DAMASCUS: Forest fires in Syria and neighboring Lebanon have killed three people and burned swathes of land since Thursday, state media and officials said.
Syrian state television on Saturday morning broadcast scenes from the affected areas, where firefighters were working to extinguish the blazes.
It said hundreds of hectares had burned in the countryside of Syria’s coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces, and in the central Homs province.
The health ministry said three people had died in Latakia province since Friday as a result of the fires, and that 70 people were taken to hospital suffering breathing difficulties.
Dozens of fires were burning, including “45 in Latakia and 33 in Tartus,” Syria’s Agriculture Minister Mohammed Hassan Qatana told a radio station late Friday.
The Latakia fire brigade said they were “facing the largest series of fires seen in Latakia province in years.”
Official news agency SANA said fire burned homes in Banias, in Tartus province.
In neighboring Lebanon, there have been more than 100 fires across the country since Thursday, according to George Abu Musa, head of operations for the country’s civil defense.
“The situation is crazy, there are fires everywhere,” Abu Musa told AFP.
“We have mobilized 80 percent of our personnel and almost all our centers in Lebanon,” he said.
He said most of the blazes had been extinguished but some were still burning in the mountainous Chouf region in the south, and in Akkar in the north.
Military helicopters were assisting firefighters in “hard-to-reach” areas, he added.
Abu Musa was unable to identify the cause of the blazes, but said wind and high temperatures were helping them spread.
On Friday, authorities reported several fires across northern and central Israel and the occupied West Bank as temperatures soared, forcing thousands to evacuate.
Dozens of fires hit Lebanon in mid-October last year, amid unusually high temperatures and strong winds.
The government faced heavy criticism and accusations of ill-preparedness over its response to the 2019 blazes.
Days after Lebanon’s 2019 fires, mass protests broke out, triggered by proposed tax hikes but quickly transforming into months-long demonstrations against the ruling class, deemed by protesters as inept and corrupt.
Three dead as forest fires burn in Syria, Lebanon
https://arab.news/43eb8
Three dead as forest fires burn in Syria, Lebanon
- Dozens of fires were burning, including “45 in Latakia and 33 in Tartus,” Syria’s Agriculture Minister said
- In neighboring Lebanon, there have been more than 100 fires across the country since Thursday
Arab, Muslim countries slam US ambassador’s remarks on Israel’s right to Middle East land
- The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory”
JERUSALEM: Arab and Islamic countries issued a joint condemnation on Sunday of remarks by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of far-right commentator and Israel critic Tucker Carlson.
In an episode released Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the river Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
In response, Huckabee said: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
When pressed, however, he continued that Israel was “not asking to take all of that,” adding: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”
The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments — alongside three major regional organizations — issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory.”
The statement, released by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry, was signed by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and the State of Palestine, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
They said the comments contravene the UN Charter and efforts to de-escalate the Gaza war and advance a political horizon for a comprehensive settlement.
Iran joined the chorus with its foreign ministry accusing Huckabee on X of revealing “American active complicity” in what it called Israel’s “expansionist wars of aggression” against Palestinians.
Earlier, several Arab states had issued unilateral condemnations.
Saudi Arabia described the ambassador’s words as “reckless” and “irresponsible,” while Jordan said it was “an assault on the sovereignty of the countries of the region.”
Kuwait decried what it called a “flagrant violation of the principles of international law,” while Oman said the comments “threatened the prospects for peace” and stability in the region.
Egypt’s foreign ministry reaffirmed “that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory or any other Arab lands.”
The Palestinian Authority said on X that Huckabee’s words “contradict US President Donald Trump’s rejection of (Israel) annexing the West Bank.”
On Saturday, Huckabee published two posts on X further clarifying his position on other topics touched upon in the interview, but did not address his remark about the biblical verse.
The speaker of the Israeli parliament, Amir Ohana, praised Huckabee on X for his general pro-Israel stance in the interview, and accused Carlson of “falsehoods and manipulations.”
Carlson has recently found himself facing accusations of antisemitism, particularly following a lengthy, uncritical interview with self-described white nationalist Nick Fuentes — a figure who has praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust and branded American Jews as disloyal.
