JERUSALEM: The once bustling streets of Jerusalem’s Old City have fallen eerily quiet, with the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas keeping away tourists and their much-needed cash.
In the maze-like warren of shopping streets that surrounds the city’s holy sites, most businesses remained shuttered, nearly four weeks into the war.
The few remaining shopkeepers brave enough to open their stores wait day after day for tourists that have yet to return.
“There is no tourism industry any more,” said Marwan Attieh, 48, a third-generation tour guide and souvenir shop owner.
“We have families, we have children... (There is) no business, no income, no revenue, no life. How can you spend money, if you don’t have money?“
The walled Old City in annexed east Jerusalem is home to some of the holiest sites for Christians, Jews and Muslims and has drawn pilgrims and travelers for centuries.
Yet Jerusalem’s lucrative tourism sector has all but collapsed since October 7, when Hamas militants from Gaza stormed across the border in an attack that killed at least 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
Following the onslaught, Israel has struck back hard at the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip with a relentless bombing campaign that has killed more than 9,000 people, mainly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where most Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, stood largely empty on Thursday, other than the occasional priest stirring in its cavernous halls.
“Before, this place was really alive, full of people praying and offering their problems to God and in general very spiritual,” said Pietro Mazzocco, a 31-year-old Italian seminary student studying in Jerusalem.
“And now it’s completely empty, as you can see here. There are no people.”
While many flights to Israel have been suspended and tour packages canceled, a few tourists managed to reach the largely deserted Old City.
Rachid, a 24-year-old French tourist, refused to cancel his trip to Israel, saying he wanted to see the situation on the ground with his own eyes.
He arrived earlier this week via the land border from Jordan, following lengthy interrogation sessions by Israeli authorities.
“It’s a bit weird, nobody is in the streets,” he told AFP, adding that he had been stopped several times by Israeli police since arriving.
“People are afraid on both sides,” he shrugged. “People are sensitive. They don’t know who I am or where I’m from.”
Outside of the tourism bubble, daily life has also taken a hit.
Attendances at Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque are down, while checkpoints and patrols in occupied east Jerusalem have been beefed up.
Many residents of the mostly Palestinian-populated Old City are afraid to leave their homes, citing harassment and physical violence by Israeli security forces.
In the nearby West Bank, the number of deaths of Palestinians has surged amid a flurry of Israeli operations, with more than 130 killed in clashes with the military and settlers.
On Wednesday, a general strike was called in solidarity with the residents of the besieged Gaza Strip, with businesses closing across the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.
On Thursday, many shop owners declined to speak to AFP out of concern for their personal security.
“It’s a dangerous time. It’s not safe,” said Emad Sideyyi, a shop keeper in the Old City.
“The soldiers, they kick everybody,” he said. “They don’t deal in a good way with people.”
For most, the war cannot end soon enough.
But with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing that a cease-fire with Hamas remained off the table, despair appeared only to be deepening.
“We hope to have a peace for everybody,” said Sideyyi. “We don’t want to kill each other like animals. We need to live.”
‘No income, no life’: Jerusalem’s Old City suffers as war rages
https://arab.news/22ngy
‘No income, no life’: Jerusalem’s Old City suffers as war rages
- Jerusalem’s lucrative tourism sector has all but collapsed since October 7
- “We don’t want to kill each other like animals. We need to live.”
UAE food aid shipment arrives in Gaza
- Shipment arrived via the maritime corridor from Larnaca in Cyprus
DUBAI: A UAE aid shipment carrying 252 tons of food arrived in Gaza bound for the north of the enclave, Emirates News Agency reported on Sunday.
The shipment arrived via the maritime corridor from Larnaca in Cyprus. The delivery involved cooperation from the US, Cyprus, UK, EU and UN.
The supplies were unloaded at UN warehouses in Deir Al-Balah and are awaiting distribution to Palestinians in need.
Emirati Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy said that the food supplies will be delivered and distributed in collaboration with international partners and humanitarian organizations, as part of the UAE’s efforts to provide relief and address the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The UAE, in accordance with its historical commitment to the Palestinian people and under the guidance of its leadership, continues to provide urgent humanitarian aid and supplies to Gaza, she added.
Since the war began in October, the UAE has delivered more than 32,000 tons of urgent humanitarian supplies, including food, relief and medical supplies, via 260 flights, 49 airdrops and 1,243 trucks.
The UAE delivery came as Israel closed the Rafah border crossing. The World Health Organization said on Friday that it has received no medical supplies in the Gaza Strip for 10 days.
Intense search for Iran’s President Raisi after helicopter ‘accident’
- Expressions of concern and offers to help came from abroad, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and Turkiye, as well as from the European Union
TEHRAN: Iran launched a large-scale search and rescue effort to scour a fog-shrouded mountain area after President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter went missing Sunday in what state media described as an “accident.”
Fears grew for the 63-year-old ultraconservative after contact was lost with the helicopter carrying him as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others in East Azerbaijan province, reports said.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Iranians to “not worry” about the leadership of the Islamic republic, saying “there will be no disruption in the country’s work.”
“We hope that Almighty God will bring our dear president and his companions back in full health into the arms of the nation,” he said in on state TV.
Expressions of concern and offers to help came from abroad, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and Turkiye, as well as from the European Union which said it activated its rapid response mapping service to aid in the search effort.
State television reported that “an accident happened to the helicopter carrying the president” in the Jolfa region of the western province, while some officials described it as a “hard landing.”
“The harsh weather conditions and heavy fog have made it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the accident site,” said one broadcaster.
More than 40 rescue teams using search dogs and drones were sent to the site, reported the IRNA news agency as TV stations showed pictures of rows of waiting emergency response vehicles.
Raisi was visiting the province where he inaugurated a dam project together with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, on the border between the two countries.
Raisi’s convoy included three helicopters, and the other two had “reached their destination safely,” according to Tasnim news agency.
Foreign countries were closely following the search effort at a time of high regional tensions over the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas since October 7 that has drawn in other armed groups in the Middle East.
A US State Department spokesman said: “We are closely following reports of a possible hard landing of a helicopter in Iran carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister.
“We have no further comment at this time.”
An Iranian Red Crescent team was seen walking up a slope in thick fog and drizzling rain, while other live footage showed worshippers reciting prayers in the holy city of Mashhad, Raisi’s hometown.
In neighboring Iraq, Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani “instructed the interior ministry and the Iraqi Red Crescent and other relevant authorities to offer available resources... to aid in the search.”
Azeri President Aliyev said in a post on X that “we were profoundly troubled by the news of a helicopter carrying the top delegation crash-landing in Iran.”
“Our prayers to Allah Almighty are with President Ebrahim Raisi and the accompanying delegation,” he said, noting that his country “stands ready to offer any assistance needed.”
The accident happened in the mountainous protected forest area of Dizmar near the town of Varzaghan, said the official IRNA news agency.
Military personnel along with the Revolutionary Guards and police had also deployed teams to the area, said army chief-of-staff Mohammad Bagheri.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said one of the helicopters “made a hard landing due to bad weather conditions” and that it was “difficult to establish communication” with the aircraft.
Raisi has been president since 2021 when he succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, for a term during which Iran has faced crisis and conflict.
He took the reins of a country in the grip of a deep social crisis and an economy strained by US sanctions against Tehran over its contested nuclear program.
Iran saw a wave of mass protests triggered by the death in custody of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after her arrest for allegedly flouting dress rules for women.
Israel war cabinet minister says to quit unless Gaza plan approved
- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses comments as "washed-up words"
- Broad splits emerge in Israeli war cabinet as Hamas regroups in northern Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said Saturday he would resign from the body unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
“The war cabinet must formulate and approve by June 8 an action plan that will lead to the realization of six strategic goals of national importance.. (or) we will be forced to resign from the government,” Gantz said, referring to his party, in a televised address directed at Netanyahu.
Gantz said the six goals included toppling Hamas, ensuring Israeli security control over the Palestinian territory and returning Israeli hostages.
“Along with maintaining Israeli security control, establish an American, European, Arab and Palestinian administration that will manage civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip and lay the foundation for a future alternative that is not Hamas or (Mahmud) Abbas,” he said, referring to the president of the Palestinian Authority.
He also urged the normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia “as part of an overall move that will create an alliance with the free world and the Arab world against Iran and its affiliates.”
Netanyahu responded to Gantz’s threat on Saturday by slamming the minister’s demands as “washed-up words whose meaning is clear: the end of the war and a defeat for Israel, the abandoning of most of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The Israeli army has been battling Hamas militants across the Gaza Strip for more than seven months.
But broad splits have emerged in the Israeli war cabinet in recent days after Hamas fighters regrouped in northern Gaza, an area where Israel previously said the group had been neutralized.
Netanyahu came under personal attack from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday for failing to rule out an Israeli government in Gaza after the war.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s attack on October 7 on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 124 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 37 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation against Hamas has killed at least 35,386 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, and an Israeli siege has brought dire food shortages and the threat of famine.
US, Iranian officials met in Oman after Israel escalation
- Washington called on Tehran to rein in proxy forces
- Officials sat in separate rooms with Omani intermediaries passing messages
LONDON: US and Iranian officials held talks in Oman last week aimed at reducing regional tensions, the New York Times reported.
Through intermediaries from Oman, Washington’s top Middle East official Brett McGurk and the deputy special envoy for Iran, Abram Paley, spoke with Iranian counterparts.
It was the first contact between the two countries in the wake of Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attack on Israel in April.
The US officials, who communicated with their Iranian counterparts in a separate room — with Omani officials passing on messages — requested that Tehran rein in its proxy forces across the region.
The US has had no diplomatic contact with Iran since 1979, and communicates with the country using intermediaries and back channels.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October, Iran-backed militias — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and armed groups in Syria and Iraq — have ramped up attacks on Israeli and American targets.
But US officials have determined that neither Hezbollah nor Iran want an escalation and wider war.
After Israel struck Iran’s consulate in Damascus at the beginning of April, Tehran retaliated with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones.
The attack — which was intercepted by air defense systems from Israel, the US and the UK, among others — was the first ever direct Iranian strike on Israel, which has for years targeted Iranian assets in Syria, whose government is a close ally of Tehran.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a news conference this week that the “Iranian threat” to Israel and US interests “is clear.”
He added: “We are working with Israel and other partners to protect against these threats and to prevent escalation into an all-out regional war through a calibrated combination of diplomacy, deterrence, force posture adjustments and use of force when necessary to protect our people and to defend our interests and our allies.”
Death toll from Israeli strike on Nuseirat rises to 31: Gaza officials
- Rescue workers continuing to search for missing people under the rubble
- Heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported in the central Nuseirat camp
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Sunday that an Israeli air strike targeting a house at a refugee camp in the center of the Palestinian territory killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll.
“The civil defense crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp,” Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists.
He said rescue workers were continuing to search for missing people under the rubble.
Earlier on Sunday the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital had said it had received the bodies of 20 people killed in the strike which witnesses said occurred around 3:00 am local time.
The Israeli army when contacted by AFP asked for specific coordinates of the strike.
Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that the wounded included several children.
Fierce battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported in the central Nuseirat camp since the military launched a ground operation on the southern city of Rafah in early May.
Palestinian militants and Israeli troops have also clashed in north Gaza’s Jabalia camp for days now.
Witnesses said several other houses were targeted in air strikes during the night across Gaza, and that strikes and artillery shelling also hit parts of Rafah during the night.
The Israeli military said two more soldiers were killed in Gaza the previous day.
The military said 282 soldiers have been killed so far in the Gaza military campaign since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.
