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Faisal J. Abbas

COVID-19: 100 days that changed the world

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LIVE: Cases continue to rise across the Middle East as Bahrain allows some shops to reopen

Iranians, some wearing protective masks, gather around the capital Tehran's grand bazaar, during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic crises, on March 18, 2020. (File/AFP)
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Updated 09 April 2020
Arab News
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LIVE: Cases continue to rise across the Middle East as Bahrain allows some shops to reopen

  • Kuwait reports 55 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 910
Updated 09 April 2020
Arab News

DUBAI: Countries around the world have been helping each other in tackling the coronavirus crisis by sending aid planes to COVID-19 hotspots.

Countries in the Middle East have also stood in solidarity with other nations, providing support to help them deal with the pandemic. The UAE has sent aid planes to multiple countries such as Pakistan and Colombia.

Thursday, April 9 (All times in GMT)

19:15 - Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said the deadline to submit requests to return to the Kingdom has been extended to April 14.

19:07 - Egypt announced 139 new cases of coronavirus, 15 deaths and 43 cases of recovery on Thursday. 

18:41 - The United Arab Emirates decided on Thursday to extend the closure of mosques and places of worship until further notice, the state news agency reported.
The statement added this decision comes as part of the precautionary measures across the UAE to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.

17:35 - France records another big jump in its death toll from the virus, announcing it had reached 12,210 on Thursday from 10,869 on Wednesday.

17:15 - Jordan records 14 new coronavirus cases, meaning the country's total now stands at 372.

16:43 - Turkey's confirmed cases of coronavirus increased by 4,056 in the last 24 hours, and 96 people have died, taking the death toll to 908, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Thursday.

The total number of recovered cases stood at 2,142, with 296 recoveries in the last 24 hours, and the number of tests carried out in that time was 28,578, the highest number yet, Koca said on Twitter.

Turkey's total confirmed cases stood at 42,282, he added.

16:26 - Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Thursday Britain had not yet reached the peak of the coronavirus epidemic and that it was too early to lift the lockdown.

Experts were still gathering data on the lockdown and it was too early to say conclusively whether it was working, he told reporters.

Raab, standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told reporters he did not expect to be able to say more on the lockdown until late next week.




Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks during a media briefing on coronavirus in Downing Street, London, Thursday, April 9, 2020. (AP)

16:24 - New York saw a sharp drop in the number of people newly admitted to a hospital in the past 24 hours to the lowest level in the coronavirus crisis, a sign that social distancing steps are working, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday.
Cuomo also told a daily briefing that the number of deaths increased to 799 on April 8, up from 779 a day earlier and a record high for a third day.

16:22 - Britain announced another 881 deaths of people testing positive for coronavirus in Thursday's daily update, bringing the country's total toll to 7,978.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, in charge as Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care battling COVID-19, announced the figures as he warned that the country hadn't "yet reached the peak of the virus".

16:10 - Bahrain makes wearing face masks compulsory in public for citziens, residents and shop workers. It also allowed shops that provide goods and services for customers to re-open. 

15:00 - Muslim football stars Riyad Mahrez and Xherdan Shaqiri are among 150 Premier League players who announced an initiative to help fund the UK’s National Heath Service (NHS) in its fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. FULL STORY.

15:05 - One hundred doctors have died of the coronavirus in Italy.

14:20 - Saudi Arabia announced 355 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday bringing the total number of cases in the Kingdom to 3,287. FULL STORY.

13:50 - Iran’s health ministry on Thursday said 117 new deaths from the novel coronavirus took the total to 4,110 in the country, one of the worst-hit by the disease.

Opinion

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12:28 – Saudi Arabia confirmed 355 new coronavirus cases, bringing total to 3,287. The number of patient recoveries meanwhile reached 666, while fatalities are now at 44.

12:09 – Bahrain reported 32 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 855 infections.

10:28 – Lebanon confirmed seven new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 582 infections.

10:26 – Qatar recorded 166 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 2,376 cases.

10:01 – Morocco reported 71 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 1,346 infections.




Moroccan authorities wearing protective masks check people at a road block in a street in Casablanca on April 8, 2020. (AFP)

09:38 – Iran said it had 1,634 new #coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 66,220 cases.

09:38 – Spain confirmed 5,756 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 152,446.

09:35 – Kuwait recorded 55 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 910.

08:14 – Italy recorded 3,836 new coronavirus cases, bringing the toll to 139,422, 542 deaths, bringing the toll to 17,669 deaths.

08:13 – The Philippines reported 21 new deaths and 206 additional cases of the coronavirus, the health ministry said on Thursday.

08:36 – Lebanon’s higher defense council has advised the government to re-extend the coronavirus lockdown until April 26.

07:54 – Russia recorded 1,459 new coronavirus cases, bringing total to 10,131.

07:49 – Oman confirmed 38 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 457.

05:51 – Taiwan demanded an apology from the World Health Organization chief on Thursday after he accused the island’s government of leading personal attacks against him and his agency’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. READ THE STORY

05:44 – Thailand confirmed 54 new coronavirus cases and two more deaths.

05:34 – Israel’s coronavirus death toll increased to 74.

04:56 – The number of confirmed coronavirus infections in Germany rose by 4,974 in the past 24 hours to 108,202.




German residents coverge at the former airport at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin on April 8, 2020. (AFP)

03:48 – New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine from Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown.

03:48 – Migrant workers in Singapore are living in fear following a surge of coronavirus infections in their dormitories where they say cramped and filthy conditions make social distancing impossible.

Wednesday, April 8 (All times in GMT)

16:45 – The UAE Cabinet has agreed to offer paid leaves to some categories of employees at the federal government, state news agency WAM reported. The decision is part of the country’s efforts to control the coronavirus spread.

14:51 – A UAE plane carrying 10 metric tons of medical supplies was sent to Colombia to help the country take control over the coronavirus spread, state news agency WAM reported. This move will also benefit more than 10,000 healthcare employees in the country.

12:49 – A Kuwaiti army transport plane loaded with tons of medical supplies arrived back from China to help the government curb the spread of coronavirus, state news agency KUNA reported, citing the Ministry of Defense. 

08:42 – Kuwait’s coronavirus cases have reached 855 with death toll at one while Bahrain's cases reached 823 with deaths raised to five.

 

Topics: Coronavirus

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Israel attacks Rafah after Hamas claims responsibility for deadly rocket attack

Updated 6 sec ago
Reuters
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Israel attacks Rafah after Hamas claims responsibility for deadly rocket attack

  • Israel has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
Updated 6 sec ago
Reuters

CAIRO: Three Israeli soldiers were killed in a rocket attack claimed by Hamas armed wing, near the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where Palestinian health officials said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday.
Hamas’s armed wing claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
Israel’s military said 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah in southern Gaza toward the area of the crossing, which it said was now closed to aid trucks going into the coastal enclave. Other crossings remained open.
Hamas’ armed wing said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base by the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from. Hamas media quoted a source close to the group as saying the commercial crossing was not the target.
More than a million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
Shortly after the Hamas attack, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah killing three people and wounding several others, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military confirmed the counter-strike, saying it struck the launcher from which the Hamas projectiles were fired, as well as a nearby “military structure.”
“The launches carried out by Hamas adjacent to the Rafah Crossing ... are a clear example of the terrorist organization’s systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces, and their continued use of the Gazan civilian population as human shields,” it said.
Hamas denies it uses civilians as human shields.
Just before midnight, an Israeli air strike killed nine Palestinians, including a baby, in another house in Rafah, Gaza health officials said. They said the new strike increased the death toll on Sunday to at least 19 people.
Israel has vowed to enter the southern Gaza city and flush out Hamas forces there, but has faced mounting pressure to hold fire as the operation could derail fragile humanitarian efforts in Gaza and endanger many more lives.
Sunday’s attack on the crossing came as hopes dimmed for ceasefire talks under way in Cairo.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the past 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US

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Netanyahu uses Holocaust ceremony to brush off international pressure against Gaza offensive

Updated 36 min 49 sec ago
AP
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Netanyahu uses Holocaust ceremony to brush off international pressure against Gaza offensive

  • The ceremony ushered in Israel’s first Holocaust remembrance day since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, imbuing the already somber day with additional meaning
Updated 36 min 49 sec ago
AP

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected international pressure to halt the war in Gaza in a fiery speech marking the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
The message, delivered in a setting that typically avoids politics, was aimed at the growing chorus of world leaders who have criticized the heavy toll caused by Israel’s military offensive against Hamas militants and have urged the sides to agree to a ceasefire.
Netanyahu has said he is open to a deal that would pause nearly seven months of fighting and bring home hostages held by Hamas. But he also says he remains committed to an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite widespread international opposition because of the more than 1 million civilians huddled there.
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said, speaking in English. “Never again is now.”
Yom Hashoah, the day Israel observes as a memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Holocaust, is one of the most solemn dates on the country’s calendar. Speeches at the ceremony generally avoid politics, though Netanyahu in recent years has used the occasion to lash out at Israel’s archenemy Iran.
The ceremony ushered in Israel’s first Holocaust remembrance day since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, imbuing the already somber day with additional meaning.
Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in the attack, making it the deadliest violence against Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with an air and ground offensive in Gaza, where the death toll has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and about 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are displaced. The death and destruction has prompted South Africa to file a genocide case against Israel in the UN’s world court. Israel strongly rejects the charges.
On Sunday, Netanyahu attacked those accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians, claiming that Israel was doing everything possible to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The 24-hour memorial period began after sundown on Sunday with a ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem.
There are approximately 245,000 living Holocaust survivors around the world, according to the Claims Conference, an organization that negotiates for material compensation for Holocaust survivors. Approximately half of the survivors live in Israel.
On Sunday, Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League released an annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2023, which found a sharp increase in antisemitic attacks globally.
It said the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States doubled, from 3,697 in 2022 to 7,523 in 2023.
While most of these incidents occurred after the war erupted in October, the number of antisemitic incidents, which include vandalism, harassment, assault, and bomb threats, from January to September was already significantly higher than the previous year.
The report found an average of three bomb threats per day at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the US, more than 10 times the number in 2022.
Other countries tracked similar rises in antisemitic incidents. In France, the number nearly quadrupled, from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, while it more than doubled in the United Kingdom and Canada.
“In the aftermath of the October 7 war crimes committed by Hamas, the world has seen the worst wave of antisemitic incidents since the end of the Second World War,” the report stated.
Netanyahu also compared the recent wave of protests on American campuses to German universities in the 1930s, in the runup to the Holocaust. He condemned the “explosion of a volcano of antisemitism spitting out boiling lava of lies against us around the world.”
Nearly 2,500 students have been arrested in a wave of protests at US college campuses, while there have been smaller protests in other countries, including France. Protesters reject antisemitism accusations and say they are criticizing Israel. Campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism.

Topics: War on Gaza Holocaust Benjamin Netanyahu Gaza

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Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel after south Lebanon strike kills 4 members of family

Updated 05 May 2024
NAJIA HOUSSARI
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Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel after south Lebanon strike kills 4 members of family

  • Shells fall on Kiryat Shmona and reach northern Golan
  • Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi calls for end to war in southern Lebanon
Updated 05 May 2024
NAJIA HOUSSARI

BEIRUT: An Israeli airstrike killed four members of a family in a border village in southern Lebanon on Sunday, security sources said.

Hezbollah, in retaliation, fired Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, close to the Lebanese border.

The four family members killed in Mays Al-Jabal were identified as Fadi Hounaikah and Maya Ali Ammar, and their sons Mohammed, 21, and Ahmad, 12.

The attack occurred when the family took advantage of a de-escalation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel to return to their properties to assess damage and move goods from their supermarket to a location outside the village.

Two men riding a motorcycle stare at buildings damaged by an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese border village of Mays al-Jabal on May 5, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

A security source in the area told Arab News that while the family was gathering their groceries from the supermarket, an Israeli military drone spotted them and launched an attack, destroying the area and killing all the members of the family and injuring several civilians in the vicinity.

The source clarified that villages in the area were empty because “residents fled the area seven months ago.”

He added: “When residents want to enter these villages to attend victims’ funerals, they send their names and car number plates to the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, who in turn coordinate with the Israeli side to spare these funerals (from attack).

“In general, people cannot enter border villages without taking into consideration the Israeli danger, as Israeli reconnaissance planes and drones are hovering over the area 24/7. However, what Israel committed against this family is a terrible massacre.”

Hezbollah responded to the incident by launching dozens of Katyusha and Falaq missiles at Israel. The group said the operation was “in response to the crime committed by Israel in the Mays Al-Jabal village.”

The Israeli Upper Galilee Regional Council announced that missiles hit buildings in Kiryat Shmona, while Israeli Army Radio reported that some of the rockets fell inside the city, causing a power outage.

An Israeli army spokesman reported that 65 rockets were launched from southern Lebanon toward Israeli settlements in the Upper Galilee region.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes hit the villages of Al-Adissa and Kafr Kila, while artillery shelling hit the village of Aitaroun.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi in his Sunday sermon called for an end to the war in southern Lebanon, urging an end to the “demolition of homes, the destruction of shops, the burning of the land and its crops, and the killing and displacement of innocent civilians and the destruction of their livelihood in an economic condition that has already impoverished them.”

Mohammed Raad, leader of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, meanwhile, expressed his disapproval of the West’s backing for Israel.

He said that Israel “faces no international deterrent. On the contrary, some support it in committing crimes.”

He accused those who support Israel of being “hypocrites and liars who falsely claim to champion human rights, civilization, and progress in the West, (yet) they provide Israel with financial aid, weapons, smart bombs, and a continuous air bridge.”

Raad concluded: “We are not afraid of Israel’s insanity. We are prepared to confront them directly. We are prepared to sacrifice and shed blood to protect our homeland, independence, and honor.”

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza Lebanon US

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UNRWA chief says again barred entry to Gaza by Israel

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees Philippe Lazzarini. (File/AFP)
Updated 05 May 2024
AFP
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UNRWA chief says again barred entry to Gaza by Israel

  • “Just this week, they have denied — for the second time — my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our UNRWA colleagues including those on the front lines”: Lazzarini
Updated 05 May 2024
AFP

JERUSALEM: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Sunday that Israeli authorities had barred him from entering Gaza for a second time since the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7.
“Just this week, they have denied — for the second time — my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our UNRWA colleagues including those on the front lines,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Lazzarini has been to Gaza four times since the war broke out including on March 17.
“The Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to the United Nations,” he said on Sunday.
“Only in the past two weeks, we have recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN staff including bullying, stripping them naked, threats with arms & long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to move during the dark or abort,” Lazzarini said.
He also called for an “independent investigation” into rocket fire that led to the closure of a key Israel-Gaza aid crossing.
Hamas’s armed wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the Sunday launch, saying militants had targeted Israeli troops in the area of Kerem Shalom crossing.

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Houthis claim Red Sea victory against US Navy

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) defeats a combination of Houthi missiles and UAVs in Red Sea.
Updated 05 May 2024
Saeed Al-Batati
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Houthis claim Red Sea victory against US Navy

  • Militia forces lack technical or military capability to achieve their objectives in the Mediterranean, analyst says
Updated 05 May 2024
Saeed Al-Batati

AL-MUKALLA: The Houthis have reiterated a warning of strikes against ships bound for or with links to Israel — including those in the Mediterranean — as they claimed victory against the US Navy in the Red Sea.

The Houthi-controlled SABA news agency reported that the fourth phase of the militia’s pro-Palestine campaign would involve targeting all ships en route to Israel that came within range of their drones and missiles, noting that the US, UK, and other Western navies “stood helpless” in the face of their attacks.

“The fourth phase demonstrates the striking strength of the Yemeni armed forces in battling the world’s most potent naval weaponry, the American, British and European fleets, as well as the Zionist (Israel) navy,” SABA said. 

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Friday strikes against Israel-linked ships would be expanded to the Mediterranean. Attacks would be escalated to include any companies interacting with Israel if the country carried out its planned attack on the Palestinian Rafah.

Since November, the Houthis have launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at commercial and navy vessels in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden. They claim attacks are only aimed at ships linked with Israel in a bid to force an end to its siege on the Gaza Strip.

They have also fired at US and UK commercial and navy ships in international waters off Yemen after the two countries launched strikes against Houthi-controlled areas.

On Saturday, Houthi information minister Dhaif Allah Al-Shami claimed the US was forced to withdraw its aircraft carrier and other naval ships from the Red Sea after failing to counteract attacks. He added new offensives would begin against Israeli ships in the Mediterranean in the coming days.

“They failed badly. Yemeni missiles and drones beat the US Navy, and its military, cruisers, destroyers and aircraft carriers started to retreat from our seas,” Al-Shami said in an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV news channel. 

Yemen specialists have disputed Houthi assertions that they have military weapons capable of reaching Israeli ships in the Mediterranean. 

Brig. Gen. Mohammed Al-Kumaim, a Yemeni military analyst, told Arab News on Sunday the Houthis would only be able to carry out such attacks if they had advanced weaponry. He said the Houthis were expanding their campaign against ships to avoid growing public resentment in areas under their control after the militia had failed to pay public employees and repair services.

Al-Kumaim added the Houthis might claim responsibility for an attack on a ship in the Mediterranean which was carried out by an Iran-backed group operating in the region.

“Theoretically and technologically, the Houthis lack any technical or military capability to achieve their objectives (in the Mediterranean),” Al-Kumaim said.

Topics: War on Gaza US navy Houthis Red Sea

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