RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 3 billion dirhams ($330 million) to upgrade infrastructure and support flood-hit residents, farmers, and businesses in its northwestern plains, the prime minister’s office said on Thursday.
Weeks of torrential rain and releases from overflowing dams have inundated villages, farmland, and the city of Ksar El Kebir in the northwest of the North African country.
Floods have displaced 188,000 people and submerged 110,000 hectares of farmland, according to official figures.
The government has declared the hardest-hit municipalities disaster areas, the prime minister’s office said in a statement carried by state media.
It said 1.7 billion dirhams of the relief budget would be allocated to repairing basic infrastructure, including roads and hydro-agricultural networks.
The remainder would fund rehousing, reconstruction of destroyed homes, support to small businesses, and assistance to farmers and livestock breeders.
Moroccan authorities, backed by the army, have set up camps for evacuees and deployed helicopters and rescue boats, state television reported.
Access to the largely deserted city of Ksar El Kebir remains banned after the Loukkos River burst its banks earlier this month, inundating several neighbourhoods.
Water Minister Nizar Baraka said on Thursday that the Oued Makhazine dam, which had reached 160 percent of capacity, was forced to gradually release water downstream due to exceptional inflows. Rainfall this winter was 35 percent above the average recorded since the 1990s, and three times higher than last year, he said.
Snow cover in the Atlas and Rif mountains reached a record 55,495 square km this winter before shrinking to 23,186 square km, he said, adding that melting water would further replenish dams.
Morocco’s national dam-filling rate has risen to nearly 70 percent from 27 percent a year earlier, with several large dams being partially emptied to absorb new inflows.
The exceptional rainfall has ended a seven-year drought that had prompted the country to ramp up investments in desalination.
Morocco to spend $330 million on flood relief plan
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Morocco to spend $330 million on flood relief plan
More than 100 Palestinians detained in West Bank since start of Ramadan, including women, children
- Arrests by Israelis accompanied by extensive field interrogation
RAMALLAH: Israeli forces have detained more than 100 Palestinians from the West Bank since the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, including women, children, and former prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reported on Sunday.
The organization said the detentions coincided with Israel’s announcement of the intensification of such actions during Ramadan, with recent settler attacks providing cover for widespread detentions across most West Bank governorates, including Jerusalem. Many detainees from Jerusalem have been barred from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.
A statement pointed out that arrests by Israelis are accompanied by extensive field interrogation which often targets all sections of Palestinian society.
Documented violations accompanying detentions include severe beatings, organized terror campaigns against detainees and their families, destruction and looting of homes, confiscation of vehicles, money and gold, demolition of family homes, use of family members as hostages, employment of prisoners as human shields, and extrajudicial executions.
The society stressed that Israel exploits detention campaigns to expand settlement activity in the West Bank, with settlers serving as a key tool to impose a new reality.
The Palestinian Detainees Affairs Commission has revealed harrowing details of the abuses faced by Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Wajih Mahamid from Jenin during his incarceration in Israeli prisons.
The commission said that on Nov. 15, 2023, Mahamid was severely beaten on his right knee with a baton used by prison guards, causing a serious injury that left him unable to walk without crutches.
He was beaten again on the same knee on March 29, 2025, resulting in severe swelling which was later confirmed to be a fracture. Despite his condition, the prison authorities only provided painkillers and refused to transfer him to hospital, maintaining a policy of deliberate medical neglect.
The commission stressed that these abuses reflected the harsh reality faced by Palestinian detainees, who are deprived of basic human rights, medical treatment and care.
