TUNIS, Tunisia: It’s a feeble drip, drip, drip from the taps every night in Tunisia for six months. Spigots are cut off for seven hours from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. in a state-ordered water rationing in most regions across the country, including Tunis, the capital city.
Tunisians are on the front lines of a battle against an increasingly severe drought, now in its fifth year in the north African country, with the government issuing a sudden order to its population to ration their water usage from April to September — or risk fines or jail.
Households now need a supply of bottled water to wash, use toilets and prepare meals during late night hours. Authorities have also forbidden the use of potable water for irrigation of farmlands, watering green areas in cities and for cleaning streets and cars.
Water levels at almost all of Tunisia’s 30-plus dams have fallen drastically, some as low as 17 percent of their storage capacity.
The Sidi Salem dam in northwest Tunisia provides tap water to Tunis and along the Tunisian Sahel, including cities like Sfax, as well as water for irrigation around Tunis. But water stored there is at its lowest level since its construction in 1981, the newspaper La Presse reported, quoting Faycel Khemiri, the No. 2 official for dams and hydraulic works at the Agricultural Ministry.
Human-caused climate change, which is burning up the planet, has made droughts worldwide more likely, with higher-than-average temperatures drying up land and altering rainfall patterns. Drought has also plagued Tunisia in the past, historically devastating farmland and olive groves.
“Currently, we have reached the red line, the danger line in terms of water scarcity,” said Aymen Hmem, a member of an environmental group in the northeastern coastal town of Menzel Temime, which has a large dam on its outskirts.
There’s also concern over a potentially scorching summer in Tunisia — where temperatures can top 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — ramping up water demand and causing eventual protests over the cuts.
The country is already in the midst of an economic crisis. Talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $1.9 billion loan agreement to help finance the state stalled late last year amid Tunisia’s political tensions.
Tunisia is experiencing its worst crisis in a generation as inflation hovers around 11 percent and food supplies are increasingly scarce, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Then came the water rationing order, a baptism by fire for many citizens, which coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan where people gather to break their fasts with large feasts and gatherings and water use is normally intense.
Ramadan is nearly over, but summer and the start of tourist season will turn up the heat. Tourism is a major source of income for Tunisia, with the country of about 12 million people boasting around 850 hotels.
To underline the seriousness of the water problem, the agriculture ministry has resorted to a punitive approach: Those who use tap water to wash their cars or other banned uses risk fines of 60 to 1,000 dinars ($20 to $320) or even prison sentences ranging from six days to nine months in the most serious cases. They can also be struck from the distribution list of the country’s state-owned water company, Sonede, cutting off their supply.
Radhia Essamin, from the Tunisian Water Observatory, said the decision to cut the water supply was not surprising, given the country’s worrisome water shortage. But it should have been handled differently, she said, notably with a campaign so people could prepare themselves ahead of time.
“That is why we consider these measures incomplete. Before taking any measures, the citizen must be ... made aware of the importance of water rationing,” she said. “A booklet should have been published (explaining) water consumption, storage, timing and the quantity allowed to be stored.”
Abdelkader Hmissi, who lives outside Tunis, said that although many people were caught by surprise by both the extent of the drought and measures to counter its effects, he was not.
Hmissi said he built a water tank two years ago in anticipation of a prolonged drought, and now shares his supply.
“We found the solution in this tank. And my brothers and neighbors use it, too,” Hmissi said.
In grim drought, Tunisians ration water in state-ordered ban
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In grim drought, Tunisians ration water in state-ordered ban
- Tunisians are on the front lines of a battle against an increasingly severe drought, now in its fifth year
- Water levels at almost all of Tunisia’s 30-plus dams have fallen drastically, some as low as 17 percent of their storage capacity
Israel builds ‘cyber dome’ against Iran’s hackers
- Israeli cybersecurity agency had thwarted around 800 significant attacks since the Oct. 7 Gaza war erupted
- But some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in which patient data was stolen
TEL AVIV: Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has long shielded it from incoming rockets. Now it is building a “cyber dome” to defend against online attacks, especially from arch foe Iran.
“It is a silent war, one which is not visible,” said Aviram Atzaba, the Israeli National Cyber Directorate’s head of international cooperation.
While Israel has fought Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack, it has also faced a significant increase in cyberattacks from Iran and its allies, Atzaba said.
“They are trying to hack everything they can,” he told AFP, pointing to Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement but adding that so far “they have not succeeded in causing any real damage.”
He said around 800 significant attacks had been thwarted since the war erupted. Among the targets were government organizations, the military and civil infrastructure.
Some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in the cities of Haifa and Safed in which patient data was stolen.
While Israel already has cyber defenses, they long consisted of “local efforts that were not connected,” Atzaba said.
So, for the past two years, the directorate has been working to build a centralized, real-time system that works proactively to protect all of Israeli cyberspace.
Based in Tel Aviv, the directorate works under the authority of the prime minister. It does not reveal figures on its staff, budget or computing resources.
Israel collaborates closely with multiple allies, including the United States, said Atzaba, because “all states face cyber terrorism.”
“It takes a network to fight a network,” he said.
Israel’s arch foe Iran is “an impressive enemy” in the online wars, said Chuck Freilich, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
“Its attacks aim to sabotage and destroy infrastructure, but also to collect data for intelligence and spread false information for propaganda purposes,” he said.
Iran has welcomed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Regional tensions have soared, particularly after Iran for the first time fired hundreds of missiles directly at Israel last month in retaliation for a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
It was the most dramatic escalation yet after a years-long shadow war of killings and sabotage attacks between Israel and Iran.
Freilich argued in a study published in February that Iran was relatively slow to invest in cyberwarfare, until two key events triggered a change.
First, its leaders took note of how anti-government protesters used the Internet as a tool to mobilize support for a 2009 post-election uprising.
In the bloody crackdown that crushed the movement, Iran’s authorities cut access to social media and websites covering the protests.
Then, in September 2010, a sophisticated cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus, blamed by Iran on Israel and the United States, caused physical damage to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Freilich said the attack “demonstrated Iran’s extreme vulnerability and led to a severe national shock.”
Since then, Iran has gained substantial expertise to become “one of the most active countries in cyberspace,” he said
While Israel is considered a major cyber power, Iran was only likely to improve, said Freilich.
He pointed to assistance from Russia and China, as well as its much larger population and an emphasis on cyber training for students and soldiers alike, adding that the trend was “concerning for the future.”
Atzaba insisted that the quantity of hackers is secondary to the quality of technology and the use it is put to.
“For the past two years, we have been developing a cyber dome against cyberattacks, which functions like the Iron Dome against rockets,” he said.
“With cyber dome, all sources are fed into a large data pool that enables a view of the big picture and to invoke a national response in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.”
The Israeli system has various scanners that continuously “monitor Israeli cyberspace for vulnerabilities and informs the stakeholders of the means to mitigate them,” he said.
Israel’s cyber strength relied on close cooperation between the public, private and academic sectors, as well as Israel’s “white hat” hackers who help identify weaknesses.
“We work hand in hand,” he said.
Kurds deny torturing detainees in north Syria camps
- Rights group alleges cruelty against Daesh militant prisoners and their families
JEDDAH: Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria on Thursday denied claims by Amnesty International that they tortured Daesh militants and their dependents detained in internment camps.
More than 56,000 prisoners with links to the Islamist militant group are still being held five years after Daesh were driven out of their last territory in Syria. They include militants locked up in prisons, and Daesh fighters’ wives and children in Al-Hol and Roj camps.
Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard said Kurdish authorities had “committed the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, and probably committed the war crime of murder.”
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria said it “respects its obligations to prevent the violation of its laws, which prohibit such illegal acts, and adheres to international law.”
Any such crimes that may have been perpetrated were “individual acts,” it said, and asked Amnesty to provide it with any evidence of wrongdoing by its security forces and affiliates.
“We are open to cooperating with Amnesty International regarding its proposed recommendations, which require concerted regional and international efforts,” it said.
Kurdish authorities said they had repeatedly asked the international community for help in managing the camps, which required “huge financial resources.”
Al-Hol is the largest internment camp in northeast Syria, with more than 43,000 detainees from 47 countries, most of them women and children related to Daesh fighters.
Hamas is sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in the latest sign of progress
- US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas a proposal -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — that sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages
BEIRUT: Hamas said Thursday that it was sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks, in a new sign of progress in attempts by international mediators to hammer out an agreement between Israel and the militant group to end the war in Gaza.
After months of stop-and-start negotiations, the ceasefire efforts appear to have reached a critical stage, with Egyptian and American mediators reporting signs of compromise in recent days. But chances for the deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
The stakes in the ceasefire negotiations were made clear in a new UN report that said if the Israel-Hamas war stops today, it will still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed by nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza. It warned that the impact of the damage to the economy will set back development for generations and will only get worse with every month fighting continues.
The proposal that US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages, but also negotiations over a “permanent calm” that includes some sort of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to an Egyptian official. Hamas is seeking guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal and complete end to the war.
Hamas officials have sent mixed signals about the proposal in recent days. But on Thursday, its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a statement that he had spoken to Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal.”
The statement said that Hamas negotiators would travel to Cairo “to complete the ongoing discussions with the aim of working forward for an agreement.” Haniyeh said he had also spoken to the prime minister of Qatar, another key mediator in the process.
The brokers are hopeful that the deal will bring an end to a conflict that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, caused widespread destruction and plunged the territory into a humanitarian crisis. They also hope a deal will avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought shelter after fleeing battle zones elsewhere in the territory.
If Israel does agree to end the war in return for a full hostage release, it would be a major turnaround. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack stunned Israel, its leaders have vowed not to stop their bombardment and ground offensives until the militant group is destroyed. They also say Israel must keep a military presence in Gaza and security control after the war to ensure Hamas doesn’t rebuild.
Publicly at least, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that is the only acceptable endgame.
He has vowed that even if a ceasefire is reached, Israel will eventually attack Rafah, which he says is Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza. He repeated his determination to do so in talks Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Israel on a regional tour to push the deal through.
The agreement’s immediate fate hinges on whether Hamas will accept uncertainty over the final phases to bring the initial six-week pause in fighting — and at least postpone what it is feared would be a devastating assault on Rafah.
Egypt has been privately assuring Hamas that the deal will mean a total end to the war. But the Egyptian official said Hamas says the text’s language is too vague and wants it to specify a complete Israeli pullout from all of Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the internal deliberations.
On Wednesday evening, however, the news looked less positive as Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official, expressed skepticism, saying the group’s initial position was “negative.” Speaking to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, he said that talks were still ongoing but would stop if Israel invades Rafah.
Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas to accept, saying Israel had made “very important” compromises.
“There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there,” Blinken said Wednesday before leaving for the US
An Israeli airstrike, meanwhile, killed at least five people, including a child, in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. The bodies were seen and counted by Associated Press journalists at a hospital.
The war broke out on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants broke into southern Israel and killed over 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, taking around 250 others hostage, some released during a ceasefire on November.
The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Hamas is believed to still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster, with several hundred thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the UN More than 80 percent of the population has been driven from their homes.
The “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed” and poverty is rising sharply among Palestinians, according to the report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Program and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
It said that in 2024, the entire Palestinian economy — including both Gaza and the West Bank -– has so far contracted 25.8 percent. If the war continues, the loss will reach a “staggering” 29 percent by July, it said. The West Bank economy has been hit by Israel’s decision to cancel the work permits for tens of thousands of laborers who depended on jobs inside Israel.
“These new figures warn that the suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. He warned of a “serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come.”
Syria says Israeli strike outside Damascus injures eight troops
- A security source said the strike hit a building operated by government forces
- Defense ministry acknowledged only that the strike caused some material damage
An Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Damascus injured eight Syrian military personnel late on Thursday, the Syrian defense ministry said, the latest such attack amid the war in Gaza.
The Israeli strike, launched from the occupied Golan Heights toward “one of the sites in the vicinity of Damascus,” caused some material damage, the Syrian defense ministry said in a statement.
The strike hit a building operated by Syrian security forces, a security source in the alliance backing Syria’s government earlier told Reuters.
The Israeli military said it does not comment on reports in the foreign media.
Israel has for years been striking Iran-linked targets in Syria and has stepped up its campaign in the war-torn country since Oct. 7, when Iran-backed Palestinian militants Hamas crossed into Israeli territory in an attack that left 1,200 people dead and led to more than 250 taken hostage.
Israel responded with a land, air and sea assault on the Gaza Strip, escalated strikes on Syria and exchanged fire with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah across Lebanon’s southern border.
The security source said the location struck in Syria on Thursday sat just south of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, where Hezbollah and Iranian forces are entrenched.
But the source said the site struck was not operated by Iranian units or Hezbollah.
Turkiye halts all trade with Israel, cites worsening Palestinian situation
- Turkiye’s trade ministry: ‘Export and import transactions related to Israel have been stopped, covering all products’
- Israel’s FM Israel Katz said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was breaking agreements by blocking ports to Israeli imports and exports
ANKARA: Turkiye stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel as of Thursday, the Turkish trade ministry said, citing the “worsening humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories.
“Export and import transactions related to Israel have been stopped, covering all products,” Turkiye’s trade ministry said in a statement.
“Turkiye will strictly and decisively implement these new measures until the Israeli Government allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
The two countries had a trade volume of $6.8 billion in 2023.
Turkiye last month imposed trade restrictions on Israel over what it said was Israel’s refusal to allow Ankara to take part in aid air-drop operations for Gaza and its offensive on the enclave.
Earlier on Thursday, Israel’s foreign minister said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was breaking agreements by blocking ports to Israeli imports and exports.
“This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X.
Katz said he instructed the foreign ministry to work to create alternatives for trade with Turkiye, focusing on local production and imports from other countries.
