GAZA CITY: Many families in Gaza gather on the beach for iftar meals during Ramadan, where they can breathe in the fresh air, enjoy the sound of the waves and watch the sunset.
Situated on the Mediterranean coast, the Gaza Strip has a population of about 2 million people. In recent years, cafeterias have started to appear close to the shore, where families can bring their own food and pay a small charge to use a table and chairs as they enjoy their meals with a
sea view.
Muhammad Aidya, 45, and his family of seven sit at a table near the beach, waiting for the sun to set and the Maghrib prayer before breaking their fast.
“This year, Ramadan came during relatively cold weather but in previous years, the weather was much warmer,” he told Arab News.
“I came for iftar here by the sea at least 10 times during the month … the air is fresh and my family is happy, my children play, and (we enjoy) delicious food that we bring from home.”
At a nearby table, a young couple with a three-year-old child are setting out their meal in anticipation of breaking their fast.
“It’s nice weather today so we decided to eat outside,” said Rawiya Tafesh, 25, a housewife. “We bought a takeaway from a restaurant and we brought it here to eat together, while our son plays around.”
The Tafesh family cannot afford to dine in luxury restaurants, so they opted to get more affordable takeaway food and eat it in the scenic seashore surroundings.
“Our monthly income is limited,” Tafesh said. “We don’t deny ourselves the enjoyment but we can’t pay big money for food … we don’t eat in those fancy restaurants; we enjoy it here more than there.”
Restaurants in the Gaza Strip, especially those at the luxury end of the scale, organize daily iftar buffets but for the most part they are affordable only to the rich and some middle-class residents.
Hamdi Al-Owaii, 39, owns a cafeteria on the beach in Gaza.
“During Ramadan, we rent tables and chairs on the beach for iftar,” he said. “There is less demand this year than last year because of the cold weather.
“The cost is low here; the family pays about 10 to 20 shekels ($3 to $6), depending on their number. They can bring their food and all their belongings and sit until dawn if they want, and this is available and possible for most of the residents of the Gaza Strip.”
Some families organize feasts for many of their relatives at the beach, renting a place to eat and bringing food from home so that they can spend some quality time together.
“My wife and I decided to invite my brothers and sisters during Ramadan and as a result of the large number of people, we decided to organize the feast outside instead at home,” said Abdullah Al-Saadi, 47.
“This is an opportunity to enjoy a family atmosphere in an open space. Children can play in this place and there is less noise compared with being inside the house with (so many people), and the women enjoy talking to each other and also walking on the beach in a nice atmosphere.
“Ramadan is an opportunity to meet loved ones, in addition to doing good deeds. During Ramadan, members of a large family meet each other, eat food, sweets and do other Ramadan activities, which we cannot do except in Ramadan.”
In Gaza, families enjoy iftar on the beach with cool breeze and fantastic view
https://arab.news/nesvb
In Gaza, families enjoy iftar on the beach with cool breeze and fantastic view
- Cafes affordable for people in Gaza Strip who don’t have money for expensive iftar buffets
Hamas says Israeli PM trying to derail Gaza truce deal
- Israel has killed more than 34,622 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: A top Hamas official accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of trying to derail a proposed Gaza truce and hostage release deal with his threats to keep fighting the Palestinian militant group.
“Netanyahu was the obstructionist of all previous rounds of dialogue... and it is clear that he still is,” senior Hamas official Hossam Badran told AFP by telephone.
Foreign mediators have waited for a Hamas response to a proposal to halt the fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, which its chief Ismail Haniyeh has said the group was considering in a “positive spirit.”
A major stumbling block has been that, while Hamas has demanded a lasting ceasefire, Netanyahu has vowed to crush its remaining fighters in the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.
The hawkish prime minister has insisted he will send ground troops into Rafah, despite strong concerns voiced by UN agencies and ally Washington for the safety of the 1.2 million civilians inside the city.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency was “deeply concerned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah... could lead to a bloodbath.”
“The broken health system would not be able to cope with a surge in casualties and deaths that a Rafah incursion would cause,” an agency statement said.
Badran charged that Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement” in the negotiations brokered by Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators.
Israeli air strikes killed several more people in Rafah overnight, Palestinian medics and the civil defense agency said.
One bereaved resident, Sanaa Zoorob, said her sister and six of her nieces and nephews were killed.
Two of the children “were found in pieces in their mother’s embrace,” Zoorob said, appealing for “a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal from Gaza.”
The war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The militants also took some 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza.
The army says 35 of them are dead, including 49-year-old Dror Or, a resident of the badly hit kibbutz Beeri, whose death was confirmed by authorities on Friday.
Israel’s devastating retaliatory campaign has killed at least 34,622 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel has weathered an international backlash over the spiralling death toll.
Pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US campuses for weeks were more muted Friday after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern White House directive to restore order.
But similar demonstrations have spread to campuses in Britain, France, Mexico, Australia and elsewhere.
Turkiye announced on Thursday that it was suspending all trade with Israel, valued by the government at $9.5 billion a year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the move was intended to “force Israel to agree to a ceasefire and increase the amount of humanitarian aid to enter” Gaza.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have carried out months of attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea in a costly blow to maritime trade, said they would extend their attacks on Israel-bound shipping to the Mediterranean “immediately.”
Israel’s siege has pushed many of Gaza’s 2.4 million people to the brink of famine.
US pressure has prompted Israel to facilitate more aid deliveries to Gaza, including through the reopened Erez crossing that leads directly into the hardest-hit north.
Food availability has improved “a little bit,” said the World Health Organization’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn.
But he warned that the threat of famine had “absolutely not” gone away.
Five Israeli human rights groups that took Israel to court over restrictions on aid to war-torn Gaza said the state’s insistence that it has met its obligations was “incomprehensible.”
The government had told the supreme court that the steps it had taken went “above and beyond” its obligations under international law.
Gisha and four other Israeli non-profit organizations retorted that the shortages evident inside Gaza indicated “the respondents are not meeting their obligations, not to the required extent nor at the necessary speed.”
The US-based charity World Central Kitchen resumed operations this week, after suspending them in the aftermath of Israeli drone strikes that killed seven of its staff as they unloaded aid in Gaza on April 1.
The group’s kitchen manager Zakria Yahya Abukuwaik said: “We realized after the kitchen closed that many mouths were left hungry.”
World Central Kitchen was involved in an effort earlier this year to establish a new maritime aid corridor to Gaza from Cyprus to help compensate for dwindling deliveries by land from Israel.
The project suffered a new blow Friday when the US military announced high winds had forced troops working to assemble a temporary aid pier off the Gaza coast to relocate to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
“The partially built pier and military vessels involved in its construction have moved to the Port of Ashdod, where assembly will continue, and will be completed prior to the emplacement of the pier in its intended location when sea states subside,” US Central Command said in a statement.
Several Arab and Western governments have also airdropped aid into northern Gaza. Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Basal said one person was killed and several injured when they were hit by falling pallets.
€1bn EU ‘bribe’ over Syrian refugees stirs anger in Lebanon
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday vowed to step up deportations as part of a crackdown on illegal residents in the country.
“This matter is not up for debate, and orders have been given to the relevant authorities to implement what is necessary,” he said.
Mikati’s comments came after the EU on Thursday announced a €1 billion ($1.07 billion) aid package for Lebanon, mostly to boost border control in a bid to curb refugee flows across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus and Italy.
Lebanon hosts more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees.
In a television interview, Mikati said: “Any Syrian residing in Lebanon illegally will be deported, and a different approach will be taken toward all registered individuals compared to unregistered ones.”
While Mikati welcomed the announcement of increased European aid, some political and religious figures described the package as a “bribe” to resettle Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and warned that Lebanon is “not for sale.”
Local newspaper headlines highlighted the objections, which follow increasing numbers of murders, thefts, and kidnappings in recent months carried out by Syrians who entered Lebanon illegally.
Syrian inmates now make up 35 percent of Lebanon’s prison population, according to Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi.
Cyprus recently complained about the increasing number of boats arriving on its shores carrying Syrians who traveled via Lebanon. Dozens remain stranded on the island, which refuses to accept them as refugees, and wants to return them to Lebanon.
Mikati said that there is “a European division” on the issue of safe areas in Syria for the return of refugees.
“We will undertake a campaign in this context to push the EU to take a decision that there are safe areas in Syria,” he added.
The announcement of the EU package was made as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Lebanon on Thursday with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
However, Nicolas Sehnaoui, a member of the Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc, said: “Keep the billion euros, and take an additional billion in exchange for taking all the Syrian refugees to European countries.”
Razi Al-Hajj, a member of the Strong Republic bloc, described the presence of Syrian refugees in the country as a “ticking time bomb.”
He said: “If Mikati wants to dispel the doubts of the Lebanese about the EU’s agenda in Lebanon, and the government’s true intention, he must begin implementing what he promised, which (means) deporting anyone residing illegally on Lebanese territory.”
Change party MP Waddah Sadek said: “Those who are residing illegally in Lebanon — the number of whom is significant — should be deported. An appropriate solution should then be reached regarding those who sought refuge in Lebanon for fear of getting killed or persecuted.”
Jaafari Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kabalan said in his Friday sermon: “We don’t want to slaughter Lebanon with 1 billion poisoned euros.
“Europe is Washington’s partner in the devastation in Syria and the siege on Lebanon. I warn those in charge against assuming the role of Europe’s security and political guard. The Syrian refugees’ case requires an urgent resolution. We ran out of time, and our country’s demography, stability, security, economy and livelihood are threatened.”
Maroun Al-Khawli from the National Campaign for the Return of Syrian Refugees, said: “Lebanon will not be for sale under any circumstances.”
He said the aid package “is a humiliating deal for Lebanon’s dignity and sovereignty, and a dark spot in the history of the caretaker government.”
Shiite cleric Ali Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in his Friday sermon: “The European Union resorts to the financial aspect to persuade the Lebanese when it comes to the Syrian refugees’ file.
“However, this matter is not limited to the financial dimension. It requires us to address its root causes and organize the Syrian presence in a way that doesn’t cause any internal repercussions, concerns and tensions that might affect the relationship between Lebanese and Syrian refugees.”
In a statement, the Progress Party said: “The European countries’ policy ensures that the Syrian refugees’ boats don’t reach their shores. This is what made them offer Lebanon €1 billion to make up for their presence in the country.
“The governing system accepted the bribe to recycle itself at the expense of the accumulating crises without organizing this file.”
The party proposed setting up camps for Syrian refugees on the border, and securing their needs through international support.
Egypt braces for second summer of power cuts as gas supplies dwindle
- The cuts started as Egypt allocated more of its gas production for export to raise scarce dollars, importing polluting fuel oil to keep some power stations running
CAIRO: Among the bustling workshops of central Cairo’s Al-Sabtiyah district, Om Ghada’s blacksmith business has seen profits dip as two-hour power cuts each day returned after a brief suspension during the holy month of Ramadan.
When scheduled outages began last summer it came as a shock to Egyptians accustomed to years of reliable power supplies under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and the government promised they would be temporary.
But supplies of the natural gas that helped generate an electricity surplus are dwindling and the power cuts are back.
The outages “create a lot of obstacles and cut into my profit,” said Om Ghada, as sparks flew from a metal cutter nearby. She owns the workshop, which is among dozens in the area that rely on electricity to power machines.
“One customer yesterday waited two hours, until they became impatient and left,” she said.
While Egypt recently secured record investments from the United Arab Emirates and an expanded IMF program, easing a foreign currency crisis, power cuts are a reminder of underlying economic challenges.
The cuts started as Egypt allocated more of its gas production for export to raise scarce dollars, importing polluting fuel oil to keep some power stations running. The government initially blamed them on high temperatures, but they continued through 2023 after summer ended even after the government paused exports to meet demand.
Egypt has been seeking a role as a regional energy exporter, eyeing electricity sales to countries including Saudi Arabia and Libya, planning an interconnector to Greece, and shipping Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cargoes from two liquefaction plants.
But development of renewables has been halting and gas supplies are in doubt because of a lack of large discoveries since the giant Zohr field in 2015. That pushed gas production in 2023 to its lowest level since 2017, and the government recently started importing LNG cargoes.
Officials have blamed power cuts on rising demand from a growing population of 106 million, mega-projects backed by El-Sisi, and urban development.
Cuts to electricity subsidies have been slowed as the economy came under pressure in recent years.
Egypt’s electricity ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SALES DOWN
The power cuts were suspended over Ramadan and the Eid holiday that followed, and local media said they would also be halted for labor day and spring holidays going over this weekend. But they are sometimes hard to predict and are hurting small businesses that play a crucial role in an economy where growth has slowed and is expected to ease to 2.8 percent in the current financial year ending in June, from above 4 percent last year.
Ahmed Hussein, an air conditioning technician in Al-Sabtiyah, said daytime power cuts reduced productivity by 40 percent. South of central Cairo in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood, Essam said sales at the dessert shop where he works were down 30 percent since the regular power cuts began.
“As long as there’s no electricity there are no sales. The safe and the till aren’t working,” Essam, who didn’t give his last name, said. “Customers can’t see anything.”
Sales of generators are up, but many can’t afford them.
The cuts have drawn ire on social media, where some have complained about being stuck in elevators, or unable to use them, and others have bemoaned the lack of air conditioning in hotter areas in southern Egypt.
At the launch of a state-run cloud computing data center this week, El-Sisi encouraged citizens to focus on developing sectors like information technology, saying “this needs brains, not a factory or anything else.”
But as one social media post quipped in response: “This needs electricity and unlimited Internet.”
Rafah incursion would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, UN aid agency says
- Leaders internationally have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious
- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any US response to incursion would be up to President Biden
GAZA: The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The city has become critical for humanitarian aid and is highly concentrated with displaced Palestinians.
Leaders internationally have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious about any incursion into Rafah, where seven people — mostly children — were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike.
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any US response to such an incursion would be up to President Joe Biden, but that currently, “conditions are not favorable to any kind of operation.”
Turkiye’s trade minister said Friday that its new trade ban on Israel was in response to “the deterioration and aggravation of the situation in Rafah.”
The Israel-Hamas war has driven around 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine.
The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory’s entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Dozens of people demonstrated Thursday night outside Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding a deal to release the hostages. Meanwhile, Hamas said it would send a delegation to Cairo as soon as possible to keep working on ceasefire talks. A leaked truce proposal hints at compromises by both sides after months of talks languishing in a stalemate.
Across the US, tent encampments and demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have spread across university campuses.
More than 2,000 protesters have been arrested over the past two weeks as students rally against the war’s death toll and call for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.
Iraqi militant group claims missile attack on Tel Aviv targets, source says
- The attack was carried out with multiple Arqub-type cruise missiles
BAGHDAD: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a group of Iran-backed armed groups, launched multiple attacks on Israel using cruise missiles on Thursday, a source in the group said.
The source told Reuters the attack was carried out with multiple Arqub-type cruise missiles and targeted the Israeli city of Tel Aviv for the first time.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed dozens of rockets and drone attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria and on targets in Israel in the more than six months since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7.
Israel has not publicly commented on the attacks claimed by Iraqi armed groups.
