citizens in Kuwait, but such actions remain rare in the Gulf country.
Foreign workers do not have the right to strike.
“Airport traffic is very normal,” Sheikh Salman Al-Hamoud Al-Sabah, head of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, said.
Another official, Saleh Al-Fadaghi, the airport’s director of operations, also said flights were not affected.
“During the one-hour strike, 19 flights were operated as scheduled. There were five departures and 14 arrivals,” he said.
Kandari said the purpose of the strike was not to disrupt operations but “to make our voices heard.”
He added that Kuwaiti workers would hold a further two-hour strike on Wednesday and a 24-hour strike on Sunday if their demands are not met.
Of 4,500 civil aviation employees, 1,500 took part in Monday’s strike, he said.
Workers strike at Kuwait airport for better working conditions
Workers strike at Kuwait airport for better working conditions
- Monday’s strike by Kuwaiti staff did not affect flights, officials said
- The right to strike is guaranteed for citizens in Kuwait, but such actions remain rare in the Gulf country
January settler attacks cause record West Bank displacement since Oct 2023: UN
- At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according OCHA figures
- OHCHR said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank
RAMALLAH: Israeli settler violence and harassment in the occupied West Bank displaced nearly 700 Palestinians in January, the United Nations said Thursday, the highest rate since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according to figures from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, which compiles data from various United Nations agencies.
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank.
January’s displacement numbers were particularly high in part due to the displacement of an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein Al-Auja, whose 130 families left after months of harassment.
“What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers’ continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years,” Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin resident, told AFP at the time.
Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural lands used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.
To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli government and military,” the settlement watchdog said.
“No one is putting the pressure on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to stop this and so the settlers feel it, they feel the complete impunity that they’re just free to continue to do this,” said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of NGOS working to support Palestinian communities against displacement.
She pointed to a lack of attention on the West Bank as another driving factor.
“All eyes are focused on Gaza when it comes to Palestine, while we have an ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and nobody’s paying attention,” she told AFP.
West Bank Palestinians are also displaced when Israel’s military destroys structures and dwellings it says are built without permits.
In January, 182 more Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions, according to OCHA.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to more than 500,000 Israelis living in settlements and outposts considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
