Tunisians urged to continue COVID-19 vaccines during Ramadan

A Tunisian health worker prepares to receive people for a vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Tunis, Tunisia March 13, 2021. (Reuters/File Photo)
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Updated 30 March 2021
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Tunisians urged to continue COVID-19 vaccines during Ramadan

  • Al-Iftaa urged all Tunisians to continue to participate in the national vaccination campaign during Holy month

ROME: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine will not interrupt fasting during Ramadan, which is scheduled to start in the middle of April, Grand Mufti of Tunisia Othman Battikh said.

A statement from the office of Al-Iftaa, the highest religious authority of Tunisia, urged all Tunisians to continue to participate in the national vaccination campaign during Ramadan.

He told Italian news agency ANSA that the vaccine should not be considered as a “nutritional product,” and has “nothing to do neither with digestion nor with the fact of drinking or eating.” He said that because of this, the vaccine was compatible with fasting.

The grand mufti highlighted that “getting vaccinated in order to protect oneself and others is a religious and national duty.”

In mid-March, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, said that receiving the COVID-19 inoculation would not invalidate the fast as it “is not considered as food and drink. The vaccine is administered intramuscularly, so it does not invalidate the fast.”

According to the Tunisian Health Ministry, over 50,000 people have received their first vaccine dose since March 13, when the national vaccination campaign started.

Some 251,169 COVID-19 cases and 8,760 deaths have been reported in Tunisia since the outbreak of the pandemic.


Belgian journalists injured in Beirut bombing

Updated 5 sec ago
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Belgian journalists injured in Beirut bombing

  • Israel has been carrying out a bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon and has also sent its troops across the border
  • The bombardments in Lebanon have cost more than 1,000 lives
Brussels: Two Belgian journalists were injured in Lebanon while reporting on overnight air raids in Beirut, their employer said Thursday, as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah.
VTM correspondent Robin Ramaekers suffered facial injuries and cameraman Stijn De Smet was being treated for a leg wound, said a statement by the broadcaster’s parent company, DPG Media.
“Last night there was a bombing in central Beirut. When Robin and Stijn wanted to run a report on that, they got injured,” the firm said, adding the pair were being treated in hospital.
“Both are now in safety and are being cared for.”
The circumstances of the incident were not yet clear, the company said. Belgium’s foreign ministry said it was closely monitoring the situation.
Israel has been carrying out a bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon and has also sent its troops across the border.
On Thursday, the Israeli military pounded Beirut with overnight air raids. A total of 17 strikes had hit the capital by dawn, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
One of the strikes hit a Hezbollah rescue facility, a source close to the group told AFP, killing at least six people, according to a Lebanese health ministry toll.
Israel says it is trying to secure its border with Lebanon so tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by nearly a year of hostilities with Hezbollah can return home.
The bombardments in Lebanon have cost more than 1,000 lives and seen Hezbollah’s long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah killed.
Authorities in Lebanon say that around a million people have been displaced.
Last year, a journalist was killed and six other reporters, including two from AFP, wounded by Israeli shelling while covering the cross-border fighting in southern Lebanon.

Palestinian activist Issa Amro wins prize for peaceful resistance

Updated 8 min 19 sec ago
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Palestinian activist Issa Amro wins prize for peaceful resistance

  • 44-year-old founded Youth Against Settlements group, which campaigns against proliferation of Jewish settlements in West Bank
  • When university where he was studying closed in 2003 during Second Intifada, Amro successfully led six-month civil disobedience campaign

Stockholm: Palestinian activist Issa Amro on Thursday accepted the Right Livelihood prize — considered by some an alternative Nobel — for his “nonviolent resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation” in the West Bank, the jury said.
Amro was born in the city of Hebron, a flashpoint West Bank city where roughly 1,000 Jewish settlers live under heavy Israeli military protection amid some 200,000 Palestinians.
He has dedicated his life to fighting against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
The 44-year-old founded the Youth Against Settlements group, which campaigns against the proliferation of Jewish settlements in the territory — communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.
The rights campaigner has been repeatedly detained and tortured by both the Palestinian Authority and by Israel, the foundation said.
“It’s a miracle that I still exist,” said Amro.
When Palestine Polytechnic University, where he was studying, closed in 2003 during the Second Intifada, Amro successfully led a six-month civil disobedience campaign.
“I managed to reopen the university with other students,” Amro said in a statement.
“I graduated as an engineer and as an activist — it became part of my character,” he added.
The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation also honored Joan Carling, a Filipino champion of indigenous rights and Anabela Lemos, a climate activist from Mozambique.
It also gave the nod to research agency Forensic Architecture for its work in uncovering human rights violations around the world.
The foundation said the four prize winners had “each made a profound impact on their communities and the global stage.”
“Their unwavering commitment to speaking out against forces of oppression and exploitation, while strictly adhering to non-violent methods, resonates far beyond their communities,” Right Livelihood said in a statement.
Carling from the Philippines was recognized for having defended the rights of indigenous communities for three decades, particularly in their fight against mining projects.
The foundation celebrated Lemos, who heads the NGO Justica Ambiental (JA!), for her role in opposing liquefied natural gas extraction projects in northern Mozambique.
Forensic Architecture, a London-based research laboratory known for 3D modelling conflict zones, won the distinction for “pioneering digital forensic methods” to ensure accountability of human rights violations around the world.
By teaming up with Ukraine’s Center for Spatial Technologies to reconstruct Mariupol’s Drama Theatre before it was destroyed in 2022, the firm highlighted Russia’s “strategies of terror” and “attempts to obscure evidence of their own crimes,” the foundation said.
Swedish-German philatelist Jakob von Uexkull sold part of his stamp collection to found the Right Livelihood award in 1980, after the foundation behind the Nobel Prizes refused to create new distinctions honoring efforts in the fields of environment and international development.


41,788 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct. 7, health ministry says

Updated 7 min 25 sec ago
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41,788 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct. 7, health ministry says

  • Ninety-nine Palestinians have been killed and 169 wounded in the past 24 hours

CAIRO: Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,788 Palestinians and wounded 96,794 since Oct. 7, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said on Thursday.
Ninety-nine Palestinians have been killed and 169 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
Medics said scores of people were killed a day before in an Israeli strike that hit a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, while another struck the Al-Amal Orphan Society, which also houses displaced persons.
As the war in Gaza triggered by the cross-border Hamas attack on Israel nears its first anniversary on Oct. 7, there has been no let-up in Israeli military operations against the Palestinian Islamist group. The enclave has been left in ruins.


Iran Revolutionary Guards consultant dies from injuries in Israeli strike on Damascus

Updated 25 min 52 sec ago
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Iran Revolutionary Guards consultant dies from injuries in Israeli strike on Damascus

  • The attack appeared to be the same as one reported by Syrian state media,which said that three civilians were killed and nine others injured

DUBAI: A consultant working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has died from injuries sustained in an Israeli air attack on the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, Iran’s Student News Network reported on Thursday.
It identified the consultant as Majid Divani, without giving further details.
The attack appeared to be the same as one reported by Syrian state media, which said on Tuesday that three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus.
Syrian air defenses intercepted “hostile targets” over the vicinity of Damascus three times in a row in one night, following explosions that were heard in the capital, state media said on Tuesday.
When asked about the reported attack, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that it does not comment on foreign media reports.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel.


EU announces extra 30 mln euros humanitarian aid for Lebanon

Updated 03 October 2024
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EU announces extra 30 mln euros humanitarian aid for Lebanon

  • This comes in addition to the 10 million euros already announced on Sept. 29

BRUSSELS: The European Commission announced on Thursday an extra $33.1 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon, which has been hit by clashes between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
"I am extremely concerned by the constant escalation of tensions in the Middle East. All parties must do their outmost to protect the lives of innocent civilians," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
This comes in addition to the 10 million euros already announced on Sept. 29 and brings total EU humanitarian assistance to the country to over 104 million euros this year.